Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Causation' and 'Mental Files in Flux'

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2 ideas

19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / b. Propositions as possible worlds
A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis]
     Full Idea: I identify a proposition with the set of possible worlds where it is true.
     From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.193)
     A reaction: As it stands, I'm baffled by this. How can 'it is raining' be a set of possible worlds? I assume it expands to refer to the truth-conditions, among possibilities as well as actualities. 'It is raining' fits all worlds where it is raining.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
There are speakers' thoughts and hearers' thoughts, but no further thought attached to the utterance [Recanati]
     Full Idea: There is the speaker's thought and the thought formed by the hearer. That is all there is. We don't need an additional entity, the thought expressed by the utterance.
     From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.2)
     A reaction: This fits my view of propositions nicely. They are the two 'thoughts'. The notion of some further abstract 'proposition' with its own mode of independent existence strikes me as ontologically absurd.