Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Value of Science', 'Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy' and 'Truth and Predication'

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1 idea

19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
'Humanity belongs to Socrates' is about humanity, so it's a different proposition from 'Socrates is human' [Davidson]
     Full Idea: The sentence 'Humanity belongs to Socrates' is about the concept of humanity, unlike the "equivalent" 'Socrates is human', so they express different propositions.
     From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 5)
     A reaction: [compressed] I like this a lot, because it shows why we should focus on propositions rather than on sentences, or even utterances. And asking what the sentence is 'about' focuses us on the underlying proposition or thought.