Abstract
At first glance, the question ‘What is the meaning of false sentences?’ looks like a pseudo-question, much like the parallel question ‘What is the meaning of true sentences?’, against which Ayer objected that it presupposes that all sentences mean the same. But it is possible to interpret these questions differently. The person who asks them does not necessarily seeks a single correlate as the meaning of all false sentences. He may rather be preoccupied with the question to which category of reality the correlates of true and — if they exist — false sentences belong. Formulated in this way, my question is not founded on absurd presuppositions.
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References
B. Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Allen and Unwin, London, 1940, reprinted 1966, p. 189.
G. Ryle, ‘Are there Propositions?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, XXX (1929-1930) 122.
A. J. Ayer, Thinking and Meaning, H. K. Lewis, London, p. 3.
Ryle, Op. cit., p. 120.
Ryle, Ibid., p. 121.
M. Schlick, Gesammelte Aufsätze (1921–1936) p. 153, quoted by F. Waissmann, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, Harre (ed.), MacMillan, London, 1965, p. 305.
F. Vandamme, ‘Le nominalisme et la proposition’, Communication and Cognition (1977) 88.
M. J. Cresswell, ‘Semantic Competence’, in F. Guenthner and M. Guenthner-Reutter (eds.), Meaning and Translation, Duckworth, 1978, p. 12.
W. V. O. Quine, ‘Roots of Reference’, 1973, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, p. 265.
Quine, Ibid., p. 265.
Quine, Ibid., p. 265.
F. Waissmann, The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy, Harre (ed.), MacMillan, 1965, p. 286.
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© 1980 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Gochet, P. (1980). An Attempt at a New Solution for the Enigma of the Meaning of False Sentences. In: Outline of a Nominalist Theory of Propositions. Synthese Library, vol 98. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8949-8_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8949-8_9
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