Frege's PuzzleThe nature of the information content of declarative sentences is a central topic in the philosophy of language. The natural view that a sentence like "John loves Mary" contains information in which two individuals occur as constituents is termed the naive theory, and is one that has been abandoned by most contemporary scholars. This theory was refuted originally by philosopher Gottlob Frege. His argument that the naive theory did not work is termed Frege's puzzle, and his rival account of information content is termed the orthodox theory. In this detailed study, Nathan Salmon defends a version of the naive theory and presents a proposal for its extension that provides a better picture of information content than the orthodox theory gives. He argues that a great deal of what has generally been taken for granted in the philosophy of language over the past few decades is either mistaken or unsupported, and consequently, much current research is focused on the wrong set of questions. Salmon dissolves Frege's puzzle as it is usually formulated and demonstrates how it can be reconstructed and strengthened to yield a more powerful objection to the naive theory. He then defends the naive theory against the new Frege puzzle by presenting an idea that yields both a surprisingly rich and powerful extension of the naive theory and a better picture of information content than that of the original orthodox theory. Nathan Salmon is Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Santa Barbara. A Bradford Book. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 28
Page 99
... Elmer believes the information that Bugsy2 is dangerous , ipso facto he also believes that Bugsy , is dangerous , for they are the same piece of information . More important , this attempt to solve the puzzle does not even address the ...
... Elmer believes the information that Bugsy2 is dangerous , ipso facto he also believes that Bugsy , is dangerous , for they are the same piece of information . More important , this attempt to solve the puzzle does not even address the ...
Page 112
... Elmer does not believe that Bugsy is dangerous . How , then , do we express the other side of Elmer's doxastic state resulting from his recent change of mind ? The specifics of the story do not allow us to say that Elmer believes that ...
... Elmer does not believe that Bugsy is dangerous . How , then , do we express the other side of Elmer's doxastic state resulting from his recent change of mind ? The specifics of the story do not allow us to say that Elmer believes that ...
Page 171
... belief , allows the formulation of de re belief in the manner of ' ( 3x ) [ x is Elmer's friend & Elmer believes that x is dangerous ] ' , with ordinary unrestricted , objectual quantification into the same ' believes ' predicate used ...
... belief , allows the formulation of de re belief in the manner of ' ( 3x ) [ x is Elmer's friend & Elmer believes that x is dangerous ] ' , with ordinary unrestricted , objectual quantification into the same ' believes ' predicate used ...
Contents
Chapter | 7 |
Freges Puzzle and the Naive Theory | 11 |
Chapter 3 | 45 |
Copyright | |
8 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
argument assent attribute believes that Bugsy believes that Hesperus Bugsy is dangerous Bugsy Wabbit Clark Kent cognitive information content complex compound expression conceptual content concerning content base context of utterance David Kaplan declarative sentences definite description Elmer believes entity example expression with respect fact Frege is busy Frege Strategy Frege's Law Frege's Puzzle Frege's theory Fregean given context Hesperus is Hesperus Hesperus is Phosphorus indexical individual information encoded information value Kripke logically valid Lois Lane means modal modified naive theory notion object orthodox theory osition particular Philosophical piece of information possible world pragmatically imparted information priori problem proper names proposition matrix propositional attitudes propositional function purely conceptual content quantifier referent relation relevant Russell semantic value semantically encoded sense singly modified naive singular proposition singular term Socrates is wise someone sort Ted Kennedy temporal operators theory of information Thesis thought true truth value U.S. president Valb value base