Re: BHA: truth

[Louis Irwin <lirwin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carrol,

(1) will be false if there is a wealthy single man who wishes to remain a
bachelor, otherwise it is true.  We can assume that this is an empirical
matter of fact: either there is such a person, or there is not.  (Actually,
the "must" makes the matter more complicated, but set that aside.)

(2) will be false if we can find someone who fails to acknowledge the truth
of (1), otherwise it will be true.  Given the context you describe, the
author of
(2) does not acknowledge the truth of (1), so the view of the author herself
(assuming it's Jane, as Doug suggests) makes (2) false.  Since the author
states the sentence (2) yet does not believe it, we can infer the author did
not actually ASSERT it; for if she had, she would be in the position of
having said something like: "Sentence (2) is true, but I don't believe it."
Assertion carries some kind of implication like that.  So she was speaking
ironically, or citing someone else's view.

Louis Irwin

>How would one or more of the theories
>of truth discussed here handle the following two sentences?
>
>(1) A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a
>wife.
>
>(2) It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
>possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
>
>The page on which the second sentence appears immediately implies that the
>reader who has accepted *either* sentence is a fool, while the reader who
>has denied the truth of both sentences is the reader the text desires.
>
>The entire work which the second sentence begins affirms that in at least
>one case, a rich man who does not affirm in action the truth of sentence
>(1) would be unable to truthfully affirm, "I am I."




     --- from list bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---