Abstract
Jerrold J. Katz advocates a theory of semantics and pragmatics which is a realistic, platonic, anti-naturalistic, anti-psychological and non-fregean version of intensionalism. He intends by his approach to solve various substantial problems of philosophy of language (for example those dealing with “meaning” and “reference”).In the following, at first this theory will be presented shortly. This presentation deals primarily with the foundations of Katz' theory and his treatment of the important concepts “meaning” and “reference”. Secondly, it includes a discussion of some recent criticism (of P.A. Boghossian and of R.F. Gibson) concerning Katz' notions of pragmatics and semantics. At last, a shorter critical evaluation of the principles of Katz' theory follows.