Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On Signs (damaged)' and 'Events and Semantic Architecture'

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2 ideas

19. Language / B. Reference / 5. Speaker's Reference
No language is semantically referential; it all occurs at the level of thought or utterance [Pietroski, by Hofweber]
     Full Idea: For Paul Pietroski no expression in natural language is semantically referential. ....Reference to objects occurs not at the level of semantics, but at the level of thought or utterance.
     From: report of Paul M. Pietroski (Events and Semantic Architecture [2004]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.2
     A reaction: Love this. It has always struck me that reference is what speakers do. Try taking any supposedly referential description and sticking 'so-called' in front of it. That seems to leave you with the reference even though you have denied the description.
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.