Full text
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| Author(s): |
Leandro Bortolotto Camargo
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas |
| Defense date: | 2019-09-30 |
| Examining board members: |
Marco Ruffino;
Dirk Greimann;
Giorgio Venturi
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| Advisor: | Marco Ruffino |
| Abstract | |
In 1879, Frege proposed the substitution of the distinction between subject and object with the distinction between argument and funcional expression. Particularly after 1891, however, such splitting began to apply to the items designated by such linguistic expressions as well, namely objects and functions, respectively. In this context, it is crucial to highlight that the distinction between such items as formulated by Frege is exclusive and exhaustive. Its being thus described has caused difficulties for the development of semantics in Frege's theory - difficulties which are expressed above all in the so called concept horse problem, discussed more thoroughly in 1892. Roughly speaking, it deals with the impossibility of referring to the concept horse (and, by extension, to any concept) by means of the expression 'the concept horse' (by extension, by means of any phrase of the form 'the concept F'), since it's a saturated expression purporting to refer to a unsaturated item. Such incompatibility is evident when one attempts to replace such expression by the predicate '? is a horse' in a sentence, obtaining thereby a list instead of a sentence, which, assuming the Reference Principle, implies that the aforementioned expressions aren't coreferential. Having that as background, we set about discussing the solutions brought up by Frege himself in 1892 and 1892-1895, as well as the various proposals by other philosophers who have dealt with this issue, amongst which those according to which: the notion of reference would be ambiguous between semantic levels; only a proper part of predicates would be referential; whilst singular terms would stand in the relation of reference, predicates would stand in a sui generis relation to concepts; the distinction between singular terms and predicates would be independent of the Reference Principle, being grounded, instead, on the different kinds of senses that such expressions possess; it would be required a reformulation of the Reference Principle, so as to exclude of its scope expressions which are impurely referent. Furthermore, the objections respectively posed to them are presented, arriving, in the end, at the proposal that, to our best judgment, is able to provide the best solution to the problem (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 16/25920-3 - On the Fregean distinction between concept and object and its semantic repercussion |
| Grantee: | Leandro Bortolotto Camargo |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |