Abstract

Mind the Gap Presupposition has been a widely discussed topic in the philosophical and linguistic tradition since the beginning: Frege, in Über Sinn und Bedeutung , claims that the use of a singular term presupposes the existence of the individual denoted. The Fregean example was that to give a truth value to the sentenceKepler died in miserywe need to take for granted the truth of the propositionKepler existedTherefore, is a semantic presupposition of . Since the Fregean stance, analytic scholars have given the following definition: a sentence p semantically presupposes a sentence q if we need the truth of q in order to treat p as endowed with sense, that is, as either true or false. If the presupposition is lacking, then the sentence p lacks a truth value . Russell, in On Denoting , launched a strong criticism of the Fregean theory of semantic presupposition, contrasting the Fregean view with ..