Truth about a subject matter.
A proposition can be false but still true about a certain subject matter: e.g., the proposition that snow is white and expensive is false, yet still true about the color of snow. This paper investigates how this idea of ‘truth about a subject matter’ should be analyzed. I begin with the Simple Conju...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 207; no. 4; pp. 1 - 15 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Apr2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=193018317&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 193018317 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2026 vid: 207 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 193018317 10.1007/s11229-026-05550-9 ppf: 1 ppct: 14 formats: tig: atl: Truth about a subject matter. aug: au: Deng, Duen-Min affil: https://ror.org/05bqach95 Department of Philosophy, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, 10617, Taipei, Taiwan sug: keyword: Aboutness Lewis Partial truth Subject matter Yablo ab: A proposition can be false but still true about a certain subject matter: e.g., the proposition that snow is white and expensive is false, yet still true about the color of snow. This paper investigates how this idea of ‘truth about a subject matter’ should be analyzed. I begin with the Simple Conjunction Theory, which explains the case by decomposing a false proposition into a true conjunct about the subject matter and a false conjunct irrelevant to it. While intuitive, this theory fails to account for non-conjunctive propositions. I then examine the Lewis-Yablo Theory, which invokes possible-world partitions to analyze subject matters. I show that this framework generalizes the Simple Conjunction Theory and accommodates non-conjunctive cases, but it also faces a counterexample. To resolve this, I propose modifications based on closeness relations among possible worlds. The resulting account preserves the explanatory motivations of the earlier theories while avoiding their difficulties. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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