Equality1 gives rise to challenging questions which are not altogether easy to answer. Is it a relation? A relation between objects, or between names or signs of objects? In my Begriffsschrift I assumed the latter. The reasons which seem to favour this are the following: a = a and a = b are obviously statements of differing cognitive value; a = a holds a priori and, according to Kant, is to be labeled analytic, while statements of the form a = (...) b often contain very valuable extensions of our knowledge and cannot always be established a priori. The discovery that the rising sun is not new every morning, but always the same, was one of the most fertile astronomical discoveries. Even to-day the identification of a small planet or a comet is not always a matter of course. Now if we were to regard equality as a relation between that which the names ‘a’ and ‘b’ designate, it would seem that a = b could not differ from a = a (i.e. provided a = b is true). A relation would thereby be expressed of a thing to itself, and indeed one in which each thing stands to itself but to no other thing. What is intended to be said by a = b seems to be that the signs or names ‘a’ and ‘b’ designate the same thing, so that those signs themselves would be under discussion; a relation between them would be asserted. But this relation would hold between the names or signs only in so far as they named or designated something. It would be mediated by the connexion of each of the two signs with the same designated thing. But this is arbitrary. Nobody can be forbidden to use any arbitrarily producible event or object as a sign for something. In that case the sentence a = b would no longer refer to the subject matter, but only to its mode of designation; we would express no proper knowledge by its means. But in many cases this is just what we want to do. If the sign ‘a’ is distinguished from the sign ‘b’ only as object (here, by means of its shape), not as sign (i.e. not by the manner in which it designates something), the cognitive value of a = a becomes essentially equal to that of a = b, provided a = b is true.. (shrink)

"Twin earth" examples have motivated a number of proposals for the lexicography of kind terms in natural languages. It is argued that these proposals create unacceptable difficulties for the analysis of de dicto propositional attitudes. A conservative solution of the twin earth problems is then proposed according to which they reflect pragmatic features of language use rather than semantic features of lexical content.

If conceptual analysis is possible for finite thinkers, then there must ultimately be a distinction between complex and primitive or irreducible and unanalyzable concepts, by which complex concepts are analyzed as relations among primitive concepts. This investigation considers the advantages of categorizing intentionality as a primitive rather than analyzable concept, in both a historical Brentanian context and in terms of contemporary philosophy of mind. Arguments in support of intentionality as a primitive relation are evaluated relative to objections, especially a recent (...) criticism by Jerry A. Fodor. Against this background, the relation between qualia and intentionality in the understanding of consciousness is explored. (shrink)

1. What's in a Name?Can philosophy of language do without the concept of intentionality? To approach this important question it may be useful to begin with the minimal explanatory requirements for a theory of reference that tries to explain the naming of objects as the simplest linguistic act. The limitations of trying to understand meaning without intentionality are therefore best illustrated by considering what is generally acknowledged to be the most thorough-going attempt to dispense altogether with intentional concepts in Frege's (...) reputedly purely extensionalist semantics of proper names. I shall argue that despite his avowed anti-psychologism, Frege paradoxically needs to include psychological elements alongside his famous distinction between sense and reference in order to preserve the universal intersubstitutability of singular referring expressions salva veritate as an adequate extensional criterion of coreferentiality. In so doing, a revisionary Fregean semantics introduces the first instalment of intentionality at the foundations of naming, by which intentionality pervades the philosophy of language. (shrink)