Event Detail

Thu Apr 22, 2010
Howison Library
4:10–6 PM
Philosophy Colloquium
Richard Heck (Brown University)
What Is Context-Dependence?

It is more or less the standard view in semantics that, although sentences do not express propositions, due to context-dependence, sentences do express propositions relative to contexts. I shall argue for a view in the vicinity of Strawson’s: That sentences do not express propositions, but that speakers use sentences to express propositions. The argument will focus on demonstrative reference and will address the suspicion, which Strawson himself encourages, that such a perspective is incompatible with semantic theorizing.