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</p>
<p>Why? A discussion about salamanders’ diets is a subdivision of “discussion”; discussing salamanders’ diets is one way discussion can be carried out.</p>
<p>Standing by a previous point is fine, but becomes dogmatism when done without regard to opposing arguments interlarded between one’s two iterations of the same point.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that you can reasonably deem my behavior dogmatic in the negative sense of the word; that would require my being blindly (i.e., without thought) stubborn. </p>
<p>I disagree with the application of subdivisions to a concept that is communicated via a mass noun.</p>
<p>I will now have to chuckle each time that I find myself saying “perfectly fine.” :)</p>
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<p>Upon further consideration, I believe that this sentence represents the most basic point of disagreement here.</p>
<p>Not in the negative sense, but repeating a statement without further defense thereto often characterizes dogmatism (not the definition, which often carries a negative sense, but rather the broad super-branches of the logical fallacy).</p>
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<p>But that’s what many logical arguments are based on! The Cretan Liar paradox is one such example. Another is:</p>
<ol>
<li>All rules have exceptions.</li>
<li>Statement 1 is a rule.<br></li>
<li>Statement 1 has exceptions.</li>
</ol>
<p>Note how statement 2 clearly defines statement 1 as a subdivision of the mass-noun it communicates (rules). </p>
<p>Would you change your stance if there were a statement 2.5 exactly as follows:</p>
<p>“A discussion about salamanders is a discussion.” ?</p>
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</p>
<p>“rules” is not a mass noun. </p>
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<p>I agree with that statement, but it would not change my disagreement with this:</p>
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<p>OK my mistake I used mass-nouns incorrectly.</p>
<p>So you disagree because you don’t think mass-nouns can be divided; what about the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>All knowledge is useful</li>
<li>S1 is a statement offering knowledge.</li>
<li>S1 is useful.</li>
</ol>
<p>You may agree with the content of S1, but would you still disagree with that 3. must be true?</p>
<p>^ I do agree that S3 is true, but you did not parse the mass noun: “knowledge” is always a mass noun.</p>
<p>No I did not parse it. However, my made up 3 step statement parallels the salamander sentence because we did not parse discussion–that’d be asking the impossible.</p>
<p>We merely said that “A discussion about salamanders’ diets is a discussion,” just as
“Statement 1 is offering knowledge” (it is knowledge).</p>
<p>Particular->general. (should’ve said that instead of subdivision->general because subdivision indeed suggests division of indivisible.)</p>
<p>^ I do not find them relevantly analogous. When I said that “I disagree with the application of subdivisions to a concept that is communicated via a mass noun,” I meant “subdivision” in the sense that a mass noun is changed to its count-noun form.</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li>You should follow all advice.</li>
<li>“You should follow all advice” is advice</li>
<li>You should follow “you should follow all advice.”</li>
</ol>
<p>You didn’t deny that “A discussion about salamanders’ diets is a discussion” is logically correct.
Maybe I’m just not getting it, but I fail to see how any of the examples I’ve given so far converts a mass-noun into a count noun.</p>
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<p>Again, there is no mass-noun-to-count-noun change here, unlike the situation with “discussion.”</p>
<p>
But that’s what you’re basing your argument on, that mass nouns cannot be changed to mass nouns.</p>
<p>In the original sentence featuring “discussion,” you did the mass-noun-to count-noun yourself by including “a.”
What if we maintained count-noun status throughout with:</p>
<ol>
<li>Discussion is always approrpriate in every way.</li>
<li>Discussion about salamanders’ diets is discussion.</li>
<li>Discussion about salamanders’ diets is always appropriate in every way.</li>
</ol>
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</p>
<p>I’m not saying that they can’t be changed; I’m saying that the resultant statement is not neccesarily true.</p>
<p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Hmm. Good one. You may have illustrated a flaw in this way of conveying my logic.</p>
<p>
Yes that is what I meant.</p>
<p>
heh, thanks. Are you preparing a defense?</p>
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<p>I’m thinking. :)</p>
<p>what the hell?</p>
<p>Alright, antonioray: because I cannot successfully verbalize my thinking in a way that does not have any holes, I will concede. I take back post #588:</p>
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<p>And revise it as:</p>
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</p>
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<p>Not my fault! :)</p>
<p>Whenever a noun is the object of a prepositional phrase, it must be in the objective case. Consider these ungrammatical sentences, in which the underlined portion indicates the prepositional phrase that the error is in:</p>
<pre><code>I went to the well with she and Bob.
Between you and I, I never really liked my enemies.
</code></pre>
<p>The objective case for each pronoun should be used:</p>
<pre><code>I went to the well with her and Bob.
Between you and me, I never really liked my enemies.
</code></pre>
<hr>
<p>I don’t quite get this. Can someone explain?</p>
<p>^ Which part do you not understand (prepositions, prepositional phrases, the objective case, etc.)?</p>