Fregean Senses, Modes of Presentation, and Concepts

Ever since Frege postulated senses in [1892] and conceived of them as (containing) modes of presentation, serious studies in the philosophy of language have often appealed to these entities. In the recent philosophy of language and mind, however, the notions of ‘mode of presentation’ and ‘concept’ have become more important. It seems fair to say that much of the theorizing involving senses, modes of presentation, and concepts has taken place at a very general level. Frege never told us what senses are; they were simply stipulated to be entities that play certain roles in his philosophy of language. Philosophers today still work with both senses and modes of presentation without having a systematic and viable theory of them. And although the notion of a concept has been employed in various ways, there are not all that many precise theories of concepts. In this paper, I try to clear away some of the mystery surrounding these three kinds of entities by offering a precise theory of them. The theory of Fregean senses developed in my previous work will be extended to yield a more general theory of modes of presentation and concepts. Modes of presentation and concepts will be identified, therefore, in terms

[1]  George Bealer,et al.  Theories of properties, relations, and propositions , 1979 .

[2]  Noël Carroll,et al.  Mimesis as Make-Beleive@@@Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. , 1995 .

[3]  Mark Crimmins.  Hesperus and Phosphorus: Sense, pretense, and reference , 1998 .

[4]  Alonzo Church,et al.  A Formulation of the Logic of Sense and Denotation , 1952 .

[5]  Edward N. Zalta,et al.  Twenty-five basic theorems in situation and world theory , 1993, J. Philos. Log..

[6]  Steven E. Boër.  Propositional Attitudes and Compositional Semantics , 1995 .

[7]  E. Zalta,et al.  Abstract Objects. An Introduction to Axiomatic Metaphysics. , 1988 .

[8]  Edward N. Zalta,et al.  An alternative theory of nonexistent objects , 1980, J. Philos. Log..

[9]  Edward N. Zalta,et al.  Replies to the critics , 1993 .

[10]  J. Perry,et al.  The Prince and the Phone Booth: Reporting Puzzling Beliefs , 1989 .

[11]  P. Ludlow,et al.  Talk About Beliefs. , 1992 .

[12]  Edward N. Zalta,et al.  Natural Numbers and Natural Cardinals as Abstract Objects: A Partial Reconstruction of Frege"s Grundgesetze in Object Theory , 1999, J. Philos. Log..

[13]  Edward N. Zalta,et al.  A (Leibnizian) Theory of Concepts , 2000 .

[14]  Saul A. Kripke,et al.  A Puzzle about Belief , 1979 .

[15]  Edward N. Zalta,et al.  A comparison of two intensional logics , 1988 .

[16]  Graeme Forbes,et al.  The Indispensability of Sinn , 1990 .

[17]  Thomas Hofweber,et al.  Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-Existence , 2000 .

[18]  G. Bealer.  Quality and concept , 1982 .

[19]  Christopher Menzel.  A complete, type-free "second-order" logic and its philosophical foundations , 1986 .

[20]  Anthony Appiah,et al.  Frege's puzzle , 1988 .

[21]  Thomas J. McKay.  On proper names in belief ascriptions , 1981 .

[22]  E. Zalta.  Singular Propositions, Abstract Constituents, and Propositional Attitudes ! , 1989 .

[23]  Graeme Forbes,et al.  Indexicals and Intensionality: A Fregean Perspective , 1987 .

[24]  J. Perry.  The Problem Of The Essential Indexical , 1979 .