Overview Propositions and Propositions Distinguish two construals of - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Propositions and Propositions

Paul Dekker

ILLC/Department of Philosophy, Amsterdam

Workshop Bridging Formal and Conceptual Semantics August 6–10, 2018

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 1 / 21 Introduction

Overview

Distinguish two construals of declaratives.

I As a proposition in the analytic philosophical sense. I As a proposition in the ordinary business sense.

Clarify relativist discourse.

I That of nominal disagreement. I That of useful agreement.

Use and limitations of theoretical linguistics.

I Relativized understanding of truth-conditional semantics. I Publicly engaged understanding of conceptual semantics. ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 2 / 21 Propositions

The World We Live In (1)

The world that we live in figures as the object of our science, knowledge, thoughts, theories, and assertions. Findings and conjectures about what it is or must be like are stated in what are called (capital) propositions here. Propositions are the things that typically are true or false, possibly neither, but impossibly both. A Proposition is true (false) iff the world is (not) as it is presented to be, and such can be taken to define the proposition. You understand a proposition iff you know what the world is like iff it is true.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 3 / 21 Propositions

Knowing the World

In order to state a proposition, we must assume that we agree

• n the Bedeutung of the logical and non-logical terms employed.

We, however, only need to assume agreement on a joint determination of the Bedeutung in circumstances defined by the

• ccasion of use, and perhaps unspecific or undefined in others.

It can, thus, be contextually, and publicly, clear and determinate what propositions are stated.

I what situations are said to obtain, I which individuals are recognized, I and are said to stand in which relations, I etc.

Philosophers like Aristotle, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, . . . , are ‘invariantists’ in so far as they are interested in truth about this world, and, therefore, shun vague and ambiguous and other such discourse to begin with.

I believe that this makes sense.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 4 / 21

Propositions

The World We Live In (2)

The world we live in is also one of our own making. We are told how things are viewed, classified, defined, done and handled. The articulation of how things are is staged in what I do not know a better general term for than that of (emphatic) propositions. Propositions typically are agreed with or disagreed upon, possibly neither, possibly both. Agreement consists in our verbal and non-verbal acts, experiences, interests and feelings aligning with the world as characterized.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 5 / 21 Propositions

Defining the World

We state propositions in the hortative or jussive mood, or issue generics or recipes or definitions or declaratives. Indicative sentences (declaratives) are also easily used this way. This is your desk. / This piece is state of the art. / We attack tomorrow morning. / You agree to our use of cookies. / Birds fly and boys don’t cry. / He is not welcome anymore. / The world is everything that is the case. We stage propositions when teaching someone a language, a logic, and in other kinds of training (mental or otherwise).

Philosophers like Herakleitos, Husserl, Sapir, Derrida, . . . are ‘relativists’ in so far as they are interested in men being (or not even being) the measure of things, and therefore shun an absolute and dogmatic objective.

I believe that this makes sense, too.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 6 / 21 Propositions

One World

Of course it is one and the same world we live in. (Davidson) “The world we live in” is not ambiguous like “The tree Muriel painted,” but unambiguous like “The dagger Max saw.” (Husserl) In our Lebenswelt, is and ought are not categorically distinct, only

• practicably. (Gibson)

If knowledge is more general, it is just less directly applicable. (Aristotle) Propositions and Propositions are somewhat exchangeable.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 7 / 21 Propositions

Bridging ‘Worlds’

Empirical hypotheses (propositions) can be construed as propositions for articulating our evidence, viewing nature. Moral claims (propositions) can be construed as propositions about a public good, facts in a moral universe. If a proposition is agreed upon, it achieves the status of a (true) proposition. If the terms of a proposition are not agreed upon, it at best achieves the status of a proposition. Philosophical definitions, rules of grammar, evaluative judgments, . . . , they can all be appreciated both ways, and that can be a source of confusion, practical as well as philosophical.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 8 / 21

Relativism

Faultless Disagreement

Evaluative language like personal-taste talk, moral speech and aesthetic discourse, faces the challenge of ‘faultless disagreement’:

I two world-mates believing contradictory ‘propositions’ without any

• ne of them being wrong. [Max K¨
• lbel, 2004, “Faultless Disagree-

ment”, Proc. of the Aristotelian Society 104, pp. 53–73.]

This piece of cake is tasty. No, it is not. Yes, it is.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 9 / 21 Relativism

Faultless Disagreement

Evaluative language like personal-taste talk, moral speech and aesthetic discourse, faces the challenge of ‘faultless disagreement’:

I two world-mates believing contradictory ‘propositions’ without any

• ne of them being wrong. [Max K¨
• lbel, 2004, “Faultless Disagree-

ment”, Proc. of the Aristotelian Society 104, pp. 53–73.]

This piece of music is funky. No, it is not. Yes, it is.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 9 / 21 Relativism

Faultless Disagreement

Evaluative language like personal-taste talk, moral speech and aesthetic discourse, faces the challenge of ‘faultless disagreement’:

I two world-mates believing contradictory ‘propositions’ without any

• ne of them being wrong. [Max K¨
• lbel, 2004, “Faultless Disagree-

ment”, Proc. of the Aristotelian Society 104, pp. 53–73.]

This pretentious nobody is an expert? Yes, he is. No, he is not.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 9 / 21 Relativism

Faultless Disagreement

Evaluative language like personal-taste talk, moral speech and aesthetic discourse, faces the challenge of ‘faultless disagreement’:

I two world-mates believing contradictory ‘propositions’ without any

• ne of them being wrong. [Max K¨
• lbel, 2004, “Faultless Disagree-

ment”, Proc. of the Aristotelian Society 104, pp. 53–73.]

This piece of reasoning is valid. No, it is not. Yes, it is.

¬¬φ | = φ

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 9 / 21

Relativism

Assessment Relativity

Various authors maintain that evaluative sentences express propositions or propositional contents. The truth (falsity) of these propositions is argued to be relative to

I ‘perspectives’ (K¨

• lbel),

I ‘judges’ (Lasersohn), I ‘context of assessment’ (MacFarlane), I or otherwise (Many Authors).

The relativism that I am considering does not claim that the content expressed varies with context of utterance, but rather that the truth-value of the content itself is relative. (K¨

• lbel p. 72)

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 10 / 21 Relativism

Nominalist Relativity

The relativists’ propositions arguably fail content.

Suppose Alex’ taste for Prince ranges from Yech in the morning to Yummie in the afternoon, and back again, every day. Her contexts of assess- ment constitute a sphere of perspectives orbiting around a proposition,

that this is funky, continuously rendering it from true to false, and v.v.,

full circle. But what is this proposition that the assessments orbit around? And that she considers false in the morning, and true in the evening? Not some proposition that Prince has a certain property of being funky, because Alex’ judgments about that vary all the time, while Prince does not.

Judging something tasty, funky, valid, . . . , doesn’t seem to char- acterize it anything beyond it being called “tasty”, “funky”, etc. It merely characterizes it as standing in a derogable relation with what a judge calls such and so when she calls it such and so. How can we make philosophical sense of the idea that the accuracy of an assertion or belief is assessment-relative? Do we really understand what such proposals say? (MacFarlane, p. 133, himself)

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 11 / 21 Relativism

Propositional Failure

Cases of faultless disagreement display disagreement about the Bedeutung of a predicate: “This is funky.—No, it is not.” When I judge this piece of music funky, the funky that I judge it to be is different from the funky that you judge it not to be. For, obviously, the funky that I judge this music to be includes this music, while the funky that you judge it not to be, does not. There is no property that the piece of music is said to have, and such that we disagree about it having that property. The failure to agree on a constituent term induces a failure to state a proposition.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 12 / 21 Relativism

Propositional Relativity

The funky that Prince is, when he is funky, is different from the funky that the very same Prince isn’t, when he is not. When there is disagreement over the Bedeutung of funky, then the claim that this is funky can do no more then stage a proposition, that this music be taken to belong to the funky stuff. If we agree with that proposition, we can also agree on the propo- sition that this music is that kind of funky, and judge it true. As said, the statement of a proposition presupposes agreement

• n its constituent terms.

It is the proposition that is assessment sensitive, not its truth.

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(Dis)Agreement

Propositional Disagreement

[In the following you can replace “cake” by “music”, “painting”, or “inference” and “tasty” by “funky”, “rococo” and “valid”.]

• We (suppose we) agree on the cake, and even on its taste. • There are two

propositions on the table: That it be categorized as belonging to the tasty things, and that it belong to the non-tasty things. • We cannot, upon pain of contradiction, agree with both propositions. • My idea of tasty is such that the cake is tasty, whence my proposition. Your idea of tasty is such that it is not, whence your opposing proposition. The proposition that it is tastyaccording to my standards is true. The proposition that it is tastyaccording to your standards is false. We are both perfectly able to acknowledge both facts. There is no proposition that it is tastyaccording to no standards. A forteriori, there is no such proposition that we disagree about.

• We can agree to disagree, and nobody will be wronged or hurt. • We can also

advance an agreement, if we synchronize on a standard solid enough to yield a proposition that the cake is tastyaccording to that standard. • The truth of that proposition can be decided. • Such synchronization can be achieved in various ways, by brute force, by deliberation, socratically, . . . . •

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 14 / 21 (Dis)Agreement

That Not Not P Logically Implies P

Here is a proposition about negation and logical implication. Not Not P logically implies P. If one is unfamiliar with the terms, no proposition is stated, but a proposition is staged, by the logic teacher, which one should better agree with, until the end of the term.

I So much is part of learning the Bedeutung of “Not” and “Implies”.

If one already has a solid enough grasp of logical implication and negation, the sentence apparently expresses a proposition.

I Upon a ‘classical’ understanding, the proposition is true. I Upon an ‘intuitionist’ understanding, the proposition is false.

These are two propositions. A relation of logical implication that includes the pair of formulas (¬¬p, p) is different from one that does not. There is no debate about a proposition, then, but about the Bedeutung of the term implies.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 15 / 21 (Dis)Agreement

Changes in the Solar System

[Textbook:] The solar system hosts nine planets. [The IAU:] No, it does not. Pluto is no longer a planet. The proposition that tSSh9P is false now, and always was. The proposition that “tSSh9P” was true before, but no longer now. For the proposition that Pluto is not a planet has been accepted. The Proposition came from the International Astronomical Union. You can agree with it, making you right in your fellows’ eyes. You can disagree with it, not making you wrong, but, say, suspect. The change is only nominal, but this has societal consequences.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 16 / 21 (Dis)Agreement

Social (not Logical) Implications

There is little, if any, semantic content in the staging of

• propositions. They don’t teach you something new.

But they may have vast social (not logical) implications.

I For moral claims, directives and commissives such is constitutive. I Declarative acts are self-fulfilling, or so they are meant to be. I Evaluative judgments serve obvious social, and economical interests.

There is weight attached to things counting as ‘tasty’, ‘cool’, ‘funky’, . . . , ‘queer’, ‘decent’, ‘murderer’, ‘scientific’, ‘expert’, . . . , or even ‘coffee’ or ‘valid’.

To engage in these acts is participating in a Lebensform.

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(Dis)Agreement

Faultless Agreement

When we are seeking agreement and aim to synchronize our judgements, evaluative or not, we are, of course, not impartial, and neither is the world we live in. The classification of this as tasty / funky / coffee / valid / . . . should sufficiently align with our previous and future experiences

• f tasty / funky / . . . stuff, etc.

It should also comply with the public world and acknowledged truths about it, including the social reality of serving tasty cakes, playing funky music, pouring real coffee, and valid reasoning. While there are rules that we play by and regulations that we agree upon, there is plenty of room for manoeuvring in negotiating truths and defining one-self. After all, agreement trumps truth, since disagreement disables it.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 18 / 21 Conclusions

Summing Up

The claims in situations of faultless disagreement are not true or false, because they state no propositions. The claims stage propositions, which we can only ignore, or agree or disagree with. Some such holds for a wide variety of taste, aethetic and moral discourse, as well as for practical instruction and training scenarios. Truth is assessment relative in so far as propositions are. The social implications of propositions overrule the logical implications

• f propositions.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 19 / 21 Conclusions

Further Morals

Formal Linguists ignore the relativity of propositions. Cognitive Grammarians ignore the publicity of propositions. Ironically, Dynamic Semanticists ignore the dynamics. Bridges don’t bridge fields, people do. One should take the opportunities and visit the other sides.

ESSLLI18 Bridging Workshop Propositions and Propositions Paul Dekker 20 / 21 Conclusions

References

Coppock, Elizabeth, 2018, “Outlook-based Semantics”, Linguistics and Philosophy 41, 125–64. K¨

• lbel, Max, 2004, “Faultless Disagreement”, Proceedings of the

Aristotelian Society 104, 53–73. Lasersohn, Peter, 2005, “Context Dependence, Disagreement and Predicates of Personal Taste”, Linguistics and Philosophy 28, 643–86. MacFarlane, John, 2012, “Relativism”, in: Gillian Russell & Delia Graff Fara (eds.) The Routledge Companian to Philosophy of Language, New York: Routledge. 132–142. MacFarlane, John, 2014, Assessment Sensitivity. Relative Truth and its Applications, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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