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Full Idea
Whereas there might be just one fact that a true proposition was like, we would have to say that a false proposition was unlike any fact. We could not speak of the fact that it was false of, so we could not speak of its being false of anything at all.
Gist of Idea
A true proposition seems true of one fact, but a false proposition seems true of nothing at all.
Source
Gilbert Ryle (Are there propositions? [1930], 'Objections')
Book Ref
Ryle,Gilbert: 'Collected Essays 2 1929-1968' [Routledge 2009], p.27
A Reaction
Ryle brings out very nicely the point Russell emphasised so much, that the most illuminating studies in philosophy are of how falsehood works, rather than of how truths work. If I say 'the Queen is really a man' it is obvious what that is false of.
| 20780 | Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 23483 | Proposition elements correlate with objects, but the whole picture does not correspond to a fact [Wittgenstein, by Morris,M] |
| 13985 | A true proposition seems true of one fact, but a false proposition seems true of nothing at all. [Ryle] |
| 10843 | Facts aren't exactly true statements, but they are what those statements say [Strawson,P] |
| 10842 | The fact which is stated by a true sentence is not something in the world [Strawson,P] |
| 13469 | Tarski showed how we could have a correspondence theory of truth, without using 'facts' [Hart,WD] |
| 10355 | Facts can't make claims true, because they are true claims [Brandom, by Kusch] |
| 8315 | Maybe facts are just true propositions [Lowe] |
| 18357 | What makes a disjunction true is simpler than the disjunctive fact it names [David] |
| 18359 | One proposition can be made true by many different facts [David] |
| 4750 | The redundancy theory gets rid of facts, for 'it is a fact that p' just means 'p' [Engel] |
| 15333 | Modern correspondence is said to be with the facts, not with true propositions [Horsten] |
| 17740 | Instead of correspondence of proposition to fact, look at correspondence of its parts [Jenkins] |