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2 ideas
4638 | The principle of bivalence distorts reality, as when claiming that a person is or is not 'thin' [Baggini /Fosl] |
Full Idea: Forcing everything into the straightjacket of bivalence seriously distorts the world. The problem is most acute in the case of vague concepts, such as thinness. It is not straightforwardly true or false that a person is thin. | |
From: J Baggini / PS Fosl (The Philosopher's Toolkit [2003], §3.03) | |
A reaction: Can't argue with that. Can we divide all our concepts into either bivalent or vague? Presumably both propositions and concepts could be bivalent. |
6023 | Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: We hold fast to the position, defended by Chrysippus, that every proposition is either true or false. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 38 | |
A reaction: I am intrigued to know exactly how you defend this claim. It may depend what you mean by a proposition. A badly expressed proposition may have indeterminate truth, quite apart from the vague, the undecidable etc. |