“Now (obviously) a sentence’s truth—even when we hold the sentence’s meaning fixed—depends on which world we are considering. “Brown is Prime Minister” is true in the actual world but, since Brown need not have been Prime Minister, there are countless worlds in which “Brown is Prime Minister” is false: in those worlds, Brown did not succeed Tony Blair, or never went into politics, or never even existed. And in some other worlds, someone else is Prime Minister — David Cameron, P. F. Strawson, me, Madonna, or Daffy Duck. In still others, there is no such office as Prime Minister, or not even a Britain; and so on and so forth. So a given sentence or proposition varies its truth-value from world to world.”
William G. Lycan
Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction
-
Working on it...
-
Working on it...
-
Working on it...
-
Working on it...
Similar quotes
“We are in a strange world,' one senior Israeli official said to me, 'where the defense minister and to a lesser degree the prime minister are focused intently on the military option, and the intelligence services and the military, with some exceptions, are deeply doubtful.”
David E. Sanger
Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power
“The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.”
J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“Amigo! Amigo!" (Calling out to the ITALLIAN Prime minister....)”
George W. Bush
“I don't think there will be a woman prime minister in my lifetime.”
Margaret Thatcher 1973
“I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high-whether by presidents, prime ministers, or archbishops-is inherently suspect.”
Andrew J. Bacevich
Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War