On Predication, a Conceptualist View

Abstract

Predication, as the nexus between a subject and a predicate expression, is the basis of the unity of a speech act, including speech acts in the plural and speech acts that involve mass nouns. A speech act, of course, is an overt expression of a mental act, e.g., a judgment; and therefore the unity of a speech act such as an assertion is really the unity of the judgment that underlies that act. Such a mental act, and therefore the speech act as well, has a unity based on how the referential and predicable roles of the subject and predicate expressions combine and function together respectively. What we propose here is to explain this unity of predication in terms of a conceptualist theory of logical forms that we claim underlies at least some important aspects of thought and natural language. Our conceptualist logic also contains an account of the medieval identity (two-name) theory of the copula, as well as an account of plural and mass noun reference and predication, the truth conditions of which are based on a logic of plurals and mass nouns.