Abstract

Locke, in writing about ‘Trifling Propositions’ which bring no increase to our knowledge, remarked ‘When we affirm the said truth of itself, it shows us nothing but what we must certainly know before. What is this more than trifling with words? It is but like a monkey shifting his oyster from one hand to the other, and had he but words might no doubt have said “Oyster in right hand is subject and oyster in left hand is predicate”, and so might have made a selfevident proposition of oyster, i.e. oyster is oyster’.