Editing Truth-conditional semantics (section)

===Refutation from necessary truths===
[[Scott Soames]] has harshly criticized truth-conditional semantics on the grounds that it is either wrong or uselessly circular.

Under its traditional formulation, truth-conditional semantics gives every [[logical truth|necessary truth]] precisely the same meaning, for all of them are true under precisely the same conditions (namely, all of them). And since the truth conditions of any unnecessarily true sentence are equivalent to the conjunction of those truth conditions and any necessary truth, any sentence means the same as its meaning plus a necessary truth. For example, if ''"snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white'', then it is trivially the case that ''"snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white and 2+2=4'', therefore under truth-conditional semantics "snow is white" means both that snow is white and that 2+2=4.

[[Scott Soames|Soames]] argues further that reformulations that attempt to account for this problem must beg the question. In specifying precisely ''which'' of the infinite number of truth-conditions for a sentence will count towards its meaning, one must take the meaning of the sentence as a guide. However, we wanted to specify meaning with truth-conditions, whereas now we are specifying truth-conditions with meaning, rendering the entire process fruitless.<ref>Soames, Scott. "Truth, Meaning and Understanding." ''Philosophical Studies 65''(1-2):17-35.</ref>