X-Message-Number: 21272
From: 
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 15:48:47 EST
Subject: unicorns

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Following my earlier brief note on positivism, here's an example of a 
sentence that is not easily classified:

   All unicorns are white.   

Is this a proposition--a meaningful statement, which must be either true or 
false and cannot be both? There are at least three possible responses that 
might be considered reasonable:


a) Since unicorns are mythical, the sentence isn   t really    about    
anything, 
so cannot be true or false. It isn   t a proposition.

b) There are no unicorns on earth now, as far as we know, but conceivably 
they might exist, somewhere, some time, so maybe the sentence is a 
proposition. We may not have access to the proof of truth or falsity, but 
such proof may exist.

c) There are indeed unicorns--not in the natural world, but in the world of 
literature or imagination. Hidden in the sentence is the implicit 
understanding that the statement refers to the mind(s) of the writer(s) and 
reader(s) who in imagination roam the world of unicorns. If you can find some 
subset of writers/readers with the same beliefs or postulates, then in that 
context the sentence is a proposition, and its truth or falsity can be 
established by questioning the people who read and write about unicorns.

Robert Ettinger

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