Filipe Martone

Neste artigo ofereço uma interpretação mais frutífera do Problema de Frege como formulado na passagem de abertura de “Sobre o sentido e a referência”. Argumento que essa formulação é problemática sob vários aspectos, e que algumas das noções que Frege invoca para descrever o Problema são totalmente dispensáveis. Uma vez limpo o terreno, é mais provável que enxerguemos o que realmente está em questão. Também mostro como essa interpretação evita a objeção de Glezakos (2009) de que Frege não pode formular o Problema de maneira não-circular.

The issue of whether a theory of demonstratives should be able to handle Frege’s Puzzle seems rather old hat, but it was not so much resolved as left hanging. This paper tries to remedy that. I argue that a major problem not previously noticed affects any theory of demonstratives that aims at dealing with Frege’s Puzzle. This problem shows itself in cases in which the cognitive significance of a single demonstrative identity – such as ‘that is that’ – differs for participants of the same context. To accommodate such cases, I argue, we would need an implausible individualistic theory of demonstratives nobody should (or does) endorse. If so, we must look elsewhere for a solution to Frege’s Puzzle.

In this paper I present and discuss the solution offered by John Perry to Frege’s Puzzle in terms of the reflexive content of utterances. I first discuss his purported solution for the indexical version of the Puzzle, and argue that reflexive content cannot explain the triviality of some utterances. Hence, it is not the sort of thing that accounts for cognitive significance adequately. I then discuss Perry’s solution for the Puzzle as arising for proper names. I argue that, even if reflexive content does explain cognitive significance in this case, it does not do so in terms of the meaning of expressions, as Perry originally intended.

Kaplan’s solution to the indexical version of Frege’s Puzzle in terms of the character of linguistic expressions has been greatly influential and much discussed. Many philosophers regard it as being correct, or at least as being on the right track. However, little has been said about how character is supposed to apply to proper names, and how it could account for the name version of the Puzzle. In this paper I want to fill this gap. I sketch some solutions to the name version of Frege’s Puzzle in terms of character, and argue that all of them are flawed in some way: they are either semantically implausible or fail to account for all relevant phenomena.

Neste artigo, primeiramente, apresento tese de Kripke sobre a possibilidade de se adquirir conhecimento de verdades contingentes a priori e a crítica de Keith Donnellan a essa tese. Depois, exploro a distinção que Donnellan faz entre (a) saber que uma sentença é verdadeira e (b) conhecer a verdade que essa sentença expressa. Argumento que essa distinção não é relevante apenas no contexto de sua crítica ao contingente a priori, mas sim para nossa prática com nomes próprios de modo geral. Tento mostrar que conhecer o significado de nomes próprios não se resume à nossa competência linguística com eles, mas depende de termos acquaintance com seus portadores. Se isso é verdadeiro, então a tese do contingente a priori, tal como formulada por Kripke, não pode estar correta.

In this paper I challenge the widespread assumption that the conditions for singular reference are more or less the same as the conditions for singular thought. I claim that we refer singularly to things without thinking singularly about them more often than it is usually believed. I first argue that we should take the idea that singular thought is non-descriptive thought very seriously. If we do that, it seems that we cannot be so liberal about what counts as acquaintance; only perception will do. I also briefly discuss and reject semantic instrumentalism. Finally, I argue that while singular reference is cheap, singular thought comes only at a price.