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Expressivism and Cognitive Propositions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2019

JAMES L. D. BROWN Open the ORCID record for JAMES L. D. BROWN [Opens in a new window]
JAMES L. D. BROWN*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
*
james.brown@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

Expressivists about normative thought and discourse traditionally deny that there are nondeflationary normative propositions. However, it has recently been suggested that expressivists might avoid a number of problems by providing a theory of normative propositions compatible with expressivism. This paper explores the prospects for developing an expressivist theory of propositions within the framework of cognitive act theories of propositions. First, I argue that the only extant expressivist theory of cognitive propositions—Michael Ridge's ‘ecumenical expressivist’ theory—fails to explain identity conditions for normative propositions. Second, I argue that this failure motivates a general constraint—the ‘unity requirement’—that any expressivist theory of propositions must provide a unified nonrepresentational explanation of that in virtue of which propositional attitudes have the content that they have. Third, I argue that conceptual role accounts of content provide a promising framework in which to develop an expressivist theory of cognitive propositions.

Keywords

metaethicsexpressivismpropositionscognitive propositionsecumenical expressivism
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , Fall 2019 , pp. 371 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2019 

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Footnotes

Thanks to Matthew Chrisman, Giles Howdle, Jessica Isserow, Silvia Jonas, Jiwon Kim, Sebastian Köhler, Nicholas Laskowski, Michael Ridge, Saranga Sudarshan, Christine Tiefensee, Teemu Toppinen, Herman Veluwenkamp, Silvan Wittwer, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to audiences at Arché at the University of St Andrews, the Mind, Action, and Language Group at the University of Porto, and the University of Manchester.

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