Word.ws English Dictionary

sententialism

sententialism noun: the theory that cognition is based on and can be represented as sentences in mentalese.

Noun

sententialism (uncountable)

  1. The theory that cognition is based on and can be represented as sentences in mentalese.
    • Sententialism does not entail that only verbal creatures can enjoy a mental language. Neither does it presuppose that an intelligent creature's language of thought must be its language of communication, […]1989, J. Christopher Maloney, The Mundane Matter of the Mental Language, page 111
    • Thinking, according to sententialism, may then be like quoting. To quote an English sentence is to issue, in a certain way, a token of a given English sentence type: […]2015, Richard John Kosciejew, The Pursuing Presence of Facts

Origin of sententialism

From sentential + -ism.

Questions about sententialism

What does sententialism mean?
Sententialism means the theory that cognition is based on and can be represented as sentences in mentalese.
What part of speech is sententialism?
Sententialism is a noun.

Words near sententialism in the dictionary

  1. sentential calculus
  2. sentential connective
  3. sentential connectives
  4. sentential logic
  5. sentential logics
  6. sententialism
  7. sententialist
  8. sententialists
  9. sententiality
  10. sententially
  11. sententials

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sententialism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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