Abstract: This book pursues an approach to sentence meaning on which sentences (independent and embedded) semantically act as predicates of various attitudinal and modal objects, entities like claims, requests, promises, obligations, and permissions, rather than standing for abstract propositions playing the role of objects. The approach, which also makes use of truthmaker semantics, has a wide range of applications to issues in philosophy of language, semantics, and philosophy of mind.
Prepublication version (please cite published version!)
Table of Contents (September 23)
Sources and Acknowledgments (September 2023)
Preface (version September 23)
Chapter 1: A New Approach to the Semantics of Attitude Reports and Modal Sentences (version August 23)
Chapter 2: The Ontology of Attitudinal and Modal Objects (version September 23)
Chapter 3: Object-Based Truthmaker Semantics, Norms of Truth and Direction of Fit (version September 23)
Chapter 4: Object-Based Truthmaker Semantics for Modals (verson September 23)
Chapter 5: The Syntax and Semantics of Basic Attitude Reports (version September 23)
Chapter 6: Levels of Linguistic Acts and the Semantics of Saying and Quoting (version September 23)
Chapter 7: Clauses in Functions other than as Predicates of Attitudinal or Modal Objects (version September 23)
Chapter 8: Conclusions and Avenues for Further Developments (version September 23)
References (version September 23)
Endorsements
“Friederike Moltmann’s Objects and Attitudes is a highly original work, presenting the results of over a decade of research at the intersection of linguistics and philosophy. It represents an important contribution to contemporary work on content and the ongoing hyperintensional revolution in semantics. Moltmann develops Kit Fine’s truthmaker semanticsim in novel ways to provide fine-grained notions of content for satisfiables, like beliefs and desires. It is a challenging and highly rewarding read.”—Mark Jago, University of Nottingham
“This book purses a bold idea: that both root and embedded sentences are not what we thought. Instead of, say, abstract propositions, it argues that sentences are predicates of things—objects like claims and obligations. The implications for semantics and natural language ontology are clear. Friederike Moltmann is one of very few scholars who can engage with the philosophy of language and generative syntax in one breath.”—Keir Moulton, University of Toronto
“For all their familiarity, things like claims, needs, conjectures, and possibilities—'satisfiables,’ Friederike Moltmann calls them—have not been accorded much theoretical respect. That changes now. Moltmann builds a semantics around them but with a crucial twist: Satisfiables have satisfiers, which puts the whole apparatus of truthmaker semantics at her disposal. Once froth on the waves, they become in Moltmann the wavemakers.”--Stephen Yablo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology