Imperative Logic, Moods and Sentence Radicals

The aim of this essay is to examine two challenges that the imperative logic poses to the received view of sentence moods. According to the received view, there are three logico-semantic moods, indicative, imperative and interrogative; and there are two main components in natural language sentences, modal element and sentence radical. First we will examine whether change expression forces us to abandon one-radical-per-sentence view. Second, we will examine the doubts regarding threefold division of moods, which stem from the epistemic imperative conception of questions. We take Wittgenstein’s footnote remark to be the locus classicus of the received view: Imagine a picture representing a boxer in a particular stance. Now, this picture can be used to tell someone how he should stand, should hold himself; or how a particular man did stand in such-and-such situation; and so on. One might (using the language of chemistry) call that picture a proposition-radical. [10] §23. Speaking in terms of the picture-metaphor: the picture, or rather a combination of picture fragments means something, but that meaning is unsaturated until it has been used in a certain way. The component of the sentence that determines the use of the sentence-radical is called the modal element, logico-semantic mood [8] or illocutionary force indicator.