Year: 1974
Type: article
Abstract: Recent works on Stoic logic report that among complete λεκτά only a sub-class was regarded as capable of being true or false: by contrast with statements (ἀξιώματα), such other sentences as questions, orders and oaths do not bear a truth-value. But the situation is a good deal more complicated than that, at least in the case of oaths, which I propose to examine. In characterising all such utterances as ‘sentences’ I do not wish to beg questions which will be discussed below. Surface grammar, with its distinctions of indicative, imperative, interrogative and optative, can mislead us as to the real force of an utterance. In the case of oaths there seems to be no preferred form of expression; and it is a matter for deeper philosophical probing to determine their true relation to other speech-acts.
Author: J. D. G. Evans
Institution: University of Cambridge
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2312950265