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Are Contexts Semantic Determinants?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Philip P. Hanson
Philip P. Hanson*
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Extract

By a ‘semantic determinant’ I will mean“…a structural feature of the world necessary for the determination of truth and falsity …,” or briefly, “Semantic determinants are things that determine valuations.” (Thomason (1972), pp. 301, 302), where such determination is functional and where valuations are themselves functions from sentences into truth values. A familar example is the ‘domain of individuals’ relative to which truth conditions are given for sentences containing “all,” “some,” and related expressions, where these can be construed as ‘quantifiers.’ Thus, e.g., “Some men are albinos” is true just in case at least one individual in the domain which is a man is also an albino. For this truth condition to be making a definite claim we must suppose that the domain is a definite (though not necessarily finite) set of individuals fixed in advance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 6: New Essays in Philosophy of Language , 1980 , pp. 161 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1980

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