(November 18, 2016 at 6:29 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(November 18, 2016 at 5:40 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: They are. The definition of "false" is "not true".
She’s not talking about the definitions of “false” and “not true”.
The definitions are relevant because she said something could be neither true nor false. but that makes no sense because "false" means "not true" and "true or not true" is a true dichotomy.
Quote:She’s talking about the statements as a whole. Take for example, “Pluto is a dog.” Pluto is also a celestial body. She’s leaving open the possibility that a statement can be both true in one sense and untrue in another without being definitively false.
True in one sense and not true in another is proving my point about equivocation.
Quote:Which to my mind is a tangential side issue. The real issue is that any attempt to define the referent of the subject, "this statement", in the Lair Paradox starts an interminable series:
This statement is not true.
[This statement is not true] is not true.
[[This statement in not true] is not true] is not true.
The five word sentence doesn't have that problem.
The way I see it is before "true" or "not true" is added the statement should already have meaning. What happens if you take away "true" or "not true"? You get "this statement is". Which is incomplete. When it's said that the statement is true or not true, I simply say "what statement? You're mentioning a statement without engaging in stating anything." Another example of a use/mention error.
