Abstract

This chapter begins with a discussion of the contents of thought and talk. In particular, it defends a mainstream view of those contents against some influential, seductive, but ultimately unpersuasive objections. This mainstream view can be summarized by the following five theses: (i) there are propositions and they instantiate the fundamental monadic properties of truth simpliciter and falsity simpliciter; (ii) the semantic values of declarative sentences relative to contexts of utterance are propositions; (iii) propositions are, unsurprisingly, the objects of propositional attitudes, such as belief, hope, wish, doubt, etc.; (iv) propositions are the objects of illocutionary acts, they are, e.g., what we assert and deny; and (v) propositions are the objects of agreement and disagreement. The chapter then discusses the three core ideas of relativism, assesssor sensitivity, relativism and contextualism, relativism and non-indexical contextualism, relativism and propositional skeletons, and opposition to contextualism.