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Full Idea
Russell often treated propositions as facts, but discovered that correspondence then became useless for explaining truth, since every meaningful expression, true or false, expresses a proposition.
Gist of Idea
If propositions are facts, then false and true propositions are indistinguishable
Source
comment on Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 6
Book Ref
Davidson,Donald: 'Truth and Predication' [Belknap Harvard 2005], p.125
A Reaction
So 'pigs fly' would have to mean pigs actually flying (which they don't). They might correspond to possible situations, but only if pigs might fly. What do you make of 'circles are square'? Russell had many a sleepless night over that.
Related Idea
Idea 6091 Propositions don't name facts, because each fact corresponds to a proposition and its negation [Russell]
| 21726 | In graspable propositions the constituents are real entities of acquaintance [Russell] |
| 21702 | In 1918 still believes in nonlinguistic analogues of sentences, but he now calls them 'facts' [Russell, by Quine] |
| 23453 | Propositions as objects of judgement don't exist, because we judge several objects, not one [Russell/Whitehead] |
| 19164 | If propositions are facts, then false and true propositions are indistinguishable [Davidson on Russell] |
| 22302 | Moor bypassed problems of correspondence by saying true propositions ARE facts [Moore,GE, by Potter] |
| 9085 | If propositions are concrete they don't have to exist, and so they can't be necessary truths [Plantinga] |
| 16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
| 14616 | A 'Russellian proposition' is an ordered sequence of individual, properties and relations [Stalnaker] |
| 19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
| 17702 | Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares] |
| 19201 | Propositions can be 'about' an entity, but that doesn't make the entity a constituent of it [Merricks] |
| 19211 | Early Russell says a proposition is identical with its truthmaking state of affairs [Merricks] |
| 21662 | Do there exist thoughts which we are incapable of thinking? [Hofweber] |
| 16380 | Russellian propositions are better than Fregean thoughts, by being constant through communication [Recanati] |