Abstract

This dissertation presents a semantic theory for sentences of the form "S believes that A is F"--where "S" is a singular term which denotes a person, "A" is a non-empty proper name, and "F" is an unstructured predicate--according to which these sentences express relations between the person which "S" denotes and a quadruple which consists of: the entity denoted by "A"; a mode of presentation of the entity denoted by "A" to the person denoted by "S"; the property which is denoted by "F"; and a mode of presentation of the property denoted by "F" to the person denoted by "S". ;The major innovation in the theory is that the modes of presentation mentioned in and are claimed to be associated with the name "A" and the predicate "F" in a context-dependent way. This feature enables the theory to avoid Saul Kripke's well-known objections to theories in which modes of presentation are taken to be context-independent entities. Furthermore, the inclusion of the mode of presentation of the property denoted by "F" allows the theory to provide a solution to Stephen Schiffer's recent objections to "propositional" analysis of belief ascriptions. ;The dissertation contains extensions of this basic analysis to cover a wide range of more complex kinds of sentences ;Finally, this extended theory is applied to a wide range of well-known philosophical puzzles--e.g. the analysis of attitudes de se, the analysis of the contingent a priori, Kripke's puzzle about belief, linguistic arguments for eliminative materialism, etc.--and is shown to provide various insightful analyses.