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Conditionals and Propositions in Semantics

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Notes

  1. While there has been some controversy over this claim, recent work has strengthened the case for disassociating sentential semantic values from the propositional content of a sentence [38, 39].

  2. I do not even consider the dynamic tradition of Heim [14] and Kamp [19] to represent a very serious departure from propositionalism. While it is true that certain uses of indefinite descriptions do not have just propositional content, there are still, in most cases, easily recoverable propositions expressed in these semantic systems. However, I do think dynamic test semantics [50] is a non-propositionalist theory. Regardless there is not a clear all-or-nothing distinction here.

  3. I base all these claims not just on widely-held intuitions about cases, but also on empirical studies (see, e.g., [8]).

  4. However, note that there are some challenges to modus ponens in the literature: such as McGee’s [34] much discussed case, and, in the more recent literature, more subtle cases have arisen [21, 23].

  5. However, more recently, Stalnaker [49] has given a case which he takes to be a counterexample to the inference.

  6. See also Gillies [11], Kratzer [26], Khoo [21] for further discussion.

  7. See Edgington [7] and Hajek and Hall [13] for an overview. Cozic and Égré [5] make an important connection between the triviality results and the limitations of unary quantification.

  8. It’s important to note that Kratzer explicitly argues that only certain conditionals are subjective in this respect: all are modalized for Kratzer but the modal base across different cases.

  9. Although Kratzer treats conditionals as strict her account of modals [24] makes strict conditionals equivalent to variably strict ones (see [32] for details).

  10. Though in later work Stalnaker [48, 49] elaborates more about what propositions, if any, he thinks conditionals express.

  11. More recently, Stalnaker [49] has even suggested that the inference is not always even pragmatically valid.

  12. See Khoo [20] for a discussion of the problems facing a dynamic account.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Daniel Rothschild

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Correspondence to Daniel Rothschild.

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I am grateful to Justin Khoo and Seth Yalcin for discussion.

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Rothschild, D. Conditionals and Propositions in Semantics. J Philos Logic 44, 781–791 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-015-9359-5

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