IN delivering this lecture I am to speak on some aspect of truth. The practice of examining the various contexts in which a word may be used, in order to disclose what its usages have in common as a clue to its meaning, is of respectable antiquity. If I indulge this practice I find an “embarras de richesse” in modern philosophical literature under two headings, the truth of analytic propositions and the truth of synthetic propositions: the first deals with criteria (...) of consistency and the second with criteria of verifiability. (shrink)

Logical positivists describe certain classes of propositions as analytic or synthetic. Their position would be unassailable if they left the matter at that. Unfortunately they add a rider to the effect that all propositions are one or the other. Pseudo–propositions, being neither one nor the other, are described as nonsense. The above rider itself appears to fall into neither class and an immediate objection may be made to the positivist's standpoint on the ground that it commits him to nonsense by (...) his own definition. (shrink)

In an interesting work ‘The Ethical Animal’ Professor C. H. Waddington valiantly attempts to bridge the gap between ‘ought’ and ‘is’ without, it seems, succeeding in doing so. Notwithstanding his erudition, honesty of purpose and charm in exposition, the gulf remains unbridged. Indeed there are passages where it is difficult to be certain whether the author considers that he has bridged it or even what standpoint he finally adopts.