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4 - Tense and Modality

from Part I - Philosophy of Semantics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2018

Zoltán Gendler Szabó  and
Richmond H. Thomason
Zoltán Gendler Szabó
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Richmond H. Thomason
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Summary

For philosophers, linguistic meaning has a great deal to do with mental states and especially with intentional states that are about something. Thoughts about what does in fact not exist are a central problem in the philosophy of mind, and linguistic semantics inherits these problems. The most popular option identifies intentional objects with abstract entities of some sort. It too has puzzling aspects but we show how the most pressing objections against it can be answered. These issues are closely related to questions about the nature of propositions – of the objects of belief and assertion and the primary bearers of truth-value. We canvass philosophical views of propositions and discuss how they relate to linguistic semantics.
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Philosophy of Language , pp. 91 - 121
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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