I get that. In terms of propositions, we could say it works this way:

p is the proposition that the grass is green. The part that follows the word that is the proposition. It is not a sentence nor an utterance. It's a truthbearer. It's an abstract object. This proposition can be expressed by the utterance of a sentence. An utterance is usually marks or sounds. A sentence is a grammatically correct string of words.

The questioner has asked if it is true that the grass is green. She asked if it is true that p.

The answer that came to the questioner was that p is true.

The command doesn't contain a proposition.

The command doesn't contain a proposition. — frank

Well, yes... that was kinda the point. The grass will be green in the case in which being green is satisfied by grass. It's a conditional, and hence "grass is green" is not asserted.

Truth is defined in terms of satisfaction, and hence is not asserted.

I don't see how commands have anything to do with truth.

I don't see how commands have anything to do with truth. — frank

The idea is that for a command to be obeyed, the person to whom the command is addressed must see to it (by their actions) that the truth conditions of the proposition that (allegedly) figures as the content of the command are fulfilled. In other words, they must see to it that p.

They have to make p true. I see.

By way of an excuse, I can't offer a sharp argument against whatever is being asserted in this thread when not only is there no consensus but little by way of a clear account of what is being asserted.

The same for "Is the grass green?". But consider "What colour is the grass?" where part of the propositional content is missing...

I see what you're saying. The way I've been thinking of it is that to understand p, I have to know what it would mean for it to be true. The way I do that is to imagine someone saying that p is true. I look at that setting. I suppose you don't need to do that. I don't really understand how you're doing it.

"Grass is green" will be satisfied if grass is one of the things listed in the things that are green.

If you understand that, you understand what it would take to satisfy the proposition "grass is green".

Now we can add to that, "Grass is green" is true IFF grass is one of the things that satisfies "...is green". Adding truth is a step further.

I just need to know truth conditions for p. Then I understand p.

Maybe a more direct example will help. Consider "Frank posts on PF". Here is a list of folk who post on PF. "Frank posts on PF" will be satisfied if and only if Frank is in that list.

Extensionally, that's all there is to understand in "Frank posts on PF". Of course, there are other things that can be said about both Frank and PF, many of which are interesting and informative, but they are by the by. Whatever else might be understood, "Frank posts on PF" just means Frank is on the list of PF-posters.

Nothing here about truth.

But we might add, if we want" "Frank posts on PF" is true IFF Frank is on the list of folk who post on PF. Now we are talking, not about Frank and PF so much as about the sentence "Frank posts on PF"

Consider "Frank posts on PF". Here is a list of folk who post on PF. "Frank posts on PF" will be satisfied if and only if Frank is in that list. — Banno

I think this is trivially true.

I think this is trivially true. — frank

Well, it's trivial, yep. And it can give you an idea of what you are doing when you say something is "true" - you are talking about sentences, at least as much as about how things are.

:up:

Thinking and Being is hard to quote from in a self contained manner, Jesus Christ.

Welcome to my world! :lol: I tried so hard to leave him out of the assertion challenge ("inspired by Kimhi"), for just that reason. But we're trudging along as best we can . . .

Tarski?

...the muddle between force in thread and illocutionary forces... — fdrake

Just to be sure, the reason I introduced talk of illocutionary force into the discussion was to give @J and others something by way of context against which they might develop whatever notion of force they see in Kimhi. I said explicitly that I would "go over my own understanding of the Fregean account and subsequent developments".

Seems to me that Frege's Judgment Stroke is a precursor to the subsequent work done in Oxbridge.

Assertion does NOT equal denotation.. "The cat" is a reference to something "in the world". — schopenhauer1

Sure. There are at least two places where something is done with a statement. The first is that somethings are spoken about, and not others - the statement denotes stuff, The second is to assert that the speaker holds something to be the case - the assertion.

Folk hereabouts seem to want a third "force", such that it is not a full illocutionary assertion yet more than a denotation. What I've been pressing is for them to set out explicitly what that might be. In my view no clear account has been given.

Tarski? — schopenhauer1

Extensionality. I understand that Frege spoke of the "course-of-values" for a variable - the list of values it might take. Tarski added the definition of truth as part of a metalanguage.

Perhaps it is worth pointing out that if one is going to assert that Frank posts on PF, one will need to set out that "Frank" denotes Frank and that "...posts on PF" denotes the list linked above. That is, one will need to set out the domain of discourse.

Another few words about force.

Since Newton, a force changes the movement of an object. We have a pretty clear notion of what that means. Someone can be forced to so something if their choices are restricted. That make sense, too. Someone can be a force for peace, in that they press in that direction.

"Illocutionary force" is what is different about question, statements, commands and so on; and that difference is what we do with those types of utterances. We do something different with a question to what we do with a statement or a command. Here again the word 'force" has some legitimacy, marking the act, the doing, the making it so.

"Assertoric force" makes sense in terms of Frege's Judgement Stroke, understood variously as "We know that..." or "It is true that..." prefixing and holding in its scope the whole of the subsequent expression, ensuring that multiple uses of the same term therein will be extensionally equivalent and so on.

If "assertoric force" is proposed to be understood as not an illocutionary force ranging over the subsequent expression, then it is up to the proposer to set out what it is that the force does that is different to the illocutionary force of asserting.

I'm not seeing that here.

Folk hereabouts seem to want a third "force", such that it is not a full illocutionary assertion yet more than a denotation. What I've been pressing is for them to set out explicitly what that might be. In my view no clear account has been given. — Banno

I don't think I would know either..

If "assertoric force" is proposed to be understood as not an illocutionary force ranging over the subsequent expression, then it is up to the proposer to set out what it is that the force does that is different to the illocutionary force of asserting.

I'm not seeing that here. — Banno

The only thing I can think of is that "assertoric force" although a type of "illocutionary force" (the intention of the proposer is to assert something about the world), it is somehow conferred as something more important because unlike other illocutionary examples (like commands, questions, etc.), this one has to convey some sort of corresponding relationship to a state of affairs in the world. This kind of significance is not necessary for other kinds of illocutions. That's just one take. All other illocutions can be "true" in some sense, that is not about a state of affairs (though they can have that aspect too). This one by necessity MUST have a truth about a state of affairs.

If "assertoric force" is proposed to be understood as not an illocutionary force ranging over the subsequent expression, then it is up to the proposer to set out what it is that the force does that is different to the illocutionary force of asserting. — Banno

Maybe it's the same as long as we narrow our focus to propositions in the Fregean sense.

The mooted primacy of assertion over other locutions? I don't see any reason to think of assertions as more central or foundational than commands or questions. The do very different things. Assertions only "convey some sort of corresponding relationship to a state of affairs in the world" when felicitous - Austin's term of art - but then questions and commands can also be infelicitous, commanding someone to do the impossible, or asking a ridiculous question.

But how does it differ?

But how does it differ? — Banno

We've talked at length about what a proposition is.

The mooted primacy of assertion over other locutions? I don't see any reason to think of assertions as more central or foundational than commands or questions. The do very different things. Assertions only "convey some sort of corresponding relationship to a state of affairs in the world" when felicitous - Austin's term of art - but then questions and commands can also be infelicitous, commanding someone to do the impossible, or asking a ridiculous question. — Banno

And with this I can only think of a few answers.. All probably detached from Kimhi...
1) That's Kimhi's point.. Assertion shouldn't be distinct from the other types..
2) That's Kimhi's point.. Assertion is more than just an illocutionary force, it is a deeply metaphysical thing.

I've read a bunch of Thinking and Being now, and I'm getting the impression it was written in an alternate timeline. It seems to be responding to problems that don't exist yet but always have. I'm getting the sneaking suspicion it will be discovered in 20 years and form part of an obscure alternate continuity going from Parmenides to Aristotle to Husserl and Frege to Wittgenstein.

It's like someone forked the repository of philosophical knowledge just after the publication of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, then merged in secondary literature in that heritage up to 2019. The set of problems and style of analysis is so obscure, but also so natural and pervasive. It looks at philosophy from an odd angle. But that makes philosophy appear as if looking at a circle from a side - a tiny strip in a space of possibilities.

I have tried a couple of times to present aspects of Kimhi's beef with the hole left by the neglect of the judgement stroke in logic in a new post. To portray the foreclosed future the abandonment of that problematic left. But I failed. I might try again once I've read more of the book.

It looks at philosophy from an odd angle. — fdrake

Nice. It seems there is something going one here, then.

Yes, but I'm certain you won't like it. :lol:

I might try again once I've read more of the book. — fdrake

Anyone still reading Kimhi might find this erratum useful.

Wow, great find. I had marked a few of these too, but most are new. Thank you!