The main point of Peter Geach's paper, "Assertion" (Logic Matters, Basil Blackwell, 1972, pp. 254-269) is what he calls the Frege point: A thought may have just the same content whether you assent to its truth or not; a proposition may occur in discourse now asserted, now unasserted; and yet be recognizably the same proposition. This seems unassailably correct. One will fail to get the Frege point, however, if one confuses statements and propositions. An unstated statement is a contradiction in terms, but an unasserted proposition is not. The need for unasserted propositions can be seen from the fact that many of our compound assertions (a compound assertion being one whose content is propositionally compound) have components that are unasserted.
To assert a conditional, for example, is not to assert its antecedent or its consequent. If I assert that if Tom is drunk, then he is unfit to drive, I do not thereby assert that he is drunk, nor do I assert that he is unfit to drive. I assert a compound proposition the components of which I do not assert. The same goes for disjunctive propositions. To assert a disjunction is not to assert its disjuncts. Neither propositional component of Either Tom is sober or he is unfit to drive is asserted by one who merely asserts the compound disjunctive proposition.
What bearing does this have on recent discussions? I am not sure I understand William of Woking's position, but he seems to be denying something that Geach plausibly maintains, namely, that "there is no expression in ordinary language that regularly conveys assertoric force." (261) Suppose I want to assert that Tom is drunk. Then I would use the indicative sentence 'Tom is drunk.' But there is nothing intrinsically assertoric about that sentence. If there were, then prefixing 'if' to it would not remove its assertoric force as it does. As I have already explained, an assertive utterance of 'If Tom is drunk, then he is unfit to drive' does not amount to an assertive utterance of 'Tom is drunk.' 'If' cancels the assertoric force. And yet the same proposition occurs in both assertions, the assertion that Tom is drunk and the assertion that if Tom is drunk, then he is unfit to drive. I conclude that there is nothing intrinsically assertoric about indicative sentences. If so, there is no semantic component of an indicative sentence that can be called the assertoric component.
'If' prefixed to an indicative sentence does not alter its content: it neither augments it nor diminishes it. But it does subtract assertoric force. Given that the meaning of an indicative sentence is its content, and the semantics has to do with meaning, then there is no semantic assertoric component of an indicative sentence or of the proposition it expresses. Assertion and assertoric force do not belong in semantics; they belong in pragmatics. Or so it seems to me.
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