To me, “the king of France is bald” (when there is no KoF) and “the statement on the blackboard is false” (when there is nothing on the blackboard) are in the third category, which isn’t quite the same as either “false” or “meaningless” but is distinctly nearer “false” than “meaningless”.
I would say a statement is meaningless, or at least meaningless to me, in so far as I have (or I suspect anyone could have) no clear conception of how its truth value depends on the state of the world. In the case of, e.g., “the king of France is bald” it’s pretty straightforward even though for some worlds—e.g., those with no king of France—its truth value might be undefined, and for others—e.g., those where there is a king of France, and he has a little bit of hair left—it might be unclear. Contrast, say, “the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress” (an example used by A J Ayer) where it’s hard to see how to do better than “it’s true if the Absolute enters into, etc.”; or “The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy / Religeorge too thee worled” (from John Lennon) where it seems unlikely that any proposition with truth values is intended at all.
I would distinguish between
false,
meaningless, and
relying on a false assumption.
To me, “the king of France is bald” (when there is no KoF) and “the statement on the blackboard is false” (when there is nothing on the blackboard) are in the third category, which isn’t quite the same as either “false” or “meaningless” but is distinctly nearer “false” than “meaningless”.
I would say a statement is meaningless, or at least meaningless to me, in so far as I have (or I suspect anyone could have) no clear conception of how its truth value depends on the state of the world. In the case of, e.g., “the king of France is bald” it’s pretty straightforward even though for some worlds—e.g., those with no king of France—its truth value might be undefined, and for others—e.g., those where there is a king of France, and he has a little bit of hair left—it might be unclear. Contrast, say, “the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress” (an example used by A J Ayer) where it’s hard to see how to do better than “it’s true if the Absolute enters into, etc.”; or “The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy / Religeorge too thee worled” (from John Lennon) where it seems unlikely that any proposition with truth values is intended at all.