Sentence, proposition and identity

Jean-Yves Béziau

pp. 371-382

in: Jean-Yves Béziau, Décio Krause (eds), New trends in the foundations of science, Synthese 154 (3), 2007.

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the distinction between sentence and proposition from the perspective of identity. After criticizing Quine, we discuss how objects of logical languages are constructed, explaining what is Kleene’s congruence—used by Bourbaki with his square—and Paul Halmos’s view about the difference between formulas and objects of the factor structure, the corresponding boolean algebra, in case of classical logic. Finally we present Patrick Suppes’s congruence approach to the notion of proposition, according to which a whole hierarchy of congruences leads to different kinds of objects.

Cited authors

Suppes Patrick

Quine Willard Van Orman