The op-ed authors' well-meaning assertion that "suicide campaigns are almost always a last resort to military occupation" doesn't begin to describe the matter, conflating as it does the Chechen experience with other conflicts, as if American and Israeli military campaigns might fall in the same category.
"A key distinction in these cases often relates to whether the representations are 'mere puffery,' meaning general assertions like 'best breakfast in town,' which are acceptable under the law, or objectively verifiable assertions like 'guaranteed to reduce your blood pressure by 10percentt,'" Elias said.
For example, the recent revelations about broad surveillance by the National Security Agency give added meaning to this assertion from a keynote speaker: "People need to be informed about the processing of their data in simple, clear language they can understand".
This is the meaning of the assertion by Dr Michael Dixon, a spokesman for entrepreneurial or business-oriented GPs, that many NHS hospitals "will have to shrink or shut altogether because half their services should be provided elsewhere".
To understand the exact meaning of any assertion of a right, we need to understand more precisely how rights are constructed and what they do.
Since no one knows what the dollar should be worth, there is no meaning to the assertion that it is overvalued.
Yet even in less dramatic contexts, different people assign different meanings to the assertion "I am a Republican".
Uninterpretability of the Semantics Plantinga and Jager purport to be providing a genuine semantics for quantified modal languages, an account of the meaning of modal assertions.
When Father Jude thinks, "he was having trouble with passion," he doesn't acknowledge the sexual and earthly meanings of this assertion as he struggles with his own unprecedented desire for Lulu Nanapush.
For the philosopher it provides a crucial test case in which to compare the philosophers' ideas about the meaning of probabilistic assertions and the role of probability in explanation with what actually goes on when probability enters a foundational physical theory.
For Ayer it was clear that not all evidence for a statement was to be included in the meaning of the statement: a statement about the blood on Jack's jacket was not included in the meaning of the assertion that Jack was the murderer.
