Podcast Symposium: Thomas Hodgson - Propositions Need Not Be Intrinsically Representational

Propositions can be intrinsically representational or extrinsically representational. If a proposition is extrinsically representational then it is interpreted as representing such and such state-of-affairs. If it represents intrinsically then, intrinsically and by its very nature it represents some state-of-affairs. Tom Hodgson argues that there is no reason to think that propositions are intrinsically representational. This is part of a defence of Interpretive classicism, according to which, propositions are interpreted n-tuples of propositional constituents. The argument against intrinsically representing propositions is that there is no theoretical role that propositions need to play which require them to be intrinsically representational rather than extrinsically representational. Further, the Interpretivist account is better than the alternative because it can explain what it is to be representational whereas the alternative takes this to be primitive.

My first point is that it was a misunderstanding Russellian which has led to the view that propositions are representational at all. Russell's propositions did not represent; they did not have truth conditions. It would be more correct to say that they were truth conditions.

To have meaning, it seems to me, is a notion confusedly compounded of logical and psychological elements. Words all have meaning, in the simple sense that they are symbols which stand for something other than themselves. But a proposition, unless it happens to be linguistic, does not itself contain words : it contains the entities indicated by words. (Russell, p. 47: 1903)

There was such a thing, in Russell's theory, as an intrinsically representational entity, called a denoting concept. We can argue by invoking the contrast between denoting concepts and the other constituents of the proposition that, in Russell's view, the other constituents are not representational.

But such concepts as a man have meaning in another sense : they are, so to speak, symbolic in their own logical nature, because they have the property which I call denoting. That is to say, when a man occurs in a proposition (e.g “I met a man in the street”), the proposition is not about the concept a man, but about something quite different, some actual biped denoted by the concept. Thus concepts of this kind have meaning in a non psychological sense. (Russell, p. 47: 1903)

One of the arguments in favour of the representation view is that propositions are truth bearers (Jubien: 2001). It seems that only representations can be truth bearers, so propositions must be representational. This argument is probably motivated by correspondence intuitions, but we can argue, again by contrast, that Russell's propositions were not representational. By contrast with the correspondence theory of truth, which demands that propositions are representational, Russell held a different view of truth. According to Russell's early view of truth, which he gets from G. E Moore (Moore: 1899), truth is a primitive property of true propositions. I like to think of it as similar to the property of being actual. Representational propositions go with a correspondence theory of truth, Russell's propositions go with a non-correspondence view of truth because his propositions are not representational.

These points support Hodgson's case against IR for they show that Representationalism is not part of the traditional Russellian conception of propositions and therefore being Intrinsically Representational is not part of the traditional Russellian conception of propositions. These points might also be used against Hodgson, for they might be developed into a rejection of all Representationalist positions. Unfortunately such a development is outside my scope.

I will provide one consideration in favour of Anti-Representationalism. I think this view is more natural than its rivals. As Hodgson says, a proposition is assigned to a sentence as its semantic value. Presumably this is comparable to the way a name is assigned an object as its semantic value.
Assigning to something its semantic value seems to be interpretive. Different interpretation functions interpret words and sentences differently by assigning to them different semantic values. For this reason it is odd that the semantic value assigned to a sentence is in turn something that is interpreted. It seems that what ought to be assigned to the sentence as its semantic value, is whatever it is in King's theory that is assigned to an object in order to interpret it. This train of thought leads quite naturally to the idea that a semantic value is what is represented. It should never have been thought of as representational at all.

To end with, I have two criticisms related to the details of Hodgson's argument. The first is that we can keep apart the property of being Intrinsically Representational and the property of being independent of minds and languages. How? In Hodgson's discussion he deals with the notion of Intrinsic Representation as if it were the notion of representing in virtue of non-relational properties. This is a separate issue from the question of mind and language independence. We can imagine a view according to which there are mind and language independent semantic relations between a propositional object and the objects and properties it is about. If we treat the notion of intrinsic representation as if it were the notion of representing in virtue of non-relational properties, then a mind and language independent representation would not necessarily be an intrinsic representation.

My second criticism is a follow up on an objection put to Hodgson by John Hawthorne. Hawthorne presented the following argument:

1. For every non-empty set of objects, there is the power set of that set i.e the set of all subsets of that set. This includes the set of thought tokens (i.e all the events of thinking of a thought.)
2. For every non-empty set there is a property of being a member of that set.
3. For every property F and object o there is the proposition that o is F.
4. There are more properties than there are thought tokens. (From P1 and P2)
5. There are more propositions than there are thought tokens. (From P3 and P4)

Hodgson's response is that propositions are not interpreted one-by-one, they are interpreted recursively. There will then be as many propositions as there are wffs of the language which will be a countable infinity. The follow up point is this: Take the set of real numbers, by (2) and (3) there are as many propositions as there are real numbers. There number of real numbers is not a countable infinity, so there are more wffs than there are propositions.

Bibliography

Baldwin, Michael (1991). “The Identity Theory of Truth”. Mind, 100, pp. 35-52.
Jubien, Michael (2001). “Propositions and the Objects of Thought”, in Philosophical Studies, 104.1, pp. 47-62.
King Jeffrey C. (2007).The Nature and Structure of Content, Oxford: OUP.
Moore, G.E. (1899). “The nature of Judgement”. Mind, 8, pp. 176-93.
Russell, Bertrand (1903). Principles of Mathematics, London: Routledge.