Scenario uncertainties are often construed in terms of what-if statements.
If syntax is construed in this way, it presupposes semantics.
Brink (1988, 1992) has urged that some of Sidgwick's chief arguments make better sense if he is construed, in externalist fashion, as allowing the possibility that one may have good reasons not to be moral.
But he said the provisions on Jerusalem "if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, impermissibly interfere with the president's constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the nation in international affairs and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states".
Second, he construes the "if-then" or hypothetical conditional as the ground-consequence relation, and therefore apparently confuses strict or formal conditionals (i.e., logically necessary material conditionals) with material conditionals (according to which "if P then Q" is equivalent with "not-P or Q").
He then held it was a well-established principle that a provision ousting the ordinary jurisdiction of the court must be construed strictly – if such a provision is reasonably capable of having two meanings, the meaning which preserves the ordinary jurisdiction of the court should be taken.
Even something as specific as touching genitalia is not construed as sexual if done for medical reasons.
USA Prescription.com, a Web site that sells prescription drugs after an online consultation, sent a note to subscribers Tuesday announcing its newest page, Bioterrorism.com, in a tone some recipients construed as provocative, if not terrifying.
Several legal experts said in interviews that they found the payments to the buying group, Novation, troubling because they might be construed as kickbacks if they were used to obtain business.
But "Fornicon" could be construed as pornographic if you missed the satire: it's an attack on the mechanization of sex, its de-personalization and commercialization, from an artist whose offices overlooked Times Square before Disney and the Empire State Development Corporation got hold of it.
