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On Sense and Direct Reference*
Author(s) -
Caplan Ben
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2006.00014.x
Subject(s) - proposition , appeal , sentence , presentation (obstetrics) , object (grammar) , simple (philosophy) , linguistics , computer science , epistemology , psychology , philosophy , law , political science , medicine , radiology
Millianism and Fregeanism agree that a sentence that contains a name expresses a structured proposition but disagree about whether that proposition contains the object that the name refers to (Millianism) or rather a mode of presentation of that object (Fregeanism). Various problems – about simple sentences, propositional‐attitude ascriptions, and sentences that contain empty names – beset each view. To solve these problems, Millianism can appeal to modes of presentation, and Fregeanism can appeal to objects. But this raises a further problem: namely, to explain why the proposition expressed by a sentence that contains a name matters in some cases but not in others.