Search engine for discovering works of Art, research articles, and books related to Art and Culture
ShareThis
Javascript must be enabled to continue!

Fodor on concepts and Frege Puzzles

View through CrossRef
Fodor characterizes concepts as consisting of two dimensions: one is content, which is purely denotational/broad, the other the Mentalese vehicle bearing that content, which Fodor calls the mode of presentation (MOP), understood “syntactically.” I argue that, so understood, concepts are not interpersonally shareable; so Fodor’s own account violates what he calls the Publicity Constraint in his (1998) book. Furthermore, I argue that Fodor’s non‐semantic solution to Frege cases succumbs to the problem of providing interpersonally applicable functional roles for MOPs. This is a serious problem because Fodor himself has argued extensively that if Fregean senses or meanings are understood as functional/conceptual roles, then they can’t be public, since, according to Fodor, there are no interpersonally applicable functional roles.
Title: Fodor on concepts and Frege Puzzles
Description:
Fodor characterizes concepts as consisting of two dimensions: one is content, which is purely denotational/broad, the other the Mentalese vehicle bearing that content, which Fodor calls the mode of presentation (MOP), understood “syntactically.
” I argue that, so understood, concepts are not interpersonally shareable; so Fodor’s own account violates what he calls the Publicity Constraint in his (1998) book.
Furthermore, I argue that Fodor’s non‐semantic solution to Frege cases succumbs to the problem of providing interpersonally applicable functional roles for MOPs.
This is a serious problem because Fodor himself has argued extensively that if Fregean senses or meanings are understood as functional/conceptual roles, then they can’t be public, since, according to Fodor, there are no interpersonally applicable functional roles.

Related Results

What is Analytic Philosophy
What is Analytic Philosophy
Special Issue: What is Analytic PhilosophyReferencesHaaparantaG. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker. Frege: Logical Excavations. Oxford, Blackwell, 1984.M. Dummett. The Interpretation of...
Frege, Gottlob (1848–1925)
Frege, Gottlob (1848–1925)
A German philosopher-mathematician, Gottlob Frege was primarily interested in understanding both the nature of mathematical truths and the means whereby they are ultimately to be j...
Frege’s platonism and mathematical creation: some new perspectives
Frege’s platonism and mathematical creation: some new perspectives
Abstract In this three-part essay, I investigate Frege’s platonist and anti-creationist position in Grundgesetze der Arithmetik and to some extent also in Die Grundlagen ...
Revisiting Fodor’s Argument Against the Unity of Science
Revisiting Fodor’s Argument Against the Unity of Science
Abstract The article offers an internal critique of Fodor’s original argument against the unity of science, claiming that multiple realization in special sciences...
Wittgenstein and Frege
Wittgenstein and Frege
AbstractIn the Preface to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein acknowledges his debt to ‘the great works of Gottlob Frege’; and even during the years in which he res...
Frege’s Theory of Proper Names
Frege’s Theory of Proper Names
Gottlob Frege, in order to explain the relationship between language and reality, believes that in addition to the subjective meaning and external reference of words, related to th...
Frege on Language, Logic, and Psychology
Frege on Language, Logic, and Psychology
Abstract Eva Picardi has been one of the most influential Italian analytic philosophers of her generation. She taught for forty years at the University of Bologna, r...

Back to Top