Frege on Definitions A Case Study of Semantic Content

by Horty, John

• ISBN13: 9780195314410
• ISBN10: 0195314417
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-11-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In this short monograph, John Horty explores the difficulties presented for Gottlob Frege's semantic theory, as well as its modern descendents, by the treatment of defined expressions. In this short monograph, John Horty explores the difficulties presented for Gottlob Frege's semantic theory, as well as its modern descendents, by the treatment of defined expressions. Horty is able to suggest ways out of these difficulties that are both philosophically and logically plausible and Fregean in spirit. This discussion is then connected to a number of more familiar topics, such as indexicality and the discussion of concepts in recent theories of mind and language. In the latter part of the book, after introducing a simple semantic model of senses as procedures, Horty considers the problems that definitions present for Frege's idea that the sense of an expression should mirror its grammatical structure. The requirement can be satisfied, he argues, only if defined expressions--and incomplete expressions as well--are assigned senses of their own, rather than treated contextually. He then explores one way in which these senses might be reified within the procedural model, drawing on ideas from work in the semantics of computer programming languages. With its combination of technical semantics and history of philosophy, Horty's book tackles some of the hardest questions in the philosophy of language. It should interest philosophers, logicians, and linguists.

Author Biography

John Horty is a Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Agency and Deontic Logic (Oxford, 2001) as well as papers on a variety of topics in logic, philosophy, and computer science.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
The introduction of senses	p. 1
Frege's argument	p. 1
Exploring the argument	p. 3
Propositional attitudes	p. 4
Information value	p. 7
Sense identity	p. 10
Models of the speaker	p. 10
Ayer-Hahn monsters	p. 11
Limited intellects	p. 14
The strict interpretation	p. 17
Arguments for the strict interpretation	p. 17
Problems with the strict interpretation	p. 24
Definitions	p. 27
Analyticity	p. 27
Concept formation	p. 30
Fruitfulness and eliminability	p. 32
Explicative definitions	p. 36
Stipulative definitions	p. 40
Sense and meaning	p. 50
The conflict	p. 51
Resolving the conflict	p. 53
Indexicals	p. 56
Language learning	p. 58
A simple semantic model	p. 65
Senses as procedures	p. 66
Syntax	p. 69
Semantics	p. 71
Referents	p. 72
Senses	p. 73
Removal rules	p. 85
Incomplete expressions	p. 85
The conflict	p. 85
Resolving the conflict	p. 91
Defined expressions	p. 98
Syntactic and semantic options	p. 102
Syntactic options	p. 104
Semantic options	p. 111
Senses of incomplete expressions	p. 118
A de re proposal	p. 118
Complex incomplete senses	p. 123
Developing the proposal	p. 125
Examples and equivalencies	p. 134
Evaluating the proposal	p. 137
Afterword	p. 139
Developing the procedural model	p. 140
Two approaches to defined expressions	p. 144
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