Assertion

Abstract

Statements are products of utterance, specifically of assertion successfully undertaken. That is a thesis and a proposal for whose elaboration I have tried to establish a foundation in the previous chapter. Something like a definition of statement is needed. Just as mice, guinea pigs and beavers, abundantly familiar in their own places to householders, juveniles and trappers, are¹ together technically classified as rodents, so statements constitute a technical, factitious classification of various items which are, in their places, abundantly familiar to specialists and non-specialists alike For starters, we need some irrevocable specimens to illustrate what we want our technical idea of a statement to cover, and the following is a representative listing, with contrasting items in parentheses

• (i) Aristotle was twice married (but not: Plato was a homosexual, an “opinion”).

• (ii) Crete is an island in the Red Sea (but not: Maybe Atlantis was an island off the coast of Spain, a supposition or “declaration of possibility”).

• (iii) There will be a total eclipse of the sun visible from Central Europe on Aug. 11, 1999 (but not: There will be a major earthquake in the Bay Area before 1985, a onetime prediction).

• (iv) e=1.6020 x 10 ⁻¹⁹ columbs (but not: Heat is matter in motion, an hypothesis).

• (v) All earthly mountains higher than 8000 meters are in Asia (but not: All birds are warmblooded, a generalization).

• (vi) Pampadour was once the favorite of Louis XV and Barry was later on (but not: If Philip II had not reigned for so long, Spain would not have languished, a conditional).

• (vii) 28 is a perfect number (but not: There is no odd perfect number, a conjecture).