Sententialism: The Thesis That Complement Clauses Refer to Themselves

Higginbotham, James

doi:10.1111/j.1533-6077.2006.00105.x

Cited by 14 publications

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“…This is exactly what Jim Higginbotham (Higginbotham ) suggested, but I think that solving the problem in this way constitutes a departure from sententialism, and not a defence of it. According to Higginbotham, Zoltan knows that Pierre believes that snow is white is true iff there is something Zoltan knows that matches in content with Pierre believes that snow is white, while Zoltan knows that Pierre believes ‘Snow is white’, is true iff there is something Zoltan knows that matches in content with Pierre believes ‘Snow is white’. Thus, he maintains, in order for (2) and (2′) to have the same truth‐conditions, (1) and (1′) should match in content but, he argues, they do not, “because the relation of content‐matching intervenes, and distinguishes (as it should)” (Higginbotham , 111). Higginbotham does not define the relation of matching in content , but it seems to me that any definition according to which (1) and (1′) do not match in content counts as a departure from sententialism.…”

Section: A Unified Solutionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…A sententialist may try to deny that she is forced to hold that (2) and (2′) have the same truth-conditions. This is exactly what Jim Higginbotham (Higginbotham 2006) suggested, but I think that solving the problem in this way constitutes a departure from sententialism, and not a defence of it. According to Higginbotham,(2) Zoltan knows that Pierre believes that snow is white is true iff there is something Zoltan knows that matches in content with…”

Section: On Schiffer's Problemmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…There are different ways of spelling out what to believe a sentence amounts to: to believe the sentence to be true (Quine , 185) or to have a belief which has the same content as the sentence (Higginbotham , 102). In order to be as neutral as possible, I prefer sentences like ‘Pierre believes “Snow is white”’, even if they are ungrammatical in English.…”

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confidence: 99%

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‘In Defence of Sententialism’

Felappi

2014

Dialectica

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Propositional attitude sentences, such as (1) Pierre believes that snow is white, have proved to be formidably difficult to account for in a semantic theory. It is generally agreed that the that-clause 'that snow is white' purports to refer to the proposition that snow is white, but no agreement has been reached on what this proposition is. Sententialism is a semantic theory which tries to undermine the very enterprise of understanding what proposition is referred to in (1): according to sententialists, in (1) reference is made to the sentence "Snow is white". Sententialism is generally considered doomed. The two main reasons why are the famous translation argument, firstly suggested by Alonzo Church, and a problem raised by Stephen Schiffer.The purpose of this paper is to provide a unified solution to both criticisms. What I take to be the key ingredient sententialists may exploit is an observation that concerns the nature of languages and quotations: since quotation marks display the quoted material, if you are a speaker of the language the quoted material belongs to, you usually cannot but understand what is quoted. Moreover, I show that sententialists may appeal to that very observation also in order to answer another problem, pointed out by Kent Bach. I conclude that there are good reasons for resisting the temptation of introducing propositions in order to account for propositional attitude sentences.

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Section: A Unified Solutionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: On Schiffer's Problemmentioning

confidence: 73%

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‘In Defence of Sententialism’

Felappi

2014

Dialectica

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“…6 See e.g. Higginbotham (2006). For our purposes we should understand sententialism as entailing that propositions play no part in the objects of attitudes.…”

Section: Illicit Assumptions and The Minimal Theory Of Disagreementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Disagreement in Semantic Theory

Baker

2013

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form will be published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy 2014; the Australasian Journal of Philosophy is available online at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/.Arguments from disagreement often take centre stage in debates between competing semantic theories. This paper explores the theoretical basis for arguments from disagreement and, in so doing, proposes methodological principles which allow us to distinguish between legitimate arguments from disagreement and dialectically ineffective arguments from disagreement. In the light of these principles I evaluate Cappelen & Hawthorne's (2009) argument from disagreement against relativism, and show that it fails to undermine relativism since it is dialectically ineffective. Nevertheless, I argue that an alternative challenge to relativism based on disagreement is available. More generally, I argue that semantic theory is not answerable to data stemming from 'loaded' philosophical principles regarding the nature of disagreement. Rather, semantic theorists will exhaust their dialectical responsibilities regarding disagreement if they can demonstrate consistency with a minimal account of the concept.Arguments from disagreement often play an influential role in debates between semantic theories.In the recent debate over relativism, for instance, arguments from disagreement have been variously taken to provide evidence either for or against different forms of semantic relativity in expressions such as taste predicates and epistemic modals. This paper explores an aspect of these arguments which has not yet received the attention it deserves: namely, the role of philosophical assumptions about the nature of disagreement in arguments from disagreement. I explore what an argument from disagreement may legitimately assume about disagreement's nature whilst remaining dialectically effective in a debate over semantic theory-that is, to establish what should be considered data to be accommodated by a successful semantic theory, and the extent to which substantive philosophical assumptions about disagreement can be considered part of this data. The aim is not only to establish methodological constraints on the use of arguments from disagreement in semantic theory, but also to shed light on how we should theorise about disagreement more generally. 1 1 I focus solely on the notion of disagreement as a state, rather than as an activity (Cappelen & Hawthorne (2009: 60-61)). A state of disagreement is most naturally understood as a passive concept, arising out of some conflict between subjects' attitudes, and not necessarily involving any active behavioural features such as the presence of a dispute. In the stative sense, two subjects might disagree (e.g. in virtue of inconsistency between their beliefs) even though neither subject is aware of the existence of the state.

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“…11 There is, then, a view of propositional content that wants no appeal to facts, and stays within the confines of knowledge of language. It is one that I have explored elsewhere, 12 but I spell it out here, rather, by way of asking King (or the reader) where if at all dissent should come. Suppose that the principle governing the interpretation of complement clauses is this: The complementized clause "that p" refers to the syntactic structure "p" itself, understood as if it were uttered by the speaker.…”

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confidence: 99%