According to Bertrand Russell's theory of truth, there is only one actual world, and a statement's truth value depends on whether the statement obtains in the actual world. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian Continuing the tradition of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell posited that a name picks out, or refers to, a real object in the world. Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege ( 8 November 1848, Wismar, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin &ndash 26 July 1925 The name Genghis Khan thus picks out the 12th and 13th century Mongol leader we know by that name. Genghis Khan ( or;, Chinggis Khaan, ʧiŋgɪs χaːŋ Činggis Qaɣan; 1162–1227 born (meaning "ironworker" was the Mongol founder Any sentence in which we attach a predicate to the name Genghis Khan is true if the predicate obtained in the actual world. Any sentence in which the predicate does not obtain for Genghis Khan is false. The Wikipedia statement “Genghis Khan founded the largest contiguous empire in world history” is thus true, and the statement “Genghis Khan was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London” is false. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900 was an Irish Playwright, Novelist, poet and Author of [1]
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Distinguishing between fictional statements and false statements
According to the Russellian theory of reference, the statement “Long John Silver has a wooden leg” and the statement “Earth's moon has a diameter of 2856 kilometers” are equally false. Long John Silver is a Fictional character in the Novel Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The first statement suffers reference failure, because it fails to pick out an individual in the actual world. The second sentence refers to an object in the actual world, but the predicate does not obtain in the actual world. Russell's theory thus does not assign different truth-values to the two statements. [2]
True and false statements in fiction
In the Russellian system, the statement “Long John Silver has a wooden leg” and the statement “Long John Silver was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London” have the same truth value: false. This equality may present problems for those wishing to distinguish such statements in terms of truth value. [3]
Other problem cases: real referents in fictional worlds
Some statements are false with reference to the actual world but potentially true in reference to some fictional world. [4] Coleridge's “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree” does not, strictly speaking, suffer reference failure. Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 21 October 1772 &ndash 25 July 1834) was an English Poet, Critic and philosopher " Kubla Khan or a Vision in a Dream A Fragment " is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which takes its title from the Mongol and Chinese The 18th century version of the name Kublai Khan picks out the Mongol Emperor, the grandson of Genghis Khan. But since few of the events in Coleridge's narrative poem obtain in the actual world, according to Russellian logic, most statements in the poem are false.
References
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