Marco Ruffino

There are some salient explanatory models for the semantic phenomenon known as quantifier domain restriction. Each of these models sees the context of utterance as playing a different role. A particularly clear and helpful way of organizing the issue is offered by Stanley and Szabó , who distinguish three kinds of approaches, and argue for one of them in particular . In this paper, I argue that neither Stanley and Szabó’s arguments against the rival approaches nor their arguments for the semantic approach are conclusive.Há alguns modelos explanatórios proeminentes sobre o fenômeno semântico conhecido como restrição de domínios quantificacionais. Cada um destes modelos considera o contexto de proferimento como desempenhando um papel diferente. Uma forma particularmente clara e útil de organizar a discussão é proposta por Stanley e Szabó , que distinguem três tipos de tratamentos, e argumentam em favor de um deles . Neste artigo, eu procuro mostrar que nem os argumentos de Stanley e Szabó contra os tratamentos rivais nem o seu argumento em favor do tratamento semântico são conclusivos

Matthias Schirn has argued on a number of occasions against the interpretation of Frege's ``objects of a quite special kind'' (i.e., the objects referred to by names like `the concept F') as extensions of concepts. According to Schirn, not only are these objects not extensions, but also the idea that `the concept F' refers to objects leads to some conclusions that are counter-intuitive and incompatible with Frege's thought. In this paper, I challenge Schirn's conclusion: I want to try and argue that the assumption that `the concept F' refers to the extension of F is entirely consistent with Frege's broader views on logic and language. I shall examine each of Schirn's main arguments and show that they do not support his claim.