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Interrogatives, Imperatives, Truth, Falsity and Lies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Henry S. Leonard
Henry S. Leonard*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Abstract

This paper aims to establish three major theses: (1) Not only declarative sentences, but also interrogatives and imperatives, may be classified as true or as false. (2) Declarative, imperative, and interrogative utterances may also be classified as honest or as dishonest. (3) Whether an utterance is honest or dishonest is logically independent of whether it is true or is false.

The establishment of the above theses follows upon the adoption of a principle for identifying what is meant by any sentence, declarative, interrogative, or imperative. The analysis aims to show that meaning is to be attributed to the uttered or written sentence-token, rather to the thereby exhibited sentence-type. Further, the meaning of the sentential token is to be identified with a purpose of the speaker, that the speaker would reveal to the addressee by uttering the sentence.

The to be revealed purpose is analysed into two components: an ultimate concern (that the addressee stand in such and such a relation—e.g., of believing, or informing the speaker about, or making it true that) and an ultimate topic of concern (the state of affairs, i.e., proposition, relative to which the speaker would have the addressee stand in the specified relation).

Sentential utterances “signify” different purposes by “expressing” different ultimate concerns and “indicating ”different ultimate topics of concern. Variations in expressed concern are correlated with variations in sentential form, such as declarative, interrogative and imperative. Variations in indicated topic of concern are correlated with variations in the subject and predicate of the uttered sentence. Thus, for example, utterances of “Johnny will jump in the lake,” “Will Johnny jump in the lake?” and “Johnny, go jump in the lake! ” all indicate one and the same ultimate topic of concern but express different ultimate concerns with this topic.

A sentential utterance is true or false according as its indicated topic of concern is true or false. Hence, declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives may all be classified as true or as false. But honesty or dishonesty is a function (explained in the paper) of the expressed concern, rather than of the topic of concern. Hence, although utterances of all sentential forms are honest or dishonest, their honesty or dishonesty is logically independent of their truth or falsity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1959 , pp. 172 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 by Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

A paper read at The Michigan State University Philosophy Colloquium on July 10, 1958.

∗

Editor's Note : This is the first of two articles by Professor Leonard on related problems. The second of these articles will appear in the October, 1959 issue of Philosophy of Science.

References

2 The relevance of such an inquiry for Science and Philosophy of Science will, perhaps, be seen as too obvious to be labored; especially when it is remembered that as scientists we have an interest in “interrogating nature” as well as making true remarks about her.

3 More accurately, all indirect questions are true if valid. A question is valid if it has an answer. Its having an answer depends on its not being intolerably vague or ambiguous and on its presuppositions being true. (See my Principles of Right Reason, pp. 34-42.) Among the presuppositions of an indirect question is the assumption that at least one (occasionally that exactly one) value of the indicated propositional function is true. If this presupposition fails, then the indirect question is invalid; furthermore, it has no ultimate topic of concern and is thus neither true nor false.