On the other hand if they’re talking about propositions then it would seem to be trivially false, because propositions have truth values.
It doesn’t follow from the fact that propositions have truth values that the SEP quote is trivially false. “Stealing is wrong” as asserted by John and “Stealing is wrong” as asserted by Jenny both have truth values, they just don’t have the same truth values. You need another premise.
By “if they’re talking about propositions” I meant assuming that they mean “Stealing is wrong” to refer to a particular proposition (ie. asserting that John and Jenny are stating the same proposition) rather than a sentence (string of words).
Right, so you’d need a premise like “A given proposition can only have one truth value”. That’s not trivial though, and it’s been the subject of historical debate. For example, “Hen is sitting” is true...and false....and true again. You can work around that by saying “propositions come with time indexes” or something, but that’s far from trivial. Why can’t differences in speaker have the same effect?
So the SEP quote may be trivially false under a certain understanding of ‘proposition’ but I take it the issue of how to understand propositions is part of what the SEP quote intends to raise.
It doesn’t follow from the fact that propositions have truth values that the SEP quote is trivially false. “Stealing is wrong” as asserted by John and “Stealing is wrong” as asserted by Jenny both have truth values, they just don’t have the same truth values. You need another premise.
By “if they’re talking about propositions” I meant assuming that they mean “Stealing is wrong” to refer to a particular proposition (ie. asserting that John and Jenny are stating the same proposition) rather than a sentence (string of words).
Right, so you’d need a premise like “A given proposition can only have one truth value”. That’s not trivial though, and it’s been the subject of historical debate. For example, “Hen is sitting” is true...and false....and true again. You can work around that by saying “propositions come with time indexes” or something, but that’s far from trivial. Why can’t differences in speaker have the same effect?
So the SEP quote may be trivially false under a certain understanding of ‘proposition’ but I take it the issue of how to understand propositions is part of what the SEP quote intends to raise.