Editing Proposition (section)

==Objections to propositions==
Attempts to provide a workable definition of proposition include the following:
<blockquote>
Two meaningful declarative sentences express the same proposition, if and only if they mean the same thing.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}
</blockquote>
which defines ''proposition'' in terms of synonymity. For example, "Snow is white" (in English) and "Schnee ist weiß" (in German) are different sentences, but they say the same thing, so they express the same proposition. Another definition of proposition is:

<blockquote>
Two meaningful declarative sentence-tokens express the same proposition, if and only if they mean the same thing.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}
</blockquote>
The above definitions can result in two identical sentences/sentence-tokens appearing to have the same meaning, and thus expressing the same proposition and yet having different truth-values, as in "I am Spartacus" said by Spartacus and said by John Smith, and "It is Wednesday" said on a Wednesday and on a Thursday. These examples reflect the problem of [[ambiguity]] in common language, resulting in a mistaken equivalence of the statements. “I am Spartacus” spoken by Spartacus is the declaration that the individual speaking is called Spartacus and it is true. When spoken by John Smith, it is a declaration about a different speaker and it is false. The term “I” means different things, so “I am Spartacus” means different things.

A related problem is when identical sentences have the same truth-value, yet express different propositions. The sentence “I am a philosopher” could have been spoken by both Socrates and Plato. In both instances, the statement is true, but means something different.

These problems are addressed in [[predicate logic]] by using a variable for the problematic term, so that “X is a philosopher” can have Socrates or Plato substituted for X, illustrating that “Socrates is a philosopher” and “Plato is a philosopher” are different propositions. Similarly, “I am Spartacus” becomes “X is Spartacus”, where X is replaced with terms representing the individuals Spartacus and John Smith.

In other words, the example problems can be averted if sentences are formulated with precision such that their terms have unambiguous meanings.

A number of philosophers and linguists claim that all definitions of a proposition are too vague to be useful. For them, it is just a misleading concept that should be removed from philosophy and [[semantics]]. [[W. V. Quine]], who granted the existence of [[Set (mathematics)|sets]] in mathematics,<ref>{{Citation|last1=McGrath|first1=Matthew|title=Propositions|date=2018|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/propositions/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Spring 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-08-20|last2=Frank|first2=Devin}}</ref> maintained that the indeterminacy of translation prevented any meaningful discussion of propositions, and that they should be discarded in favor of sentences.<ref>{{cite book |last=Quine |first=W. V. |title=Philosophy of Logic |publisher=Prentice-Hall |location=NJ USA |year=1970 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/philosophyoflogi0000quin/page/1 1–14] |isbn=0-13-663625-X |url=https://archive.org/details/philosophyoflogi0000quin/page/1 }}</ref> [[P. F. Strawson]], on the other hand, advocated for the use of the term "[[Statement (logic)|statement]]".