Giulia Felappi (King's College, London)

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June 23 MON — 12.30-14.30

Sala Riunioni — Direzione del Dipartimento (Via Festa del Perdono 7, Milano)

Identity, 'that'-clauses and the allegedly face-value account

Abstract: 

Complement clauses introduced by a ‘that’, which typically occur in sentences like

Olga believes that Cicero is smart

Olga’s reason is that Cicero is smart

It is true that Cicero is smart

It is possible that Cicero is smart

The proposition that Cicero is smart is true,

are usually called ‘that’-clauses. It is no exaggeration to say that for the past two thousand years or so we mostly all took for granted that ‘that’-clauses are singular terms. The traditional theory is also taken to be the face-value theory, i.e. the theory supposed to be in accordance with how things intuitively look.

In this paper, I will deal with what I take to be the strongest reason to reject the face-value theory, which is the datum that ‘that’-clauses simply do not behave like singular terms in identity statements. I will start by briefly discussing different strategies to resist the face-value theory that have been put forward in the literature and show why they do not seem either good or conclusive. Then I will present the stronger case of identity statements and what I will call the argument from identity to the effect that ‘that’-clauses are not singular terms. I will show that none of the possible attempts at resisting the argument seems promising. Still, the outcome will not be that the face-value theory is definitely false. The general conclusion will be that the theory does not have the special status of the face-value theory.