Propositions: Individuation and Invirtuation

The pressure to individuate propositions more finely than intensionally—that is, hyper-intensionally—has two distinct sources. One source is the philosophy of mind: one can believe a proposition without believing an intensionally equivalent proposition. The second source is metaphysics: there are intensionally equivalent propositions, such that one proposition is true in virtue of the other but not vice versa. I focus on what our theory of propositions should look like when it's guided by metaphysical concerns about what is true in virtue of what. In this paper I articulate and defend a metaphysical theory of the individuation of propositions, according to which two propositions are identical just in case they occupy the same nodes in a network of invirtuation relations. Invirtuation is here taken to be a primitive relation of metaphysical explanation exemplified by propositions that, in conjunction with truth, defines the notion of true in virtue of. After formulating the theory, I compare it with a view that individuates propositions by cognitive equivalence, and then defend the theory from objections.     

概率与命题

本文的主题是揭示信念对象。关于信念对象最流行的观点是指称主义的观点,指称主义者或把个体与性质组成的命题视为信念对象,或把可能世界集视为信念对象,但若从贝叶斯的确证理论出发来考察信念对象的话,就会发现指称主义与贝叶斯主义间的冲突,由于贝叶斯主义是一种相当成功的理论,因而指称主义是错误的。贝叶斯主义需要的是一种非指称的信念对象,对贝叶斯理论而言,首内涵可以扮演置信对象这一角色。不过首内涵缺乏结构,缺乏指称信息,前者可以用借助于结构化首内涵来解决,后者可以在前者的基础上借助于丰富化内涵进而借助于丰富化的命题来解决。     

The Meaning of Being: Husserl on Existential Propositions as Predicative Propositions

Axiomathes - This essay examines how Husserl stretches the bounds of his philosophy of meaning, according to which all propositions are categorical, to account for existential propositions, which...     

Pleonastic Entities: Fictional Characters and Propositions

Stephen Schiffer holds that propositions are pleonastic entities. I will argue that there is a substantial difference between propositions and fictional characters, which Schiffer presents as typical pleonastic entities. My conclusion will be that if fictional characters are typical pleonastic entities, then Schiffer fails to show that propositions are pleonastic entities.     

Hierarchical Propositions

The notion of a proposition is central to philosophy. But it is subject to paradoxes. A natural response is a hierarchical account and, ever since Russell proposed his theory of types in 1908, this has been the strategy of choice. But in this paper I raise a problem for such accounts. While this does not seem to have been recognized before, it would seem to render existing such accounts inadequate. The main purpose of the paper, however, is to provide a new hierarchical account that solves the problem.     

Abstracting Propositions

This paper examines the potential for abstracting propositions – an as yet untested way of defending the realist thesis that propositions as abstract entities exist. I motivate why we should want to abstract propositions and make clear, by basing an account on the neo-Fregean programme in arithmetic, what ontological and epistemological advantages a realist can gain from this. I then raise a series of problems for the abstraction that ultimately have serious repercussions for realism about propositions in general. I first identify problems about the number of entities able to be abstracted using these techniques. I then focus on how issues of language relativity result in problems akin to the Caesar problem in arithmetic by exposing circularity and modal concern over the status of the criterion of identity for propositions.     

Elusive Propositions

Journal of Philosophical Logic - David Kaplan observed in Kaplan (1995) that the principle $\forall p \Diamond \forall q (Qq \leftrightarrow q = p)$ cannot be verified at a world in a standard...