Sententialism : why not?
As is generally agreed, there are good reasons to take a propositional attitude attribution like 'Olga believes that Cicero is smart' to express the holding of a relation between Olga and the denotation of âthat Cicero is smartâ. But what does âthat Cicero is smartâ denote? According to the so-called face-value theory, it denotes a proposition. While there is no agreement on what propositions are, they are taken to be entities not reducible to sentences. According to sententialism, by contrast, âthat Cicero is smartâ denotes the sentence âCicero is smartâ. Sententialism is generally considered to be obviously inadequate, and the aim of this dissertation is to show that sententialism is in fact as good an option as the face-value theory is, if not a better one. According to the sententialist account that I develop, Olga believes that Cicero is smart if she believes something which we can represent with the sentence âCicero is smartâ. As I show in Chapter 2, by relying on some features of representation, sententialists seem able to account for propositional attitude attributions in quite an interesting way. The main reasons why sententialism is generally considered doomed are the famous Church
Felappi, Giulia
Sententialism : why not?. As is generally agreed, there are good reasons to take a propositional attitude attribution like 'Olga believes that Cicero is smart' to express the holding of a relation between Olga and the denotation of âthat Cicero is smartâ. But what does âthat Cicero is smartâ denote? According to the so-called face-value theory, it denotes a proposition. While there is no agreement on what propositions are, they are taken to be entities not reducible to sentences. According to sententialism, by contrast, âthat Cicero is smartâ denotes the sentence âCicero is smartâ. Sententialism is generally considered to be obviously inadequate, and the aim of this dissertation is to show that sententialism is in fact as good an option as the face-value theory is, if not a better one. According to the sententialist account that I develop, Olga believes that Cicero is smart if she believes something which we can represent with the sentence âCicero is smartâ. As I show in Chapter 2, by relying on some features of representation, sententialists seem able to account for propositional attitude attributions in quite an interesting way. The main reasons why sententialism is generally considered doomed are the famous Church
generally_agree good_reason take propositional_attitude attribution like believe cicero express hold relation denotation cicero cicero denote according so_called face_value theory denote proposition agreement proposition take entity reducible sentence according contrast cicero denote sentence cicero generally_consider obviously inadequate aim_show fact good option face_value theory good according account develop believe cicero believe something represent sentence cicero show rely feature representation seem able_account propositional_attitude attribution quite interesting way main_reason generally_consider famous church