Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Duration: 2003 - 2005

Code: BFF2002-02846 (DGI)

Principal Investigator

Genoveva Martí (genoveva_marti@yahoo.com)

All researchers

Mario Gómez Torrente

Ignacio Vicario

Summary

This project will contribute to set the basis for a semantic theory that does not rest on the notion of truth conditions but rather on the notion of the function of an expression. The standard view of semantics regards the assignment of truth conditions to sentences as the basic task of semantic theory. The meaning of sub-sentential expression consists in their contribution to the truth conditions of the sentences in which they occur. This conception has some important limitations. It does not seem possible to treat expressions such as "good-bye" appealing to a truth-conditional semantics. In this project we (a) examine the standard account of the semantics of singular terms paying special attention to issues of cognitive value, (b) argue that Direct Reference Theory can give an account both of the declarative parts of discourse and of the non-declarative parts of discourse (those that would seem to require to appeal to a theory of use), and (c) explore epistemic and moral discourse. The hypothesis is that the discourse in these areas is non-factual, and hence that the content of the sentences used in each of these domains can not be analyzed in standard truth conditional terms.