Philosophical Fun Facts

April 25, 2025

Fun Fact 1

The mathematical technique called proof by induction, despite its name containing induction, is in fact deductive—shocker!

Fun Fact 2

In the philosophy of language, there’s a theory called referential semantics, which says that the meaning of an expression is the object (or objects) the expression refers to. But this leads to a problem: either a sentence refers to an object, or it does not. Consider the sentence:

(A) “The current King of France is bald.”

or its negation:

(not A) “The current King of France is not bald.”

We realize that neither (A) nor (not A) is true, because France currently has no king. On this dilemma, Russell famously remarked:

Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig.