Category: Propositions
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Token, Type, Proposition: Write-Up of Some of Yesterday’s Dialog
I am enjoying the pleasure of a three-day visit from Dr. Elliot Crozat who drove out yesterday from San Diego. The following expands upon one of the topics we discussed yesterday. How many sentences immediately below, two or one? Snow is white Snow is white. Both answers are plausible, and indeed equally plausible; but they…
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Syntactic and Semantic Validity Again
Edward sends this interesting example: Omnis homo est mortalis Socrates is a man Sokrates ist sterblich Semantically valid, but not syntactically? No, syntactically valid because the argument instantiates a valid argument-form, to wit: Every F is a Ga is an FThereforea is a G. Validity is a matter of form. An argument is valid if…
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Logical Form, Equivocation, and Propositions
A re-post with minor edits and additions from 4 September 2017. ……………………………….. Ed Buckner wants to re-fight old battles. I'm game. The following post of his, reproduced verbatim, just appeared at Dale Tuggy's site: The concept of logical form is essential to any discussion of identity, and hence to any discussion of the Trinity. Here is…
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‘Platonic’ Propositions: A Consideration Contra. The Argument from Intrinsic Intentionality
Commenter John put the following question to me: Which Platonist theories of propositions did you have in mind in your original post, and what are the problems involved in accepting such views? I had in mind a roughly Fregean theory. One problem with such a view is that it seems to require that propositions possess…
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Truth-Bearers and Truth-Makers: Disjoint Classes?
Wesley C. writes, Today I read your critique of Feser on presentism. I am curious about something you said: A truth-bearer cannot serve as a truth-maker. If that's right, how would you handle obvious truths that are about propositions. Take the following: "The proposition that Humphreys Peak is the tallest in Arizona is true…
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Truth and Falsity from a Deflationary Point of View
The following equivalence is taken by many to support the deflationary thesis that truth has no substantive nature, a nature that could justify a substantive theory along correspondentist, or coherentist, or pragmatic, or other lines. For example, someone who maintains that truth is rational acceptability at the ideal (Peircean) limit of inquiry is advancing a…
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Battling the Bad Ostrich over Assertion
BV said: I will now pose a problem for the view that assertion = proposition. Suppose I give the following valid argument, an instance of modus ponens. By 'give an argument,' I mean that I assert its premises, and I assert its conclusion as following from the premises, and this in the presence of one…
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Is Assertion Closed Under Entailment? Assertion and Presupposition
Suppose a person asserts that p. Suppose also that p entails q. Does it follow that the person asserting that p thereby asserts that q? If so, and if p and q are any propositions you like, then assertion is closed under entailment. If assertion is not closed under entailment, then there will be examples…
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The Problem of the Unity of the Proposition
Jacques writes, I'm thinking about this problem and getting increasingly frustrated by the way in which it's discussed in philosophy. I wonder if you have any ideas. Let me explain what bothers me . . . Typically, philosophers begin with the idea that 'the proposition' needs to be explained or characterized in some special way…
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Propositions About Socrates Before He Came to Exist
This continues the discussion with James Anderson. See the comments to the related article below. Here is Professor Anderson's latest comment with my replies. So are you saying that prior to the time Socrates comes into existence the proposition It is possible that Socrates come into existence doesn't exist at all? Yes, if either Socrates himself, or…
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Frege’s Horse Paradox, Bradley’s Regress, and the Problem of Predication
The concept horse is not a concept. Thus spoke Frege, paradoxically. Why does he say such a thing? Because the subject expression 'the concept horse' refers to an object. It names an object. Concepts and objects on his scheme are mutually exclusive. No concept is an object and conversely. Only objects can be named.…
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The Function-Argument Schema in the Analysis of Propositions, Part II
A second installment from the Ostrich of London. Another difficulty with the function-argument theory is staring us in the face, but generally unappreciated for what it is. As Geach says, the theory presupposes an absolute category-difference between names and predicables, which comes out in the choice of ‘fount’ [font] for the schematic letters corresponding to…
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The Function-Argument Schema in the Analysis of Propositions
The Ostrich of London sends the following to which I add some comments in blue. Vallicella: ‘One of Frege's great innovations was to employ the function-argument schema of mathematics in the analysis of propositions’. Peter Geach (‘History of the Corruptions of Logic’, in Logic Matters 1972, 44-61) thinks it actually originated with Aristotle, who suggests (Perihermenias 16b6)…
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Logical Form, Equivocation, and Propositions
Ed Buckner wants to re-fight old battles. I'm game. The following post of his, reproduced verbatim, just appeared at Dale Tuggy's site: The concept of logical form is essential to any discussion of identity, and hence to any discussion of the Trinity. Here is a puzzle I have been discussing with the famous Bill Vallicella for many…
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On the Logical Independence of Person and Proposition
If the Father of Lies speaks a truth per accidens, it is still a truth. And if the Father of Lights speaks a falsehood per impossibile, it is still a falsehood.