{"id":37,"date":"2008-12-18T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T04:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/?p=37"},"modified":"2008-12-18T00:11:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-18T04:11:00","slug":"assertibility-and-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/assertibility-and-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Assertibility and Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thesis:<\/span> Whatever anyone must believe in order rationally to assert a proposition p is part of the meaning of p.<\/p>\n

Obvious case: One cannot rationally assert p unless one believes that p.<\/p>\n

If the thesis is right, then it provides a test for whether a given proposition q is part of the meaning of p. In other words, it gives us a test for determining whether p semantically implies<\/span> q.<\/p>\n

Test:<\/span> If you want to know whether q is part of the meaning of p, suppose that someone S does not believe q (or even believes not-q), and consider whether S could rationally assert p.<\/p>\n

If “no”, then q is part of the meaning of p.
If “yes”, then q is not part of the meaning of p.<\/p>\n

Example: Let’s test whether the Peircean semantics for the future tense is correct. According to the Peircean, the future tense is <\/span>intrinsically modal<\/span>, and to assert that an event E “will” happen implies that the world is now tending strongly (probability > 0.5) toward E’s happening.<\/p>\n

Suppose, then, that S does not believe that the world is strongly tending toward E’s happening. Indeed, suppose that S believes that E’s happening is highly improbable<\/span>. Could S believe that and, at the same time, rationally assert<\/span> “E will happen”?<\/p>\n

It seems clear to me that the correct answer is “no”. Hence, it follows that the Peircean semantics for the future tense is correct.<\/p>\n

To resist this argument, a proponent of an Ockhamist semantics for the future tense must reject my thesis. The Ockhamist believes that the future tense is not<\/span> intrinsically modal. On his view, to say that E “will” happen implies nothing about its probability, save that it is non-zero. Rather, to say that E “will” happen is simply to say “E does<\/span> happen subsequently”, nothing more. Since I think my thesis is pretty plausible, I think it gives us a good reason for rejecting Ockhamism.<\/p>\n

I wonder if anyone out there has an plausible counterexamples for my thesis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thesis: Whatever anyone must believe in order rationally to assert a proposition p is part of the meaning of p. Obvious case: One cannot rationally assert p unless one believes that p. If the thesis is right, then it provides a test for whether a given proposition q is part of the meaning of p.\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-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","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=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}