Attributive uses of prosentences
Ratio 16 (1):1–15 (2003)
| Abstract | Defenders of the prosentential theory of truth claim that the English language contains prosentences which function analogously to their better known cousins – pronouns. Statements such as ‘That is true’ or ‘It is true’, they claim, inherit their content from antecedent statements, just as pronouns inherit their reference from antecedent singular terms. Prosentential theorists claim that the content of these prosentences is exhausted by the content of their antecedents. They then use the notion of the inheritance of content from an antecedent to explain the various functions of the predicate ‘. . . is true’. Defenders of the prosentential theory of truth are mistaken, I claim, in thinking that in order to oppose the view that ‘. . . is true’ is used to ascribe a substantive truth property to propositions they need to claim that no uses of ‘. . . is true’ ever attribute any property. I identify an ‘attributive’ use of prosentences in which reliability is implicitly attributed to a subject. I then use the capacity of prosentences to serve as implicit attributions of reliability as a basis for explicating the logical structure of explicit attributions of reliability. The identification of an attributive use of prosentences does not constitute a fundamental change in the prosentential theory. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMaciej Witek (2005). Truth and Conversation. Philosophica 75:103-135.
Harry Ide (1992). Chrysippus's Response to Diodorus's Master Argument. History and Philosophy of Logic 13 (2):133-148.
Paolo Casalegno (2005). Truth and Truthfulness Attributions. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (3):295–320.
Alberto Vanzo (2010). Kant on the Nominal Definition of Truth. Kant-Studien 101 (2):147-166.
Bradley Dowden, Truth. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Dorothy Grover (1979). Prosentences and Propositional Quantification: A Response to Zimmerman. Philosophical Studies 35 (3):289 - 297.
Diego Marconi (2006). On the Mind Dependence of Truth. Erkenntnis 65 (3):301 - 318.
Arvid Båve (2009). Why Is a Truth-Predicate Like a Pronoun? Philosophical Studies 145 (2):297 - 310.
James R. Beebe, Prosentential Theory of Truth. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads5 ( #160,204 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)0How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
