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Gappy Propositions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Seyed N. Mousavian
Seyed N. Mousavian*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Edmonton, ABT6G 2E7, Canada Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Tehran, 11336-14816, Iran
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Extract

After introducing Millianism and touching on two problems raised by genuinely empty names for Millianism (section I), I provide a brief exposition of the Gappy Proposition View (GPV) and of how different versions of this view can reply to the problems in question (section II). In the following sections I develop my reasons against the GPV. First, I will try to argue that apparently promising arguments for the claim that gappy propositions are propositions are not successful (section III). Then, I will develop two arguments against GPs via demonstrating two odd consequences of the GPV: (a) that there can be an atomic proposition which contains other propositions that are not the semantic contents of any part of the sentence expressing that atomic proposition, and (b) that propositional structures are propositions (section IV). And finally, I will attempt to show that if any of these views can provide a successful defense of Millianism, it can do so without GPs, given some slight changes (section V). I will conclude that GPs should be avoided (section VI).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 125 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2011

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