Pretense, cancellation, and the act theory of propositions

Several philosophers advance substantive theories of propositions to deal with several issues they raise in connection a concern long pedigree philosophy, the problem unity propositions. The qualification ‘substantive’ is meant contrast ‘minimal’ or ‘deflationary’ – roughly, views that reject have hidden nature, worth investigating. Substantive appear create spurious problems by characterizing ways make them unfit perform their theoretical jobs. I will present this light some critical points against Hanks’ (2015 Hanks, Peter. 2015. Propositional Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2019 2019. “On Cancellation.” Synthese 196: 1385–1402. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/ /s11229-016-1260-4.[Crossref], [Web Science ®] Scholar]) act-theoretic view, and Recanati’s [2019. “Force 1403–1424. doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1223-9.] recent elaboration notion cancellation. Both Hanks Recanati, I’ll argue, rely on problematic conceptions fiction pretense.