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On Indirect Sense and Reference
Author(s) -
Skiba Lukas
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/theo.12049
Subject(s) - hierarchy , context (archaeology) , epistemology , common sense , expression (computer science) , sense (electronics) , mathematics , philosophy , computer science , political science , law , history , archaeology , programming language , electrical engineering , engineering
According to F rege, expressions shift their reference when they occur in indirect contexts: in “ A nna believes that P lato is wise” the expression “ P lato” no longer refers to P lato but to what is ordinarily its sense. Many philosophers, including C arnap, D avidson, B urge, P arsons, K ripke and K ünne, believe that on Frege's view the iteration of indirect context creating operators gives rise to an infinite hierarchy of senses. While the former two take this to be problematic, the latter four welcome the hierarchy with open arms. In this paper I argue (against the quartet) that the hierarchy should be avoided and (against all of them) that it can be avoided.