Wiredu argues intriguingly that some philosophical questions only arise in certain linguistic settings. So philosophical questions are, on occasion, linguistically relative or, more vividly, Tongue Dependent. The phenomenon however does not rest on expressive differences between languages, or, better, on failures of translation. Though rejecting his example, I endorse the general possibility he constructs. I do so provided that there is a solution to the Paradox of Analysis. Indeed I point out that the possibility of Tongue Dependency is both necessary (...) and sufficient for a solution to the Paradox of Analysis. I then offer a solution to the Paradox of Analysis in a Fregean setting, by distinguishing within the cognitive value of a claim between cognitive accomplishment and cognitive significance. The results of analysis involve cognitive accomplishment, though have no cognitive significance. I recommend my account as dealing well with a problem Salmon raised for the Church-Frege account. Finally, I direct my account on vocabularies rather than claims and note that, though possible, actual cases of Tongue Dependency within natural languages are highly doubtful. The phenomenon does not have the cultural significance Wiredu claims for it. (shrink)

Richard Heck has contested my argument that the equation of the meaning of a sentence with its truth-condition implies deflationism, on the ground that the argument does not go through if truth-conditions are understood, in Davidson's style, to be stated by T-sentences. My reply is that Davidsonian theories of meaning do not equate the meaning of a sentence with its truth-condition, and thus that Heck's point does not actually obstruct my argument.

I attempt to explain Frege's handling of the Julius Caesar issue in terms of his more general philosophical commitments. These only became fully explicit in his middle-period writings, but his earlier moves are best explained, I suggest, if we suppose them to be implicit in his earlier thinking. These commitments conditionally justify Frege in rejecting Hume's Principle as either a definition or axiom but in accepting Axiom V. However, the general epistemological picture they constitute has serious problems in accounting for (...) how knowledge is possible at all of such propositions as that Julius Caesar is not a number. (shrink)