“If the meanings of true and false were switched, this sentence wouldn't be false.”

— Douglas Hofstadter , book I Am a Strange Loop

I Am a Strange Loop (2007) p. 68

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Douglas Hofstadter 17

American professor of cognitive science 1945

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Austin (1962) Sense and Sensibilia p. 111.

“Every sentence in order to have definite scientific meaning must be practically or at least theoretically verifiable as either true or false upon the basis of experimental measurements either practically or theoretically obtainable by carrying out a definite and previously specified operation in the future. The meaning of such a sentence is the method of its verification.”

Walter A. Shewhart (1891–1967) American statistician

Source: Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control, 1939, p. 94

“There are many things—some true, some false— unsupportable by rational means.”

Barry Mazur (1937) American mathematician

Barry Mazur,
Context: Sometimes the mathematical anti-Platonist believes that headway is made by showing Platonism to be unsupportable by rational means, and that it is an incoherent position to take when formulated in a propositional vocabulary. It is easy enough to throw together propositional sentences. But it is a good deal more difficult to capture a Platonic disposition in a propositional formulation that is a full and honest expression of some flesh-and-blood mathematician’s view of things. There is, of course, no harm in trying—and maybe its a good exercise. But even if we cleverly came up with a proposition that is up to the task of expressing Platonism formally, the mere fact that the proposition cannot be demonstrated to be true won’t necessarily make it vanish. There are many things—some true, some false— unsupportable by rational means.

“Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), Introduction, p. 15
1940s
Context: Science seems to be at war with itself.... Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.