On Gupta's book ``The logic of common nouns'''' (Q2366526)

This extraordinarily long review article begins with a brief exposition of the basic principles of \textit{A. Gupta's} book, The logic of common nouns (1980; Zbl 0528.03008): The ``principle of application'' (determining which objects fall under the concept expressed by a common noun), and the ``principle of identity'' for common nouns (determining how an object can be traced across possible worlds and times). In Bressan's opinion, it is the latter principle of identity due to which Gupta's book provides an interesting, nontrivial extension of standard intensional logic. Next Bressan comments upon a problem discussed by Gupta in connection with ``very general common nouns'' such as `physical object', or `thing Martha likes'. Starting from sentence (3.1) `Fred is a thing Martha likes', Gupta suggested to interpret `thing' not as a real common noun but rather as a variable ranging over common nouns. Accordingly, (3.1) is paraphrased in Gupta's logic as (3.3) `There is a sort \(S\) such that Fred is an \(S\) that Martha likes'. Bressan, however, suggests a different approach where `thing' is regarded as expressing, ``in every situation, the substance (sort) considered as most appropriate in that situation''. In the subsequent sections Bressan considers the additional example (4.1) `Jane likes everything Martha likes' to show the importance of unrestricted intensional quantification. Further topics include, among others: -- A discussion of Gupta's claim that, e.g., (8.1) `John is a man' is synonymous with (8.3) `John is identical to a man'; -- Gupta's treatment of ``absolute'' and ``extensional'' uses of some common nouns; and -- A comparison of the translation of sentences like (9.1) `Necessarily the top card is a card' vs. (9.2) `Some card is necessarily the top card' either into the diverse languages of Gupta's logic or into the language of the author's own logic as developed in: A general interpreted modal calulus (1972; Zbl 0255.02015).