The Logical Force of Expressions¹

Abstract

It seems to make perfectly good sense to distinguish between what is expressed and the way in which it is expressed. There is little doubt that there are many different ways of saying the same thing open to us. If I denied this, I would certainly be wrong. And yet a word of caution may not be amiss. Among logicians a tendency has grown up to concentrate their attention on those properties of a statement which make it true or false, what they call a “proposition”, and to neglect the form in which it is expressed. I think it is a dangerous tendency as it may lead to overlooking all sorts of differences which are due to the form. Let me give an example taken from F. P. Ramsey.

¹Editor’s Note: The present paper is taken from Waismann’s Nachlass (Bodleian Library, Oxford) in which it is registered as Q 2. It was prepared from a manuscript largely written in shorthand. Apart from minor emendations, the text is that of the original. As may be gathered from its style, the paper must have been presented as a lecture. Although no date is indicated on the manuscript, it is likely that it was commposed in 1948 when Waismann taught a class on the topic of the essay. The detailed lecture notes he prepared for this class are, under the same title, included in his Nachlass (Q 3) and coincide largely with the issues treated of in the present piece.

The editor owes a great debt of gratitude to Friedrich Waismann’s literary executors, Sir Isaiah Berlin and Sir Stuart Hampshire, for permission to publish the paper.

Wolfgang Grassl

†deceased