{"id":4020,"date":"2019-01-05T13:15:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-05T13:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/01\/05\/more-on-assertion-and-presupposition\/"},"modified":"2019-01-05T13:15:26","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T13:15:26","slug":"more-on-assertion-and-presupposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2019\/01\/05\/more-on-assertion-and-presupposition\/","title":{"rendered":"More on Assertion and Presupposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

I continue to worry this technical bone, which is not a mere technicality, inasmuch as the topic of presupposition opens out upon some very Big Questions indeed. Anyway, back to work. I thank Ed Buckner for getting me going on this.<\/span><\/p>\n

…………………<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be obvious that one does not assert everything that the content of one's assertion entails.  If I assert that Venus is a planet, I do not thereby assert that either Venus is a planet or Putin is a former KGB agent, even though the content of my assertion entails the disjunctive proposition.  The content of an assertion is a proposition, and for any proposition p, p entails p v q.<\/span><\/p>\n

A more interesting, and more difficult, question is whether one asserts any<\/em> proposition that the content of one's assertion entails (apart from the proposition that is the content of the assertion).<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose you ask who won the 10K Turkey Trot and  I assert that Tony won the race.  Do I thereby also assert that he competed in it?  That he competed in it is entailed by the fact that he won. And it is entailed in a stronger sense that the sense in which Venus is a planet<\/em> entails Venus is a planet or Putin is a former KGB agent<\/em>.   For there is a semantic connection between winning and competing, but no semantic connection in the Venus-Putin case. You could say that it is analytically impossible that Tony win without competing: what makes it true that there is no possible world in which Tony wins but does not compete is the semantic connection between winning and competing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, I want to say that Tony's competing is presupposed but not asserted when I assert that he won the race.  Necessarily, anything red is colored.  But when I assert that Tom the tomato is red, I do not thereby assert that it is colored, although of course I presuppose that it is colored. Note the word 'thereby.' It is no doubt possible for me to assert that Tom is colored, a 'vegetable of color' if you will, but that is a different assertion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Go back to Tony the runner. That Tony did not cheat by taking a short cut is analytically entailed by the fact that he won. (To win a foot race it does not suffice to be the first to cross the finish line. Remember Rosie Ruiz of Boston Marathon 1980 notoriety?)  Will you say that when I assert that Tony won the race I also thereby assert that he did not cheat by taking a shortcut? I would say No. For that would be an unbearably counter-intuitive thing to say. I presuppose<\/em>, but do not assert, that Tony did not cheat by taking a shortcut<\/span><\/p>\n

You can see how this series of questions can be extended. One can cheat  by  getting a head start or by jumping in at mid-course, which is what Rosie Ruiz did at Boston. You can cheat by hiring a a world-class doppelgaenger,<\/em> by wearing special shoes . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

Note also that if Tony won, it follows that he either won or didn't win. Will you say that when I assert that Tony won the race I am also thereby asserting that he either won it or didn't?  When I assert that Tony won, I am not asserting the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM). At most, LEM is a presupposition of my assertion, and of every assertion.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Tony won, then it was possible that he win.  For everything actual is possible. But when I assert that Tony won, I presuppose, but do not assert, that it was possible at the time of the race that Tony win.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am toying with a strong thesis:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

When an agent A makes an assertion by uttering or otherwise tokening a sentence s<\/em> (which is typically, but needn't be, in the indicative mood), the content of the assertion is exactly the (Fregean) proposition explicitly expressed by the tokening of s <\/em>and no other proposition.  Propositions other than the content proposition that are entailed by the content proposition are at most presuppositions of the assertion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why hold this view? Well, it seems to me that what I assert on any occasion is precisely what I intend to assert on that occasion and nothing else.  When I make an assertion I translate into overt speech a belief that I have. The content\/accusative of the belief is a Fregean proposition and there is nothing in that proposition that is not open to my mind at the time I express my belief.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I continue to worry this technical bone, which is not a mere technicality, inasmuch as the topic of presupposition opens out upon some very Big Questions indeed. Anyway, back to work. I thank Ed Buckner for getting me going on this. ………………… It should be obvious that one does not assert everything that the content … Continue reading “More on Assertion and Presupposition”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[636,408,378],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assertion","category-language-philosophy-of","category-presupposition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}