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Single Idea 18992

[filed under theme 19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions ]

Full Idea

A sentence's meaning is to do with its truth-value in various possible scenarios, AND the factors responsible for that truth-value.

Gist of Idea

Sentence-meaning is the truth-conditions - plus factors responsible for them

Source

Stephen Yablo (Aboutness [2014], Intro)

Book Ref

Yablo,Stephen: 'Aboutness' [Princeton 2014], p.2

A Reaction

The thesis of his book, which I welcome. I'm increasingly struck by the way in which much modern philosophy settles for a theory being complete, when actually further explanation is possible. Exhibit A is functional explanations. Why that function?

The 33 ideas from Stephen Yablo

18993 If sentences point to different evidence, they must have different subject-matter [Yablo]
18992 Sentence-meaning is the truth-conditions - plus factors responsible for them [Yablo]
18994 The content of an assertion can be quite different from compositional content [Yablo]
18996 A statement S is 'partly true' if it has some wholly true parts [Yablo]
18997 Truth-conditions as subject-matter has problems of relevance, short cut, and reversal [Yablo]
18998 Parthood lacks the restriction of kind which most relations have [Yablo]
18999 y is only a proper part of x if there is a z which 'makes up the difference' between them [Yablo]
19001 'Pegasus doesn't exist' is false without Pegasus, yet the absence of Pegasus is its truthmaker [Yablo]
19002 A nominalist can assert statements about mathematical objects, as being partly true [Yablo]
19003 Most people say nonblack nonravens do confirm 'all ravens are black', but only a tiny bit [Yablo]
19004 Gettier says you don't know if you are confused about how it is true [Yablo]
19005 Not-A is too strong to just erase an improper assertion, because it actually reverses A [Yablo]
19006 An 'enthymeme' is an argument with an indispensable unstated assumption [Yablo]
19007 A theory need not be true to be good; it should just be true about its physical aspects [Yablo]
10577 Concrete objects have few essential properties, but properties of abstractions are mostly essential [Yablo]
10578 We are thought to know concreta a posteriori, and many abstracta a priori [Yablo]
10579 Putting numbers in quantifiable position (rather than many quantifiers) makes expression easier [Yablo]
10580 Mathematics is both necessary and a priori because it really consists of logical truths [Yablo]
8858 Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo]
8859 The main modal logics disagree over three key formulae [Yablo]
8862 Platonic objects are really created as existential metaphors [Yablo]
8861 Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo]
8864 We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo]
8863 We must treat numbers as existing in order to express ourselves about the arrangement of planets [Yablo]
8865 If 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', does that mean that 50 million is on the rise? [Yablo]
10805 A sentence should be recarved to reveal its content or implication relations [Yablo]
19493 Governing possible worlds theory is the fiction that if something is possible, it happens in a world [Yablo]
19494 Fictionalism allows that simulated beliefs may be tracking real facts [Yablo]
14381 A statue is essentially the statue, but its lump is not essentially a statue, so statue isn't lump [Yablo, by Rocca]
19489 For me, fictions are internally true, without a significant internal or external truth-value [Yablo]
19490 Make-believe can help us to reason about facts and scientific procedures [Yablo]
19491 'The clouds are angry' can only mean '...if one were attributing emotions to clouds' [Yablo]
9138 An infinite series of sentences asserting falsehood produces the paradox without self-reference [Yablo, by Sorensen]