The Space of Reasons 2008-04-08

What's wrong with Frege's argument for Senses (Kim)

Brian Kim responds to Jackie Carter's post on Frege puzzles. I agree with Jackie that much of the motivation for many crazy views about truth, concepts, and intentional content derive from their ability to explain Frege Puzzles. I for one would like to separate my theory of meaning from a theory of intentional content. Like Stalnaker, I think thought is prior to language. I think this is the minority view in philosophy these days so in order to motivate this view, one needs to undermine the main sources of motivation for the alternative - Frege's argument for the distinction between sense and reference. In fact, Frege's argument does show that there is a distinction between sense and reference, but what it does not show is that senses have anything to do with thought.Here's one way to present Frege's argument:So the ...

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