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Single Idea 13943

[filed under theme 19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions ]

Full Idea

We do sometimes say of something to which we have referred that it is true (or false). Are we not ordinarily doing just this when we utter such sentences as 'That's true' and 'What he said was false'?

Gist of Idea

We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said

Source

Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 03)

Book Ref

Cartwright,Richard: 'Philosophical Essays' [MIT 1987], p.34


A Reaction

This supports propositions, but doesn't clinch the matter. One could interpret this phenomenon as always being (implicitly) the reference of one sentence to another. However, I remember what he said, but I can't remember how he said it.


The 19 ideas from Richard Cartwright

While no two classes coincide in membership, there are distinct but coextensive attributes [Cartwright,R]
A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system [Cartwright,R]
Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard [Cartwright,R]
Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent [Cartwright,R]
An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind [Cartwright,R]
The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential [Cartwright,R]
Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic [Cartwright,R]
Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R]
Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R]
We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R]
We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R]
To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R]
'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R]
For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R]
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R]
Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R]
A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R]
Clearly a pipe can survive being taken apart [Cartwright,R]
Bodies don't becomes scattered by losing small or minor parts [Cartwright,R]