The Space of Reasons 2008-04-04

McDowell's Truth Theory and Frege Puzzles (Carter)

In what follows, Jackie Carter offers a clear and concise summary of McDowell's proposed solution to the Frege Puzzle. Enjoy!So, I think that McDowell's concept of truth seems somehow unsatisfying on its face.... [H]owever, I came to find it much more palatable -- in part because of its implications for philosophy of language and in particular the Frege Puzzle. Anyway, this is my effort to explain why McDowell's truth theory, which makes "true" a status internal to a world view, helps solve the elusive Frege Puzzle. (Disclaimer: my grasp of this feels rather tenuous.) Recall that (briefly put) Frege's Puzzle is that "Hesperus=Hesperus" seems to have a cognitive value different from that of "Hesperus=Phosphorus." The problem is that if all the proper names do is pick out some referent (some object in the world), then the two identities seem to ...

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