Logic and Semantics for Imperatives

In this paper I will develop a view about the semantics of imperatives, which I term Modal Noncognitivism, on which imperatives might be said to have truth conditions (dispositionally, anyway), but on which it does not make sense to see them as expressing propositions (hence does not make sense to ascribe to them truth or falsity). This view stands against “Cognitivist” accounts of the semantics of imperatives, on which imperatives are claimed to express propositions, which are then enlisted in explanations of the relevant logico-semantic phenomena. It also stands against the major competitors to Cognitivist accounts—all of which are non-truthconditional and, as a result, fail to provide satisfying explanations of the fundamental semantic characteristics of imperatives (or so I argue). The view of imperatives I defend here improves on various treatments of imperatives on the market in giving an empirically and theoretically adequate account of their semantics and logic. It yields explanations of a wide range of semantic and logical phenomena about imperatives— explanations that are, I argue, at least as satisfying as the sorts of explanations of semantic and logical phenomena familiar from truth-conditional semantics. But it accomplishes this while defending the notion—which is, I argue, substantially correct—that imperatives could not have propositions, or truth conditions, as their meanings. This work has benefited greatly from the input of others. I would like to thank Andrew Alwood, Chris Barker, Simon Charlow, Allan Gibbard, Benj Hellie, Paul Portner, Will Starr, Eric Swanson, and Richmond Thomason, as well as audiences at the Association for Symbolic Logic’s 2011 APA Group Session on Dynamic Semantics, Cornell University, École Normale Supérieure, NYU, University of Toronto, and York University. Thanks also to two anonymous referees for this journal. N. Charlow (!) Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, 170 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5R 2M8, Canada e-mail: [email protected]