Abstract
This discussion of Yablo’s book Aboutness focuses on the way partial content and partial truth are reflected in natural language. It argues that natural language reflects a content-based notion of part structure for a much greater range of entities than Yablo acknowledges. Moreover, it argues that some of those entities involve a notion of partial satisfaction rather than partial truth as well as, to an extent, a notion of partial existence or validity.
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Notes
Note that content is treated as mass, even if the content in question consists of well-individuated parts. Even in the latter case, part (or a part) needs to be chosen rather than the plural parts:
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(i)
Part of/??? Parts of what John claimed, namely that the students have passed the exam, is true: Joe, Mary and Bill have passed the exam, though not Sue.
Note, though, that plural-like mass nouns such as furniture or police force do not permit the plural parts either:
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(ii)
a. ??? parts of the furniture
b. ??? parts of the police force
Only mass terms that stand for objects that are organized wholes and may have functional parts permit the plural parts:
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(iii)
a. parts of the support (that is, the lampstand)
b. parts of the reinforcement (of the table top)
This indicates that the plural parts applies only to the parts of an object with a certain degree of integrity, parts of a functional whole, whether such a whole is referred to by a mass term or by a singular count term. For other observations regarding the difference between mass noun part and the singular count noun part see Moltmann (1998).
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(i)
Certain illocutionary or cognitive products may have a longer life span than the act that created them. They include products of the sort of ideas, hypothesis, proofs etc. (which are generally described by underived nouns).
The applicability of predicates of satisfaction makes particularly clear that nouns like demand, request, promise etc. could not stand for acts or propositions: neither acts nor propositions can be fulfilled, satisfied, taken up, or broken (Ulrich 1976). Rather such nouns stand for entities of a third kind—attitudinal objects—which come with intrinsic satisfaction conditions.
The notion of a response-stance verb is due to Cattell (1978), who argues that response-stance verbs share relevant syntactic properties with factive verbs.
Exist is not the only existence predicate applicable to modal products; hold, obtain, and be valid are in fact better applicable as existence predicates to modal products such as obligations, permissions, and promises. See Moltmann (2013b) for a discussion of existence predicates in natural language.
For some reason, no degree-related reading is available for partly:
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(i)
The sky is partly black.
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Note that true does not permit degree-related readings, which indicates that the philosophy of language implicit in natural language itself does not permit degrees of truth, as some vagueness theories would have it.
Some adverbs of completion, for example, entirely may relate only to a part structure corresponding to a participant, and not a degree-related part structure, for example English entirely:
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(i)
The sky is entirely black.
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(i)
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Moltmann, F. Partial content and expressions of part and whole. Philos Stud 174, 797–808 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0758-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0758-4