Peter Hanks defends a new theory about the nature of propositional content, according to which the basic bearers of representational properties are particular mental or spoken actions. He explains the unity of propositions and provides new solutions to a long list of puzzles and problems in philosophy of language.

In this paper I defend an account of the nature of propositional content according to which the proposition expressed by a declarative sentence is a certain type of action a speaker performs in uttering that sentence. On this view, the semantic contents of proper names turn out to be types of reference acts. By carefully individuating these types, it is possible to provide new solutions to Frege’s puzzles about names in identity- and belief-sentences.

In Hanks I defend a theory of propositions that locates the source of propositional unity in acts of predication that people perform in thought and speech. On my account, these acts of predication are judgmental or assertoric in character, and they commit the speaker to things being the way they are represented to be in the act of predication. This leads to a problem about negations, disjunctions, conditionals, and other kinds of embeddings. When you assert that a is F (...) or b is G you do not assert that a is F, nor do you commit yourself to a’s being F. According to my theory, however, in uttering the disjunction you predicate F of a. What is going on? I account for these cases using the concept of cancellation. In uttering the disjunction, the act of predicating F of a is cancelled, and when an act of predication is cancelled it does not count as an assertion and does not commit the speaker to anything. But what is it for an act of predication to be cancelled? One immediate concern is that cancelled predication won’t provide a unified proposition to be the input to disjunction. In this paper I answer this and related objections by explaining and defending my concept of cancellation. (shrink)

Propositions, the abstract, truth-bearing contents of sentences and beliefs, continue to be the focus of healthy debates in philosophy of language and metaphysics. This article is a critical survey of work on propositions since the mid-90s, with an emphasis on newer work from the past decade. Topics to be covered include a substitution puzzle about propositional designators, two recent arguments against propositions, and two new theories about the nature of propositions.

A first-person proposition is a proposition that only a single subject can assert or believe. When I assert ‘I am on fire’ I assert a first-person proposition that only I have access to, in the sense that no one else can assert or believe this proposition. This is in contrast to third-person propositions, which can be asserted or believed by anyone.

(2013). What are the primary bearers of truth? Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 43, Essays on the Nature of Propositions, pp. 558-574.

In 1913 Wittgenstein raised an objection to Russell’s multiple relation theory of judgment that eventually led Russell to abandon his theory. As he put it in the Tractatus, the objection was that “the correct explanation of the form of the proposition, ‘A makes the judgement p’, must show that it is impossible for a judgement to be a piece of nonsense. (Russell’s theory does not satisfy this requirement,” (5.5422). This objection has been widely interpreted to concern type restrictions on the (...) constituents of judgment. I argue that this interpretation is mistaken and that Wittgenstein’s objection is in fact a form of the problem of the unity of the proposition. (shrink)

Although the terms ‘poles’, ‘bipolar’, and ‘bipolarity’ do not appear in the Tractatus, it is widely held that Wittgenstein maintained his commitment to bipolarity in the Tractatus. As it is usually understood, the principle of bipolarity is that every proposition must be capable of being true and capable of being false, which rules out propositions that are necessarily true or necessarily false. Here I argue that Wittgenstein was committed to bipolarity in the Tractatus, but getting a clear view of this (...) commitment requires a different understanding of bipolarity. Properly understood, bipolarity is the view that every proposition represents two possible states of affairs, one positive and the other negative. Of course, in the case of elementary propositions, the sense of a proposition is only the positive state of affairs. There is thus an asymmetry between what a proposition represents, its true-false poles, and what it says, its sense. In this paper I show how Wittgenstein accounted for this asymmetry in Notes on Logic and I consider two ways he might have accounted for it in the Tractatus. (shrink)

The problem of the source of necessity is the problem of explaining what makes necessary truths necessarily true. Simon Blackburn has presented a dilemma intended to show that any reductive, realist account of the source of necessity is bound to fail. Although Blackburn's dilemma faces serious problems, reflection on the form of explanations of necessities reveals that a revised dilemma succeeds in defeating any reductive account of the source of necessity. The lesson is that necessity is metaphysically primitive and irreducible.

In this article we aim to see how far one can get in defending the identity thesis without challenging the inference from conceivability to possibility. Our defence consists of a dilemma for the modal argument. Either “pain” is rigid or it is not. If it is not rigid, then a key premise of the modal argument can be rejected. If it is rigid, the most plausible semantic account treats “pain” as a natural-kind term that refers to its causal or historical (...) origin, namely, C-fibre stimulation. It follows that any phenomenon that is not C-fibre stimulation is not pain, even if it is qualitatively similar to pain. This means there could be phenomena that feel like pain but are not pain since they are not C-fibre stimulation. These possible phenomena can be used to explain away the apparent conceivability of pain without C-fibre stimulation. On either horn of the dilemma, the identity theorist has ample resources to respond to Kripke's argument, even without wandering into the contentious territory of conceivability and possibility. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] of the best arguments in Trenton Merricks’s book Propositions – and there are many excellent arguments to choose from – occurs near the end, where he argues that if it is primitive that propositions represent things as being various ways then we should reject the view that propositions are structured and have constituents. As Merricks shows, combining these (...) views leads to an inexplicable coincidence between what a proposition represents and its constituents. Suppose that it is a primitive and unanalysable fact that the proposition that p represents Russell as being a philosopher. Suppose also that p has Russell and the property of being a philosopher as constituents. What is the relationship between these two facts? The latter cannot explain the... (shrink)

All too often when philosophers talk and write about sentences they have in mind only indicative sentences, that is, sentences that are true or false and that are normally used in the performance of assertions. When interrogative sentences are mentioned at all it is usually either in the form of a gesture toward some extension of the account of indicatives or an acknowledgment of the limitations of such an account. For example, in the final two sentences of his influential paper (...) “Truth and Meaning” (1967) Donald Davidson remarks. (shrink)

Some of the most interesting recent work in philosophy of language and metaphysics is focused on questions about propositions, the abstract, truth-bearing contents of sentences and beliefs. The aim of this guide is to give instructors and students a road map for some significant work on propositions since the mid-1990s. This work falls roughly into two areas: challenges to the existence of propositions and theories about the nature and structure of propositions. The former includes both a widely discussed puzzle about (...) propositional designators as well as direct and indirect arguments against the existence of propositions. The latter is dominated by what is currently the central debate about the metaphysics of propositions, i.e. whether they are structured, composite entities or unstructured ontological simples. This issue has eclipsed older debates about whether propositions can be identified with sets of possible worlds or other kinds of sentence intensions. Author Recommends 1. Soames, Scott. 'Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes, and Semantic Content.' Philosophical Topics 15 (1987): 47–87. Reprinted in Propositions and Attitudes . Eds. N. Salmon and S. Soames. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. 197–239. Essential groundwork for more recent work on propositions. Soames gives a careful and exacting presentation of the case against identifying propositions with sets of possible worlds or other truth-supporting circumstances. Also contains a detailed statement of the Russellian conception of propositions on which propositions are ordered sets of objects, properties and relations. 2. King, Jeffrey. 'Designating Propositions.' The Philosophical Review 111 (2002): 341–71. Sometimes substituting a definite description for a corresponding 'that'-clause can lead to bizarre changes in truth-conditions: compare 'Bill fears that Hillary will be president' with 'Bill fears the proposition that Hillary will be president'. This puzzle about propositional designators threatens the relational analysis of propositional attitude reports, the view that 'believes' expresses a relation to the proposition designated by its 'that'-clause, and thereby poses an indirect threat to the existence of propositions. King's solution posits an ambiguity in verbs like 'fear' that embed both 'that'-clauses and definite descriptions. 3. Jubien, Michael. 'Propositions and the Objects of Thought.' Philosophical Studies 104 (2001): 47–62. A direct attack on the existence of propositions. Jubien deploys an analogue of the problem that Paul Benacerraf raised for set-theoretical reductions of numbers against metaphysical reductions of propositions. Just as numbers can be reduced to sets in many different ways, any reduction of propositions brings with it equally good variants, thus making any such reduction arbitrary and unmotivated. The only alternative is to treat propositions as abstract metaphysical primitives. As Jubien argues, however, abstract primitive entities are incapable of doing what propositions must do, i.e. represent objects and states of affairs on their own, without the input of thinking subjects. The upshot is the propositions cannot be reduced and they cannot be primitive, and so they must not exist. 4. Hanks, Peter. 'How Wittgenstein Defeated Russell's Multiple Relation Theory of Judgment.' Synthese 154 (2007): 121–46. Scepticism about propositions has recently led some philosophers, Jubien included, to resuscitate Russell's multiple relation theory of judgment, the idea that judgment is a many-place relation to objects, properties and relations. This paper explains why Russell himself abandoned that theory, and why the theory is still refuted by an objection due to Wittgenstein. 5. Hofweber, Thomas. 'Inexpressible Properties and Propositions.' Oxford Studies in Metaphysics . 2 vols. Ed. D. Zimmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 155–206. An indirect attack on the existence of propositions. Hofweber argues that sentences like 'Bill believes something that Hillary asserted' do not commit us to the existence of propositions. His view is that propositional quantification is an instance of what he calls 'internal' or 'inferential role' quantification, a kind of quantification that carries no ontological implications. 6. Schiffer, Stephen. The Things We Mean . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. esp. chs 1–2. Schiffer defends his theory of pleonastic propositions, on which propositions are unstructured, have no parts, and are very finely grained. 7. Bealer, George. 'Propositions.' Mind 107 (1998): 1–32. Bealer defends his algebraic theory of propositions, which, like Schiffer's pleonastic account, treats propositions as unstructured metaphysical simples. 8. King, Jeffrey. The Nature of and Structure of Content . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. The best developed current theory of the structure in structured propositions. King identifies propositions with certain kinds of facts in which objects, properties and relations are bound together by amalgams of syntactic and semantic relations. 9. Hanks, Peter. 'Recent Work on Propositions.' Philosophy Compass 4 (2009): 1–18. A survey of work on propositions since the mid-1990s that complements this teaching and learning guide. Contains responses to Jubien's and Hofweber's arguments against propositions and critical discussions of Schiffer's pleonastic propositions and King's theory of propositional structure. Online Resources 1. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions/ Propositions (Matthew McGrath) 2. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions-structured/ Structured Propositions (Jeffrey King) 3. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions-singular/ Singular Propositions (Greg Fitch) Sample Partial Syllabus The following partial syllabus can be used as a unit on recent work on propositions in graduate level courses in philosophy of language or metaphysics. Week 1: A Substitution Puzzle About Propositional Designators King, Jeffrey. 'Designating Propositions'. Moltmann, Friederike. 'Propositional Attitudes Without Propositions.' Synthese 135 (2003): 77–118. Week 2: The Benacerraf Problem and Propositional Representation Benacerraf, Paul. 'What Numbers Could Not Be.' Philosophical Review 74 (1965): 47–73. Jubien, Michael. 'Propositions and the Objects of Thought.' Week 3: Propositional Quantification Hofweber, Thomas. 'Inexpressible Properties and Propositions'. Hofweber, Thomas. 'A Puzzle about Ontology.' Noûs 39 (2005): 256–83. Week 4: Schiffer on Pleonastic Propositions Schiffer, Stephen. 'Language-Created Language-Independent Entities.' Philosophical Topics 24 (1996): 149–67. Schiffer, Stephen. The Things We Mean , chs 1–2. Week 5: King on Structured Propositions King, Jeffrey. 'Structured Propositions and Complex Predicates.' Noûs , 29 (1995): 516–35. King, Jeffrey. The Nature and Structure of Content , chs 1–3. Focus Questions 1. Why does identifying propositions with sentence intensions, e.g. sets of possible worlds, 'require the attitudes to have a particular sort of closure under logical consequence, which they clearly don't have' (Mark Richard)? 2. How does the difference between (a) and (b) pose a threat to the existence of propositions? (a) Bill fears that Hillary will be president. (b) Bill fears the proposition that Hillary will be president. 3. What is the Benacerraf problem for metaphysical reductions of propositions? 4. Why must a proposition represent 'on its own cuff' (Michael Jubien)? Why is this a problem for the view that propositions are primitive abstract entities? 5. What does it mean to say that propositions are structured ? Give two different accounts of what propositional structure might be. (shrink)

In 1910 Bertrand Russell abandoned the theory of propositions that he advocated in 1903 in The Principles of Mathematics because of the problem of the unity of the proposition. This is the problem of explaining how the constituents of a proposition are bound together into a unified, representational whole. This problem has largely been ignored by contemporary advocates of Russellian propositions. I argue that this problem is the result of the Fregean distinction between content and force, the arguments for the (...) content-force distinction are inconclusive and there is independent linguistic evidence against the content-force distinction. For these reasons I think that Frege's distinction between content and force should be abandoned; this is the main negative conclusion of the dissertation. ;The main positive component of the dissertation is an account of structured propositions that individuates propositions in terms of force or mood. On the account I defend, propositions are types of representational actions or states. The proposition expressed by 'Jones loves Smith', for example, is a type of representational state, tokens of which are particular assertions that Jones loves Smith or belief-states that Jones loves Smith. The proposition expressed by 'Does Jones love Smith?', on the other hand, is a type of interrogative action or state, tokens of which are instances of asking whether Jones loves Smith or wondering whether Jones loves Smith. This account solves the problem of the unity of proposition by locating the unifying element in a proposition in an act of the subject. In addition, this account provides an empirical foundation for semantics. A semantic theory, on this view, is a theory of what speakers do with sentences in contexts. To say that a sentence S expresses a proposition p in context c is to record a fact about the literal and direct illocutionary act that could be performed using S in c. (shrink)

In this short, clear and engaging book, Neil Feit defends the unorthodox view that the contents of beliefs and other cognitive attitudes are properties, and not, as is usually held, propositions. The core of his argument has to do with de se beliefs, beliefs about the self. Based on examples and arguments due to Perry , Lewis and Chisholm , along with considerations about internalism and physicalism, Feit offers a battery of arguments for the conclusion that the contents of de (...) se beliefs cannot be propositions and therefore must be properties. For reasons of uniformity and simplicity Feit then extends this conclusion to all beliefs. So, according to Feit, the content of the de se belief that I am a philosopher is the property of being a philosopher, and my having this belief consists in my self-ascribing this property. For de dicto beliefs, believing that p is self-ascribing the property of being such that p, and for de re beliefs, believing that x is F is self-ascribing the property of bearing some relation of acquaintance R to something that is F. For example, to have the de dicto belief that …. (shrink)

New York and London: Routledge, 2015. 208 pages. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-41-573039-6. Reviewed by Peter Hanks.

The problem of logical omniscience breaks down to the problems of the closure of knowledge under implication and of the distribution of knowledge over implication. In late medieval scholasticism these two related issues were engaged in various genres, in particular in general analysis of validity, games of obligationes, solution to self-referential antinomies and semantics of terms. The present study analyses the corpus of fourteenth-century texts with some overreaches to the subsequent two centuries, attempting to cover representatives of both the “British” (...) and the “Continental” tradition. With some degree of simplification, this results in a range of four basic positions: 1. knowledge is closed under “analytic entailment” (Buridan), 2. knowledge distributes over implication (Heytesbury), 3. knowledge distributes over implication provided that its consequent’s truth is being taken into consideration (Peter of Mantua), 4. knowledge does not distribute overimplication (Wyclif). (shrink)

Fourteenth-century logic gave rise, among others, to the genre De scire et dubitare, which offered a unified framework for discussing different forms of epistemic sophisms by utilising the underlying systems of epistemic logic. One of the problems introduced in this context already by the founding father of this genre, William Heytesbury, was the so-called axiom of positive introspection, i.e., the principle that an agent who knows that something is the case, knows that she knows that it is the case. Owing (...) to Heytesbury’s enormous popularity in the subsequent centuries, discussion of this problem became relatively widespread. This debate was addressed already in Boh’s seminal Epistemic Logic in the Later Middle Ages, which, despite its limitations acknowledged by its author, is a standard source. The present study elaborates on Boh by extending the corpus of his works and drawing new connections based on that. The core of the survey consists of an analysis of the positions of William Heytesbury and John Wyclif, their Italian reception by Peter of Mantua, and the “continental” reception of Heytesbury by John of Holland. The main goals of this study are to formalise the key arguments, which makes it possible to address the underlying systems of epistemic logic and their respective “strength”, and to articulate the conceptual background of those arguments and systems. The gist of the debate is, on one of the sides, an attempt to prove that it is impossible to doubt whether one knows that something is the case by employing whether the principles of positive introspection and of distribution of knowledge over implication, or the principles of positive and negative introspection combined. (shrink)

The article starts from an examination of the authorship of the ‘Geleitwort’, the programmatic statement which appeared in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft when it came under new editors in 1904. Recently scholars have begun to view it as an important text by Max Weber recovered from obscurity, but this is a mistake. Examination of major contemporary works by Weber and Werner Sombart – the obvious co-author – as well as the first public disclosure of an entirely new MS. by Weber, (...) show that in all probability the text was drafted by Sombart and then revised fairly lightly by Weber. This story of a combined, if unequal, authorship leads into two broader seams of intellectual history: the relationship between Weber and Sombart, and the history of the Archiv as a journal. An unusual starting point thus casts fresh and unexpected light on some of the most central figures and episodes in German social science at the beginning of the 20th century, not least Weber's seminal essay on “Objectivity” in social science. ☆ This paper relies on intellectual interchange and the generosity of colleagues to a quite unusual degree. I note three particular debts: to Prof. Friedrich Lenger, for a copy of Sombart's important 1897 essay on ‘Social Scientific Journals’; to Prof. Guenther Roth for letter transcripts bearing on the Archiv from and to Edgar Jaffé, and for showing me in draft his ground-breaking work ‘Edgar Jaffé and Else von Richthofen: a biographical essay based on the family archive of Christopher Jeffrey’ [hereafter ‘Biographical Essay]; and to Dr. Edith Hanke and Prof. Rainer Lepsius (on behalf of the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe). Dr. Hanke brought to my notice the existence of the MS. which I have called Weber's draft Editorial Notice (see §.IV below), and Prof. Lepsius then gave permission for me to see and to cite from this document. — Some abbreviations: AfSS for Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik; AfGS for Archiv für Soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik; Lebensbild for Marianne Weber, Max Weber. Ein Lebensbild [1926] (Tübingen, 1989); MWG for Max Weber Gesamtausgabe ed. Horst Baier et al. (Tübingen, 1984-). Letters by Weber within the MWG are cited as Briefe; ‘Nachlaß Max Weber’ for unpublished letters in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, VI. HA Nachlaß Max Weber. (shrink)

Hank Greely’s target article, “Human Brain Surrogates Research: The Onrushing Ethical Dilemma” reviews the manifold scientific and ethical questions surrounding models of human brains used i...

En publicaciones recientes, Peter Hanks argumenta que las proposiciones son tipos cuyos ejemplares son actos de predicación tales como juicios y aserciones. Ahora bien, según esta concepción que yo podría subscribir, resulta que un agente que asevera una proposición de primera persona no puede compartirla con nadie más. Así, nada parece más desafi ante que explicar la comunicación de se y los reportes de las actitudes proposicionales de se. Muestro aquí algunos problemas con la aproximación de Hanks (...) para luego ofrecer una respuesta mejor. (shrink)

Spoken sentences have parts. Therefore they take time to speak. For instance, when you say, “Socrates is running”, you begin by uttering the subject term ("Socrates"), before carrying on to the predicate. But are the corresponding predications in thought also composite? And are such thoughts extended across time, like their spoken counterparts? Peter Abelard gave an affirmative response to both questions. Alberic of Paris denied the first and, as a corollary, denied the second. Here, I first set out Abelard’s (...) account. I then present a series of arguments against Abelard, reconstructed from (sometimes fragmentary) manuscripts associated with Alberic’s school. I conclude with an observation about present philosophy of language: this twelfth-century debate points to some undefended (and largely unstated) assumptions common to our latest thinking about propositions. I highlight this by presenting recent accounts of two philosophers with radically different outlooks: Jeffrey King and Peter Hanks. Both their accounts take many of the same things for granted, as the Alberican criticisms make plain. (shrink)

This book bridges media, technocultural, urban and journalism studies to examine the role of journalism in relation to a smart city project on Toronto’s waterfront. From the announcement of the public-private partnership called Sidewalk Toronto to the project’s termination, a mediatized controversy unfolded. Through an assemblage approach and a comprehensive case study of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, it follows the actors and chronicles the Quayside project story as a conversation about the promise and perils of a (...) future “smart” neighbourhood. In the news of Waterfront Toronto, Sidewalk Labs, other actors, events and developments, there were multiple voices and views, interpretations and arguments, that manifested conflicting interests and values. As a situated actor, journalism produced a porous discourse where the prognostic value of the project to come could be expressed. The Quayside story not only described the project and the process with an active propose-and-public pushback movement but articulated relations of transparency and trust, governance and accountability. Journalist’s work of mediation conditioned the project’s emergence and dissolution within asymmetrical relations of power. Sidewalk Lab’s bid for legitimacy would face an oppositional dimension that indented the project’s enactment. Moreover, a time lag between project time and governmental policymaking made the mediatized controversy intractable. With their residual symbolic power, quality journalism contributed to dialogical urban learning. (shrink)

O texto parte das considerações que Schopenhauer faz acerca do princípio de razão suficiente do agir na sua dissertação Sobre a quadrúplice raiz do princípio de razão suficiente e da negação da Vontade de vida nos §68-70 de O mundo como vontade e como representação; e como a conduta relacionada a este conceito pode ser observada ao longo da história, seja no cristianismo ou nas religiões indianas, mostrando como é possível chegar à tal conhecimento. Em seguida, aliado ao texto kantiano (...) sobre as grandezas negativas, mostro a inversão que Schopenhauer faz dos sinais do que é considerado positivo ou negativo, ou seja, ser e nada, devido a uma troca de perspectiva em consequência da chamada “viragem da vontade”. (shrink)

As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)