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    The sentence 'Barack Obama is a Democrat' is true and 'Ba... — Carmelics
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    The sentence 'Barack Obama is a Democrat' is true and 'Barack Obama is a Republican' is false.

    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The reference of 'is a Democrat' is a function that returns true when given as input an object that is a member of the Democratic party.
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    • 2.The reference of 'is a Republican' is a function that returns true when given as input an object that is a member of the Republican party.
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    • 3.Barack Obama is a member of the Democratic party and is not a member of the Republican party.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Party membership is a social-institutional fact constituted by collective intentionality, not a mind-independent property that extensions can track (Searle 1995).
      ?

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    • 2.Predicates like 'is a Democrat' have no determinate extension absent the background of evolving social practices, making truth-conditions context-sensitive rather than fixed (Wittgenstein, PI §201).
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    • 3.If the social institution of the Democratic Party dissolved or radically transformed, the truth-value of the sentence would shift without any change in Obama's intrinsic properties, undermining the referentialist account.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument shows that for any consistent theory, there are multiple admissible interpretations mapping its terms to extensions, making 'Barack Obama is a Democrat' true under one model and false under another (Putnam 1980).
      ?

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    • 2.No internal or causal constraint uniquely fixes which model is the intended one, so the claim that the sentence has a determinate truth-value presupposes a metaphysical realism that cannot be internally justified.
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    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge

    Related

    Barack Obama is a member of the Democratic party and is not a member of the Repu...Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument shows that for any consistent theory, t...If the social institution of the Democratic Party dissolved or radically transfo...No internal or causal constraint uniquely fixes which model is the intended one,...
    +4 moreShow less
    Party membership is a social-institutional fact constituted by collective intent...Predicates like 'is a Democrat' have no determinate extension absent the backgro...The reference of 'is a Democrat' is a function that returns true when given as i...The reference of 'is a Republican' is a function that returns true when given as...

    Similar

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    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: meaning
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    Again, the first of these is true, whereas the second is false. We already know that the reference of “Barack Obama” is the man for which the name stands; so, given that reference is power to affect truth-value, we know that the reference of predicates like “is a Democrat” and “is a Republican” must be something which combines with an object to yield a truth-value. Accordingly, it is natural to think of the reference of predicates of this sort as functions from objects to truth-values. The refer
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit