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Relational approaches to Frege's puzzle
Author(s) -
Gray Aidan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/phc3.12429
Subject(s) - principle of compositionality , representation (politics) , epistemology , mental representation , cognitive science , linguistics , psychology , computer science , cognition , philosophy , neuroscience , politics , political science , law
Frege's puzzle is a fundamental challenge for accounts of mental and linguistic representation. This piece surveys a family of recent approaches to the puzzle that posit representational relations . I identify the central commitments of relational approaches and present several arguments for them. I also distinguish two kinds of relationism—semantic relationism and formal relationism—corresponding to two conceptions of representational relations. I briefly discuss the consequences of relational approaches for foundational questions about propositional attitudes, intentional explanation, and compositionality.