Wolfgang Barz

Ich versuche zu zeigen, daß die auf Frege zurückgehende These, daß Meinungen Relationen zwischen Personen und Propositionen darstellen, nicht zwangsläufig die Frage nach der Natur des Mechanismus aufwirft, der Personen mit Propositionen verbindet. Um meine Auffassung zu begründen, lasse ich zunächst eine Überlegung Revue passieren, die meines Erachtens den stärksten Beweggrund für die Einführung von Propositionen darstellt. In diesem Zusammenhang zeigt sich, daß sich die These, daß Meinungen Relationen zwischen Personen und Propositionen darstellen, auf die Struktur von Berichten über Meinungen bezieht – und nicht auf die Struktur von Meinungen selbst. Wer Freges These unterschreibt, legt sich daher weder auf das Vorhandensein eines mysteriösen Aktes intellektueller Anschauung, noch auf die Existenz irgendeiner anderen Art von erklärungsbedürftiger Interaktion zwischen einer Person und einer abstrakten Entität fest.

The aim of this article is to provide an account of introspective knowledge concerning visual experiences that is in accordance with the idea of transparent introspection. According to transparent introspection, a person gains knowledge of her own current mental state M solely by paying attention to those aspects of the external world which M is about. In my view, transparent introspection is a promising alternative to inner sense theories. However, it raises the fundamental question why a person who pays attention to something extra-mental should be epistemically justified in holding a belief about something intra-mental. In his Naturalizing the Mind, Fred Dretske solves this problem by conceiving of introspection concerning visual experiences as an inference based on a connecting belief. Although Dretske's account proves defective upon closer inspection, its essence can be salvaged by looking upon introspection as being a game of make-believe.

Many contemporary philosophers find intentionality challenging because of its apparent resistance to integration into a naturalistic worldview. Consequently, they strive to make intentionality intelligible as part of the natural world. The central thesis of this book is that such an approach does not do justice to the philosophical significance of the problem. The problem of intentionality lies at a different level, namely the challenge to the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals. Addressing this challenge goes beyond the scope of naturalizing intentionality; instead, it requires logical and semantic considerations to refute it. A promising avenue from this perspective is Frege’s claim that intentional states are relations to propositions. The author elucidates the subtleties of this approach in contrast to alternative positions, defends it against classical counterarguments, and demonstrates its compatibility with directly referentialist views. The objection that speaking of relations to propositions remains unsatisfactory in the absence of any naturalistic comment is refuted after a detailed discussion of Dretske's information-theoretic approach.