Propositions. An introduction

Th e notion of proposition is pivotal in many areas of philosophy and,
in particular, in philosophy of language for the close connection that links
it to other notions such as reference, meaning, truth and understanding1.
Even though the debate on propositions and the claim that there are things
like them can be traced back to the time of Plato, it is by no means from
such fi gures as Bolzano, Frege, Moore and the early Russell that the current
debate originates. According to the traditional picture a proposition is:
A. Expressed in a given context by an utterance of a declarative sentence.
Propositions, according to (A) are the objects of the acts of assertion.
B. Primarily true or false. Propositions, according to (B), are what enters
into logical relations like entailment, compatibility and incompatibility.
C. Something people bear cognitive relations to. Propositions, according
to (C) are the referents of the that-clauses in the propositional attitudes
reports.
Th is threefold characterisation off ers the possibility to provide a functional
characterization of the notion of proposition as that entity, whatever it
may be, which plays the roles specified in (A)–(C).