Solipsism is an extreme position. Ludwig Wittgenstein addressed this position several times over more than 20 years. Wittgenstein first became familiar with solipsism under the title of “theoretical egoism” when reading Schopenhauer at the tender age of 16. Elizabeth Anscombe related a personal conversation in which Wittgenstein said that Schopenhauer's theory of the world “as idea” struck him as fundamentally right, if in need of a few clarifications and adjustments, but that he opposed the theory of the world as will. (...) Wittgenstein's first philosophy was that of Schopenhauer and he was only liberated from it by Frege's conceptual realism. According to Schopenhauer, an “organic” philosophy needs an organic exposition. An organic philosophy stands in contrast to systematic philosophy, which argues sequentially “in the form of a chain” of propositions starting from one fundamental principle. Wittgenstein's overarching aim in the Tractatus is to delimit sense by expounding the limits for the expression of thoughts in language. (shrink)

Michael Dummett, following an established line of reasoning, has interpreted Frege as a realist. But his claim that Frege was arguing against a dominant idealism is untenable. While there are passages in Frege's writings that seem to support a realistic interpretation, others are irreconcilable with it. The issue can be resolved only by examining the historical context. Frege's thought is, in fact, related to the philosophy of Hermann Lotze. Frege is best regarded as a transcendental idealist in the (...) Lotze-Kant tradition. His contextual principle is a linguistic version of Kant's principle of the transcendental unity of judgment. By ignoring the historical context Dummett has been led to misinterpret the precise role of the contextual principle in Frege's thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I contest increasingly common "realist" interpretations of Hegel's theory of "the concept" (der Begriff), offering instead a "isomorphic" conception of the relation of concepts and the world. The isomorphism recommended, however, is metaphysically deflationary, for I show how Hegel's conception of conceptual form creates a conceptually internal standard for the adequacy of concepts. No "sideways-on" theory of the concept-world relationship is envisioned. This standard of conceptual adequacy is also "graduated" in that it allows for a (...) lack of fit between concept and world. The possibility for a "maximally isomorphic" fit between concept and world obtains through the teleological realization of concepts, which marks especially the "artificial" world of human culture (law, art, religion, etc.). Some of the most seemingly exaggerated claims Hegel makes about the concept, I contend, can be understood when we consider the significance Hegel ascribes to human making, which is provided for in his conceptual theory. But my framework provides an interpretive key for the way Hegel sees concepts imperfectly realized in the natural world as well. (shrink)

Kurt Gödel is almost as famous—one might say “notorious”—for his extreme platonist views as he is famous for his mathematical theorems. Moreover his platonism is not a myth; it is well-documented in his writings. Here are two platonist declarations about set theory, the first from his paper about Bertrand Russell and the second from the revised version of his paper on the Continuum Hypotheses.Classes and concepts may, however, also be conceived as real objects, namely classes as “pluralities of things” or (...) as structures consisting of a plurality of things and concepts as the properties and relations of things existing independently of our definitions and constructions.It seems to me that the assumption of such objects is quite as legitimate as the assumption of physical bodies and there is quite as much reason to believe in their existence.But, despite their remoteness from sense experience, we do have something like a perception also of the objects of set theory, as is seen from the fact that the axioms force themselves upon us as being true. I don't see any reason why we should have less confidence in this kind of perception, i.e., in mathematical intuition, than in sense perception.The first statement is a platonist declaration of a fairly standard sort concerning set theory. What is unusual in it is the inclusion of concepts among the objects of mathematics. This I will explain below. The second statement expresses what looks like a rather wild thesis. (shrink)

This article is a critical review of Cocchiarella’s theory of reference. In conceptual realism, there are two central distinctions regarding reference: first, between active and deactivated use of referential expressions, and, second, between using referential expressions with and without existential presupposition. Cocchiarella’s normative restrictions on the existential presuppositions of reference lead to postulating two fundamentally different kinds of objects in conceptual realism: realia or concrete objects, on the one hand, and abstract intensional objects or nonexistents, on (...) the other. According to Cocchiarella, nonexistents can be referred to only without existential presuppositions. However, referring to nonexistents with existential presuppositions is an ordinary human practice. To account for this fact, Cocchiarella’s normative theory of reference should be supplemented by a descriptive account of referring. (shrink)

In the first chapter, we discuss Dummett’s idea that the notion of truth arises from the one of the correctness of an assertion. We argue that, in a first-order language, the need of defining truth in terms of the notion of satisfaction, which is yielded by the presence of quantifiers, is structurally analogous to the need of a notion of truth as distinct from the one of correctness of an assertion. In the light of the analogy between predicates in Frege (...) and open formulas in Tarksi, we concentrate on the semantic status of predicates. We register a dual attitude of Dummett towards Frege’s ascription of reference to predicates. On the one it is needed to endow quantifiers with their appropriate meaning. On the other hand, the introduction of concepts, as semantic correlate of predicates, smuggles a realist flavor in the overall semantic picture. In concluding the excursus (and with it the chapter), we stress Dummett’s will of developing a semantic picture free from this realist trait. In the second chapter, we present the idea of a proof-theoretic semantics. As for Frege true sentences denotes the truth-value True, so here closed' (i.e. categorical) valid argumentations denotes proofs. If a language contains implication-like operators, in order to characterize the condition of validity of a closed argumentation one has to introduce a notion of validity applying to ‘open’ (i.e. hypothetical) argumentations. We argue that this problem is analogous to the one posed by quantifiers in Frege-Tarksi’s style semantics. That is, implication forces one to introduce notion of validity for argumentations, which is more substantial than the correctness of the assertion of their conclusions. As we saw, the corresponding claim in the truth-based approach—that quantifiers require one to introduce a notion of truth, which is more substantial than the one of an assertion being correct—was the source of realism. Hence, Dummett proposes to reduce the semantic contribution of open argumentations to the one of their ‘closed instances’. In the truth-based perspective, this would correspond to the denial of the need of introducing concepts as the semantic correlates of predicates. We argue that Dummett’s fear, that an irreducible notion of function (represented by the need of ascribing validity to open argumentations) would lead to realism, turns out to be ill-founded. In the third chapter, we discuss the role played by the notion of truth in the anti-realist account. The notion of truth is what the anti-realist needs to cope with the so-called paradox of deduction. The analysis of the paradox yields to distinguishing between the truth of a sentence and the truth of a sentence being recognized. In terms of these conceptual couple, we reconsider the relationship between truth and assertion in an anti-realist perspective. Grounds are provided for a thesis (which was already advanced in chapter two), according to which the notion of the assertion of a sentence being correct is primarily connected only with the canonical means of establishing a sentence. The possibility of establishing a sentence by indirect means is conceptually dependent on the practice of establishing logical relationship of dependence among sentences. That is, the notion of a closed valid non-canonical argumentation is of any theoretical relevance only in presence of a notion of validity applying to open argumentations. In the fourth chapter, we discuss the possibility of characterizing in the proof-theoretic-semantics a notion of refutation. We develop an original characterization of refutations starting from an informal inductive specification of the condition of refutations of logically complex sentences. A sub-structural logic, called dual-intuitionistic logic, stands to this notion in the same relationship in which intuitionistic logic stands to the notion of proof so far consdered. All notions developed in chapter 2 have their corresponding (dual) ones in the framework developed. In particular, the distinctions canonical/non-canonical and closed/open argumentations. In the refutation based perspective, elimination rules have priority over introductions and the (only) assumption over the (many) conclusions. In the conclusions, we indicate the ingredients that an anti-realist approach to meaning should incorporate, in order to avoid the difficulties we registered. The core of an alternative view is a different conception of the relationship between categorical and hypothetical notions, in which the validity of open argumentations is not reduced to that of their instances, but rather it is directly defined. As a limit case, one would get a notion of validity applying to closed argumentations. (shrink)

In this note the claim is defended that Frege was a realist in the sense that he attributed causal efficacy to certain abstract objects. The arguments of Dummett and Sluga (cf. Inquiry, Vols. 18, 19, and 20 [1975–77]) to the contrary are criticized.

Frege's doctrine that the demonstrative ‘I’ has a private, incommunicable sense creates tension within his theory of meaning. Fregean sense is supposed to be something objective, which exists independently of its being cognized by anyone. And the notion of a private sense corresponding to primitive aspects of an individual of which only he can be awaredoes violence both to Frege's theory of sense as well as to our notionof language as something essentially intersubjective. John Perry has arguedthat Frege (...) was led to the doctrine of private senses in spite of his beliefin the objectivity of sense through his attempt to solve a problem which indexicals posed for his theory. And while philosophers have argued about whether the notion of a private sense is in fact problematic for Frege, they have tended to share Perry's assumption about its origin. (shrink)

In my paper I argue, relying on Kantian definitions and conceptual distinctions, the thesis that Kantian transcen-dental philosophy, which he characterizes as a second-order system of transcendental idealism, is not [empirical] idealism, but a form of realism (resp. compatible with empirical realism [A370-1]). As arguments in favor of this “realistic” thesis, I consistently develop a realistic interpretation of the Kant’s concept of appearance (the theory of “two aspects”), as well as of Kantian Copernican revolution, of his theory (...) of intuition as cognitive ability which 'giving' ‘us objects, of the concept of double affection and noumenal causality. (shrink)

This volume contains English translations of Frege's early writings in logic and philosophy and of relevant reviews by other leading logicians. Professor Bynum has contributed a biographical essay, introduction, and extensive bibliography.

The understanding of Hegel's metaphysics that is here argued for—that it is a metaphysics of the actual world—may sound trivial or empty. To counter this, in part one the actualist reading of Hegel's idealism is opposed to two other currently popular interpretations, those of the naturalist and the conceptual realist respectively. While actualism shares motivations with each of these positions, it is argued that it is better equipped to capture what both aim to bring out in Hegel's metaphysics, but (...) also better able to resist criticisms of each of these opposed positions made from the viewpoint of the other. Like the conceptual realist, the actualist wants to affirm the objectivity of concepts in the world—an idea that can seem antithetical to the naturalist. While the position of “liberal naturalism” makes concessions to such a position, this feature is more easily accommodated by the actualist. However, like the liberal naturalist, the actualist is also suspicious of an implicit “supernaturalist” dimension of conceptual realism and, by weakening the scope of realism to the actual world, is better able to avoid it. The second and third parts of the paper attempt to show how the actualist position is reflected in Hegel's account of judgments and syllogisms in The Science of Logic. His account of judgments provides an irreducible place for judgments that are object-presupposing on the one hand and subject-locating on the other. Because such judgments are the components of syllogisms, these syllogisms have objectivity, but this is a type of objectivity within which we, as subjects, are by necessity located. The actual world has a conceptual structure because we conceptualizing beings belong to it. (shrink)

BY THE middle of the nineteenth century, serious difficulties in carrying out the Cartesian project of explaining through attention to our ideas how we may know things as they really are had become evident. A satisfactory account of the connection between occurrences of ideas in us and the properties of things apart from our ideas of them, an account promised by Descartes in the Meditations, had not been forthcoming. Descartes' claim that God's omnipotence guarantees that the members of some recognizable (...) class of our ideas, the class of clear and distinct perceptions, represent things as they really are became clearly unsatisfactory as part of a realist theory of knowledge as soon as Hume and Kant had shown the unsoundness of Descartes' proofs of the existence of God. Whether or not God's omnipotence guarantees that we can know things as they are, it had become evident that we lack adequate grounds for claiming to know that this is the case. Consequently, there developed by the middle of the nineteenth century a consensus that we lacked a satisfactory account of how our ideas enable us to know things. (shrink)

This is a critical discussion of Nino B. Cocchiarella’s book “Formal Ontology and Conceptual Realism.” It focuses on paradoxes of hyperintensionality that may arise in formal systems of intensional logic.

In his work on the foundations of mathematics, Frege placed the problem in a wider context, namely that of science; the ontological status of thought as the carrier of truthfulness became for him the most important issue. The objectivity of truth and thought seems to require the existence of other people, which consequently requires the existence of the world. Thus, the polemics with epistemological idealism became a key issue for Frege; the topic appears in such works as The Basic Laws (...) of Arithmetic, The Logic, and The Thought. What seems to be most interesting in Frege’s work is his stress on weaknesses of both epistemological realism and immanent idealism. Reflecting upon the examples of the physiological psychology and physiology of the senses he demonstrated the process of entrapment in idealism. It is also interesting that he stressed the realistic character of language as well as the constant possibility of committing a mistake by assuming the existence of reference, and dangers of falling into traps of fiction resulting there from. Key words FREGE, SCIENCE, LANGUAGE. (shrink)

In Frege's Conception of Logic Patricia A. Blanchette explores the relationship between Gottlob Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic.

In his Foundations of Arithmetic, Frege aims to extend our a priori arithmetical knowledge by answering the question what a natural number is. He rejects conceptual analysis as a method to acquire a priori knowledge . Later he unsuccessfully tried to solve the problems that beset conceptual analysis . If these problems remain unsolved, which rational method can he use to extend our a priori knowledge about numbers? I will argue that his fundamental arithmetical insight that numbers belong (...) to concepts is based on the recognition that different sentences express the same thought. In Frege's philosophy of arithmetic, propositional analysis does the main work. How it can do this work will be discussed in sections 3, 4 and 5. Sections 6 and 7 explore this approach further. (shrink)

An explanation of Frege's change from objective idealism to platonism is offered. Frege had originally thought that numbers are transparent to reason, but the character of his Axiom of Courses of Values undermined this view, and led him to think that numbers exist independently of reason. I then use these results to suggest a view of Frege's mathematical epistemology.

This paper addresses the issue of finite versus countable additivity in Bayesian probability and decision theory -- in particular, Savage's theory of subjective expected utility and personal probability. I show that Savage's reason for not requiring countable additivity in his theory is inconclusive. The assessment leads to an analysis of various highly idealised assumptions commonly adopted in Bayesian theory, where I argue that a healthy dose of, what I call, conceptual realism is often helpful in understanding the interpretational (...) value of sophisticated mathematical structures employed in applied sciences like decision theory. In the last part, I introduce countable additivity into Savage's theory and explore some technical properties in relation to other axioms of the system. (shrink)

This paper argues that a particular point raised by Schröder – that Frege's logical notation fails to be modelled on arithmetical notation – is based on a misunderstanding, for the modelling was meant as conceptual, rather than notational.

In this paper, I critically discuss Frege’s philosophy of geometry with special emphasis on his position in The Foundations of Arithmetic of 1884. In Sect. 2, I argue that that what Frege calls faculty of intuition in his dissertation is probably meant to refer to a capacity of visualizing geometrical configurations structurally in a way which is essentially the same for most Western educated human beings. I further suggest that according to his Habilitationsschrift it is through spatial intuition that we (...) come to know the axioms of Euclidean geometry. In Sect. 3, I argue that Frege seems right in claiming in The Foundations, §14 that the synthetic nature of the Euclidean axioms follows from the fact that they are independent of one another and of the primitive laws of logic. If the former were dependent on the latter, they would be analytic in Frege’s sense of analyticity. But then they would not be independent of one another and due to their mutual provability would lose their status as axioms of Euclidean geometry, since according to Frege an axiom of a theory T is per definitionen unprovable in T. I further argue that only by invoking pure spatial intuition can Frege “explain” the epistemological status of the axioms of Euclidean geometry completely: their synthetic a priori nature. Finally, I argue that his view about independence in The Foundations, §14 seems to clash with his conception of independence in his mature period. In Sect. 4, I scrutinize Frege’s somewhat vague, but unduly neglected remarks in The Foundations, §26 on space, spatial intuition and the axioms of Euclidean geometry. I argue that for the sake of coherence Frege should have said unambiguously that space is objective, that it is independedent not only of our spatial intuition, but of our mental life altogether including our judgements about space, instead of encouraging the possible conjecture that in his view it contains an objective and a subjective component. I further argue that for Frege the objectivity of both space and the axioms of Euclidean geometry manifests itself in our universal and compulsory acknowledgement of the Euclidean axioms as true. I conclude Sect. 4 by arguing that there is a conflict between the subjectivity of our spatial intuitions as stressed in The Foundations, §26 and Frege’s thesis in his dissertation that the axioms of Euclidean geometry derive their validity from the nature of our faculty of intuition. To resolve this conflict, I propose that in the light of his avowed realism in The Foundations Frege could have replaced his early thesis by saying that although we come to know the axioms of Euclidean geometry through spatial intuition and are justified in acknowledging them as true on the basis of geometrical intuition, their truth is independent not only of the nature of our faculty of intuition and singular acts of intuition, but of our mental processes and activities in general, including the inner mental act of judging. In Sect. 5, I argue that Frege most likely did not adopt Kant’s method of acquiring geometrical knowledge via the ostensive construction of concepts in spatial intuition. In contrast to Kant, Frege holds that the axioms of three-dimensional Euclidean geometry express state of affairs about space obtaining independently of our spatial intuition. In Sect. 6, I conclude with a summarized assessment of Frege’s philosophy of geometry. (shrink)

The expression ‘indispensability argument’ denotes a family of arguments for mathematical realism supported among others by Quine and Putnam. More and more often, Gottlob Frege is credited with being the first to state this argument in section 91 of the _Grundgesetze der Arithmetik_. Frege's alleged indispensability argument is the subject of this essay. On the basis of three significant differences between Mark Colyvan's indispensability arguments and Frege's applicability argument, I deny that Frege presents an indispensability argument in (...) that very often quoted section of the _Grundegesetze_. (shrink)

This paper deals with Frege’s early critique of formalism in the philosophy of mathematics. Frege opposes meaningful arithmetic, according to which arithmetical formulas express a sense and arithmetical rules are grounded in the reference of the signs, to formal arithmetic, exemplified in particular by J. Thomae, whose “formal standpoint”, according to Frege, is that arithmetic should be understood as a manipulation of meaningless figures. However, Frege’s discussion of Thomae’s analogy between arithmetic and chess shows that Frege does not understand his (...) main point, which is that we must distinguish conceptually between statements about chess figures, and the chess pieces they represent. Indeed, Thomae’s fruitful use of this comparison undermines the ontological conception of arithmetic represented by Frege. The chess pieces do not go proxy for anything, but playing chess is not for that reason just manipulation of physical chess figures. This is also Wittgenstein’s point when he criticizes Frege for not seeing the “justified side of formalism”. Thomae’s formalism can be clarified by using the distinction between sign and symbol. Symbols are never meaningless or empty forms or signs, since they have a role or function in a symbolism, which one may call their meaning. The discussion of the chess analogy shows that Frege fails to see this operative aspect of the symbolism. We can conclude that the “formal standpoint” that Frege criticizes is his fabrication, rather than anything we can attribute to Thomae. (shrink)

This paper examines Hilary Putnam’s arguments against what he calls metaphysical realism and in favour of internal realism. A key notion is the one of conceptual scheme, whose role is to explain how we inevitably find ourselves adopting one viewpoint among possible others. To ensure the possibility of agreement between all inquirers for some basic issues, is Putnam committed to having just one conceptual scheme for all human inquirers? The paper argues that the answer is no, (...) on condition that all inquirers are assumed to have a kind of cognitive faculty that is common to all. (shrink)

What makes certain definitions fruitful? And how can definitions play an explanatory role? The purpose of this paper is to examine these questions via an investigation of Frege’s treatment of definitions. Specifically, I pursue this issue via an examination of Frege’s views about the scientific unification of logic and arithmetic. In my view, what interpreters have failed to appreciate is that logicism is a project of unification, not reduction. For Frege, unification involves two separate steps: (1) an account of the (...) content expressed by arithmetical claims and (2) the justification of that content. The distinction between these steps allows us to see that there are two notions of definition at play in Frege’s logicist work, viz., one concerned with conceptual analysis, the other concerned with the construction of gap-free proof. I then use this discussion to explain how Frege employs his definitions to defend an epistemological thesis about arithmetic, and to clarify Grundlagen’s fruitfulness condition of definitions, and thereby address two interpretive puzzles from the recent literature. (shrink)

Argues, against Hans Sluga, that Frege's philosophy can only be interpreted as realist.

The problematic features of Quine's set theories NF and ML are a result of his replacing the higher-order predicate logic of type theory by a first-order logic of membership, and can be resolved by returning to a second-order logic of predication with nominalized predicates as abstract singular terms. We adopt a modified Fregean position called conceptual realism in which the concepts (unsaturated cognitive structures) that predicates stand for are distinguished from the extensions (or intensions) that their nominalizations denote (...) as singular terms. We argue against Quine's view that predicate quantifiers can be given a referential interpretation only if the entities predicates stand for on such an interpretation are the same as the classes (assuming extensionality) that nominalized predicates denote as singular terms. Quine's alternative of giving predicate quantifiers only a substitutional interpretation is compared with a constructive version of conceptual realism, which with a logic of nominalized predicates is compared with Quine's description of conceptualism as a ramified theory of classes. We argue against Quine's implicit assumption that conceptualism cannot account for impredicative concept-formation and compare holistic conceptual realism with Quine's class Platonism. (shrink)

This paper casts doubt on a recent criticism of Frege's theory of concepts and extensions by showing that it misses one of Frege's most important contributions: the derivation of the infinity of the natural numbers. We show how this result may be incorporated into the conceptual structure of Zermelo- Fraenkel Set Theory. The paper clarifies the bearing of the development of the notion of a real-valued function on Frege's theory of concepts; it concludes with a brief (...) discussion of the claim that the standard interpretation of second-order logic is necessary for the derivation of the Peano Postulates and the proof of their categoricity. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein (the later Wittgenstein) are often seen as polar opposites with respect to their fundamental philosophical outlooks: Frege as a paradigmatic "realist", Wittgenstein as a paradigmatic "anti-realist". This opposition is supposed to find its clearest expression with respect to mathematics: Frege is seen as the "arch-platonist", Wittgenstein as some sort of "radical anti-platonist". Furthermore, seeing them as such fits nicely with a widely shared view about their relation: the later Wittgenstein is supposed to have developed his (...) ideas in direct opposition to Frege. The purpose of this paper is to challenge these standard assumptions. I will argue that Frege's and Wittgenstein's basic outlooks have something crucial in common; and I will argue that this is the result of the positive influence Frege had on Wittgenstein. (shrink)

H. Sluga (Inquiry, Vol. 18 [1975], No. 4) has criticized me for representing Frege as a realist. He holds that, for Frege, abstract objects were not real: this rests on a mistranslation and a neglect of Frege's contextual principle. The latter has two aspects: as a thesis about sense, and as one about reference. It is only under the latter aspect that there is any tension between it and realism: Frege's later silence about the principle is due, (...) not to his realism, but to his assimilating sentences to proper names. Contrary to what Sluga thinks, the conception of the Bedeutung of a name as its bearer is an indispensable ingredient of Frege's notion of Bedeutung, as also is the fact that it is in the stronger of two possible senses that Frege held that Sinn determines Bedeutung. The contextual principle is not to be understood as meaning that thoughts are not, in general, complex; Frege's idea that the sense of a sentence is compounded out of the senses of its component words is an essential component of his theory of sense. Frege's realism was not the most important ingredient in his philosophy: but the attempt to interpret him otherwise than as a realist leads only to misunderstanding and confusion. (shrink)

Conceptual realism begins with a conceptualist theory of the nexus of predication in our speech and mental acts, a theory that explains the unity of those acts in terms of their referential and predicable aspects. This theory also contains as an integral part an intensional realism based on predicate nominalization and a reflexive abstraction in which the intensional contents of our concepts are “object”-ified, and by which an analysis of predication with intensional verbs can be given. Through (...) a second nominalization of the common names that are part of conceptual realism’s theory of reference (via quantifier phrases), the theory also accounts for both plural reference and predication and mass noun reference and predication. Finally, a separate nexus of predication based on natural kinds and the natural properties and relations nomologically related to those natural kinds, is also an integral part of the framework of conceptual realism. (shrink)

Frege’s use of a judgment stroke in his conceptual notation has been a matter of controversy, at least since Wittgenstein rejected it as “logically quite meaningless” in the Tractatus. Recent defenders of Frege include Tyler Burge, Nicolas Smith and Wolfgang Künne, whereas critics include William Taschek and Edward Kanterian. Against the background of these defenses and criticisms, the present paper argues that Frege faces a dilemma the two horns of which are related to his early and later conceptions of (...) asserted content respectively. On the one hand, if content is thought of as something that has propositional structure, then the judgment stroke is superfluous. On the other hand, if what is to the right of the judgment stroke is conceived as a sort of name designating a truth-value, then there is no consistent way to avoid construing the judgment stroke as a kind of predicate, and thereby fail to do justice to the act-character of judgment and assertion. (shrink)

Bolzano's position on logic and his theory of sentences-in-themselves and their analysis, as well as his position on existence statements and subjective representations show a striking and profound similarity to Frege's theory of thoughts, his analysis of propositions, representations and judgment, as well as his position on the nature of logic in general. Bolzano's theories on these points, therefore, may well have been seminal to the development of Frege's position.

Frege had not one but two different notions of sense, namely, that of ?Über Sinn und Bedeutung? and one implicit in a letter to Husserl of 1906 and elsewhere. This last one originates in Frege's notion of conceptual content. The distinction is used to clarify some obscurities in Frege's thought. In the last section a sort of ?explicans? of Frege's notion of conceptual content is introduced and applied to the semantic analysis of mathematics.

It is largely through a return to the old-fashioned topic of judgment that the new "revisionist" history is seen to be taking shape according to which the "apostolic succession" proceeds from Kant not to Hegel but to Frege, though the Begriff is by no means ignored. A pivotal work, David Bell’s elegant monograph is at once useful and challenging. In the forefront lies the purely exegetical question, "What does Frege mean when he says that concepts are unsaturated?" In the background: (...) a fight over Frege’s soul, Kant vs. Plato, where Bell discreetly advances the cause of the new anti-realism of which Michael Dummett is the éminence grise. (shrink)

Commentators regularly attribute to Frege realist, idealist, and quietist responses to metaphysical questions concerning the abstract objects he calls ‘thoughts’. But despite decades of effort, the evidence offered on behalf of these attributions remains unconvincing. I argue that Frege deliberately avoids commitment to any of these positions, as part of a metaphysical separatist policy motivated by the fact that logic is epistemologically autonomous from metaphysics. Frege’s views and arguments prove relevant to current attempts to argue for epistemological autonomy, particularly that (...) of ethics. (shrink)

In order to reconnect Quine's views to the current debate on scientific realism, I reframe Quine's scientific realism into a semantic, a metaphysical, and an epistemological dimension. With this conceptual background, I review the historical development of Quine's scientific realism from the late 1940s until his death in 2000. I challenge Soames's view that Quine is a phenomenalist at the time of “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951) and show that he remains agnostic between a realist and (...) an anti‐realist conceptual scheme instead. I also argue that Quine's early views on regimentation are incompatible with a strong formulation of semantic realism. I proceed in reconstructing how he becomes a metaphysical and epistemological realist in the mid‐1950s and argue against the view of Keskinen and Fogelin that interprets Quine as being a metaphysical anti‐realist. Contrary to Davidson, I defend the view that he never gave up normative epistemology and really is a proper epistemological realist. Finally, I discuss how he tries to reconcile his realism with his thesis of ontological relativity and how this necessitates the switch to a stronger form of semantic realism. (shrink)

In this paper we explain how the intentional objects of our mental states can be represented by the intensional objects of conceptual realism. We first briefly examine and show how Brentano’s actualist theory of judgment and his notion of an immanent object have a clear and natural representation in our conceptualist logic of names. We then briefly critically examine Meinong’s theory of objects before turning finally to our own representation of intentional objects in terms of the intensional objects (...) of conceptual realism. We conclude by explaining why existence-entailing concepts are so basic to our commonsense framework and how these concepts and their intensions can be used to model Meinong’s ontology. (shrink)

It is astonishing that we humans are able to have, act on and express moral beliefs. This dissertation aims to provide a better philosophical understanding of why and how this is possible especially when we assume metaethical expressivism. Metaethical expressivism is the combination of expressivism and noncognitivism. Expressivism is the view that the meaning of a sentence is explained by the mental state it is conventionally used to express. Noncognitivism is the view that the mental state expressed by a moral (...) sentence is a noncognitive, desire-like state. The central question of this dissertation is this: "How can metaethical expressivists explain that we are able to express moral beliefs?" The shortest answer this dissertation will give is the following: "by becoming `dispositional expressivists´." Dispositional expressivists hold that moral beliefs are dispositions to be in certain mental states that resemble desires. More precisely, a central thesis of this study is that to hold a moral belief is to be disposed to be in a desire-like, noncognitive state where this state has some specific structure. This dissertation arrives at and justifies this thesis by making a number of steps. It starts with preparing the ground by developing a general theory of what it is for a sentence to express a mental state. Roughly, this theory states that for a sentence to express a mental state is for that sentence to be conventionally used to perform a speech act which counts as sincere only if the user or speaker is in that mental state. This theory of expressing satisfies all the constraints that must be satisfied for it to be compatible with the purposes of metaethical expressivism. The next step is to provide a solution to the most notorious semantic problem confronting metaethical expressivism, the problem of explaining how sentences containing moral words can have compositional meaning and stand in logical relations also known as the Frege-Geach or embedding problem. Building on the research of Mark Schroeder, a new expressivist semantics, called `Attitude Semantics´, will be developed for a first-order language. The motivating idea underlying attitude semantics is that expressivists can avoid the problematic feature of so-called `biforcation´ if they treat the structures of the mental states expressed by moral sentences as well as that expressed by non-moral sentences as being isomorphic. In order to give those structures a philosophically interesting interpretation, it will be suggested that we treat sentences as expressing dispositional states. As a toy example we will treat the sentence `murder is wrong´ as expressing the disposition to be for blaming for murder. After dealing with the Frege-Geach problem, I turn to the metaethical expressivists' project of quasi-realism. Two major goals of this project are to explain how moral sentence can be truth-apt and how the states expressed by them can be regarded as moral beliefs. In order to establish those goals I critically examine a number of theories of truth-aptness by providing counterexamples to them. I then present my own theory which says that a sentence is truth-apt iff and because there is a conventional way to use it to express a belief. What is new about this theory is that it treats expressing a belief as being explanatorily more basic than being truth-apt. Belief, according to this theory, explains truth-aptness, not vice versa. This has the important consequence that it shows that what I call the `orthodox strategy´ of quasi-realists is mistaken and needs to be inverted: expressivists must `earn the right´ to moral belief before they can establish that moral sentences are truth-apt, and not the other way round. The second part of this dissertation is then concerned with the question of what it is to hold a moral belief and how they can figure in rational reasoning. In short: it is concerned with earning the right to moral belief. After discussing the major problems confronting a noncognitivist theory of belief, most importantly what I call the `tightrope problem´, I argue for a dispositional form of noncognitivism about moral belief that combines elements from Eric Schwitzgebel's dispositionalism about belief and Sebastian Köhler's `conceptual role expressivism´. This dispositional noncognitivism perfectly matches and justifies the dispositionalist interpretation of the expressivist semantics developed before. In order to fully earn the right to moral belief, however, metaethical expressivists must also deal with several epistemological objections concerning the rationality of moral belief. The first objection I deal with comes from Derek Baker and is directed against Mark Schroeder's specific development of expressivism. I deal with this objection because my own theory bears close resemblance to Schroeder's theory and so it might be worried that it confronts the same issues. Fortunately, we will see that Baker's objection rest on a number of mistaken assumptions and so neither applies to Schroeder's expressivism nor to the version which I defend in this study. The other epistemological objection to metaethical expressivism I deal with is Cian Dorr's famous wishful-thinking objection. In contrast to previous replies to this objection I attack it by directly questioning the central assumption on which it rests, namely that reasoners can never be justified in basing a factual belief on a desire-like state. I argue that this is false, and that under certain conditions reasoning from desire-like mental states to factual beliefs is justified. My argument shows that even if holding a moral belief is being in a desire-like noncognitive state, basing factual belief on a moral belief can give one an epistemic reason for the factual belief. Hence, even if moral thoughts are wishes, moral thinking is not wishful thinking. I take my arguments to earn the dispositional expressivist the right to moral belief. By the previously defended theory of truth-aptness in terms of belief, this allows the dispositional expressivists to conclude that moral sentences are also truth-apt. This finishes the quasi-realist project of this dissertation. In the last part of this dissertation I switch gears and present two unnoted problems for metaethical expressivists having to do with explaining moral motivation. Both arguments are surprisingly simple. The first one is this: if motivation requires a belief as well as a desire (Humeanism), and moral judgments motivate by themselves (internalism), then moral judgments cannot be desires only. If this argument is sound, it shows that the famous `motivation argument´ not only entails the falsity of cognitivism, but also the falsity of noncognitivism. The second argument is the following: moral judgments when combined with suitable external desires motivate to act (externalism), but if motivation requires belief as well as desire (Humeanism), then moral judgments cannot be desires only. I discuss several ways in which noncognitivists might want to deal with those problems, but leave it as an open question whether those solutions will ultimately be viable. Overall, this dissertation makes serious contributions to the research program of metaethical expressivism. It makes proposals for how to solve a number of notorious problems, such as the Frege-Geach problem in semantics and the wishful-thinking problem in epistemology. Besides this, however, it also raises two new problems for metaethical expressivism in the philosophy of action. For those reasons this dissertation will be of interest for anyone who wants to defend or criticize expressivism in metaethics, and more generally, anyone who wants to better understand our astonishing ability to express moral beliefs. (shrink)

Putnam’s internal realism is aimed at reconciling realist and antirealist intuitions about truth and the nature of reality. A common complaint about internal realism is that it has never been stated with due precision. This paper attempts to render the position precise by drawing on the literature on conceptual spaces as well as on earlier work of the authors on the notion of identity.

A conceptual theory of the referential and predicable concepts used in basic speech and mental acts is described in which singular and general, complex and simple, and pronominal and nonpronominal, referential concepts are given a uniform account. The theory includes an intensional realism in which the intensional contents of predicable and referential concepts are represented through nominalized forms of the predicate and quantifier phrases that stand for those concepts. A central part of the theory distinguishes between active and (...) deactivated referential concepts, where the latter are represented by nominalized quantifier phrases that occur as parts of complex predicates. Peter Geach's arguments against theories of general reference in Reference and Generality are used as a foil to test the adequacy of the theory. Geach's arguments are shown to either beg the question of general as opposed to singular reference or to be inapplicable because of the distinction between active and deactivated referential concepts. (shrink)

In this paper we (1) define and describe the practice of narrative medicine, (2) reveal the need for narrative medicine by exposing the presuppositions that give rise to its discounting, including a reductive empiricism and a strict dichotomy between scientific fact and narrative value, (3) show evidence of the effects of education in narrative competence in the medical clinic, and (4) present Peircean realism as the proper conceptual model for our argument that the medical school curriculum committees should (...) give space to the employment of the scientific and literary knowledge in medical practice. On account of our argument, we contend that the medical community should tend to latitude and openness with regard to the tools we use to resolve medical problems. These tools include both biomedical and narrative knowledge. (shrink)

This paper challenges Putnam's claim that his internal realism is a revival of Kant's empirical realism. I agree with Putnam that there are good reasons to revive Kant's rather neglected empirical realist doctrine. However, internal realism is not the way this should be done. At the center of the following discussion lies the important difference between Putman's "real within a scheme" model and Kant's assertion of the independent existence of empirical objects. The strategy for the paper is (...) as follows. I intend to first detail the real and important connections that exist between the analyses of experience offered by Putnam and Kant. These similarities should not be discounted. In fact, I think we can distinguish the two projects only if we first appreciate the conceptual overlap that naturally gives rise to the perceived union of the two programmes. I will then develop a representative response that is invoked commonly by Kantians who disagree with Putman's identification. This will be followed by a brief discussion concerning why this standard reply fails. I will conclude by canvassing a more powerful epistemological reason for dissociating the two programmes. (shrink)

This paper argues that Dummett’s interpretation of the relationship between Frege’s anti-psychologism and Wittgenstein’s doctrine that meaning is use results in a misreading of Frege. It points out that anti-mentalism is a form of anti-psychologism, but that mentalism is not the only version of psycholgism. Thus, while Frege and Wittgenstein are united in their opposition to mentalism, they are not equally opposed to psychologism, and from Frege’s point of view, the doctrine that meaning is use could also imply a version (...) of psychologism. It then offers a realist and externalist reading of Frege’s understanding of concepts, which is more in line with what Frege intended by anti-psychologism. (shrink)

The framework of conceptual realism provides a logically ideal language within which to reconstruct the medieval terminist logic of the 14th century. The terminist notion of a concept, which shifted from Ockham's early view of a concept as an intentional object to his later view of a concept as a mental act , is reconstructed in this framework in terms of the idea of concepts as unsaturated cognitive structures. Intentional objects are not rejected but are reconstructed as the (...) objectified intensional contents of concepts. Their reconstruction as intensional objects is an essential part of the theory of predication of conceptual realism. It is by means of this theory that we are able to explain how the identity theory of the copula, which was basic to terminist logic, applies to categorical propositions. Reference in conceptual realism is not the same as supposition in terminist logic. Nevertheless, the various "modes" of personal supposition of terminist logic can be explained and justified in terms of this conceptualist theory of reference. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam and John McDowell have each argued against representational realist theories of perception and in favor of direct realist (or “common-sense realist”) alternatives. I claim that in both cases they beg the question against their representational realist opponents. Moreover, in neither case has any alternative been offered to the representational realist position where the solution to perceptual or demonstrative versions of Frege’s problem is concerned. In this paper I present a transcendental argument that some of our perceptions of external (...) objects must be direct in the sense that we perceive them and there is nothing else we perceive in virtue of which we do so. I also present a reply to standard objections to the claim that transcendental arguments can be used to support conclusions about the world and not simply about our own use of concepts. Finally, I present a theory in terms of which the relevant Frege problems can be solved without appeal to any of the sorts of representations in terms of which representational realism is defined. (shrink)

As is well known, Putnam changed his philosophical position on a number of occasions throughout his career. In this paper, I reconsider the position of internal realism which Putnam defended from the mid-1970’s until around 1990. The paper opens with a discussion of the position that Putnam called “metaphysical realism”, since his internal realism emerged out of a critique of that position. The paper then briefly presents the internal realist view as one which involves an epistemic conception (...) of truth, as well as an anti-realist metaphysical outlook on which objects depend on conceptual scheme. The paper then provides a survey of the key objections to internal realism which emerged in the ensuing debate with defenders of realism. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the relevance of Putnam’s later adoption of a direct realist theory of perception with respect to the issue of realism. (shrink)