Re: Fitch's paradox and OWA
Date: 31 Dec 2009 07:19:13 -0800
Message-ID: <hhifdh0nhq_at_drn.newsguy.com>
Nam Nguyen says...
>
>Daryl McCullough wrote:
>> Marshall says...
>>
>>> I believe Nam is roughly of the opinion that if we can't know which
>>> one of {true, false} a sentence is, then we have no basis for saying
>>> it must be one or the other.
>>
>> But typically, for some statements such as "The Greek philosopher
>> Plato was left-handed" I don't know whether the statement is true
>> or not, and I also don't know whether anyone else knows whether it
>> is true or not, and I don't know whether it is *possible*, at this
>> late date, to find out whether it is true or not.
>
>
>> But surely, it's either true or false, right?
>
>No. Not surely. Since by our assumption here is nobody would know about
>his handed-ness, his nervous system to both arms might not have functioned
>at all to begin with and hence whether or not he was left-handed is moot
>and is not-truth assignable.
Well, it is certainly *possible* that "Plato was left-handed" is a statement that is both true and unknowable (at this late date).
-- Daryl McCullough Ithaca, NYReceived on Thu Dec 31 2009 - 16:19:13 CET