Abstract
This paper concerns Yablo’s theory of asserted content as it is developed in his new book Aboutness. Yablo’s central idea is that in order to specify the asserted content of a sentence, we have to subtract those parts of its full semantic content that concern irrelevant subject matters. The paper argues that it is doubtful whether Yablo’s account successfully deals with its most basic envisaged application: to account for a difference of apparent truth value in cases of ordinary presupposition failure. In addition, some doubts are raised concerning the success of the extension of Yablo’s account to fictional talk, the informativeness of identity statements, and ontological commitments of number talk.
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Notes
Cp. Yablo (2014). From here on, all references are to this work, if not indicated otherwise.
Cp. Donnellan (1966), p. 287.
Cp., e.g., p. 5.
Cp. p. 135.
Cp. p. 148.
Cp. p. 148 and p. 144 respectively.
Cp. p. 182ff.
Cp. p. 183.
An interesting question would be whether there is always only one gap bridger that fulfils the conditions. Yablo seems to think that this is the case (cp. p. 185).
Cp. Strawson (1950).
Cp. also Schoubye (2009), p. 584.
Cp. p. 149f.
This contrasts with his earlier work on presupposition failure, e.g. Yablo (2006). Yablo’s change of mind becomes apparent from the fact that he assumes that the negation of a sentence containing a definite description like ‘It is not the case that the king of France is sitting in that chair’ is true if nothing satisfies the description (see below).
Cp., e.g., p. 4.
Cp. p. 200ff.
A manuscript by Maria Kuper raises a somewhat similar point regarding some of Yablo’s earlier work.
Cp. von Fintel (2004), p. 316f.
This example is due to Strawson (1964), p. 122.
Cp. von Fintel (2004), p. 295.
Cp. Felka (2017) where the following worries are elaborated with respect to Yablo’s version of if-thenism.
Cp. Wright and Hale (1992), p. 115. Cp. p. 81 for further discussion.
Cp. p. 59ff.
Thanks to Alex Steinberg who pointed that out to me.
Cp. p. 60.
References
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von Fintel, K. (2004). Would you believe it? The king of France is back!. In A. Bezuidenhout & M. Reimer (Eds.), Descriptions and beyond (pp. 315–341). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Yablo, S. (2014). Aboutness. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Felka, K. Comments on Stephen Yablo’s Aboutness . Erkenn 83, 1181–1194 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9935-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9935-x