I like blogging because it gives me a medium to “test drive” ideas and arguments. One topic that I’ve been mulling over of late has been the relation between propositions (“props”) and states of affairs (“sofas”). My working theory over the past couple years has looked something like this:<\/p>\n
So far matters seem pretty clear to me, however, issues start arising once we try to figure out how to square 1-4 with the popular view that takes sofas to be actually instantiated situations<\/span> (a la David Armstrong). On this view of sofas, it is redundant to say that a sofa obtains, since all sofas do so by definition. Those who take this view may charge that I’m introducing needless complications. I need three things in my ontology: props, conceivably instantiable sofas (a type of possibilia), and actually instantiated sofas. Armstrongians seem to need only two: props and sofas. Thus, they will say that a prop is true iff it corresponds to a sofa.<\/p>\n Richard Fumerton expresses this concern in his book Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth<\/span><\/a>:<\/p>\n If … we had in our ontology states of affairs, some of which obtain and some of which do not, then we could let all propositions represent states of affairs – true propositions represent states of affairs that obtain; false propositions represent states of affairs that fail to obtain…. However, with an ontology of such possibilia there is no need<\/span> for propositions in addition to states of affairs. We would have available a much more straightforward and elegant version of realism. One could simply identify propositions with states of affairs and analyze truth as “obtaining.” … But while [that] view is, perhaps, dialectically attractive, the metaphysical cost is prohibitive. In any event, it is surely desirable to characterize the essence<\/span> of a correspondence theory in such a way that it is not committed to possibilia. It is desirable because there aren’t any such things as states of affairs that do not obtain, and it is desirable because even if there were, it would be a mistake to suppose that the plausibility of the correspondence theory stands or falls on the possibility of defending such a problematic metaphysical claim. (p. 40)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I presume Fumerton’s confident that there are no non-obtaining sofas stems from the popular Fregean theory of ‘existence’. The Fregean conflates existence-as-actuality with existence-as-class-nonemptiness; hence, to say that there are non-obtaining sofas looks like affirming a contradiction – there exist sofas that do not exist. I’ve suggested in another post<\/a>, however, that the Fregean theory might well be wrong. So for my purposes the objection that counts is Fumerton’s charge that on my view “one could simply identify propositions with states of affairs and analyze truth as ‘obtaining’.”<\/p>\n I’m still trying to formulate a clear response to this kind of objection. Here’s a rough outline of what I’ve got so far. Props are assertoric<\/span> units of meaning; hence, they point to something beyond themselves; they posit <\/span>something. Sofas, on the other hand, are not assertoric at all. They don’t point to anything else. They posit nothing. Hence, only props and not sofas are suited to be truthbearers – they are true iff what they posit obtains. Fumerton’s version of the correspondence theory abstracts from the assertoric character of a prop and by doing so deprives him from being able to equate a prop with the meaning of a statement (or assertion).<\/p>\n The confusion I think Fumerton is guilty of (and it is rampant in analytic philosophy) is the same one exemplified by Fregean theories of existence. Peirce calls it ‘nominalism’, a failure to appreciate ‘thirdness as thirdness’ by objectifying thought (‘thirdness as secondness’). Lonergan calls it ‘conceptualism’, a conflation of understanding with judgment; a conflation of the meaning of a merely entertained thought (S’s being P) with the meaning of an assertion (S is<\/span> P). Polanyi would call it a failure to appreciate the tacit, personal dimension of all human thought and language. If those thinkers are right, then semantics must not be divorced from pragmatics. Our speech acts don’t just color the meaning of our speech, they fundamentally transform it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I like blogging because it gives me a medium to “test drive” ideas and arguments. One topic that I’ve been mulling over of late has been the relation between propositions (“props”) and states of affairs (“sofas”). My working theory over the past couple years has looked something like this: Props are assertoric units of meaning\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}