[davnola]

Perhaps it can, but the challenge then is to identify what's different about the professor's statement from a statement like "It's raining". Why doesn't the first have a definite truth value, but the second does? (What the professor himself believes is not relevant to the actual truth of his statement.)

You might be interested in verificationism http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-empiricism/#EmpVer... (apologies if you know about it already).

[dspeyer]

What's different about it is its circularity. The students' anticipations of the exam are based on their anticipations of the exam. Sort of like "this statement is false".

[davnola]

The students' anticipations of the exam are their anticipations of the exam. I don't see the circularity yet. It's clearer in the Liar Paradox.

[ajuc]

Circularity is here:

    P( exam is today | P(exam is today | exam was not earlier) = 1) = 0

EDIT: if this is good formalisation of proffesor sentence. I'm not 100% sure.