2007-8
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Semantics and Philosophy of Language

Sly Pete: Indicative Conditionals and Context Dependence

Jason Stanley, Rutgers University
Friday, October 19, 11am

Some philosophers have argued that indicative conditionals do not express propositions, because the constructions are too context-sensitive to plausibly express propositions. These considerations also extend to certain other constructions, such as ones involving epistemic modals. My purpose in this paper is investigate whether context-dependence indeed provides a good ground for the conclusion that a construction does not express a proposition. I will also discuss some novel objections to recent truth-conditional theories of indicative conditionals.

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