It is Generally the Case That

Philosophers, in deliberations ranging from ethics to the philosophy of science, have paid scrupulous attention to universality. Generalizations which are not universal, which admit "negative instances," have received virtually no attention.1 I may say of Charlie, for example, that it is generally the case that he tells the truth, and the fact that Charlie does not always tell the truth is consistent with the first statement. Generalizations of this type, conspicuous and important in ordinary discourse, shall be discussed here. More precisely, I shall be interested in the following question: "If A is a tenseless proposition, under what conditions do we assert that 'It is generally the case that A' CgA') is true?"2 In other words, I wish to provide a semantics for "g." With this end in mind, a consideration of the following dialogue may prove instructive. PI (person 1) claims that proposition A is true. P2 provides for Pi's benefit a situation where A is false. PI replies somewhat emphatically: "But, it is generally the case that A is true." Such conversational exchanges are familiar enough. We note again that a situation where A is false does not necessitate gA's falsity. When A is always true, on the other hand, it seems somewhat peculiar to maintain that gA is true. However, it hardly appears right to say that it is false. (We will take V(gA)=T in such cases.) Instead we shall simply note that it would be nice if our semantical analysis helped account for this peculiarity. Along these lines, it would also be desirable if our semantics helped explain Pi's sense of indignation in his last reply.