What is a Singular Proposition?

Mind 127 (508):1027-1067 (2018)
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Abstract

An account of the distinction between singular and general propositions should reflect the core ideas that have motivated the distinction. Those core ideas can be appreciated independently of many commitments regarding the metaphysics of propositions, but theorists with differing views on the latter have given quite different explanations of what it is for a proposition to be singular or general. Many of those explanations turn out not to reflect the core ideas adequately after all, either by misclassifying certain propositions or by failing to be sufficiently informative. A more satisfactory account can be formulated by more directly elaborating on the background ideas motivating the distinction. The resulting account not only does better than its competitors, but is compatible with various views on the metaphysics of propositions.

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Citations of this work

Hallucination and Its Objects.Alex Byrne & Riccardo Manzotti - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (3):327-359.
Perception and evidence.Alex Byrne - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 170:101-113.
Perception and ordinary objects.Alex Byrne - 2018 - In Javier Cumpa & Bill Brewer (eds.), The Nature of Ordinary Objects. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Aboutness.Stephen Yablo - 2014 - Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.

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