Propositional Unity Research Articles

Analysis, Decomposition, and Unity in Wittgenstein's Tractatus

I argue, through appeal to the distinction between analysis and decomposition described by Dummett, that Wittgenstein employs both of those notions in the Tractatus. I then bring this interpretation to bear upon the issue of propositional unity, where I formulate an objection to the views of both Leonard Linksy and José Zalabardo. I show that both Linsky and Zalabardo fail to acknowledge the distinction between analysis and decomposition present in the Tractatus, and that they consequently mischaracterise Wittgenstein’s position with respect to propositional unity.

William James, Radical Empiricism, and the Affective Ground of Religious Life

William James, Radical Empiricism, and the Affective Ground of Religious Life

Pretense, cancellation, and the act theory of propositions

ABSTRACT Several philosophers advance substantive theories of propositions to deal with several issues they raise in connection with a concern with a long pedigree in philosophy, the problem of the unity of propositions. The qualification ‘substantive’ is meant to contrast with ‘minimal’ or ‘deflationary’ – roughly, views that reject that propositions have a hidden nature, worth investigating. Substantive views appear to create spurious problems by characterizing propositions in ways that make them unfit to perform their theoretical jobs. I will present in this light some critical points against Hanks’ (2015, 2019) act-theoretic view, and Recanati’s [2019. “Force Cancellation.” Synthese 196: 1403–1424. doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1223-9.] recent elaboration of Hanks’ notion of cancellation. Both Hanks and Recanati, I’ll argue, rely on problematic conceptions of fiction and pretense.

“Somos criaturas de la lógica y no del silencio”: la unidad proposicional según Alberto Moretti

En este comentario me refiero a algunos aspectos de la propuesta de Moretti acerca del problema de la unidad proposicional, basada en su interpretación de las ideas de Frege y Davidson. La misma sostiene que, más allá de sus evidentes diferencias, ambas concepciones del lenguaje y del significado oracional, en tanto atribuyen al lenguaje una función esencialmente representacional, comparten una manera de entender la primacía de la aserción por sobre otros tipos de emisiones lingüísticas. A su vez, según Moretti, las aserciones reflejan la importancia del lenguaje para entender tanto los rasgos constitutivos de las capacidades cognoscitivas humanas como también sus límites. Después de examinar la interpretación de Moretti, formulo un conjunto de preguntas y objeciones acerca de los presupuestos y compromisos teóricos del enfoque fregeano-davidsoniano que se desprenden de diversos enfoques alternativos (cognitivos, pragmáticos y semánticos). Esos enfoques pueden confluir en una visión de los sistemas lingüísticos que considera más básicos a sus usos comunicativos que a sus funciones representacionales. Así, la unidad proposicional podría ser mejor explicada como un rasgo derivado de los actos cognitivos de los hablantes (incluidas sus intenciones comunicativas). Y los contenidos semánticos de las expresiones lingüísticas resultarían determinados, finalmente, por los factores que intervienen en la realización de los actos de habla de los que forman parte, sin otorgar primacía a los actos de habla asertivos, y menos aún, a sus productos, las oraciones declarativas.

The capacity to know and perception

The capacity to know and perception

Husserl on Meaning, Grammar, and the Structure of Content

Husserl’s Logical Grammar is intended to explain how complex expressions can be constructed out of simple ones so that their meaning turns out to be determined by the meanings of their constituent parts and the way they are put together. Meanings are thus understood as structured contents and classified into formal categories to the effect that the logical properties of expressions reflect their grammatical properties. As long as linguistic meaning reduces to the intentional content of pre-linguistic representations, however, it is not trivial to account for how semantics relates to syntax in this context. In this paper, I analyze Husserl’s Logical Grammar as a system of recursive rules operating on representations and suggest that the syntactic form of representations (both mental and linguistic) contributes to their semantics because it carries information about semantic role. I further discuss Husserl’s syntactic account of the unity of propositions and argue that, on this account, logical form supervenes on syntactic form. In the last section I draw some implications for the phenomenology of thought and conjecture that the structural features it displays are likely to convey the syntactic structures of an underlying language-like representational system.

Frege and propositional unity

ABSTRACTThis paper identifies a tension in Frege’s philosophy and offers a diagnosis of its origins. Frege’s Context Principle can be used to dissolve the problem of propositional unity. However, Frege’s official response to the problem does not invoke the Context Principle, but the distinction between ‘saturated’ and ‘unsaturated’ propositional constituents. I argue that such a response involves assumptions that clash with the Context Principle. I suggest, however, that this tension is not generated by deep-seated philosophical commitments, but by Frege’s occasional attempt to take a dubious shortcut in the justification of his conception of propositional structure.

SYSTEMATIZATION OF LAW: THE BRICS CONTEXT AND BEYOND

The present paper deals with the theoretical question of how can be warranted unity of legal system in the perspective of building up a new legal order of the BRICS. The author draws on the contemporary theories considering various aspects of explanation and construction of law as of a logically united system. Among such aspects are logical unity of legal propositions, epistemological unity of the phenomena unified under the term ‘law,’ factual unity of societal regulation, axiological unity of a hierarchy of legal values, procedural unity of legal reasoning, synergetic unison. It is asserted that the idea of unity of law is not something conceptually monolithic and allows for different readings, none of which can claim to be exhaustive. The author suggests that the BRICS does not need follow the track of systematization of the legislation of the Member States and that creating agglomerations of legal texts from different legal orders of the Member States is an issue not for politician but rather for legal scholars who can construct and reconstruct legal texts, jointing and disjointing them in the view of practical needs of amelioration of legal technique.

SYSTEMATIZATION OF LAW: THE BRICS CONTEXT AND BEYOND

The present paper deals with the theoretical question of how can be warranted unity of legal system in the perspective of building up a new legal order of the BRICS. The author draws on the contemporary theories considering various aspects of explanation and construction of law as of a logically united system. Among such aspects are logical unity of legal propositions, epistemological unity of the phenomena unified under the term ‘law,’ factual unity of societal regulation, axiological unity of a hierarchy of legal values, procedural unity of legal reasoning, synergetic unison. It is asserted that the idea of unity of law is not something conceptually monolithic and allows for different readings, none of which can claim to be exhaustive. The author suggests that the BRICS does not need follow the track of systematization of the legislation of the Member States and that creating agglomerations of legal texts from different legal orders of the Member States is an issue not for politician but rather for legal scholars who can construct and reconstruct legal texts, jointing and disjointing them in the view of practical needs of amelioration of legal technique.

Peirce and the Unity of the Proposition

The paper addresses the issue of propositional unity in Peirce’s logic: what distinguishes a proposition from a mere list of constituents, so that the former is able to say something while the latter is not? I first give a brief survey of Frege’s, Russell’s, and Wittgenstein’s endeavours to cope with the question of the unity of the proposition. I then proceed to analyze Peirce’s solution thereof. Like Frege, Peirce developed a chemistry of concepts capable of avoiding the difficulties raised by the unity problem. He subsequently adopted a version of Russell’s Principle of Acquaintance and claimed that that which gives a proposition its unity is a peculiar relation that he called “continuous predicate.” Finally, I attempt to illustrate what Peirce would have replied to Wittgenstein’s claim that logical form is ineffable.

Why it isn't syntax that unifies the proposition

King develops a syntax-based account of propositions based on the idea that propositional unity is grounded in the syntactic structure of the sentence. This account faces two objections: a Benacerraf objection and a grain-size objection. I argue that the syntax-based account survives both objections, as they have been put forward in the existing literature. I go on to show, however, that King equivocates between two distinct notions of ‘propositional structure’ when explaining his account. Once the confusion is resolved, it is clear that the syntax-based account suffers from both Benacerraf and grain-size problems after all. I conclude by showing that King's account can be revised to avoid these problems, but only if it abandons its motivating idea that it is syntax that unifies the proposition.

Two aspects of propositional unity

The paper builds upon familiar arguments against identifying the proposition that Brutus stabbed Caesar with a given sequence containing Brutus, Caesar, and the stabs relation. It identifies a further problem, one that affects not only traditional Russellian accounts of propositions, but also the recent act-theoretic approach championed by Scott Soames and Peter Hanks. The problem is that there is no clear content to the idea that the pair < Brutus, Caesar> instantiates the stabs relation. It is argued that this further problem presents a decisive objection to the act-theoretic approach to propositions.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Recent Work on Structured Meaning and Propositional Unity

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: <i>Recent Work on Structured Meaning and Propositional Unity</i>

Recent Work on Structured Meaning and Propositional Unity

AbstractLogical semantics includes once again structured meanings in its repertoire. The leading idea is that semantic and syntactic structure are more or less isomorphic. A key motive for reintroducing sensitivity to semantic structure is to obtain fine‐grained meanings, which are individuated more finely than in possible‐world semantics, namely up to necessary equivalence. Just getting the truth‐conditions right is deemed insufficient for a full semantic analysis of sentences. This paper surveys some of the most recent contributions to the program of structured meaning, while providing historical background. I suggest that to make substantial advances the program needs to solve the problem of propositional unity and develop an intensional mereology of abstract objects.

Propositional unity: what’s the problem, who has it and who solves it?

At least since Russell’s influential discussion in The Principles of Mathematics, many philosophers have held there is a problem that they call the problem of the unity of the proposition. In a recent paper, I argued that there is no single problem that alone deserves the epithet the problem of the unity of the proposition. I there distinguished three problems or questions, each of which had some right to be called a problem regarding the unity of the proposition; and I showed how the account of propositions formulated in my book The Nature and Structure of Content [2007 Oxford University Press] solves each of these problems. In the present paper, I take up two of these problems/questions yet again. For I want to consider other accounts of propositions and compare their solutions to these problems, or lack thereof, to mine. I argue that my account provides the best solutions to the unity problems.

Is there a Problem about Propositional Unity?

The problem of the ‘Unity of the Proposition’ is the problem of explaining the difference between a content-expressing declarative sentence and a ‘mere list’ of referents. The prevailing view is that such a problem is to be solved metaphysically, either by reducing our ontology to exclude propositions or universals, or by explaining how it is possible for a certain kind of complex entity – the ‘proposition’– to ‘unify’ its constituents. I argue that these metaphysical approaches cannot succeed; instead the only viable approach is linguistic, identifying features of the (type–) sentence itself that enable it to express a content. Thus the problem of the ‘Unity of the Proposition’ (distinguishing sentences from lists) is distinct from the problem of ‘propositional unity’ (explaining how the constituents of propositions form a unified content). I suggest that, while the latter problem is not pressing, the former does not permit of an answer which applies in generality in all languages; we can only fully explain the Unity of the Proposition for single languages or groups of similar languages.

“... goaded perhaps by Parmenides” – Preliminaries to a Platonic Problem

SummaryDonald Davidson, in his Truth and Predication, suggests that Plato’s concern with “gluing together” subject and predicate in assertive sentences might be traced back to Parmenides. Taking his lead this paper discusses the connection, proceeding in three steps. A short overview of the literature on Parmenides’ fragment B2 will be given and a Davidsonian move to reduce the complexity of the hermeneutical situation will be proposed. Secondly, given this reduction, a Parmenideian tableaux will be put forward and compared to our present understanding of elementary propositional and predicate logic. This will provide the basis for the concluding discussion of Plato’s characteristic transformation of Parmenides’ dictum into the bundle of arguments that give rise to the problem of the unity of propositions.

XIII-Questions of Unity

In The Principles of Mathematics , Bertrand Russell famously puzzled over something he called the unity of the proposition. Echoing Russell, many philosophers have talked over the years about the question or problem of the unity of the proposition. In fact, I believe that there are a number of quite distinct though related questions all of which can plausibly be taken to be questions regarding the unity of propositions. I state three such questions and show how the theory of propositions defended in my recent book The Nature and Structure of Content (2007) answers them.

Why the tuple theory of structured propositions isn't a theory of structured propositions

Much is at stake. The notion of structured propositions – in particular structured singular propositions – is a cornerstone of the theory of direct reference, yet if the intuitive notion of structured proposition cannot possibly translate into ordered ntuples, as direct reference theory does, then that theory finds itself without a semantics in one of its key areas. This would prove an embarrassment, considering that its founding father, David Kaplan, first put forward the notion a quarter of a century ago. If the objections go through, however, it’s not only direct reference theory that will be seen to have left a central notion dangling. E.g., also Max J. Cresswell’s brand of categorial grammar relies on tuples as propositional structures (see Cresswell, 1985). It’s important to stress that the attack on tuples as propositional structures isn’t an attack on the notions of either singular or structured proposition. Indeed, both have much to be said for them, albeit they would deserve to be developed within a different framework. An historical parallel might be in place. Since Frege never came around to developing a formal theory of Sinne, it at some point became tempting to construe them as intensions a la possible worlds semantics, i.e., as functions (mappings) defined on a set of possible worlds. It’s well-known today that, and why, the construal was an aberration. Similarly, since Russell never got a firm grip on his propositions, it has become tempting to construe them as tuples. This essay tries to show why they shouldn’t be. In setting out why, we’ll see, among other, that the old problem of propositional unity afflicting Russell’s propositions rears its head again (see Jacquette 1992/93, Griffin 1993). But tuples-as-structures are open to an even more fundamental objection (Section IV).

Some Kantian Thoughts on Propositional Unity

Kant's name is seldom mentioned in discussions of mereology or in surveys of its history. And this omission would of course make sense if, as the authors of one such survey claim, 'the whole-part relation does not play an important role in Kant's mature philosophy, and it is not included by Kant among the categories'.2 Conversely, moreover, mereological notions and doctrines have seldom been invoked in the interpretation and evaluation of Kant's Critical thought itself.3 My overall aim in what follows is to try and counteract this tendency, and to indicate the fundamental role played in Kant's mature thought by explicitly mereological problems, concepts, and theories. Perhaps this will turn out to be no hard task if, as I suspect, a mereological reading is required for the Kantian categories of Unity, Plurality, Totality and Community, as well as for such central concepts as those of combination, synthesis, analysis, manifold, number, system, aggregate, synthetic unity, and