ABSTRACT
Meanings have been thought to be particular ideas in people's minds. But several objections show that this cannot mean actual thoughts in the minds of particular people at particular times. Accordingly, meanings have also been taken to be abstract things in themselves, alternately called "propositions." The sentence "Snow is white" means that snow is white; equally, the author may say it "expresses the proposition that" snow is white. So an ideational theory seems to give us an intuitive way of expressing their meaning facts more precisely. The Proposition view is the leading entity theory of meaning. The Proposition Theory too is congenial to common sense. It is easy to agree that certain sentences of various different languages all have something in common, a language-independent content, and it is easy and natural to call that content "the proposition expressed by" various different sentences. It sounds as though the phrase "expresses a proposition" is just a fancier way of saying "is meaningful."
