Interpretation of abstract conditional sentences in deductive reasoning

Abstract

Sentences of the form if p then q have been defined in logic to have a fixed and singular meaning expressed by a conditional truth function. For naive subjects, however, this is only one of its possible meanings. Sometimes an abstract sentence of this form is interpreted in this way, but on other occasions it has a biconditional truth-functional meaning, while on still other occasions it has a meaning not found in the propositional calculus at all because part of the truth table is irrelevant. In the present study it is suggested that these various meanings are due in part to different inferences by the subject about how the sentence is supposed to be used in the experimental task, brought about by relatively small differences in the procedure employed. It is argued that such inferences are important for any theory of the interpretation of sentences and provide further evidence to indicate that the meaning of a sentence is not solely a function of the intrinsic properties of the sentence itself but is also dependent upon context as well.