FOM: Tait on truth

[Vaughan Pratt]

From: John Mayberry <J.P.Mayberry at bristol.ac.uk>
>Because if there is no such thing as speaking truly, there is no such
>thing as speaking meaningfully - at least, so it seems to me.

If I say "Now construct the perpendicular to AC at B to intersect EF at
G", I have surely spoken meaningfully, yet where is the truth in what
I have said?

Constructions are not assertions of fact, they are imperatives, one of
various kinds of speech act as Grice calls them, intended for some other
purpose than the simple conveyance of fact.

Vaughan Pratt