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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Intro to 'Modality and Tense'' and 'Human, All Too Human'

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2 ideas

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: The content of a sentence is often identified with the set of possible worlds in which it is true, where the worlds are metaphysically possible. But this has the awkward consequence that all metaphysically necessary truths will have the same content.
     From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10)
     A reaction: I've never understood how the content of a sentence could be a vast set of worlds, so I am delighted to see this proposal be torpedoed. That doesn't mean that truth conditions across possible worlds is not a promising notion.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus]
     Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'.
     From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65
     A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition.