Is the following sentence logically false?: No car accidents have occured in the world for the past 5 years.?

Question

(Definition)logically false: if and only if it is false and it is impossible for it to be true

Answer 1

Correct, it is patently false.

Answer 2

I have to borrow a few ideas from Philosophy of Language here. When you talk about a statement being true or false, you are using a statement 'cognitively.' (cognitive use of proposition) There can be a truth or a falsity if a statement corresponds to what the statement is about. If the statement matches the reality, it is true; and if it doesn't, it is false.

If you are using your sentence cognitively, then because there have been many car accidents in the past 5 years, the proposition "no car accidents have occured in the world for past 5 years" is false. To begin with, it is a universal negative statement; that is to say it only takes one particular example to refuse that statement. With one accident in past 5 years, that statement can be refuted automatically.

If you somehow use that statement not cognitively, the answer is different. (non-cognitive use of proposition) A non-cognitive use occurs when you are expressing your desire, asking genuine question and giving a command. In a non-cognitive use, a statement is neither true nor false. The hard thing to tackle is both cognitive use and non-cognitive use occur in language and when it is written down (or even pronounced verbally), it is not easy to tell which use.

You might be referring to internal inconsistency of a proposition. The only time a sentence can be automatically false is when there is 'what is' and 'what is not' at the very same time. For example, circle is triangle. That statement is false; false by definitions.

A usual response; that statement is false. A very 'deep' response; it can be neither true nor false. It all depends on how it is being used.

Answer 3

The question has the potenial of being logically true, since if we take the word car to mean the mechanical part of driving (since no accidents to stationary, non-functioning cars occur unless under extra-ordinary circumstances assuming that the car is in a out of the way place like a carport or garage with no people around) then it could be said to be true if there has been no mechanical malfuntions during use of the vehicals (cars) within the last five years that have lead to accidents where human error cannot be found to be a contributing factor.

However, in many cases people will assume that cars refers to the driver and the vehical as one unit and therefore any driver error would also be included and as such the question would be false.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

At the current time, in the places on earth where cars exist, it is false statement - car accidents have occured in the last 5 years. However, had you made this statement 200 years ago it would be true. If a native made the statement in some jungle, it would also be true. So since it IS possible for it to be true, the statement is NOT false.

Answer 5

The above statement is only logically false if it does not follow from a given premise.

For eg,
Statement 1: "There was a car accident yesterday" would make your statement logically false. (false as in it does not follow FROM the statement)

Statement 2: "No one has driven a car in the last 5 years" would make the same statement deductively true.

The validity of the premises does not determine the true/false deduction to he second statement. In other words, the world of language philosophy sometimes precludes empiricism.

Answer 6

No. it is definitely not logically false. it is possible for something to not occur in a place for a period of time.

i do have to suggest a different definition of "logically false". assuming the existence of an objective reality it cannot be both true and false, and it is false, so it is impossible for it to be true, making it both false and impossible for it to be true. your provided definition makes logically false synonymous with false, and the answer to your question yes. this might be why some people answered yes.

i would suggest that a statement is logically false if and only if it can be proved false using only the information contained withing the statement.

Answer 7

I fail to see the philosophical inquiry behind thiws question, perhaps I dont understand.
It is obviously and bluntly 'Flase' , if we consider what we think of as : 'cars' 'accidents' 'car accidents 'years' '5' 'no' ect..

Answer 8

yes car accidents happen every 5 seconds