Abstract

One of the most important functions of language is to express truths about the world. What a statement expresses is true only if it bears a certain relation to the world . The problem of truth, then, is the problem of establishing the nature of this relation. In this dissertation, I try to establish the nature of this relation by identifying the constituents of propositions and states of affairs and describing what relation the constituents of a proposition must bear to the constituents of a state of affairs if the proposition in question is to be considered true. ;In this dissertation, I attempt to analyze certain concepts whose analysis has traditionally required the postulation of propositions, viz. meaning, truth, and belief. After defending the explanatory merits of propositions conceived as abstract entities, I argue that the traditional proposition theory faces certain serious counterexamples. I then propose a new theory of propositions and states of affairs which attempts to meet those counterexamples. Specifically, I argue that propositions and states of affairs are two distinct types of entities which stand in the following relations: states of affairs exemplify propositions and, conversely, propositions characterize states of affairs, and declarative sentences connote propositions and denote limited states of affairs. Establishing these two theses requires constructing a theory of properties, propositions, states of affairs, meaning, truth, and events. These theories constitute a coherent system; each theory builds logically upon its predecessor. This system provides solutions to the problems of the nature of property-identity, proposition-identity, event-identity, analysis, analyticity, word-meaning, sentence-meaning, word-reference, sentence-reference, truth, de dicto and de re belief, event-description, adverbial modification, event recurrence, and causation