Abstract
Semantic theories for attitude ascriptions — i.e. sentences like “John believes that Cicero was manipulative” — typically start with the assumption that something like the following analysis must be correct:
Relational analysis of attitude ascriptions
An attitude verb expresses a relation between the subject of the attitude ascription and the semantic content of its sentential complement.
This tends to give rise to truth conditions which reflect a relational analysis of the attitudes themselves:
Relational truth conditions1
A sentence of the form A Vs that S (with V an attitude verb) is true if and only if A bears the attitude expressed by V to the semantic content of S.
The elaborations on these truth conditions that distinguish one semantic theory from another differ depending on how they account for the following sort of “data”:
Failure of substitutivity data
Sentence pairs like 1 and 2 can differ in truth value, despite differing only by co-designative expressions in the sentential complement:
- 1
Gareth believes that Cicero was manipulative.
- 2
Gareth believes that Tully was manipulative.
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© 2013 Erin Eaker
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Eaker, E. (2013). Keeping Attitude Metaphysics out of Attitude Ascription Semantics (and Vice Versa). In: Nottelmann, N. (eds) New Essays on Belief. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137026521_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137026521_9
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