| The dissertation, as is presented at this moment, is an undulating trip that begins with an attempt of giving cogent response to the questions raised above that Davidson’s individuation of events has left untreated. Which, during the process of discussion, will be further expanded and materialized into a broader discussion of on semantics that are based on the reference of a proposition. It is believed by the author that a reference-based semantics is capable of cogently answering a variety of haunting questions such as the exactitude individuation of reference, the synonymy of propositions, the ontology of event as reference, as well as the semantics of causal propositions. All of these topics will be touched, though in inevitably uneven degrees of thoroughness, in the chapters to come.A conceptual basis is introduced at the outset (Chapter I), where a couple of key concepts are discussed under the ontological assumption that can be seem as a combination of property realism, functionalism and a’liberal’form of physicalism. Accordingly, a relatively easy path is tried out on the wake of the initial basics (Chapter II), which amounts to what I called extensional referentive semantics that treats, in a straight-forward manner, references of propositions as extensionally definable sets of objects. After that, both the merits and, disproportionally, disadvantages of the extensional approach is discussed. And it turns out that the extensional referentive semantics is insufficient both semantically and ontologically in important ways.Such insufficiency prompts a revisit to metaphysics (Chapter III), which begins with a discussion about the relation between semantics and metaphysics. The analysis is followed by a further discussion on the ontological status of propositions under the framework of property realism, in which a universal understanding of propositions is made, and theoretically tricky bulges tackled, by suggesting that the proposition is a universal that is multiply instantiated by every particular expression of it (3.2-3.6). The latter parts of this chapter is dedicated to a suggestion on the epistemic categorization of long-fetched and shorthand propositions, as well as a further ontological diversification of shorthand proposition into global and local subspecies based on the relative location of perceptive qualities to the general or particular perceptive range of Home sapiens. The latter sorting is more relevant to the following discussions because-as suggested in the following sections-the projection from the global to local shorthand propositions are essential part of sematic functions. (3.7-3.13).The idea of global-local projections gets a more refined form at the outset of the next chapter (Chapter Ⅳ), before the introduction of Nelson Goodman’s idea of entrenchment and inductive projection is introduced with a major modification that shifts its application from predicates to shorthand propositions (and in a less essential case, sections of propositions). (4.2) Such ideas are essential to the incoming construction of projective semantics, of which the discussion occupies the rest of the chapter (4.3-4.10). At its minimum, what projective semantics says is that the entrenchment of a proposition (roughly how ’easy’ and ’intuitive’ for one to be understood) is contributed by its historical record of semantic projection, a projection from global to local shorthandedness that instantiates every time the proposition is expressed. Hence for a proposition (both actual or fictional ones) that refers, a generic reference can be obtained from the projection history that contains the most essential cores of its semantic function.The final chapter (Chapter Ⅴ) concentrates on the reference theory of events directly derived from projective semantics of Chapter Ⅳ. According to the general characterization (5.1) an event is essentially the reference of a proposition that are the intersection of generic references and the corresponding states of affairs. A theory of event individuation is proposed such that an event is structurally composed of an i-part and an e-part. An event can be said of containing another, if either its i-part or e-part or both contains the other; while two events are identical if and only if their e-parts and i-parts are respectively identical (5.2). Following the theory of event individuation, one can suggest a criterion of synonymy for propositions such that propositions are synonymous if and only if the events they refer are both e-identical and i-identical. This is followed by a digressive section (5.4) that defends the theory against slingshot argument, which is set out to disprove the validity of metaphysics of events as references. Questions concerning ’detached’ events are discussion in the following section. While the semantics of causal proposition and its reference, which are most closely related to the discussion of events, are explored in the final two sections.The dissertation, as is presented at this moment, is an undulating trip that begins with an attempt of giving cogent response to the questions raised above that Davidson’s individuation of events has left untreated. Which, during the process of discussion, will be further expanded and materialized into a broader discussion of on semantics that are based on the reference of a proposition. It is believed by the author that a reference-based semantics is capable of cogently answering a variety of haunting questions such as the exactitude individuation of reference, the synonymy of propositions, the ontology of event as reference, as well as the semantics of causal propositions. All of these topics will be touched, though in inevitably uneven degrees of thoroughness, in the chapters to come.A conceptual basis is introduced at the outset (Chapter I), where a couple of key concepts are discussed under the ontological assumption that can be seem as a combination of property realism, functionalism and a’liberal’form of physicalism. Accordingly, a relatively easy path is tried out on the wake of the initial basics (Chapter II), which amounts to what I called extensional referentive semantics that treats, in a straight-forward manner, references of propositions as extensionally definable sets of objects. After that, both the merits and, disproportionally, disadvantages of the extensional approach is discussed. And it turns out that the extensional referentive semantics is insufficient both semantically and ontologically in important ways.Such insufficiency prompts a revisit to metaphysics (Chapter III), which begins with a discussion about the relation between semantics and metaphysics. The analysis is followed by a further discussion on the ontological status of propositions under the framework of property realism, in which a universal understanding of propositions is made, and theoretically tricky bulges tackled, by suggesting that the proposition is a universal that is multiply instantiated by every particular expression of it (3.2-3.6). The latter parts of this chapter is dedicated to a suggestion on the epistemic categorization of long-fetched and shorthand propositions, as well as a further ontological diversification of shorthand proposition into global and local subspecies based on the relative location of perceptive qualities to the general or particular perceptive range of Home sapiens. The latter sorting is more relevant to the following discussions because-as suggested in the following sections-the projection from the global to local shorthand propositions are essential part of sematic functions. (3.7-3.13).The idea of global-local projections gets a more refined form at the outset of the next chapter (Chapter Ⅳ), before the introduction of Nelson Goodman’s idea of entrenchment and inductive projection is introduced with a major modification that shifts its application from predicates to shorthand propositions (and in a less essential case, sections of propositions). (4.2) Such ideas are essential to the incoming construction of projective semantics, of which the discussion occupies the rest of the chapter (4.3-4.10). At its minimum, what projective semantics says is that the entrenchment of a proposition (roughly how ’easy’ and ’intuitive’ for one to be understood) is contributed by its historical record of semantic projection, a projection from global to local shorthandedness that instantiates every time the proposition is expressed. Hence for a proposition (both actual or fictional ones) that refers, a generic reference can be obtained from the projection history that contains the most essential cores of its semantic function.The final chapter (Chapter Ⅴ) concentrates on the reference theory of events directly derived from projective semantics of Chapter Ⅳ. According to the general characterization (5.1) an event is essentially the reference of a proposition that are the intersection of generic references and the corresponding states of affairs. A theory of event individuation is proposed such that an event is structurally composed of an i-part and an e-part. An event can be said of containing another, if either its i-part or e-part or both contains the other; while two events are identical if and only if their e-parts and i-parts are respectively identical (5.2). Following the theory of event individuation, one can suggest a criterion of synonymy for propositions such that propositions are synonymous if and only if the events they refer are both e-identical and i-identical. This is followed by a digressive section (5.4) that defends the theory against slingshot argument, which is set out to disprove the validity of metaphysics of events as references. Questions concerning ’detached’ events are discussion in the following section. While the semantics of causal proposition and its reference, which are most closely related to the discussion of events, are explored in the final two sections. |
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