Introduction

This conception of propositional content immediately leads to questions about whether it is possible to explain how propositions themselves have truthconditions. This is the problem of the unity of the proposition – the problem of explaining how propositions have truth-conditions and other representational properties. Neither Frege nor Russell, the philosophers most responsible for the

Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, Minn apolis, N, USA

NEW ESSAYS ON THE NATURE OF PROPOSITIONS

1. Introduction According to a traditional and widely held conception of propositional content, propositions are the primary bearers of truth. This is an explanatory claim. Propositions are the primary bearers of truth in the sense that when we explain why something else has truth-conditions we appeal to the truth-conditions of a proposition. The sentence ‘Snow is white’ is true iff snow is white because this sentence expresses the proposition that snow is white, and this proposition is true iff snow is white. Someone’s assertion that snow is white is true iff snow is white because the speaker asserted theproposition that snowiswhite, and this proposition is true iff snow is white. To accept this traditional account is to treat propositions as a source of truth-conditions. Anything else that has truth-conditions, such as a sentence, assertionor belief, does sobecauseof a relationship it bears to aproposition.