The Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences1

J O N AT H A N H A R R I S O N (i) Introduction: The main function of the word that: I once2 defended the (formerly popular) view that what is true or what is false is always a proposition, and not a sentence. A proposition is always capable of being expressed by a that clause; for example, what it is correct to describe as true is that dogs bark, not Dogs bark. It is true Dogs bark, does not make sense, involves a category mistake, and leads to serious errors. Though one often says such things as It is true dogs bark, where the word that is understood, the result, when written rather than spoken, is usually slightly slovenly, and the word that can always be inserted after true. (If one adopts the terminology of J. L.Austin, to say Dogs bark is to perform a phatic act; to say that dogs bark is to perform a rhetic act. Since there is only one act, it would be better if Austin had talked about phatic and rhetic descriptions of (verbal) acts.) Propositions are not always expressed by that clauses. One can also say such things as Dogs bark. When one does one is usually asserting a proposition, in this case, the proposition that dogs bark. When one utters the words Dogs bark, one is usuallythough not if one is on the stage, teaching elocution, or merely exercising ones vocal cordsasserting the proposition that dogs bark. When one asserts that dogs bark, what one asserts can be said to be true or false, supported by the evidence, believed, disbelieved or doubted by the speaker, or consistent or inconsistent with other things (propositions) the speaker has said (asserted). The words that one uses to formulate a true proposition can be said to be true only in the sense that the proposition they express is true. And it is that
This article was stimulated by some remarks by J. J. C. Smart in criticism of a piece of work (God, Freedom and Immortality, Ashgate, 1999) that he was kind enough to read for me. I am greatly indebted to my friend David Rees for correcting the manuscript, and making some valuable suggestions concerning its content. 2 Jonathan Harrison, The Trouble with Tarski, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 48, 1998, pp. 122.
doi:10.1017/S0031819104000063 2004 The Royal Institute of Philosophy
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Jonathan Harrison dogs bark, not Dogs bark, that implies or entails, or from which it follows, that dogs are not entirely silent. None of these things can be said of sentences. Of sentences it may be said that they are in English, shouted out loud, rehearsed silently, written on recycled paper, consist entirely of four letter words, are long or short, written in green ink, half way up the sheet of paper, on mouldy parchment in faded ink, undecipherable, badly punctuated, do not end with a full stop, are difficult to understand, meaningless, composed of protons and electrons, have been where they are a long time, were written down a long time ago, will not last, are badly written, in joined writing, and fading rapidly. These things cannot be said of propositions. I shall argue that the function of the word that is to enable one to put forward a proposition in order that various things may be said about it without the person using these word expressing the proposition having to commit himself to its truth, as he usually would be if the word that were omitted. Propositions are not (pace Frege) thoughts. In one sense of think propositions can be thought, because one can think (believe) that dogs bark. But, of course, there can be many propositions among which are an infinite number of propositions that are instances of the schema: x+y=z, which, whether true or not, have never been either believed or disbelieved, and which it has never even entered anyones mind to consider. (Naturally I cannot give examples.) In another sense, to think is to reason or ratiocinate; but ratiocinating is an activity, and propositions are not activities, though many acts of ratiocinating may involve considering whether a proposition is true or false, probable or improbable, supported by the evidence or unfounded. Thinking, too sometimes means deliberating, or thinking what to do (or to say or to believe). If you decide to do A, there will be reasons (though not necessarily good ones) for your decision, and the reasons will be propositions, but what the reasons were reasons for are not propositions. Propositions are not always the objects of intention or hope, for you can intend or hope to as well as intend or hope that. To say that thoughts are the objects of intention or hope does not seem to me to make sense. It has become fashionable to speak of contents rather than propositions. I prefer the word proposition, partly because one speaks of the proposition that ..., not of the content that ...., partly because the word content suggests that contents are the contents of someones mind, and so mental, and perhaps also that a content is a kind of entity of which one can be aware. But propositions, even
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences when someone is considering them, are not the sort of thing to be the contents of anyones mind. If one were aware of them one could raise the old question whether it was they or our awareness of them that was mental, but they are not the sort of thing one can be aware of. Though one can consider the ways of cooking eggs with a view to deciding which one to adopt, this does not mean that a way is the kind of thingan entitythat one can be aware of (as opposed to being aware that it exists), and I believe the same is true of propositions. In any case applying the word content both to propositions, which could be described as the contents of thought, and to the objects of perception, blurs an important distinction. The contents of thought, like the thought that perhaps disaster is impending, are capable of being true or false; the objects of perception, like trees or rainbows (or the sense-data of trees or rainbows) cannot be. Anti-realistsand I shall discuss Anti-realism lateroften use the word statement rather than proposition, and use it interchangeably with sentence. A statement, however, is no more a sentence than a proposition is; you can say that Tom stated that dogs bark, but not that he stated Dogs bark. In the former case, what Tom stated is a proposition. Using statement, when it would be better to have used the word proposition, makes the Anti-realists task easier. For though statements, like propositions, can be true or false, they are unlike propositions in that in the required sense there cannot be any unknown statements, or undiscovered statements. Undiscovered or unknown statements would be things one might find in police stations. These would usually not be just sentences, unless taken from a lunatic, but statements that conveyed what the person being questioned claimed (though not in these words) to express true propositions. The fact that there cannot be unstated or unknown or unformulated statements may give the illusion that there cannot be unstated truths. But there can, of course, be unasserted true propositions, or propositions not known to be true, and this is what unknown truths are. (ii) Davidsons view of that: An alternative view has been expressed by Donald Davidson in On Saying That.3 According to Davidson, the word that, as it occurs in the sentence Galileo said that the earth moves is a demonstrative. It means Galileo said that: the earth moves. The word that
3 Donald Davidson, Enquiries into Truth and Interpretation, (Oxford University Press, 1984).

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Jonathan Harrison then, according to Davidson, refers to what I utter when I say The earth moves. Utterance, however, is ambiguous. It can mean the sentence I utter, or the proposition I use this sentence to assert, or the event of my uttering either of these. It can also designate a heterogeneous collection of things, such as individual words or phrases or the uttering of them. It ought not to be held that that refers to the sentence Davidson says utterancefor Galileo could and did say that the earth moves without uttering the sentence The earth moves. I myself would have thought that, if it were to refer to anything, it would refer to the proposition (or statement) that I utter. The sense in which utterance refers to the uttering of a proposition or sentence or some other words is irrelevant. Pace Davidson4 He said (in the past tense) that the earth moves is not a performative utterance. If what Galileo had said had been I say that the earth moves then he would have been uttering a performative, which would have enabled him to accomplish the performance of saying (asserting) that the earth moves. The performance itself would not have had a truth valuethough that the earth moves has a truth valuebecause Galileo is not saying that he is saying that the earth moves, but saying it. But someone (who may be Galileo) who says that Galileo said that the earth moves, is making a statement, which is true if Galileo did say that the earth moves, false if he did not. Davidson suggests that Tom said that the earth moves means An utterance of Toms, in the assertive mode, has the content of this utterance of mine: the earth moves. But Tom might perfectly well have said that the earth moves, even though he and I do not mean the same thing by the words The earth moves. My meaning the same as what Tom means by certain words is not a condition of his using these words to say something, quite possibly something true. What it is a condition of is the quite different fact that when I use these words after Tom said I am correctly reporting what Tom said. But it is perfectly possible for Tom to say that the earth moves, without my reporting what he says correctly, or having the resources in which to report his saying it. It is a further fatal objection to Davidsons theory that it cannot deal with recurrences of that such as that used in the sentence Tom said that Mary said that the earth moves And Davidson would be quite unable to deal with more complicated sentences such as this:
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Op. cit., note 3, 107.

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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences He thought me asleep; at least I knew. He thought I thought he thought I slept.5 (iii) Some more difficulties for Davidson There are the following difficulties with Davidsons view. (a) I would myself, if I wanted to refer to an utterance (if utterance is the right word) that I was about to state, use the word this, not the word that. I would say Galileo said this: the earth moves. The rules for the use of this and that are not clear-cut, but I would use this word for much the same reason that I would refer to the one in my vicinity as this one, but to the one in the distance as that one (over there). Though that is sometimes a demonstrative, but at other times has the function which I am attempting to elucidate, this` is always a demonstrative. Galileo said this: the earth moves would not have given rise to so much confusion. Hence had Davidson said this (or, as I shall suggest later the following), he might not have muddled the function of that as a demonstrative with its function in presenting a proposition. This does not enable one to present a proposition by being put before a sentence that expresses one. (b) Anyone saying Galileo said that: the earth moves, ought to be asserting two propositions. He ought to be asserting that Galileo said somethingin this case, though not necessarily, that the earth moveswhich he refers to by the word that. He should then be saying (asserting) himself that the earth moves, and so endorsing what Galileo said (though not saying that he is endorsing it). (He must be asserting the proposition that the earth moves, because the word that is not used in the words that express it, i.e., the earth moves. All that is said is the earth moves (where there ought to be a capital T). Since one function of that is to enable one to put forward a proposition for consideration without committing oneself to it, and The earth moves does not contain the word that, the man who says Galileo says that; the earth moves should be asserting and so committing himself to the earths moving by saying the earth moves, which in fact he is not.) However, if one says that Galileo said that the earth moves, one is asserting only one propositionan atomic propositionabout Galileo. The truth of that the earth moves is entirely irrelevant to the truth of that Galileo said that the earth moves. (c) Sometimes, as I have said, that is a demonstrative, as it is in
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From The Kiss by Coventry Patmore. 71

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Jonathan Harrison Thats a big one, where that refers to a fish, or Did Galileo believe that?, where the reference of that (to, say, that the earth moves) is understood from the context. At other times that is not a demonstrative, as in Galileo once believed that the earth did not move. Obviously, Galileo believed that ... where the gap must be filled to make a complete sentence, is quite different from Galileo believed that (when that is a demonstrative) which is a complete sentence. In He believed that was a big one, where that does present a proposition, there are in fact two occurrences of that, and it is really rather obvious that though the first that is referential, the second is not. (d) I actually would not use that in the way Davidson suggests, but say Galileo said (asserted) the following; that the earth moves. (The fact that you have to put that after the following shows that the function of that is not demonstrative, for the demonstrating is done by the following; but even with the following, the sentence needs a that in order to present the proposition that the earth moves without asserting it.) Hence one function of that is to remove the (I think conversational) implication, which would obtain were it not for that, that the proposition being formulated is being asserted and is believed by the person asserting it. Hence when I say that Galileo said that the earth moves I avoid committing myself to the proposition that the earth moves. But Galileo said that: that the earth moves though, unlike Davidsons Galileo said that the earth moves, avoids my committing myself to the proposition that the earth moves, is faced with the difficulty that it does not correctly report what Galileo said. If all Galileo had said was that the earth moves he would not have committed himself to the earths moving. Anyone saying that the earth moves is not committing himself to this truth, and could not be reported as having said (asserted) that the earth moves. For it to be true that Galileo said that the earth moves, what he would have had to say would be The earth moves, not that the earth moves. He would need to have said something about (the proposition) that the earth moves. To have made an assertion Galileo would have had to say some such thing as that that the earth moves is true.6 (Incidentally, what that` would designate, if it were to designate,
6 It is a minor, but interesting question what the word it in It is true that dogs bark refers to. It could be an impersonal use of it as in It is raining; when the question What is raining? is inappropriate. In It is true, said in reply to someone who has just asserted something, it refers to what has just been asserted, and says nothing different from That is true, said in the same circumstances. (Here that is being used demonstratively.)

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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences could not be, as Davidson supposes, an utterance. Sometimes utterance refers to the event of my uttering something, which occurs at a certain time and place (the time at which I uttered it and the place at which I was when I uttered it). But (the proposition) that the earth is flat does not occur at any time, or place. That the earth is flat occurred in Cambridge at 7.00 p.m. on 1st July does not make sense, though it does make sense to say this of the event of my asserting it. At other times utterance refers not to the event of my uttering something, but to what I utter. In that case what I utter is words or noises, which may or may not constitute a sentence. But that cannot be followed by words which express a sentence. He said (uttered the words) The earth is flat, is correct, but he asserted that The earth is flat is not. He asserted that the earth is flat is also correct, but He uttered that the earth is flat is not.) (e) That in He said that the earth moves does not refer to a proposition (or an utterance or anything else at all) but indicates that the proposition being formulated is going to be talked about. If I want to say, without committing myself to its truth, that someone said (asserted) a proposition, or believed it or thought about it or that it implies or is implied by some other proposition, I precede the words expressing the proposition in question with the word that. We have seen that the function of that is to express or formulate a proposition without committing oneself to it, with a view to talking about it. Hence it is a further difficulty for Davidson that to avoid the suggestion that in Davidsons Galileo said that: the earth moves, that the earth moves is being asserted, as opposed to merely being reported, one would need two thats. Davidsons view should be, if it were right at all, that Galileo said that the earth moves means Galileo said (asserted) that (said this, or said the following); that the earth moves. But this view would presuppose a truth incompatible with what Davidson is asserting, for the second that, the one that should be a demonstrative if his view is correct, is not a demonstrative. And if the only words Galileo had uttered were that the earth movesor the Italian equivalenthe would not have finished his sentence. A corollary of the view that that indicates that a proposition is being put forward, perhaps to be talked about, but not asserted, is that in That two and two are four is a necessary truth, it is the proposition that two and two are four that is being said to be a necessary truth, not the sentence Two and two are four. A sentence can be a necessary truth, but only in the sense that some such sentence as Two and two make four is necessary, necessary to express the fact that two and two make four.
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Jonathan Harrison (iv) That and implies Though one can and should make assertions such as that that he is a fool implies (or is perhaps equivalent to) that he is a knave, one cannot assert such things as If that he is a fool, then that he is a knave, or Either that he is not a fool or that he is a knave, or Not both that he is a fool and that he is a not knave. One should say, without the that, If he is a fool, he is a knave, Either he is a not fool or he is a knave or He is not both a fool and not a knave. Whether or not you put that before p and before q in any sentence such as That p implies that q will depend upon what you think ought to be substituted, when necessary, for the symbols p and q. If you intend that sentences such as dogs bark should be substituted, you have to add a that. If you wish to substitute that dogs bark, or think that implies should always be read as implies that you do not. The presence of that indicates that that today is Tuesday implies that tomorrow is Wednesday is about propositions, for example, propositions about someones aforesaid knavery and foolishness. The other three propositions are not about propositions, but directly about knavery and foolishness. One could say that they are about the world, though this is true only in an odd sense of world. But they are about what might be described as extrapropositional reality, whatever might be included under that description. By extra-propositional reality I mean reality outside the proposition being considered, for there is no reason why the reality in question should not consist of other propositions, e.g., that if he says that he believes that, he is a liar. Quine is therefore not right to hold7 that the difference between that p implies that q, and if p then q, is that in the latter a sentence is being used and in the former it is being mentioned.8 But it would be to oversimplify to suggest that what I have said implies a disWillard van Orman Quine, Methods of Logic, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962) p. 38. 8 Quine says The verbs implies, is longer than, is clearer than, and rhymes with are all on a par as far as the present contrasts are concerned: they connect, not statements to form compound statements, but names of statements to form statements about statements. But though is longer than, is clearer than and rhymes with are all about words, it is one proposition or statement that implies another proposition or statement. And Dogs bark is not the name of the statement that dogs bark as it would be if it were called George. Op. cit. note 6, 38. But Quine does here say statement, not, as he usually does, sentence. 74
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences tinction between using a proposition as opposed to talking about it. Indeed, one cannot use propositions (as opposed to mentioning them), though one can use sentences for, among other things, the purpose of formulating propositions, i.e., putting them into words. (Another use would simply be to deafen people in ones vicinity.) It should not be supposed that putting something into words is the same as naming it or describing it. It is not the case that one avoids committing oneself to a proposition when one says that that p implies that q, but not when one says that if p then q. In neither case is one committed to p or to q, and in both cases one is committed to the connection between p and q. But when one says that that p implies that q one is talking about propositions; when one says if p, then q, one is talking about the world. This is even clearer in certain senses of if, for example as in If it rains, England will win, which should take the truth table TFUU, where U indicates that since the speaker has committed himself to something only if it rains, and it has not rained, the questions whether he has asserted something true or false cannot arise. If it rains England will win cannot be translated as That it rains implies that England will win. One is tempted to say that only hypothetical propositions can assert anything conditionally; implication propositions assert unconditionally that a connection holds between their implicans and their implicata. There is nevertheless a difference, though Quine gets it wrong, between that that p implies that q, and that if p, then q. One is tempted to say that implication is the relation that holds between two propositions, say that dogs bark and that cats purr, when a statement such as that if dogs bark, then cats purr, is true. For example, if it is true that if he is a knave (then) he is a fool, then it is also the case that that he is a knave implies that he is a fool. One is tempted to say that that p implies that q if (and only if) if p, then q. There are reasons which I shall not state, for thinking that this view is too lax. On the other hand, the view that that p implies that q is true only if that q is deducible from that p, or if there is some other more intimate relation between that p and that q, is fairly obviously too stringent. It has been said (by Quine) that confusing propositions about what implies what, which I think need the words implies that, and those which are about the world, and expressed, among other ways, by If ... then ..., led to Russells definition of p implies q as either -p or q. Though Quine is right to insist that that he is a knave implies that he is a fool is on a higher level from that if he is a knave, then he is a fool, he is wrong if he supposes that this means
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Jonathan Harrison that that he is a knave implies that he is a fool is not entailed by if he is a knave, then he is a fool. If, as I have suggested, implication is that relation which holds between the propositions that he is a knave and that he is a fool precisely when it is true to say that if he is a knave, then he is a fool, then the fact that implication propositions are of an order one higher than hypothetical proposition does not mean that the latter cannot entail the former. This is a different view from the view that that if he is a knave he is a fool is equivalent to that either he is not a knave or he is a fool, or to that he is not both a knave and not a fool, where the latter propositions are about the world. On my view a proposition about propositions is made true by propositions about the world, because the latter propositions stand in just the relationship that the former says they do. But this is not to say that both my view and Quines may not both be correct. There is no word that stands in the relation to either ... or ... or not both ... and ... that implies stands in to if ... then .... One cannot say, useful though it might be to be able to, that that he is a knave disjoins that he is a fool, or that that he is a knave excludes that he is a fool. If there is a way of translating a disjunction or the negation of a conjunction into a statement about the relation between the disjuncts or the propositions jointly denied, it is to say that the negation of the first implies the second, or that the truth of the first conjunct implies the falsity of the second. For example, that if a syllogism has two negative premises it is invalid, and that either a syllogism does not have two negative premises, or it is invalid, or that a valid syllogism cannot have two negative premises, can all be put by saying that the statement that that a syllogism has two negative premises implies that it is invalid. It follows that that p implies that q does not mean that either -p or q. Whether or not that if p, then q is equivalent to either not p or q, to say that p implies that q, cannot be to say that that if p then q, for the second is about the world, and the first about a proposition about the world. One can argue from the already known fact that that p implies that q to the conclusion that if p, then q. One can argue to the conclusion that p implies that q from the fact that if p, then q. In the former case that p implies q must be known either because it is an a priori proposition, or from examining similar cases. In the latter case, the truth or falsity of that p and that q must be established by observation. If p then q, either -p or q, and not both (p & q) may well be all equivalent (though perhaps different in their conversational implications). All may entail that p implies that q (because that one or
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences other of these relations holds between p and q is just what that p implies that q asserts. And one but not the only reason for asserting any of these three is that that p implies that q, and it may be that asserting any of these three at least sometimes implies, in the sense of presupposing, that p implies that q. If one can assert that if p, then q because one knows that p is false or knows that q is true, it might seem that if p then q cannot presuppose that p implies that q. But examples of cases when if p then q is implied by, say, -q are cases that presuppose that p implies that q is true. If Tom wins I am a Dutchman, asserted on the grounds that I am not a Dutchman, which is the premise of an enthymeme with the conclusion that Tom wont win, is precisely a case when it is presupposed that that Tom will win implies that Im not a Dutchman. There is a question about implies that is analogous to the question whether the word true in That dogs bark is true is redundant. It is the question whether in That p implies that q the word implies can be omitted, and if p then q substituted for it. (We shall see later that implies just means implies true.) I shall also argue later that implies cannot be dropped, because it is impossible to make the necessary generalizations about truth using only the words if ... then .... I have put forward the view that that p implies that q asserts that if p, then q, (and perhaps also asserts that either not-p or q and not both p & q) and that if p then q presupposes that p implies q, but I am not convinced that these apparently different views are incompatible. For example, could you not say that that p presupposes that p is true, and that what that p is true asserts is that p? I think however, that the correct account of the situation may be that if p then q does not so much imply that that p implies that q, as make that p implies that q true because the truth of if p then q is just what that p implies that q asserts to be the case. And it is not so much that if p then q presupposes that that p implies that q, so much that my asserting that if p then q that presupposes that I believe that that p implies that q. (v) Logic about propositions, not about sentences; the Russellian view - q..pvq (*1.3) in ordinary words, says Russell, when explaining | that it states that if a proposition is true, any alternative proposition may be added without making it false. In other places he says such things as that pvp..p (*1.2) means that if either p is true or
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Jonathan Harrison p is true, then p is true; but this is not a full translation of *1.2, since it p is not an ordinary English word. But it is clear that his view is that logic is not about propositions, but about sentences. Quine has complained that Russells work is full of type/token fallacies, because he sometimes uses implies and at other times uses if then ... . (I have argued above that the real difference between if p , then q ... and that p implies that q is that the former is about the world, the latter about propositions about the world.) It is impossible to interpret formulae of the form if ... then ... ... & ... and ... v ... as making, as they stand, generalizations about propositions. But, as we have seen, -p v q, though it does not mean, and should not be defined as meaning, that that p implies that qfor it is about the world whereas that p implies q is about propositions about the worlddoes entail that if p then q, and conversely. If p then q, then if -q then -p should be takencharitably, because the formula makes no mention of implication, and it is impossible to make generalizations about propositions with only the words if ... then ...to mean that whenever one proposition implies another, the contradictory of the second implies the contradictory of the first. To express the fact that pvqqvp, one must say some such things as that the order in which the disjuncts in a disjunctive proposition occur makes no difference to its truth. The fact that one cannot make the necessary generalizations without the words true or implies (which means implies the truth of) seems to me to dispose of the redundancy theory of truth, of which more hereafter. (vi) Logic about sentences; the Quinean view According to Quine the formulae in the propositional (or rather sentential) calculus are mere schemata, not propositions. One schema implies another9 if it is impossible to substitute sentences for the variables in the schemata in such a way as to make the first come out true and the second false. On this view, , v and & join the variables in such a way as to demand their being interpreted as if ... then .., either ... or ... and and respectively, never as implies. Hence sentences resulting from these substitutions express
Note that one does not need the word that when the proposition that follows is not stated, but only described. To put that in the relevant sense before words that do not express a proposition would not make sense. 78
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences propositions (which are not generalizations) about the world, not propositions about propositions. (According to Quine, of course, they are sentences about the world, rather than sentences about sentences.) Implication (I would prefer to say entailment) comes in only because some schemata imply10 others. always means if ... then ..., and never implies; hence all sentences resulting from substituting a sentence for a variable in a schema are about the world. Implication is used only when one is talking about the relation between schemata, and is not used within schemata. Hence there is no confusion between using and mentioning it (on Quines (incorrect) view of this fallacy) or between stating a proposition and talking about it (on my view). (vii) Rejection of the Quinean view Quines view cannot be right. Schemata, qua schemata, are just concatenations of printers ink, and, without a certain amount of conversation, no more express truths of logical interest than slots cut in paper into which one may insert sentences. What is of logical interest is the statements (or propositions) about the schemata to the effect that if you fill in the variables in the schema with certain sentences for propositions, you will get a sentence expressing a necessarily true proposition. But this presupposes the view, which it is supposed to rival, that the formulae express generalizations about propositions. For the statement that if you fill in p in pp with any sentence for a proposition you will get a sentence that expresses a necessarily true proposition, presupposes the truth of the true result in question, namely, the generalization that every proposition implies itself; so you might as well accept a view such that logical formulae express generalizations about propositions in the first place. In any case, propositional logic cannot consist of generalizations about sentences or formulae, for such generalizations are precarious in a way in which logic ought not to be. It is a necessary truth that pp if this means that every proposition implies itself, but simply a contingent fact that whatever sentence is substituted for the variables in pp the result expresses a (necessary) truth. This is because it is just a contingent fact that means implies and not, say, and. Interpreting logic as being about schemata also ignores its a priori character, for it is just an empirical fact that schema have the function given to them.
10 I put imply in quotes because pvpp does not imply (-pp)p in the ordinary English sense of imply; which carries truth with it.

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Jonathan Harrison Taking the calculus of propositions to be about schema also makes it conventional in an undesirable way, for what a schema means is entirely a matter of convention. But the fact that every proposition implies itself is not a matter of convention, though what symbols are used to express this fact is. Another difficulty11 with the Quinean view is that it does not even follow from the fact that every sentence substituted for a variable in a schema expresses a truth, that the proposition expressed is itself necessarily true. For example, in the schema W means W (a substitution instance of which would be Cows means cows) it is impossible to substitute any word for W and get a false result; but the sentence Cows means cows does not express a necessary truth.12 What it actually does is something quite different, i.e., necessarily express a truth. (I have argued13 that the sentences Cows means cows, I am here, Snow is white means that snow is white, and is true if and only if snow is white, and The metre rod in Paris is a metre long are instances of schemata which necessarily express truths. These schemata are W means W, I am in the place I am, s means s if and only if s expresses a truth if and only if s. Though these schemata are such that, necessarily, every sentence in them expresses a truth, the truths they express are all contingent.14 Hence the fact that it is impossible to substitute sentences for Quines schema in such a way as to make them come out false does not by itself mean that these sentences express necessary truths, as they need to be if they are to be logical truths. For all these reasons, the propositional calculus must be about propositions, not about sentences (or schemata). (viii) Propositions, sentences and the logic of propositional functions When it comes to propositional functions, however, though Russell maintains the view that the logic of propositional functions still consists of relations of implication between propositions, he is nevertheless tarred with the same brush as Quine. For he says that the propositions of traditional logicthat all men are mortal, that some men are mortal, that no men are mortal and that some men are not
Op. cit. note 2. Op. cit. note 2. 13 Loc. cit. note 2, . 14 Jonathan Harrison, The Confusions of Kripke, Erkenntnis, Vol. 27, 1986.
12 11

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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences mortalare all about propositional functions. For example, he says that that all men are mortal means that the propositional function x is mortal is a man is always true. To say that some men are mortal is to say that the propositional function some men are mortal is sometimes true, and so on. The logic of propositional functions then elucidates the logical relations between propositions such as these. If it is intended to be an explanation of what is meant by all Russells view is circularfor always in always true simply means at all times. And as an account of what is meant by all, some, and none Russells view suffers from the defect of translating propositions about men into propositions about the word man. It is just plain wrong to suppose that when one is talking about men being mortal one is talking about the words man and mortal, as one would be if one were talking about the propositional function x is a man. Still less could we be talking about the symbol x. (The propositions about men now expressed by the sentence All men are mortal would remain true, even if the word man (in the propositional function x is a man) were to come to mean phoenix, though if the word man were to come to mean phoenix, the sentence All men are mortal would come to express a proposition that was false, as would the propositional function x is a man. The same confusion is exemplified by Russells saying such things as that Peanos axioms are about variables, when they are in fact about numbers. And the variable x cannot have children. The situation could be saved by inserting the word that in an appropriate place in the function x is a man. That x is a man implies that x is mortal does depend for its truth upon the meaning of man, for it is not about x is a man, but about men. There is a perfectly good sense in which something of the form that ... can be said to be sometimes true. For example, it can be sometimes true that the pub opposite is open. (It is always true to say that it is sometimes open.) (This does not escape a well-known objection to Russells account of propositions like All men are mortal. If Russell were right, the propositions that all centaurs are mortal, all centaurs are company directors, all centaurs are apartment blocks, etc., would all be true, since, as there are no centaurs, the propositional function x is a centaur is always false, and material implications with false antecedents necessarily are true. Hence the statement that the nonexistent propositional function (x) is a diodopulos x is a quadrangle must always true, on the grounds that there is no such propositional function.
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Jonathan Harrison (ix) Objectual and substitutional interpretation of variables It follows from what I have said about propositional functions that it is as foolish for the two ends of a worm to quarrel as for the substitutional and objectual interpretations of quantifiers to quarrel. The only thing one can substitute for a variable is a word or description; one cannot, pace Russell, substitute a man, but only a word or description of a man, for the variable in the propositional function x is a man. However, the propositional function x is a man will range over men if words or descriptions for men are substituted for the variable x. (x) Propositions, sentences and descriptions Russell says that what he calls the definite description the author of Waverley is Scotch [sic] means among other things that the propositional function x wrote Waverley is not always false. But whatever we are talking about when we talk about the author of Waverley, we are not talking about the words wrote Waverley. Scott would have written Waverley, whatever had been meant by wrote, and even if he had called Waverley Gentlemen prefer Blondes. Russells account could be improved if that x wrote Waverley was substituted for x wrote Waverley. Then, instead of saying that x wrote Waverley was sometimes true, one could say that that x wrote Waverley (without the quotes) was sometimes true. I myself cannot see why one could not then just say it is true that someone wrote Waverley though, saying this, would not be equivalent to saying that someone wrote Waverley. (Russells account of indefinite descriptions also cannot be correct, and for the same reason.) For the same reason the statement that God exists cannot be, as Russell maintains that it is, about the propositional function x is God. Whether one is successful or not, one is trying to say such things as that God is omniscient, and what is omniscient cannot consist of something having two words and one symbol. When one says that God exists, one is talking about God, not about God, whether God exists or not. It is simply a mistake to hold that one cannot talk about the non-existent. One talks about non-existent things all the time. One is talking about something if that thing is the subject of ones discourse. Fairies are the subject of ones discourse if one utters words which purport to refer to fairies, knowing what the word fairies means, and with a view to communicating to others ones thoughts on this important topic.
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences (xi) Some consequential remarks about truth; When I say That snow is white is true I get through the that snow is white part without committing myself to snows being white. When someone says (utters the words) that snow is white he is putting up a proposition for consideration without asserting it, and with a view to saying certain things about it, such as that it is true or false or believed or disbelieved. When he says Snow is white, without the word that, he is (normally)15 asserting that snow is white. That I am putting forward a proposition for consideration when I say that snow is white is even more clearly shown by the fact that I could have added is false. The proposition that it is true that snow is white gets over no more information about the world than does the proposition that snow is white, but it does state something about the proposition that snow is white that that snow is white does not state. Of course, anyone who says that snow is white ought also to be prepared to say that it is true that snow is white, if he has the words in which to do it, but this does not mean that this is what he has said. To say that a proposition is true is to say that things are as that proposition says that they are. It follows that anyone saying that it is true that that proposition is true must also be saying that things are as it says they are; he is saying that it is a proposition that says that things are as they are, which, ex hypothesi, it does. The same is true of that it is true that it is true that it is true, and so ad infinitum. Hence the reason why the proposition that it is true that dogs bark, unlike the proposition that Tom believes that that dogs bark implies that dogs bark, is that to say that it is true that dogs bark is to say that things are as anyone asserting that proposition would be asserting that they are. Then, if the person in question has succeeded in saying how things are, what he has said must be16 true. If you yourself think that dogs bark, then you must think that anyone saying that they bark is saying that things are in the way that in fact, they are. (The fact that I say of what someone who says that it is raining is true because I agree with him that it is raining does not mean that what I mean when I say that that it is raining is true is that I agree with him that it is raining. If it is raining, then it is an objecHe would not be asserting it if he were on the stage, for example, or rehearsing his part. 16 L(p and A asserts that p implies that what A says is true), not (p and A asserts p) implies that what A says is true). 83
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Jonathan Harrison tive fact that it is raining, and it will be raining whether I agree with him or not. (xii) Truth and correspondence I suppose that the view that to say that a proposition is true is to say that things are as it says that they are is a kind of correspondence theory. It does not hold, however, that truth is correspondence to (or with) fact. (Indeed, I have steered away from using the word corresponds at all, as it is not clear what it means.) There is an old fashioned sense in which fact means event or deed or crime.17 But the true proposition that two and two are four, for example, does not correspond to an event or a deed or a crime. One may wish to say that it corresponds to the fact that two and two make four, but to say that it is a fact that two plus two make four, if it corresponds to anything, corresponds to the fact that two and two make four. But in fact (i.e.. despite what has been supposed) that two and two are four does not correspond to a fact; it is a fact. It is either true that there is life on Mars or false that there is life on Mars, but neither are facts. One day, perhaps, it will become an established fact that there is life there, and then that there is life on Mars will be a fact. (Not all true propositions are facts. Saying that something is true and that it is a fact have different conversational implications.) Neither facts nor true propositions are contained within the world. Wittgensteins statementthe first in the Tractatusthat the world is the sum of everything that is the case is probably one of the greatest howlers to be perpetrated by an eminent philosopher. Indeed, nothing that is a fact can be in the world, for the world contains chairs and tables and people and stars and galaxies, and none of these is the case. What is the case is that there are such things; but the fact (as well as the proposition) that there are such things are no more part of the world than the fact that there are not any centaurs, which is also a fact. Perhaps a true proposition corresponds to the way things are. For the proposition that snow is white to be true, things must be the way that proposition says that they are. The way things are can comprehend snows being white, the average mans once having had 24 children, twos not having a square root, and there being more ways of getting to heaven than in a Ford coup (if there are).
17 As a matter of fact, I do not think that fact ever means crime, though one species of fact, in the sense of deed, are crimes.

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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences (xiii) Truth and coherence The fact that to say that a proposition is true is to say that things are as it says that they are explains, as we have seen, why if a proposition is true, it is true that it is true. If to say that a proposition is true is to say that it coheres with other propositions, there would be no logical reason why the proposition that a proposition coheres with other propositions should cohere with other propositions. Though every proposition must be either true or false, there is no obvious reason why a proposition should either cohere with other propositions or not cohere with other propositions. And, though if a proposition is true, it must be true that it is true, there is also no obvious reason why the proposition that a proposition coheres with other propositions should cohere with other propositions. The truth is that in assuming that if a proposition coheres with other propositions it must be true that it coheres with other propositions, the holders of the coherence theory are, inconsistently, assuming either the correspondence or the redundancy theory of truth. They are assuming that, though to say that a proposition is true is to say that it coheres, to say that it is true that it is true that it coheres is to say that things are as it says that they are, i.e., that it says a certain proposition coheres and it does. (xiv) Truth and pragmatism According to pragmatism a proposition is true if it is one that it is useful, or which has good consequences, to believe. This can be taken as a view that is paradoxical and immoral. If it means, as I think it should, that a proposition is true if the consequences of believing it are good for the agent, it follows that some false propositions, such as that the Prime Minister is always right, are true. It also leads to some form of relativism, in that the consequences of believing that the Prime Minister is always right may be good for a member of the Prime Ministers party, but not for a member of the opposition. In any case, this kind of consequence is not the result of believing such things, but the consequence of asserting them out loud when you can be heard by influential people, whether one believes them or not. If Pragmatists hold that if a proposition is true if the consequences of acting on it are good, this is more plausible, but only partially true, as anyone will know who has failed to bet on a horse that won because he believed truly that the chances of its winning were
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Jonathan Harrison remote. In any case, it is irrelevant whether the consequences of acting on a proposition are good; what is relevant is its getting the agent what he was aiming to get by acting on it. The belief that a proposition is true if beliefs converge upon it seems a piece of rather gross overoptimism; I can see no earthly reason why beliefs should always converge on the truth, though mostly they must by and large do so or we should live uncomfortable lives or prematurely die. As I get older I feel my beliefs converge away from the truth, rather than towards it, and if all the world became old, as may happen one day, everybodys beliefs would be converging away from the truth. In any case, no-one seems to have thought carefully about what beliefs converge on such truths as that, say, my name is Harrison, and what is meant by converge. Is the belief that my name is Smith nearer the truth than the belief that my name is Jones, so that the beliefs of someone who replaces the first belief with the second converge upon the truth? In any case, it does not seem to be true of every belief that beliefs converge upon it or do not converge upon it (the analogue of the principle of bivalence; see next section). Though it is useful to have true beliefs, there is often no particular usefulness in believing that they are true beliefs, and so pragmatism cannot give any account of the fact that if a proposition is true, it must be true that it is true. Like the coherence theory, Pragmatism presupposes either the correspondence or the redundancy theories of truth. Sometimes pragmatists count among the useful consequences of a belief the fact that when tested it yields other true propositions; true propositions can be deduced from it. This success in theory is quite different from success in action. It is undoubtedly true that a proposition (or hypothesis) is rendered probably true by the fact that true consequences follow from it, but this view presupposes a different account of the truth of the consequences from that of the truth of the hypotheses; pace Antifoundationalists, one cannot go on supporting truths with other truths ad infinitum. At some point one must stop, and one must stop with a proposition which we believe because we confront it with reality, not because true consequences can be deduced from it (though of course true propositions can be deduced from it). (xv) Truth and warrantable assertibility If to say that a proposition is true is to say that things are as it says that they are, then the view that truth is warrantable assertibility or
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences anything like it must be wrong. It is moderately obvious that an enormous number of false propositions are warrantably assertible, for example that my horse will lose, when in fact against the odds it is going to win. The same is true of agreed, and agreed by most people. In any case, the truth of a proposition should not depend upon whether one is warranted in asserting it, but on whether one is warranted in believing it. There are lots of proposition which one is warranted in believing, but not warranted in asserting, for example that the lady one is speaking to, and is within earshot, is fat. Clearly there are lots of proposition which one is neither warranted in believing to be true nor warranted in believing to be false, which fact conflicts with the principle of bivalence. The effectiveness of the last argument depends on the truth of the principle of bivalence, that every proposition must be true or false, or true or not true. But though the principle of bivalence may not apply to every proposition, it is not sensible to reject the principle in many cases when one would need to reject it to retain the view that truth is warrantable assertibility. And one day it will be neither warrantably assertible that I lived nor warrantably assertible that I did not live; but I have difficulty in believing that it will then be neither true nor false that I am dead and neither true nor false that I am alive, and equal difficulty in believing that the truth of such propositions as that I am alive will change its truth value in the course of time (from being true now to neither true nor false later). (The view that propositions about the future are neither true nor false (and so eventually change from being neither true nor false to being true or to be being false) will lead to the implausible conclusion that that I will one day die is neither true nor false, and also that, since I know that I will one day die, that knowledge does not imply truth.) (xvi) That and the redundancy theory of truth: whether Casually and informally saying Dogs bark is true or Dogs bark implies dogs bark, and omitting the word, that gives spurious plausibility to any variant of the redundancy theory of truth because the omission of the word that makes it look as if what is being asserted to be true is about dogs (which is what the proposition that dogs bark is) not a proposition about a proposition about dogs, which is what the proposition that that dogs bark is true is. (Note the two thats.)18
18 But such precision is not always necessary, and Sir Ernest Gowers says that it is often stylistically better to omit it.

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Jonathan Harrison (It is important, in order to understand what has foregone, to realize that anyone saying or uttering the words Dogs bark without the word that, in order to assert something, is properly described as asserting the proposition that dogs bark (with the word that). Anyone saying or uttering the words with the intention of asserting something That dogs bark is true is properly described as saying (two thats) that that dogs bark is true. A proposition does not have to be formulated in order to be said to be true. It can be described, as in the proposition that some of the things Tom says are true, when it is not said which these things (propositions) are. The fact that a proposition can be talked about without being stated creates a difficulty for the redundancy theory of truth, for if the proposition has not been stated, one cannot simply be reiterating it when one says it is true. It has not been iterated in the first place. The stock answer to this objection is unsatisfactory. It may work for a proposition picked out by a definite description like the first thing Tom said on Tuesday. But with indefinite descriptions this manoeuvre is less successful. The redundancy theory holds that Some of the things that Tom says are true means (Ep) Tom says p and p, where the second occurrence of p is supposed to reiterate the first occurrence. Unlike Tom says that the cat is on the mat, and the cat is on the mat or Tom says that the cat is on the mat, and that the cat is on the mat is true, (Ep) Tom says (asserted) that p, and that p, does not make sense. Tom asserted that the cat is on the mat makes sense. Tom asserted that p does not make sense. To make the former make sense one would have to interpret it as a propositional function, which it cannot be, for it is supposed to be saying something true, and propositional functions are neither true nor false. If it is regarded as a propositional function, then it itself is neither true nor false, though it will be supposed by upholders of the redundancy theory that truths will be obtained by substituting propositions for the variable p. One has to make generalizations about propositions, as well as about the world, and one needs the words true or implies (which I have suggested means implies true) in order to do this. If the redundancy theory of truth were true, one could not make the necessary generalizations about propositions. One would always be talking about the world, not about propositions, for that it is true that snow is white is, according to the redundancy theory, just as much about snow as is that snow is white. There are obviously a large number of words which say things about propositions rather than about the world, and it would be odd if true were the only one of these words that had to be eliminated.
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences The final, and I think insuperable, difficulty for the redundancy theory is that it cannot deal with true as it occurs when intention is involved. Tom may be searching for truth without there being any particular truth for which he is searching, so that his search for truth cannot be analysed as (Ep) Tom wants to know p. Tom does not want to know that p; what he wants is to know whether p is true or not. That Tom wants to know whether p is true or not cannot be analysed as: either p and Tom wants to know p or -p and Tom wants to know that -p. Tom does not want to know eitherthough he may, which is different, hope that p is true or hope that q is true, and if p is true, want to know that it is. It looks puzzling that that if Tom is going to be killed tomorrow, he wants to know that he isperhaps so that he can make peace with his makerand he is going to be killed tomorrow does not entail that Tom wants to know that he is going to be killed tomorrow, which is an apparent breach of modus ponendo ponens.19 The puzzle is solved when it is realized that If Tom is going to be killed tomorrow Tom wants to know that he is is an incorrect way of formulating the fact that what Tom wants is, if he is to be killed tomorrow, to know that he is. This is not a hypothetical with a consequent about what Tom wants. The whole hypothetical expresses the object of Toms wants, i.e., if he is to be killed tomorrow to know that he is. An alternative way of solving the puzzle is to point out that that if he is going to be killed tomorrow, Tom wants to know that he is could also be better expressed by saying that Tom wants to know whether he is going to be killed tomorrow, so that if he is going to be killed tomorrow, he can make peace with his maker. Here there is no breach of ponendo ponens, because that Tom wants to know whether he is going to be killed tomorrow or not, together with Tom is going to be killed tomorrow, does not entail that Tom wants to know that he is going to be killed tomorrow. Indeed, it is highly unlikely that Tom does want to know that he will be killed tomorrow. That would entail that he was going to be killed tomorrow. (xvii) Truth and the semantic theory According to the so-called semantic theory, it is necessary that any satisfactory theory of truth fulfil the condition that (s)20 s is true if
Jonathan Harrison How Happy could I be with either, Ethical Essays, Vol. III, (Guildford: Ashford, 1995). 20 (s) is usually omitted, which doesnt help. 89
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Jonathan Harrison and only if s, where s would range over sentences on the objectual view, or where one would substitute sentences for s on the substitutional view. It holds that truth always belongs to the metalanguage, which is an inflated way of saying what I have just said, that the proposition that something is true is about a proposition and not about the world. (The statement that (s) s is true if and only if s must presumably be held (wrongly) to be a priori, because no empirical investigation of truth has been conducted in order to establish it.) The non-general statement that Snow is white is true if and only if snow is white is (apart from the fact that truth is improperly predicated of a sentence) all right linguistically as it stands. But, as is indicated by the fact that it contains the words if, it is a statement about the world, not as it should be in order to express a generalization about truth, a statement about sentences or propositions about the world; for that one would need the words true or the word implies. The then which can normally precede the sentence expressing the implicate is made unnecessary and indeed impossible by the presence of the words only if. Only if p, then q, as opposed to only if p, q, and unlike if p, then q, does not make sense. If and only if that p, then that q also does not make sense. The problem is how to formulate the generalization of which that snow is white is true if and only if snow is white is an instance. It might look as if If a proposition is true it is true that it is true, and vice versa, would do the trick, but in fact it doesnt. For here true occurs twice in the consequent, when it is supposed to occur only in the antecedent. If one tries to drop truth from the consequent what one gets is the statement that a sentence is true if and only if that sentence, which is meaningless. (s) s is true if and only if that sentence is also meaningless. The truth is that since you cannot make the required kind of generalization about a sentenceone concerning its truthwithout using the word true, the generalization eliminating truth cannot be made. The substitutional view makes a better job of making the required generalization, for the sentence Whatever (meaningful?) sentence one substitutes for s in the schema (s) s is true if and only if s the result will be true does make sense. But quite apart from the fact that it turns a generalization made in a sentence to a generalization about that sentence (see above) it does not formulate what needs to be formulated. For what needs to be formulated is a necessary truth about the truth of such things as that snow is white, whereas the generalization that whatever sentence is substituted for s in the formula (s) s is true if and only if s, the result will express a truth
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences expresses only a contingent truth about a sentence, and not a truth about the proposition that snow is white at all. For that snow is white would be true whatever was meant by snow and white. If snow meant grass or white meant black, substituting the sentence Snow is white for the variables in (s) s if and only if s would necessarily result in a sentence that expresses a truth, but not the needed truth about that snow is white. That a theory of truth should entail that (s) s is true if and only if s has been put forward (by Tarski) as a condition which any theory of truth must fulfil, but in fact any theory which fulfils this alleged necessary condition must be false, as well as being improperly formed (because as we have seen sentences are in the wrong category of thing to be true or false). It could be false because there are circumstances in which the sentence Snow is white may be false, or express what is false, even when snow is white. For example, the sentence would be false if snow were to mean grass or white were to mean green, and it is only a historical accident that these words do not mean this. (If snow were to mean grass and white were to mean green the sentence Snow is white would still express some truth, but the different truth that grass is green.) If snow were to come to mean grass, this would not affect the truth of the proposition that snow is white is true if and only if snow is white, though this proposition would then have to be expressed by using whatever word was then the word for snow in this case the word grass. I am not sure how the generalization of which snow is white is true if and only if snow is white is an instance can be expressed. It might be expressed as: whenever a situation (such as snows being white) obtains, the proposition stating that it obtains must be true. (xviii) (p) ppT It is an interesting consequence of what I have said about the function of the word true in making the generalizations about truth that when it comes to putting the proposition (p) ppT into English words one can say only that if a proposition is true, it is true that it is true, where there is one true in the antecedent and two in the consequent. Without the word true in the antecedent you get a piece of nonsense like Whenever a proposition, that proposition is true. The particular casethat the cat is on the mat implies that it is true that the cat is on the matof a generalization that one is trying to formulate, can be expressed, by using the word true only
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Jonathan Harrison once, but the general rule of which this is a case cannot be so expressed. (p) ppT does not make sense; (p) pTpTT does. It follows that that the cat is on the mat implies that it is true that the cat is on the mat is not, despite appearances, an instance of (p) ppT, but an instance of (p) pTpTT. This is because when one generalizes, one has to talk about a proposition about the world, and so add a true that was not there in the singular proposition. When the singular proposition (or one of its components) already contains the word true, one has to add a second true. The impossibility of doing without the word true in such situations seems to be another fatal objection to any variant of the redundancy theory. To return to the substitutional interpretation, the statement that the formula (p) ppT, yields a truth whatever sentence is substituted for p is true and makes sense, but again turns a statement about truth into a statement about a sentence that may or may not be about truth. Furthermore it is not a necessary truth that this formula expresses a truth, for the meaning attached to the symbols in it is purely conventional and we might have chosen other conventions. That (p) pTpTT, however, is a necessary truth. (xix) The principle of bivalence The principle of bivalence is usually expressed symbolically as pTvpF or (p) pTvpF. There is no difficulty about reading this as Every proposition is either true or false. This does not mean that you can make generalizations about propositions with v alone, without using the word true. (p) pv-p, has to be read as Every proposition is either true or its negation is true. My former objection to the substitutional interpretation of (p) pTvpF also applies to the principle of bivalence. The singular proposition that either that he is a fool is true or that he is not a fool is true is perfectly well formed. (xx) The law of the excluded middle The law of the excluded middle is usually expressed in symbols as pv-p, or as (p) pv-p. The natural way of expressing (p) pv-p would be to say that every proposition is either true or its negation is true. The formula (p) pv-p doesnt make sense unless one inserts the word true. For every proposition, that proposition or not that proposition does not make sense. The singular proposition that either he is a fool or not a fool, however, does make sense. (Of course it is in fact a necessary truth, but it does not say of itself that it is necessarily true.)
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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences (xxi) The principle of non-contradiction The principle of non-contradiction is supposed to be expressed as (p) -(p&-p). But since and here joins only propositions about the world, this formula does not make sense. That one cannot have a proposition and not that proposition is very nearly gibberish. To formulate it, again, one needs the word true. To say that a proposition and its negation cannot both be true makes perfectly good sense. (xxii) Partial Recapitulation Briefly to summarize: the formulae in the calculus of propositions involving implies (and is equivalent to) make sense provided is read as implies and not as if ... then ...; those involving only if ... then ..., either ... or ... and not both ... and ... do not make sense as they stand. (p) (p&(pq))q can simply be read as saying that if p is true, and implies that q, then that q is (or must be) true, which is all right. But (p) if p and if p then q, then q only make sense if for if ... then ... you substitute implies. If you read the expression as Whenever if p and if p then q then q it does not make sense, for Whenever if ... does not make sense. You can also make it make sense by turning it into a proposition about the function If p, and if p then q, then q which again makes the mistake of turning it from being a generalization about the propositions to one about the sentence in which that generalization is expressed. In our minds we read such formulae in whichever way makes it understandable, but we are sometimes doing a formula more justice than it deserves. The formula can all be made to make sense as reading them as propositions about the symbols that express them, as is done on the substitutional interpretation of the quantifiers, but we have seen why doing this is objectionable. (xxiii) That and entailment21 If to say that a proposition is true is to say that things are as it says that they are, then to say that one proposition entails another is to say
I did not know when I wrote this passage about two years ago that Frank Jackson had expressed a similar view; (Frank Jackson, New Essays on the A Priori, Paul Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 3245). 93
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Jonathan Harrison that if things are as the first proposition says that they are they must be as the second proposition says they are. The reason for this is that the range of thingsI cannot find any word more specific than thing that will not be too narrowwhich would make the second proposition true includes the range of things which make the first proposition true. If this is so, then if things are as the first proposition says they are, they must be as the second proposition says they are. If the range of situations which make the second proposition true includes the range of situations which make the first proposition true, the two propositions are equivalent. For example, if that something is a man entails that he is an animal, this is because the range of things which make it true to say that he is an animal includes the range of things which make it true to say that he is a man. We have to know what is meant by (among other words) man and animal to know whether or not this is so, but this does not mean that whether the first proposition entails the second depends on what is meant by man and animal. The proposition expressed by the sentence All men are animals will be true, whatever the words in that sentence mean, but if they were not to mean what they do mean, this sentence would express a different proposition, one which might be false. The fact that one proposition entails another can sometimes be worked out from knowledge of the definition of the words in the sentences that express it. For example, that vixens are female can be. More often, however, one has to envisage the range of circumstances in which would obtain if things are as one proposition says that they are and see if these are included in the range of situations which would obtain if things were as the other proposition says that they are.22 (xxiv) Propositions as subsistent entities Finally, I must disclaim the view, once associated, rightly or wrongly, with Bolzano and Meinong, that propositions are subsistent entities. A grin is not an entity. To speak of a grin is to speak of the way in which someones lips are configured. Entitiescats lipsare involved in grinning, but are not the grin. A grin can be friendly, forced, appealing, impossible to repress, insincere, or bad for the face. None of these epithets can be ascribed to lips. The same applies to ways. The proposition that there is a way of
22 Jonathan Harrison, Humes Moral Epistemology, (Oxford University Press, 1976), Chapter III.

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Logical Function of That, or Truth, Propositions and Sentences cooking eggs is entailed by the fact that if you put an egg with oil into a frying pan and apply heat the result will be a cooked egg. That ways can be talked about and even countedthere are far more eggs than there are ways of cooking eggsdoes not imply that ways are entities. Just as that the only entities involved in grinning are lips, so the only entities involved in that way of cooking an egg which is frying it are eggs, cooking oil, a pan, a source of heat and perhaps people. But this does not mean that what can be predicated of ways of cooking eggs, for example that they are slow, reliable, expensive, difficult, easy to forget or never used, can be predicated, either individually or collectively, of eggs, frying pans oil and heat. (The word heat is itself problematic. Perhaps I should have said under a jet of ignited gas.) Philosophers do in fact often take certain words to be about entitiessubstances might be a better wordand then debate the existence of a whole menagerie of apparent entities, the possible existence of which careful attention to language, together with considering the number of nouns in the language which cannot possibly be names for entities, might dispel. For example, if one thinks ways are entities, it may seem that the question whether there are such things as ways, or worse, given that there are ways, whether ways exist, is a philosophical or perhaps an ontological question. But to doubt whether there are ways of boiling eggs in view of the fact that it is manifestly possible to boil them would be daft. I suspect that the same thing is true of numbers. To doubt the existence of numbers when it is manifestly true that there is a prime number between three and seven, and that it is equally true that people can add numbers, subtract numbers, multiply numbers divide numbers, and correlate numbers with groups of entities (i.e. count them) is like doubting the existence of ways when it is manifestly true that there is at least one way of cooking eggs. To doubt the existence of propositions when it is manifestly possible to do such things as assert that dogs bark, deny that they do, wonder whether they do or not, advance reason for thinking that they do, draw conclusions from the fact that they do, is nearly as misguided. It may well be the case that the world contains no entities involved in cooking eggs over and above eggs, pans, frying oil and gas jets, but this is not at all to say that ways of cooking eggs just are eggs and pans and frying oil. Similarly, it may be that the world contains no entities relevant to the existence of propositions other than sentences, but this would not mean that propositions were sentences. But to give an account of the entities to which talk about
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Jonathan Harrison propositions might be reduced, and how to reduce it, is at the moment beyond my capacity. Cambridge

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