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What Is a Proposition?

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What Is a Proposition? 1 What is a proposition? by Arthur Sullivan Department of Philosophy Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada) email: [email protected] Abstract The aim of this research is to make some progress concerning one of the stumbling blocks at play in recent debates surrounding the semantics-pragmatics distinction: namely, that the foundational term ‘proposition’ tends to be used in different ways by different people. A bit more specifically, two primary goals of this paper are to distinguish the foundational question (i.e., ‘What is a proposition?’) from subsequent questions to which it is constitutively tied, and to clarify what hangs on some different answers to the foundational question. I begin with a brief overview of the semantics-pragmatics border wars. Then I investigate some central senses of the term ‘proposition’, and tie certain distinct notions of a proposition back to the semantics-pragmatics debates. Finally, I sketch a case for the claim that the foregoing bracken-clearing adds to the case in favor of one of the varieties of view in these semantics-pragmatics border wars – i.e., (borrowing Stanley’s variation on Recanati’s terminology) non-propositional syncretism. Keywords Proposition; semantics; pragmatics; contextualism; syncretism. 2 1. Overview One guiding assumption behind this present research is that there are some prevalent stumbling blocks at play in recent debates surrounding the semantics-pragmatics distinction, and that they help to hinder progress toward the kind of sophisticated, theoretical consensus that is being reached in some other areas of the study of language. One primary aim of this research is to make some progress concerning one such stumbling block: namely, that the foundational term ‘proposition’ tends to be used in different ways by different people. I will first briefly illustrate this focal stumbling block with reference to two current debates in which it seems likely that the opposing factions are adhering to distinct conceptions of a proposition. (I will return to both of these debates in §4.) First, one the one hand, Cappelen & Lepore (2005) insist that sentences like “Jill is ready” or “Simon is tall” express propositions. On the other hand, in different ways Recanati (2004), Bach (2005, 2006), Soames (2005), and Neale (2007) (among many others) deny that such sentences express propositions, insisting rather that what they semantically express is (in some sense) incomplete. For a second example, Potts (2005) defends a multiple-proposition theory of expressives, arguing that, say, “I have to look after Sally’s damn dog while she is away” semantically expresses two logically and compositionally independent propositions. In reviewing Potts’ work, while Bach (2007) finds the multiple-proposition approach to be plausible for some other phenomena (e.g., supplements), he rejects the multi-dimensional approach to expressives, largely on the grounds that that which expressives semantically add to a statement should not be classified as propositional. To the extent that there are several non-equivalent senses of the term ‘proposition’ employed in the literature, it is difficult to see exactly what is at issue in such disagreements. As a consequence, these debates lack the kind of focused, mutual engagement without which 3 resolution and progress are rather unlikely. There can be little hope of even sorting out these sorts of debate, let alone making progress on them, without further clarifications to the operative conceptions of ‘proposition’.1 Primary goals of this paper include: (i) to distinguish the foundational question (i.e., ‘What is a proposition?’) from subsequent questions to which it is constitutively tied, and (ii) to clarify what hangs on some different answers to the foundational question. Toward that end, I will investigate some central senses of the term ‘proposition’, and relate certain distinct notions of a proposition back to both certain issues, as well as certain theoretical approaches, at play in the debates at the semantics-pragmatics interface. 2. A survey of the disputed territories To set the stage, I next give an overview of some contested issues at the semantics-pragmatics interface, and of some of the main types of theoretical approach to those issues. (Henceforth, ‘semantics-pragmatics’ will be abbreviated to ‘S/P’.) I will call the extreme opposing factions in these S/P border wars ‘conservative literalism’ and ‘radical contextualism’. A wide range of options between these extremes have been developed and defended (some of which will be discussed below). Conservative literalists hold that semantic competence is a distinctive, tractable phenomenon which carries the vast majority of the explanatory burden within a theoretical account of our linguistic behavior. They insist that the explanation of why we are able to appropriately utter and successfully interpret an infinite range of expressions which we have never before encountered has almost entirely to do with our knowledge of a lexicon and a 1 For confluent discussions of the central importance of the precise content of the term ‘proposition’, cf. Recanati (2004: 90-5), Borg (2007: 347-50), Cappelen (2007: 15), and Taylor (2007: Section II). 4 grammar.2 Of course, in general, linguistic interpretation also requires facility with some salient contextual cues. (Most generally, the grammar plus the lexicon is insufficient to determine whether a certain linguistic expression is being used literally or non-literally. Other cases in which it is plausible to hold that interpretation requires extra-semantic help include disambiguation – e.g., ‘Al hurried to the bank’ – or the saturation of indexicals – e.g., semantic competence will tell you that the referent of a literally used token of ‘she’ is female, but it will not tell you exactly which female is the referent.) Nonetheless, says the literalist, these phenomena are circumscribed and peripheral; and even in such cases semantic competence (i.e., knowledge of what is literally expressed) is still the vastly most important factor in the interpretative process. Conservative literalists tend to give central importance to formal semantic theories. To a large extent, they conceive of the semantic enterprise as a matter of pairing sentences with (context-independent) truth conditions.3 The traditional S/P divide is both relatively clear and of paramount importance, for a conservative literalist. Semantics is the study of the lexicon and the grammar; pragmatics studies what speakers use linguistic expressions (whose literal meaning is specified by semantics) to do. Conservative literalists scoff at many provocative conjectures within the study of language (e.g., about metaphorical meanings, referential meanings, pragmatic 2 For convenience, I will factor semantic competence into two discrete components, which I will call ‘knowledge of a lexicon’ and ‘knowledge of a grammar’. Knowledge of a lexicon consists of understanding the meanings of a basic set of primitive expressions; knowledge of a grammar consists of facility with a set of compositional rules for combining primitive expressions into larger, molecular expressions. These stipulations are of course very crude, but I just use them for stage setting. As far as I can tell, these crude stipulations do not beg any important points of contention between literalists and contextualists. 3 For examples of different variations on this theme, cf. the separate research programs spearheaded by Davidson (1967), Montague (1974), Kaplan (1989), and Barwise & Perry (1983). 5 meanings, etc.) as simply fuzzy-headed mistakes attendant upon the failure to properly draw and consistently heed the S/P distinction.4 Radical contextualists, in contrast, hold that the project of pairing sentences with context- independent truth-conditions is, at best, a very small part of a comprehensive theoretical account of our linguistic behavior. (‘At best’ because some would go so far as to say that the conservative literalists’ cherished notion literal semantic meaning is “incoherent” (Recanati 2004: 4).) Contextualists attach great significance to the complex, dynamic adaptability of our linguistic behavior, and tend to hold that formal semantic theories are not terribly relevant to our unreflective, everyday communicative exchanges. Contextualists have more affinity for the ordinary language tradition in mid-20th-century philosophy of language. (Many – though by no means all – are explicitly pessimistic about the very idea of a systematic theoretical account of linguistic behavior.) Gently put, contextualists accuse literalists of fashioning theories that only apply to mythical frictionless planes, and of forcing various sorts of recalcitrant data (some of which are described below) to fit with their outdated, ill-motivated theories. I will briefly describe two distinct but related lines of contextualist argument against literalism, which I will call ‘context-shift’ arguments and ‘underdetermination’ arguments. Context-shift arguments challenge the very idea of context-independent truth-condition, on the grounds that the truth-conditions of a given sentence can vary among contexts. For example5, suppose the only beer in the (contextually salient) fridge is a teaspoon that has been spilled into the vegetable drawer. The one unambiguous sentence ‘There is beer in the fridge’ would be false if said to a reveler in search of refreshment, but would be true if said to someone who was 4 For example, cf. Davidson (1978) on metaphor, or Kripke (1977)
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