Pyrrho of Elis advises us not to trust our sensations and opinions, but instead to be without opinions about individual things. He suggests that such a state is to be achieved by saying, concerning each individual thing, that it is “no more” a certain way than it is not. This paper argues that the current metaphysical reading of Pyrrho’s views falls short of explaining why we should not trust our sensations and opinions; in addition, it does not explain how to (...) achieve the state of being “without opinions” about individual things. It is argued that a Fregean analysis of Pyrrho’s views can provide satisfactory answers to both questions. The purpose of the paper, however, is to refine, rather than rebut, the metaphysical reading. (shrink)

It is a commonly held view that Frege's doctrine of senses and references is not compatible with the idea that there are de re beliefs. The present paper is meant to challenge that view. Moreover, it seeks to show that, instead of forcing Frege's semantic framework to answer questions raised by twentieth-century philosophy of language, we could try to find other questions to which it might be an answer. It is argued that the proper treatment of Frege's views requires the (...) acknowledgement of the central role of individualistic epistemology in his thought. Once this is recognized, Frege's doctrine of senses and references can be considered a theory, or at least a sketch of a theory, of cognition, which has interesting connections with Kant's and Husserl's views. (shrink)

We now know of a number of ways of developing real analysis on a basis of abstraction principles and second-order logic. One, outlined by Shapiro in his contribution to this volume, mimics Dedekind in identifying the reals with cuts in the series of rationals under their natural order. The result is an essentially structuralist conception of the reals. An earlier approach, developed by Hale in his "Reals byion" program differs by placing additional emphasis upon what I here term Frege's (...) Constraint, that a satisfactory foundation for any branch of mathematics should somehow so explain its basic concepts that their applications are immediate. This paper is concerned with the meaning of and motivation for this constraint. Structuralism has to represent the application of a mathematical theory as always posterior to the understanding of it, turning upon the appreciation of structural affinities between the structure it concerns and a domain to which it is to be applied. There is, therefore, a case that Frege's Constraint has bite whenever there is a standing body of informal mathematical knowledge grounded in direct reflection upon sample, or schematic, applications of the concepts of the theory in question. It is argued that this condition is satisfied by simple arithmetic and geometry, but that in view of the gap between its basic concepts (of continuity and of the nature of the distinctions among the individual reals) and their empirical applications, it is doubtful that Frege's Constraint should be imposed on a neo-Fregean construction of analysis. (shrink)

The paradox of analysis is the problem of formulating analyses that avoid the metaphilosophical dilemma of uninformativeness where analysandum and analysans are identical in meaning, and incorrectness or unsoundness where analysandum and analysans are nonidentical in meaning. Frege's distinction between sense and reference supports an intentional solution to the paradox, incorporating Roderick M. Chisholm's concept of converse intentional properties. Formal definitions of unrestricted Leibnizian or conceptual identity and referential identity or codesignation are provided, under which analysanda and analysantia are (...) referentially identical, guaranteeing informativeness, of philosophically correct analyses. (shrink)

The paradox of analysis is the problem of formulating analyses that avoid the metaphilosophical dilemma of uninformativeness where analysandum and analysans are identical in meaning, and incorrectness or unsoundness where analysandum and analysans are nonidentical in meaning. Frege's distinction between sense and reference supports an intentional solution to the paradox, incorporating Roderick M. Chisholm's concept of converse intentional properties. Formal definitions of unrestricted Leibnizian or conceptual identity and referential identity or codesignation are provided, under which analysanda and analysantia are (...) referentially identical, guaranteeing informativeness, of philosophically correct analyses. (shrink)

Many philosophers, including direct reference theorists, appeal to naively to 'modes of presentation' in the analysis of belief reports. I show that a variety of such appeals can be analyzed in terms of a precise theory of modes of presentation. The objects that serve as modes are identified intrinsically, in a noncircular way, and it is shown that they can function in the required way. It is a consequence of the intrinsic characterization that some objects are well-suited to serve (...) as modes that present individuals and while others are well-suited to serve as modes that present properties (though such modes do not `determine' the objects they present---there is no necessary connection between a mode m and the individual x or property F that it presents). Moreover, it is also a consequence that the modes for properties and individuals can be organized into complexes that are structurally identical to Russellian propositions having the represented properties and individuals as constituents. Not only is the relationship between modes and Fregean senses and modes of presentation explored in the paper, but also the idea that the theory of modes of presentation developed in the paper can serve as a theory of concepts. (shrink)

As Quine observed, the following sentence has a reading which, if true, would be of special interest to the authorities: Ralph believes that someone is a spy. This is the reading where the quantifier is naturally understood as taking wide scope relative to the attitude verb and as binding a variable within the scope of the attitude verb. This essay is interested in addressing the question what the semantic analysis of this kind of reading should look like from a (...) Fregean perspective—a perspective according to which attitude states are generally relations to structured Fregean thoughts composed of senses. The Fregean view faces a challenge of compositionality here. This essay describes the challenge and offers a response on the Fregean's behalf. (shrink)

The question 'What is the criterion of identity for directions?' might be construed as asking either 'When do lines have the same direction?' or 'When are directions identical?'. Frege's answer 'When they are parallel' fits the former question, not the latter, for it specifies a relation other than identity between lines, not directions. Jonathan Lowe thinks the latter question more fundamental, and claims that Frege's criterion can be reformulated to answer it: 'When some line with one is parallel to some (...) line with the other'. At p. 147 of Identity and Discrimination I make three points against this view: Lowe's construal does not permit a principled rejection of an intuitively unacceptable answer to the original question, On pain of circularity, Lowe's answer uses conceptual resources beyond those of Frege's, and thus is not a mere reformulation, Lowe's question seems to make the hopeless demand for something more basic than 'x = y Lowe's reply 'One-level versus two-level identity criteria' does not address or . I shall follow him in discussing only. (shrink)

Thorough a detailed analysis of version III of Gödel's Is mathematics syntax of language?, we propose a new interpretation of Gödel's criticism against the conventionalist point of view in mathematics. When one reads carefully Gödel's text, it brings out that, contrary to the opinion of some commentators, Gödel did not overlook the novelty of Carnap's solution, and did not criticise him from an old-fashioned conception of science. The general aim of our analysis is to restate the Carnap/Gödel debate (...) in the Fregean heritage. We stress the way both of them try to answer, from different Fregean perspectives, to the question of the nature of logic and mathematics in knowledge. (shrink)

One of the most prominent myths in analytic philosophy is the so- called “Fregean Axiom”, according to which the reference of a sentence is a truth value. In contrast to this referential semantics, a use-based formal semantics will be constructed in which the logical value of a sentence is not its putative referent but the information it conveys. Let us call by “Question Answer Semantics” (thereafter: QAS) the corresponding formal semantics: a non-Fregean many-valued logic, where the meaning of (...) any sentence is an ordered n-tupled of yes-no answers to corresponding questions. A sample of philosophical problems will be approached in order to justify the relevance of QAS. These include: (1) illocutionary forces, and the logical analysis of speech-acts; (2) the variety of logical negations, and their characterization in terms of restricted ranges of logical values; (3) change in meaning, and the use of dynamic oppositions for belief sets. (shrink)

In Frege’s analysis of the relationship between science and fiction there are two important aspects, which the paper will discuss. It shows that Frege makes a strict distinction between Dichtung und Wissenschaft on the level of object language but not on the level of metalanguage. In his “On Sense and Reference” and in scattered remarks elsewhere Frege explains the semantics of scientific and everyday discourse. As a kind of side product he presents an explication of the concept of fictional (...) discourse concerning questions of illocutionary force and reference. Here Frege anticipates J. R. Searle’s speech-act-theory of fictional discourse, which allows to understand works of fiction as consisting of fictional discourse. On the basis of Frege’s distinctions this approach is defended against ontological arguments, which make use of terms like ‘fictive entities’ or ‘non-existent objects’ in the Meinongian tradition. Frege excludes the connotative or figurative elements of language, called “colourings and shadings” of sense or thought, from the scientific use of language and assigns such elements to “the art of poetry” or “eloquence”. The fact that the expression ‘colouring’ is itself a figurative term, raises a paradoxical question: To what extent does understanding Frege’s own explanation of the difference between sense and colouring depend on the poetic or at least rhetoric use of language? There are reasons to believe that Frege was—even if only reluctantly—aware of this paradox. Otherwise he would not have repeatedly emphasized that explanations of categorial logical distinctions cannot dispense with “figurative expressions”. Insofar as such distinctions are “reliant upon the accommodating understanding of the reader”, they pay tribute to a rhetoric of cognition. While Frege denies that colourings contribute to cognitive content, he must still admit that they make an indispensable protreptic contribution to conveying cognition. (shrink)

I develop a problem for the Fregean Reference Shift analysis of that-clause reference. The problem is discussed by Stephen Schiffer in his recent book The Things We Mean (2003). Either the defender of the Fregean Reference Shift analysis must count certain counterintuitive inferences as valid, or else he must reject a plausible Exportation rule. I consider several responses. I find that the best response relies on a Kaplan-inspired analysis of quantified belief reports. But I argue (...) that this response faces some serious problems. (shrink)

The dispute between the Fregean and the Neo-Meinongian approach to existence has become entrenched: it seems that nothing but intuitions may be relied upon to decide the issue. And since contemporary analytic philosophers clearly are inclined towards the intuitions that support Frege's approach, it looks as if Fregeanism has won the day. In this paper, however, I try to develop a compromise solution. This compromise consists in abandoning the assumption shared by both Fregeanism and Neo-Meinongianism, namely that the notion (...) of existence adds something to the content of a statement. To the contrary, we should think of existence as a redundant notion. In other words, I will argue that we should be deflationist about existence. Moreover, the kind of deflationism I propose relies on what I call the existence equivalence schema, a schema which follows the blueprint of the well-known truth equivalence schema. From such a perspective, we can say that Fregean philosophers rightly deny the status of a discriminating property to existence; and, conversely, Neo-Meinongians, too, rightly reject the view that existence is captured by quantification or expresses a universal property of objects. Finally, the argument that we should take a deflationist approach to existence builds upon an analysis of natural language (general) existential statements and their intuitive entailment-relations. (shrink)

The paper focuses on two claims widely held in the philosophy of mind, namely, content externalism and phenomenological internalism. The question it addresses is which picture, if any, of the relationship between representational and phenomenal properties makes the conjunction between the two claims tenable. The main thesis of the paper is that the conjunction is tenable only within an account which treats the two kinds of properties as distinct, irreducible and yet related to each other. The relationship between them is (...) then articulated within a Frege-inspired framework that treats phenomenal properties as manners of presentation of representational properties. (shrink)

This essay concerns the question of how we make genuine epistemic progress through conceptual analysis. Our way into this issue will be through consideration of the paradox of analysis. The paradox challenges us to explain how a given statement can make a substantive contribution to our knowledge, even while it purports merely to make explicit what one’s grasp of the concept under scrutiny consists in. The paradox is often treated primarily as a semantic puzzle. However, in “Sect. 1” (...) I argue that the paradox raises a more fundamental epistemic problem, and in “Sects.1 and 2” I argue that semantic proposals—even ones designed to capture the Fregean link between meaning and epistemic significance—fail to resolve that problem. Seeing our way towards a real solution to the paradox requires more than semantics; we also need to understand how the process of analysis can yield justification for accepting a candidate conceptual analysis. I present an account of this process, and explain how it resolves the paradox, in “Sect. 3”. I conclude in “Sect. 4” by considering the implications for the present account concerning the goal of conceptual analysis, and by arguing that the apparent scarcity of short and finite illuminating analyses in philosophically interesting cases provides no grounds for pessimism concerning the possibility of philosophical progress through conceptual analysis. (shrink)

In a review of Frege's Puzzle1, Graeme Forbes makes the claim that Salmon's account of belief might be seen, under certain conditions, as a mere notational variant of a neo-Fregean theory; and thus that such an account might be reduced to a neo-Fregean one simply by rewriting it in terms of Fregean terminology. With a view to supporting his claim, Forbes offers an outline of an account of belief which, according to him, would satisfy the following conditions: (...) (i) it could be directly obtained from Salmon's own analysis by means of a certain set of substitutions, which presumably would not affect the essential features of Salmon's view; (ii) it could naturally be described as Fregean, in the sense that it would preserve, (at least) the spirit of Frege's doctrines, especially his fundamental intuitions about belief. Of course, the upshot of Forbes's argument is that Salmon's theory would not, at bottom, constitute a genuine alternative to a Fregean semantics for belief ascriptions. In this paper I argue to the effect that Forbes's claim is not in general sound. It seems to me that the sort of indirect argument used by Forbes - that of trying to undermine Salmon's theory by showing that it is just a version of a neo-Fregean account - does not provide someone working within a Fregean framework with an adequate strategy to counter Salmon's neo-Russellian views. It would perhaps be better to concentrate a Fregean attack on certain apparently dubious and highly controversial theses and results which are constitutive of Salmon's view, e.g. the counterintuitive character of a substantial set of consequences which follow from his theory of belief, as well as the associated revisionist stand he is forced to take towards our current patterns of speaking about belief. (shrink)

Logical analysis is in Frege primarily not an analysis of a concept but of its sense. Five Fregean philosophical principles are presented as constituting a framework for a theory of logical or conceptual analysis, which I call analytical explication. These principles, scattered and sometime latent in his writings are operative in Frege's critique of other views and in his constructive development of his own view. The proposed conception of analytical explication is partially rooted in Frege's notion (...) of analytical definition. It may also be the basis of what is required of a reduction of one domain to another, if it is to have the philosophical significance many reductions allegedly have. (shrink)

– The paradoxes of analysis and identity each consist of a pair of statements sharing the same referents, but differing in their informativeness properties. Carnap employs a different solution for each of these paradoxes. Church, Davidson, and others have maintained that the two paradoxes can, and should, be resolved by a single method, viz. one based on the Fregean distinction between sense and reference.The present paper argues that Carnap's solution for the paradox of analysis is unsatisfactory on (...) several counts, but primary among these is that Carnap is driven to hold that no semantic distinction can be drawn between the informativeness properties occurring in this paradox. Nevertheless, the paper shows how the required distinction can be formulated within the general framework of Carnap's extensional‐intensional system of semantics, and that such a distinction provides a single solution for both paradoxes. (shrink)

An influential interpretation of phenomenology construes Husserl's project as an attempt to generalize the Fregean notion of sense- an attempt to extend Frege's analysis of the structure of meaningful expressions to a more general account of the structure of meaning in experience . Michael Dummett has articulated a broadly Fregean critique of this Husserlian program, arguing that the project is misguided and retrograde-a relapse into the psychologism and idealism that Frege sought to avoid. A defense of Husserl (...) is offered, based in part on key elements of the theory of meaning articulated in his Logical Investigations . But the main aim is neither to acquit nor to convict Husserl of Dummett's charges; rather it is to use the exchange to investigate some of the philosophical commitments of a broadly Husserlian phenomenology. If we are to understand how Husserl avoids psychologism then we must come to terms with the paradoxical idea of an anti-psychologistic investigation of consciousness (an anti-psychologistic psychology). If we are to understand his complex stance toward idealism then we must not only understand the grounds for his rejection of subjective idealism but also be attuned to the other forms of idealism to which his project is committed. In the course of investigating these matters the author considers how Husserl can reply to the charge of explanatory vacuity, and shows that Frege himself recognizes the legitimacy of something like the Husserlian project. (shrink)

As emphasized by Alonzo Church and David Kaplan (Church 1974, Kaplan 1975), the philosophies of language of Frege and Russell incorporate quite different methods of semantic analysis with different basic concepts and different ontologies. Accordingly we distinguish between a Fregean and a Russellian tradition in intensional semantics. The purpose of this paper is to pursue the Russellian alternative and to provide a language of intensional logic with a model-theoretic semantics. We also discuss the so-called Russell-Myhill paradox that threatens (...) simple Russellian type theory if propositions satisfies very strict principles of individuation. One way of avoiding the paradox is to adopt a ramified rather than a simple theory of types. (shrink)

Using a variant of Schiffer’s puzzle regarding de re belief, I recently presented a new argument against the so-called Naive Russellian theory, consisting of the following theses: ( \(NR_{1}\) ) The propositions we say and believe are Russellian propositions, i.e., structured propositions consisting of the objects, properties, and relations our thoughts and speech acts are about; ( \(NR_{2}\) ) Names (and other singular terms) are directly referential terms, i.e., the propositional content of a name is just its referent; ( \(NR_{3}\) (...) ) A sentence of the form ‘_A_ believes/disbelieves that _S_’ is true in a context _c_ if and only if the referent of _A_ in _c_ believes/disbelieves the proposition expressed by _S_ in _c_. In this paper, I will argue that my variant of Schiffer’s puzzle is not only a problem for the Naive Russellian theory, but for every theory of belief ascriptions entailing ( \(NR_{3}\) ). Such theories are also called _relational analyses of belief ascriptions_. Here the main alternative to a Neo-Russellian theory, consisting of ( \(NR_{1}\) ) and ( \(NR_{2}\) ), is a Fregean theory, according to which the propositions we say and believe are Fregean propositions, i.e., structured propositions consisting of ways the objects, properties, and relations our thoughts and speech acts are about are presented to the speaker or agent. I will argue that such variants of the relational analysis are committed to principles very similar to the principles used by my Schiffer puzzle. Concluding, I will discuss Fregean and Neo-Russellian alternatives to the relational analysis, and I will argue that, although there are Neo-Russellian alternatives to the relational analysis which provide a solution to my variant of Schiffer’s puzzle, there seem to be no such Fregean alternatives. (shrink)

Over the past decades, Patricia Blanchette has developed a sophisticated account of Frege's conception of logic and his views on logical consequence. One of the central components of her interpretation is the idea that Frege's conception of logical consequence is ‘semantically laden’ and not purely formal. The aim of the present paper is to provide precise explications of this as well as related ideas that inform her account, and to discuss their significance for the philosophy of logic in general and (...) Frege's philosophy in particular. (shrink)

This paper uses neo-Fregean-style abstraction principles to develop the integers from the natural numbers (assuming Hume’s principle), the rational numbers from the integers, and the real numbers from the rationals. The first two are first-order abstractions that treat pairs of numbers: (DIF) INT(a,b)=INT(c,d) ≡ (a+d)=(b+c). (QUOT) Q(m,n)=Q(p,q) ≡ (n=0 & q=0) ∨ (n≠0 & q≠0 & m⋅q=n⋅p). The development of the real numbers is an adaption of the Dedekind program involving “cuts” of rational numbers. Let P be a property (...) (of rational numbers) and r a rational number. Say that r is an upper bound of P, written P≤r, if for any rational number s, if Ps then either s<r or s=r. In other words, P≤r if r is greater than or equal to any rational number that P applies to. Consider the Cut Abstraction Principle: (CP) ∀P∀Q(C(P)=C(Q) ≡ ∀r(P≤r ≡ Q≤r)). In other words, the cut of P is identical to the cut of Q if and only if P and Q share all of their upper bounds. The axioms of second-order real analysis can be derived from (CP), just as the axioms of second-order Peano arithmetic can be derived from Hume’s principle. The paper raises some of the philosophical issues connected with the neo-Fregean program, using the above abstraction principles as case studies. (shrink)

‘The following sentence is true only if numbers exist: The number of planets is eight. It is true; hence, numbers exist.’ So runs a familiar argument for realism about mathematical objects. But this argument relies on a controversial semantic thesis: that ‘The number of planets’ and ‘eight’ are singular terms standing for the number eight, and the copula expresses identity. This is the ‘Fregean analysis’.I show that the Fregean analysis is false by providing an analysis (...) of sentences such as that best explains the available linguistic data, and according to which no terms in purport to stand for numbers. (shrink)

Anything worth regarding as logicism about number theory holds that its fundamental laws – in effect, the Dedekind-Peano axioms – may be known on the basis of logic and definitions alone. For Frege, the logic in question was that of the Begriffschrift – effectively, full impredicative second order logic - together with the resources for dealing with the putatively “logical objects” provided by Basic Law V of Grundgesetze. With this machinery in place, and with the course-of-values operator governed by Basic (...) Law V counting as logical, it is possible for all the definitions involved in the logicist reconstruction of arithmetic and analysis to be fully explicit, abbreviative definitions. Had Frege’s project succeeded, he would therefore have been in position – by his own lights – to regard the axioms of number theory simply as definitional abbreviations of certain theorems of his pure logic. Basic Law V, as every interested party knows, is inconsistent. But twentieth century orthodoxy would have scorned its description as a law of logic in any case, purely on the grounds of its existential fecundity. Contemporary Neo-Fregeanism in the foundations of mathematics does not, in intention at least, pick any quarrel with the idea that pure logic should be ontologically austere. It does however maintain that the existence of the natural numbers and the real numbers as classically conceived, and thereby the truth of the traditional axioms of arithmetic and analysis, may still be known a priori on the basis of logic and definitions. For the purposes of this claim, logic is once again conceived as essentially the system of Begriffschrift. But Basic Law V is superseded by a variety of abstraction principles, of which Hume's Principle is the best known example, which we are regarded as free to lay down as true by way of determination of the meaning of the non-logical vocabulary that they contain. Thus — the idea is — the Dedekind-Peano axioms, for example, may be known, a priori, to be true by virtue of their derivation in pure logic from a principle which may be regarded as stipulatively true, and whose very stipulation may be regarded as conferring content upon the sole item of non-logical vocabulary – the cardinality operator – which it contains and thereby as conferring content upon Hume's Principle itself.. (shrink)

In his paper, “Identity Statements and Essentialism,” Loux seeks to demonstrate sortal essentialism based on Frege’s thesis that all statements of number concerning a collection require that the members fall under the same sortal concept. I shall attempt to argue that a detailed analysis of Loux’s argument reveals it as failing to imply the type of sortal dependency thesis necessary for the justification of sortal essentialism. However, if one construes the transworld identity relation as no different from our run (...) of the mill identity relation, then his argument can serve as the basis for a proof of a type of nontrivial essentialism, thereby showing that the possible worlds picture of modality is indeed committed to a robust essentialism. (shrink)

For both Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, providing a philosophical account of the concept of number was a central goal, pursued along similar logicist lines. In the present paper, I want to focus on a particular aspect of their accounts: their definitions, or reconstructions, of the natural numbers as equivalence classes of equinumerous classes. In other words, I want to examine what is often called the "Frege-Russell conception of the natural numbers" or, more briefly, the Frege-Russell numbers. My main concern (...) will be to determine the precise sense in which this conception was, or could be, meant to constitute an analysis.1 I will be mostly concerned with Frege’s views on the matter; but Russell will come up along the way, for illustration and comparison, as will some recent neo-Fregean proposals and results. The structure of the paper is as follows: In the first section, I sketch Frege's general approach. Next, I differentiate several kinds, or modes, of analysis, as further background. In the third section, I zero in on the equivalence class construction, raising the question of why it might, from a Fregean point of view, be seen as 'the right' construction, thus as an analysis in a strong sense. In the fourth section, I provide a contrasting, more conventionalist view of the matter, often associated with the Carnapian notion of explication, and expressed in some remarks by Russell. I then discuss the motivation for the Frege-Russell numbers in more depth. In the sixth section, I introduce a neo-Fregean alternative, to be examined along similar lines. Finally, I reflect further on the significance of the kinds of arguments available in this connection. (shrink)

In this paper I present an abstract theory of senses, thoughts, and truth, inspired by ideas of Frege. "Inspired" because for the most part I shall not pretend to interpret Frege in a literal sense, but, rather, develop some of his ideas in ways that seem to me to preserve important aspects of them. Senses are characterized as identifying properties; i.e., roughly, as properties that apply, in virtue of their logical structure, to exactly one thing, if they apply to anything (...) at all. When Frege's analysis of sentences in terms of function and arguments is combined with his analysis of quantification as higher-order predication, all sentences (formal and informal) can be analyzed in various ways as a function (predicate) applied to one or more arguments. This allows for an abstract characterization of thoughts as senses that combine other senses in a uniform way, and whose truth derives from their instantiation by corresponding items of reality. (shrink)

The Fregean analysis of definite descriptions as referring expressions predicts that copular sentences with definite descriptions in postcopular position are invariably interpreted as identity statements. But as numerous diagnostics show, such sentences are frequently capable of receiving a predicational reading. A uniform Fregean analysis therefore won’t do. Things aren’t that simple, however. I show that descriptions which exhibit the structure [the + N + of + Proper Name] fall into two semantically distinct classes, and that the (...) members of one of these classes of descriptions (those I call “identifying”) pattern with proper names in resisting a predicative reading. I argue that a proposal according to which referring expressions can quite generally undergo a type shift that transforms them into predicates thus fails on grounds of overgeneration. I propose that we can account for the data by instead appealing to two definite determiners: a Fregean determiner ‘the r ’ which forms referring descriptions, and a determiner ‘the p ’ which forms predicative descriptions. I argue that this proposal also correctly predicts that copular sentences with proper names in postcopular position fail to have a predicational reading. I conclude the paper by defending the analysis of names to which I appeal against an alternative view inspired by Burge (J Philos 70(14):425–439, 1973), and suggest a way in which the desired results could be achieved while making do with a single definite article. (shrink)

Wiredu argues intriguingly that some philosophical questions only arise in certain linguistic settings. So philosophical questions are, on occasion, linguistically relative or, more vividly, Tongue Dependent. The phenomenon however does not rest on expressive differences between languages, or, better, on failures of translation. Though rejecting his example, I endorse the general possibility he constructs. I do so provided that there is a solution to the Paradox of Analysis. Indeed I point out that the possibility of Tongue Dependency is both (...) necessary and sufficient for a solution to the Paradox of Analysis. I then offer a solution to the Paradox of Analysis in a Fregean setting, by distinguishing within the cognitive value of a claim between cognitive accomplishment and cognitive significance. The results of analysis involve cognitive accomplishment, though have no cognitive significance. I recommend my account as dealing well with a problem Salmon raised for the Church-Frege account. Finally, I direct my account on vocabularies rather than claims and note that, though possible, actual cases of Tongue Dependency within natural languages are highly doubtful. The phenomenon does not have the cultural significance Wiredu claims for it. (shrink)

For both Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, providing a philosophical account of the concept of number was a central goal, pursued along similar logicist lines. In the present paper, I want to focus on a particular aspect of their accounts: their definitions, or re-constructions, of the natural numbers as equivalence classes of equinumerous classes. In other words, I want to examine what is often called the ‘Frege-Russell conception of the natural numbers’ or, more briefly, the Frege-Russell numbers. My main concern (...) will be to determine the precise sense in which this conception was, or could be, meant to constitute an analysis. I will be mostly concerned with Frege’s views on the matter; but Russell will come up along the way, for illustration and comparison, as will some recent neo-Fregean suggestions. (shrink)

Michael Beaney ha sugerido recientemente que la distinción fregeana entre sentido y referencia fue propuesta para resolver la famosa paradoja del análisis. Casi diez años antes, Michael Dummett ya insistia en que Frege fue uno de los prirneros en buscar una soluci6n satisfactoria de esta paradoja. En esre articulo, discuto algunas sugerencias de Beaney y Dummett de cómo resolver la paradoja al estilo fregeano y tarnbién sus propias contribuciones no fregeanas al debate en torno de la corrección y de la (...) informatividad del análisis. Mi intención en esta discusión es mostrar que ninguna de ellas funciona. Concluyo con una propuesta de inspiración witttgensteiniana --el enfoque de los conceptos abiertos- para apoyar la idea de que la apelación a contertidos abiertos es la rnejor rnanera de disolver la paradoja.Michael Beaney has recently suggested that the Fregean distinction between sense and reference was proposed to solve the famous paradox of analysis. Not as recently, Michael Dummett has insisted that Frege was one of the first to look for a satisfactory solution to this paradox. In this paper, I discuss Beanry’s and Dummett’s various suggestions for solving the paradox in a Fregean style as well as their own non Fregean contributions to the debate around analysis’s correction and informativeness. My intention in this discussion is to show that none of them works. I conclude with a proposal inspired by Wittgenstein’s later work -the open concepts’ proposal- designed to support the idea that the appeal to open contents is the best way to dissolve the paradox. (shrink)

In sentences like Every teacher laughed we think of every teacher as a unary (=type (1)) quantifier - it expresses a property of one place predicate denotations. In variable binding terms, unary quantifiers bind one variable. Two applications of unary quantifiers, as in the interpretation of No student likes every teacher, determine a binary (= type (2)) quantifier; they express properties of two place predicate denotations. In variable binding terms they bind two variables. We call a binary quantifier Fregean (...) (or reducible) if it can in principle be expressed by the iterated application of unary quantifiers. In this paper we present two mathematical properties which distinguish non-Fregean quantifiers from Fregean ones. Our results extend those of van Benthem (1989) and Keenan (1987a). We use them to show that English presents a large variety of non-Fregean quantifi ers. Some are new here, others are familiar (though the proofs that they are non-Fregean are not). The main point of our empirical work is to inform us regarding the types of quantification natural language presents - in particular (van Benthem, 1989) that it goes beyond the usual (Fregean) analysis which treats it as mere iterated application of unary quantifiers. Secondarily, our results challenge linguistic approaches to "Logical Form" which constrain variable binding operators to "locally" bind just one occurrence of a variable, e.g., the Bijection Principle (BP) of Koopman and Sportiche (1983). The BP (correctly) blocks analyses like For which x, x's mother kissed x? for Who did his mother kiss? since For which x would locally bind two occurrences of x. But some of our irreducible binary quantifiers are naturally represented by operators which do locally bind two variables. This paper is organized as follows: Section 1 provides an explicit formulation of our questions of concern. Section 2 classifies the English constructions which we show to be non-Fregean. Section 3 presents the mathematical properties which test for non-Fregean quantification and applies these tests to the constructions in Section 2. Proofs of the mathema tical properties are given in the Appendix. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that Russell's problems with the unity of the proposition were recurring and insoluble within the framework of the logical theory of his Principles of Mathematics. By contrast, Frege's functional analysis of thoughts (grounded in a type-theoretic distinction between concepts and objects) is commonly assumed to provide a solution to the problem or, at least, a means of avoiding the difficulty altogether. The Fregean solution is unavailable to Russell because of his commitment to the thesis (...) that there is only one ultimate ontological category. This, combined with Russell's reification of propositions, ensures that he must hold concepts and objects to be of the same logical and ontological type. In this paper I argue that, while Frege's treatment of the unity of the proposition has immediate advantages over Russell's, a deeper consideration of the philosophical underpinnings and metaphysical consequences of the two approaches reveals that Frege's supposed solution is, in fact, far from satisfactory. Russell's repudiation of the Fregean position in the Principles is, I contend, convincing and Russell's own position, despite its problems, conforms to a greater extent than Frege's with common sense and, furthermore, with certain ideas which are central to our understanding of the origins of the analytical tradition. (shrink)

This paper gives attention to a special point in Brandom’s Making it Explicit. Brandom proposes in MIE a “Fregean” way out of Kripke’s puzzle about belief. In the first part, I analyze two main features of Brandom’s strategy, the definition of anaphoric chains as senses of proper names and the implausibility of the application of a disquotational principle to proper names. In the second part, I discuss the problem of the stability of contents and the problem of sharing contents. (...) I claim that Brandom’s strong holism leads to irresolvable difficulties with the concept of conceptual content as it emerges from the discussion of Kripke’s puzzle. (shrink)

Having briefly sketched the aims of our paper, namely, to logically analyse the ascription of propositional attitudes to somebody else in terms, not of Fregean senses or of intensions-with-s, but of the intentional object of the person spoken about, say, the believer or intender (Section 1), we try to introduce the concept of an intentional object as simply as possible, to wit, as coming into view whenever two (or more) subjective belief-worlds strikingly diverge (Section 2). Then, we assess the (...) pros and cons of Frege’s view that the indirect reference of an expression is nothing but its customary sense (Sections 3–4), and call the reader’s attention to the fact that in belief ascriptions de re we take it for granted that the believer’s intentional object is at the same time a ‘citizen’ of the belief ascriber’s subjective world (or, for that matter, the real word), and that the idea of such a ‘dual citizenship’ is even more obviously presupposed in the cases of true belief and propositional knowledge (Section 5). Then, we try to argue that it is more fertile to take the belief ascriber’s intentional object to be, not the whole state of affairs the believer has in mind and thinks to exist, but the latter’s intentional object as such, that is, as being his intentional object (Section 6). Finally, we discuss the intricate and mostly neglected question of whether an intentional object’s inhabiting two or more subjective belief-worlds should be considered to be sort of a ‘transmundane identity’ in the numerical sense or rather in some deviant sense of the term, which can be specified as a momentous subcase of a ‘categorial difference’ (Section 7). (shrink)

This paper concerns the semantics of belief-sentences. I pass over ontologically lavish theories which appeal to impossible worlds, or other points of reference which contain more than possible worlds. I then refute ontologically stingy, quotational theories. My own theory employs the techniques of possible worlds semantics to elaborate a Fregean analysis of belief-sentences. In a belief-sentence, the embedded clause does not have its usual reference, but refers rather to its own semantic structure. I show how this theory can (...) accommodate quantification into belief-contexts. I close with skirmishes against the threat posed by the Liar Paradox. (shrink)

In order to explain that sentences containing empty definite descriptions are nevertheless true or false, Russell famously analyzes sentences of the form ‘The F is G’ as ‘There is exactly one F and it is G’. Against this it has been objected that Russell’s analysis provides the wrong truth-conditions when it comes to non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. For example, according to Heim, Kripke, and Elbourne (HKE), there are circumstances in which (1) is true and (2) is false. Hans wants the (...) ghost in his attic to be quiet tonight.Hans wants there to be exactly one ghost in his attic and for it to be quiet tonight. After all, the argument goes, unlike (2), (1) can be true without Hans wanting there to be exactly one ghost in his attic. Kaplan and Neale famously reply that the HKE objection presupposes that non-doxastic attitudes are closed under entailment, which they are not. For Rostworowski, on the other hand, the problematic principle used by the HKE objection is a substitutivity principle for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions. This is further supported by the fact that, as Elbourne points out, Russell’s analysis already leads to a problem similar to the HKE objection together with substitutivity alone. By questioning substitutivity for non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, Rostworowski tries to block both the HKE objection and Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection. In this paper, I will argue that Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions leads to a variant of the HKE objection even in the context of doxastic attitude ascriptions. Since, as we will see, doxastic attitude ascriptions do not seem to suffer from the substitutivity problems discussed by Rostworowski in the context of non-doxastic attitude ascriptions, this will further exacerbate the problem for Russell’s analysis. I will then discuss the possibility to reject substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions using a contextualist analysis of attitude ascriptions. However, we will see that, independent of whether we accept substitutivity for doxastic attitude ascriptions, a complete solution of the doxastic problem has to reject Russell’s analysis of the truth-conditions of sentences of the form ‘The F is G’. Concluding, I will show that, unlike Russell’s analysis, the Frege–Strawson analysis of definite descriptions, according to which a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ presupposes that there is exactly one F, rather than asserting it, provides an explanation of the HKE objection, Elbourne’s variant of the HKE objection, and the doxastic problem presented in this paper. This will speak not only in favor of a Fregean analysis of definite descriptions, but also of a Fregean conception of propositions. (shrink)

The paper discusses the structure of non-verbal predication, with particular reference to the role of the copula. Differently from the main tenets of contemporary logico-philosophical and linguistic theories, a model of predication is proposed where the verbal component (specifically, tense information) is regarded as central in establishing the syntactic and semantic relation between a predicate and its subject. It is thus possible to recover some of the insights of the pre-Fregean analysis of predication. The proposed solution has a (...) number of significant consequences for the structure to be assigned to non-verbal predication, in particular for the semantics of small clause constituents, where the predication is established without the copula. (shrink)

The ancient theory of an identity of some sort between subject and predicate is not merely out of fashion. Rejection of it is just about the cornerstone of the Fregean analysis of propositions in terms of argument and function.