Talk:Syllogism

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Criticism of propositions

Propositions and statements are often held to be synonymous, but this is not true. Statements are linguistic objects; statements are declarative sentences. Whereas propositions are taken to be nonlinguistic objects that statements express. However, both propositions and statements are claimed by different schools to be the bearers of truth or falsity. Historically, there have been two schools of thought concerning what the bearers of truth and falsity are:

1. The one school holds sentences to be the bearers of truth and falsity.
2. The other school holds, instead, that it is the meanings of sentences (viz. propositions) that are the bearers of truth and falsity.
3. For example take the sentence ‘Snow is white’,

according to the first school, the sentence (3) ‘Snow is white’ is true—if and only if—snow is white. according to the second school the sentence (3) ‘Snow is white’ has no truth value, rather it expresses the proposition ‘that snow is white is true’ and correspondingly ‘Snow is not white’ would express the proposition ‘that snow is white is false’.

A further illustrative example is the following: According to the first school ‘snow is white’ and its German equivalent ‘schnee ist weiss’ are different statements i.e. because they have different symbols, different sounds, different grammar etc—in short: they are two different linguistic objects. According to the second school ‘snow is white’ and ‘schnee ist weiss’ are two different statements that express the same proposition.

It seems pointless though, to bypass visible, audible, or tactile sentences in favour of something that we have no evidence of, something that dangles in the air, for this is what the assumption of propositions amounts to.

References:

Tao, T., 2009. Analysis I (Third edition, Vol. 185, cf. Appendix A). Hindustan Book Agency.
“The nature of truth”(Quine, W.V.O., cf. The Vehicles of Truth).

LeucippusSalva veritate 19:02, 8 November 2021 (UTC)