Speaks’s Reduction of Propositions to Properties: A Benacerraf Problem

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5 (3):275-284 (2016)
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Abstract

Speaks defends the view that propositions are properties: for example, the proposition that grass is green is the property being such that grass is green. We argue that there is no reason to prefer Speaks's theory to analogous but competing theories that identify propositions with, say, 2-adic relations. This style of argument has recently been deployed by many, including Moore and King, against the view that propositions are n-tuples, and by Caplan and Tillman against King's view that propositions are facts of a special sort. We offer our argument as an objection to the view that propositions are unsaturated relations.

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Author Profiles

Scott Dixon
Lawrence University
Cody Gilmore
University of California, Davis

References found in this work

Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 17 (2):278-279.
What numbers could not be.Paul Benacerraf - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (1):47-73.
The nature and structure of content.Jeffrey C. King - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Quality and concept.George Bealer - 1982 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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