Distinguishing between fictional statements and false statements[edit]

According to the Russellian theory of reference, the statement “Long John Silver has a wooden leg” and the statement “Earth's moon has a diameter of four meters” are both false. The first statement suffers reference failure, because it fails to pick out an individual in the actual world. The second sentence refers to an object in the actual world, but the predicate does not match the actual world. (The actual diameter being more than 3470 km.) Russell's theory thus does not assign different truth-values to the two statements.^[1]

True and false statements in fiction[edit]

In the Russellian system, the statement “Long John Silver has a wooden leg” and the statement “Long John Silver was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London” have the same truth value: false. This equality may present problems for those wishing to distinguish such statements in terms of truth value.^[1]

Real referents in fictional worlds[edit]

Some statements are false with reference to the actual world but potentially true in reference to some fictional world.^[1] Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan" ("In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree") does not, strictly speaking, suffer reference failure. The 18th century version of the name Kublai Khan picks out a Mongol emperor, the grandson of Genghis Khan. But since few of the events in Coleridge's narrative poem obtain in the actual world, according to Russellian logic, most statements in the poem are false.