Page History

PDF Version of this Document

Propositions, Instructions, and Performatives*

1.0 A proposition expresses what is -- e—e.g., that it is raining, that the door is closed, that 2+2 4. Therefore:
1.1 A proposition is always either true or false.
1.2 A proposition can have different degrees of probability with respect to our knowledge.
1.3. A proposition always refers to a so-called state of affairs, i.e., it expresses how things stand in relation to one another, and thus what is. (For this reason, a proposition can be true or false: true, if things stand in relation to one another as it says they do; false, if they stand in some other relation.)

...

Nevertheless, propositions and instructions are two different kinds of things, and their difference is of great significance for the theory of authority. Because there are two kinds of relevant ideal constructs that could comprise the domain of an authority, there are also two kinds of authority: the one exercised with the help of propositions, the other with the help of instructions. The first may be called "knowledge-authority," or, better, "epistemic authority," the second, "superior-authority," or "deontic authority." The first kind of authority is the authority of one who knows, the second kind, the authority of a superior.

Itshould It should be clear that one and the same person can hold both kinds of authority with respect to the same subject(s) and in the same domain -- ordomain—or, actually, in two domains that are closely connected because, in this case, the domain of epistemic authority comprises the practical propositions corresponding to the instructions comprised by the domain of deontic authority. Indeed, one could say that, in this case, the practical propositions that correspond to the instructions constitute their foundation. Therefore, deontic and epistemic authority do not exclude one another.

On the other hand, the two kinds of authority are mutually independent, in that deontic authority in a domain and epistemic authority in the corresponding domain do not necessarily go together, however desirable it may be that they do so. A superior is a superior, and thus has deontic authority simply because she or he is a superior, not because she or he knows better.

*According to Bochenski

* * * * * * *

One point at which I might need to take issue with this is 1.3. Judging from Bochenski's examples in 1.0, I can only suppose that 2+2 = 4 somehow refers to what he later calls "a state of affairs." In that event, he would appear to allow for necessary as well as contingent states of affairs, and I would have no substantial quarrell quarrel with him, provided he allowed for unconditionally as well as conditionally necessary (or possible) states of affairs such as mathematical propositions, being only conditionally necessary, are commonly understood to refer to. But if "states of affairs," or "how things stand in relation to one another," is taken in its usual meaning as referring only to certain contingent facts, as distinct from anything necessary, then it would follow from Bochenski's formulation either that there cannot be such a thing as a metaphysical proposition or that a metaphysical proposition cannot express what necessarily is, but, being logically like a scientific proposition, can express only what contingently is. Therefore, I might need to reformulate 1.3 to read in some such way as this: "A proposition always refers either to a so-called state of affairs, and thus to what contingently is, or to the strictly necessary conditions of the possibility of any state of affairs, and thus to what necessarily is."

...