We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part II - A first step: analysis of the predicative sentence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2016
Despite some obvious gaps and defects in execution I now want to regard the analysis of the mode of employment of elementary singular terms – those with which one can refer to perceptible objects – as concluded. In this lecture I shall merely summarize what follows from this analysis for the understanding of reference to objects, the explanation of the predicative form of sentence, and the elementary use of the word ‘true’. At the outset I predicted that, contrary to the traditional prejudice, the analysis of the mode of employment of expressions which ‘stand for’ objects would be essentially more complicated than the analysis of the mode of employment of predicates. The extent to which this is grounded in the facts of the case has meanwhile become apparent. The analysis of the mode of employment of these expressions is more complicated because the mode of employment is itself more complicated. It is so because the use of individual singular terms, in contrast to the use of elementary perceptual predicates, is not isolable. Therefore the individual expression cannot be explained by itself. Rather the use of any type of singular term refers (verweist) systematically to the use of singular terms of other types; and in part, as we have seen, this reference is even a reciprocal one.
These references (Verweisungen) are expressed in the replaceability of one expression by other expressions in the predicative sentences in which it is used. This replaceability can itself be asserted in an identity-statement. The replaceability of ‘a’ by ‘b’ expressed in the identity-statement ‘a = b’ however, does not fully bring out the phenomenon which I here call ‘reference’, because in an identity-statement neither of the two terms has a priority over the other, whereas in what I call reference it is always the one term that refers to the other; and this is not convertible except where the reference is a reciprocal one. We first encountered this phenomenon in connection with the question: ‘and which object is a?’ (Lecture 23).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
