Single Idea 6427

[catalogued under 19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification]

Full Idea

There is no conceivable method by which we can discover whether the proposition 'It snowed on Manhattan Island on the 1st January in the year 1 A.D.' is true or false, but it seems preposterous to maintain that it is neither.

Gist of Idea

Unverifiable propositions about the remote past are still either true or false

Source

Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.10)

Book Reference

Russell,Bertrand: 'My Philosophical Development' [Routledge 1993], p.83


A Reaction

I love this example, which seems so simple and so clear-cut. It criticises verificationism, and gives strong intuitive support for realism, and supports the law of excluded middle.