Propositional attitude predicates and ‘That’-Clauses

Abstract

The so-called face-value theory of propositional attitude sentences, i.e.

(The Face-Value Theory)
(RP) Propositional attitude predicates occurring in propositional attitude sentences designate relations;
(ST) ‘That’-clauses are singular terms;
(P) ‘That’-clauses denote propositions,

is often endorsed without even discussing the plausibility of its tenets. As Schiffer (2003: 11) holds, it is “the default theory that must be defeated if it’s not to be accepted” and in fact he himself spends but a handful of lines discussing it. Surely, it is the default theory, considering that it originated more or less two thousand years ago, and since then in philosophy it has mostly been taken for granted. But this does not make it necessarily true, and all alternative theories must be defeated if they are not to be accepted. The aim of this paper is to defeat the alternatives for what at stake with theses (RP) and (ST). As we will see, although we cannot prove that these theses are true, all the different data that need to be accounted for can be more elegantly and more easily explained if the two theses are endorsed. Thus we will conclude that there really is something face-value in the theses, and that an account that endorses them is to be preferred to the alternatives.

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ORCID for Giulia Felappi: orcid.org/0000-0002-0110-6371

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