The redundancy of the act

John Collins

pp. 3519-3545

in: Hanoch Ben-Yami, Robyn Carston, Markus Werning (eds), Trends in philosophy of language and mind, Synthese 195 (8), 2018.

Abstract

The theory that structured propositions are complex act-types has been independently articulated by Peter Hanks and Scott Soames. The present paper argues that the role of the act in such theories is supererogatory, for the individuation conditions of the act-based propositions remain wholly at the level of concepts and their formal combination, features which the traditional structured proposition theorist endorses. Thus, it is shown that the traditional problems for structured propositions are only ameliorable on the act conception by appeal to the very resources of the traditional conception. It is also shown that the act theories have no act-based account of quantification and other operator-involving relations. An elementary account of propositions is sketched, after Fodor, which retains the virtues of the traditional structural conception without falling into ’Platonism’.

Cited authors

Soames Scott

Hanks Peter