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Single Idea 9119

[filed under theme 5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 1. Bivalence ]

Full Idea

The history of deviant logics is without a single success. Bivalence has been denied at least since Aristotle, yet no anti-bivalent theory has ever left the philosophical nursery.

Gist of Idea

No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted

Source

Roy Sorensen (Vagueness and Contradiction [2001], Intro)

Book Ref

Sorensen,Roy: 'Vagueness and Contradiction' [OUP 2004], p.8


A Reaction

This is part of a claim that nothing in reality is vague - it is just our ignorance of the truth or falsity of some propositions. Personally I don't see why 'Grandad is bald' has to have a determinate truth value.


The 20 ideas from 'Vagueness and Contradiction'

No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted [Sorensen]
Vague words have hidden boundaries [Sorensen]
The colour bands of the spectrum arise from our biology; they do not exist in the physics [Sorensen]
Illusions are not a reason for skepticism, but a source of interesting scientific information [Sorensen]
Banning self-reference would outlaw 'This very sentence is in English' [Sorensen]
If nothing exists, no truthmakers could make 'Nothing exists' true [Sorensen]
Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'? [Sorensen]
God cannot experience unwanted pain, so God cannot understand human beings [Sorensen]
Denying problems, or being romantically defeated by them, won't make them go away [Sorensen]
We are unable to perceive a nose (on the back of a mask) as concave [Sorensen]
Bayesians build near-certainty from lots of reasonably probable beliefs [Sorensen]
It is propositional attitudes which can be a priori, not the propositions themselves [Sorensen]
Attributing apriority to a proposition is attributing a cognitive ability to someone [Sorensen]
I can buy any litre of water, but not every litre of water [Sorensen]
Two long understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction [Sorensen]
An offer of 'free coffee or juice' could slowly shift from exclusive 'or' to inclusive 'or' [Sorensen]
Propositions are what settle problems of ambiguity in sentences [Sorensen]
The negation of a meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful [Sorensen]
We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen]
The paradox of analysis says that any conceptual analysis must be either trivial or false [Sorensen]