Abstract
In this paper I shall be dealing with Frege’s puzzle, which is a common topic nowadays within philosophy of language and mind. It amounts to the following question: how is it possible for anyone, e.g., Luke Skywalker, to understand and accept
-
(1)
Anakin Skywalker does not serve the emperor
without accepting — indeed, emphatically denying —
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(2)
Darth Vader does not serve the emperor,
even though Anakin Skywalker is none other than Darth Vader? Also, how is it possible that whereas
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(3)
Anakin Skywalker is Anakin Skywalker
is absolutely vacuous as its information value is nil,
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(4)
Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader
may contain the most fascinating discovery of a lifetime? A significant part of contemporary semantics and philosophy of language has centered on questions which differ from these only in the anecdotes that illustrate them. Though attempts to answer them have hardly ever taken into account that Frege’s questions in fact pose a problem concerning the nature of our beliefs (and other mental states), it has usually been assumed that these and other mental states have a fixed and standing content.
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Notes
I am assuming that there is only one New Theory of Reference, which is of course utterly false. I am claiming that this is so for the sake of argument.
S. Soames, “Direct Reference, Propositional Attitudes, and Semantic Content”, in N. Salmon & S. Soames, eds.: Propositions and Attitudes (Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 213.
This is not exact in every detail. A supporter of the New Theory of Reference naturally expects to explain out Frege’s data. However, she adds that those data have nothing to do not with a theory of the semantic content of a sentence but with a different one: a theory of the information conveyed by an utterance of that sentence in a conversation (S. Soames, loc. cit., #.5); a theory of ways of conveying or interpreting such information (N. Salmon, Frege’s Puzzle, Cambridge, MA: The MIT. Press, 1986, cap. 8);
or a theory of the information created by an utterance of the sentence (J. Perry, “Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference”, Noûs, 22 (1988), 1–18, esp. p.8.)
The locus classicus is J. Fodor, “Propositional Attitudes”, in RePresentations. Philosophical Essays on the Foundations of Cognitive Science, Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1981.
Cfr., also B. Loewer, “The Role of ‘Conceptual Role Semantics’”, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 23 (1982) 305–315, esp. p. 310f.
For a range of cases compatible with the form of representationalism I have put forward, see W. Lycan, “Mental Content in Linguistic Form”, Philosophical Studies, 58 (1990) 147–154. My position in the text corresponds approximately to the conjunction of theses (A), (B), (C), (D) and/or (G) of Lycan’s.
This should remind you of Jaakko Hintikka’s way out of the wreck of substitutivity of identity in indirect contexts in Knowledge and Belief. Cf. op. cit. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1961), cap. 6. Cf. also “Quine on Quantifying In: A Dialogue”, The Intentions of Intentionality and Other New Models for Modalities, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1975.
D. Kaplan, “Demonstratives, An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Demonstratives and Other Indexicals”, in J. Almog, J. Perry & H. K. Wettstein, eds.: Themes from Kaplan, Oxford University Press, 1989; N. Salmon, Frege’s Puzzle, loc. cit., chap. 2 and Appendix C.
The first suggestion in this sense was made by H. Kamp and incorporated in his Discourse Representation Theory [= DRT]. For a paper on the intuitions behind this theory, see “Content, Thought and Communication”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. LXXXV (1984/1985) 238–261. One important idea is this: “Not only do the utterances we produce, orally or in writing, often depend on context for their interpretation; they also do much to determine what the context is” (p. 240). My proposal of analysing cognitive meanings as functions from notional worlds to notional worlds benefits from Kamp’s idea. I do prefer to handle notional structures directly, since DRT depends heavily on a very strong form of representationalism, which explicitly welcomes a language of thought hypothesis. Because of this, several philosophers and semanticians are exploring a different form of dynamic semantics, one which does not commit itself to representationalism. See, for example, J. Groenendijk & M. Stokhof, “Dynamic Predicate Logic”, forthcoming Journal of Philosophical Logic vol. 14 (1991) 39–100;
J. Groenendijk & M. Stokhof, “Dynamic Montague Grammar”, ITLI Prepublication Series, University of Amsterdam, 1990;
F. Veltman, “Semántica de actualización”, Revista española de filosofía, no. 6 (1992); “Defaults in Update Semantics”, ITLI Prepublication Series, University of Amsterdam, 1991.
The distinction between internal and external reference to an individual by a (mental or extramental) file is put forward in J. Perry’s “Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference”, loc. cit., p. 13.
A Puzzle About Belief;, A. Margalit, ed.: Meaning and Use, Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979. Also in N. Salmon & S. Soames, eds.: Propositions and Attitudes, loc. cit.“A Puzzle About Belief”, loc. cit., p. 268. Op. cit., p. 269.
J. Barwise & J. Perry, Propositions and Attitudes (Cambridge, MA: The MIT. Press, 1982), chap. 8.
I am alluding to one sort of case brought up by Kripke. See Op. cit., #. III.
“Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference”, loc. cit., p. 4.
D. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 59.
See Gerald Weissmann’s comments on Edmund Stone’s findings in “Aspirine”, Scientific American, March, 1991.
This one of the reasons why metalinguistic statements of the form is called “N” are so useful. See M. J. Wreen, “Socrates is called ‘Socrates’”, Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 12 (1989), 359–371.
“Rational Animals”, Dialectica, vol. 36 (1982) 318–327. See also “Thought and Talk”, Essays on Truth and Interpretation (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 157. This theoretical position is known as Meaning Holism. For a critical analysis, see J. Fodor, Psychosemantics (Cambridge, MA: The MIT. Press, 1987), chapter 3.
Adjectives such as ‘vertical’ and ‘lateral’ have been introduced in this connection by Brian Loar, to illustrate the point I make in the main text. See B. Loar, Mind and Meaning (Cambridge University Press, 1981), chap. 4 and p. 121.
Others oppose ‘internal’ structural properties to external relations. Cf. M. Crimmins & J. Perry, “The Prince and the Phone Booth: Reporting Puzzling Beliefs”, Journal of Philosophy, vol. LXXXVI (1989), p. 687. As can be seen, I opt for a two-factor theory of meaning and mental content. For recent defences of such a position.
see N. Block, “Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology”, in P. A. French, Th. E. Uehling & H. K. Wettstein, eds.: Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986;
J. Fodor, Psychosemantics loc. cit., chaps. 3& 4; F. Dretske, Explaining Behaviour (Cambridge, MA: The MIT. Press, 1988), #. 6.4;
C. McGinn, Mental Content (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), chapters 2 (section entitled “Dual Componency”) and 3 (section “Holism”);
P. Jacob, “Thoughts and Belief Ascriptions”, Mind and Language, vol. 2 (1987) #. V; “Externalism Revisited: Is There Such a Thing as Narrow Content?”, Philosophical Studies, 60 (1990) 143–176.
This idea is inspired by a comment made by R. Stalnaker in “Indexical Belief”, Synthese, 49 (1981) 129–151, esp. p. 139.
I am very grateful to Jean Stephenson who has steered me away from many errors in my English draft.
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Acero, J.J. (1996). Attitudes, Content and Identity: A Dynamic View. In: Clark, A., Ezquerro, J., Larrazabal, J.M. (eds) Philosophy and Cognitive Science: Categories, Consciousness, and Reasoning. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 69. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8731-0_7
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