Can We Say More about Factual Discourse?

Abstract

It should pass as the merest commonplace, at least among philosophers of language, that a sentence is true when and only when reality is as the sentence describes it to be. However, elaborating this idea in the service of particular philosophical proposals is fraught with danger, as Stephen Neale shows in detail in Facing Facts (Oxford University Press, 2001) With considerable precision and care, Neale examines the commitments of both those who advocate, and those who argue against those who advocate, the view that a sentence stands for a situation or state of affairs in the world, or that a true sentence corresponds to, or is made true by, a fact. Neale's close examination results not only in a definitive and impressive account of the various collapsing arguments against facts that have come to be known as slingshots, but also yields insights into the underlying philosophical motivations of those who have wielded slingshot arguments. One of the most impressive aspects of these explorations is Neale's perspicuous presentation of the logical and metaphysical foundations of Donald Davidson's semantic programme: the culmination of fruitful exchanges over the years between Neale and Davidson about the nature of the latter's work. Sadly, Neale's chapter counts as the last word in those exchanges, but thankfully it is the best and most worked out account of the details of Davidson's semantic theory we have to date. I will concentrate on part of that chapter in the remarks that follow.