5 Freges AntiPsychologism

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5Freges Anti-Psychologism
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The Rejection of Psychologism

• See Dummett 1993 ch.4
• Freges statements
• Always separate sharply the logical from the
  psychological, the objective from the
  subjective. (Frege Grundlagen)

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• In logic we must reject all distinctions that
  are made from a purely psychological point of
  view. What is referred to as depending of logic
  by psychology in nothing but a falsification of
  it by psychology. (Frege 1979 142)

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Thoughts and Consciousness

• For Frege thoughts are not constituents of
  consciousness.
• Grasping a thought is a mental act, but the
  thought exists independently of being grasped.

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• To avoid psychologism, Frege endorses Platonism.
• Cf. Freges dichotomy between the subjective
  (ideas) and the objective (thoughts).
• Frege doesnt recognise the intermediate
  category of the intersubjective.

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Language as a Social Entity

• If we look for something non-mythological but
  objective and external to the mind, we are left
  with language qua social institution.

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• Language as a praxis (cf. Wittgenstein)
• The objectivity required is given by the common
  practice of speaking a language. Thoughts are
  generated by language.
• Language and thoughts are inseparable (Dummett).
  A thought cannot be dissociated from its mode of
  expression (cf. thoughts vs. proto-thoughts).

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• The extrusion of thoughts from the mind
  initiated by Bolzano led to what is often termed
  Platonism, as exemplified by Freges mythology
  of the third realm for, if thoughts are not
  contents of the mind, they must be located in a
  compartment of reality distinct both from
  physical world and the inner world of private
  experience. This mythology served Frege and
  Husserl as a bulwark against the psychologism
  which they opposed. If, now, our capacity for
  thought is equated with, or at least explained in
  terms of, our ability to use language, no such
  bulwark is required for language is a social
  phenomenon, in no way private to the individual,
  and its use is publicly observable. It is for
  this reason that the linguistic turn may be seen
  as a device for continuing to treat thoughts as
  objective and utterly disparate from inner mental
  events, without having recourse to the
  Platonistic mythology. (Dummett 1993 131)

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Grasping a Thought

• (See Dummett 1993 ch.10)
• Grasping is a dispositional relation.
• We are disposed to grasp new thoughts inasmuch
  as we know the senses of the expressions.
• This is not a mental act but a kind of ability.
  (cf. Wittgenstein who argues that understanding
  is not a mental process).

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• Knowledge of language is akin to knowing how
• See the French connaitre vs. savoir.
• (1) Jane knows how to ride a bike
• (2) Jane knows that to ride a bike

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• Freges realism on senses doesnt recognise the
  dispositional character of the grasping.
• For Frege the grasping relation rests on a link
  between the mind and the sense/thought.

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• If grasping a sense is an ability, to grasp a
  sense is a primary concept.
• We have no account of what a sense is save that
  embedded in an account of the grasping of that
  sense.
• Abilities are manifested
• Disposition to act appropriately in given
  circumstances.

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• This does not account with the mythology,
  according to which a sense is an independently
  existing object with which the mind somehow makes
  contact. (Dummett 1993 108)

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Thought and Language

• (See Dummett 1993 ch.13)
• philosophy of thoughts
• Is concerned both with
• (i) the question of what it is to have a
  thought and
• (ii) the structure of thoughts.

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• The parallelism between thought and language
  allows us to take the linguistic turn.
• If our capacity for thoughts is equated with the
  capacity of using a language we can give up
  Platonism.
• This contrast with the code conception of
  language (cf. slides 4).

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• A practice doesnt rest on one entertaining some
  mental entities or one grasping something.
• A practice is an activity.
• The capacity to do something is manifested by
  doing it.

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Concepts

• Concepts differ from ideas/images.
• A concept is not something which comes to ones
  mind.
• Dispositional nature to have a concept is to
  apply it in an appropriate way in a given
  occasion.
• The ability to apply a concept is to have that
  concept. This ability is manifested in our
  linguistic competence.

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• There is no gap for a psychological act of
  grasping to bridge.
• It is because concepts cannot be spoken of as
  coming into the mind as do mental images that
  they cannot be described as content of
  consciousness. (Dummett 1993 133)
• An ability/capacity is not something coming to
  ones mind.
• Knowing how to do something differs from knowing
  that

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• Ideas
• They are mental but, pace Frege, are
  communicable because we have thoughts about them
  which are public.

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The Social Character of Language vs. the
Individual Character of Beliefs

• An utterances meaning depends on the correct use
  of the words in the common language, while the
  content of beliefs depends on the personal
  grasping of the words.

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• Public senses vs. private senses
• Is it the public sense or the private sense the
  sense-referent of expressions appearing in oratio
  obliqua constructions?

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• Which sense (the private or the public one) help
  us to block the substitution salva veritate of
  coreferring terms embedded in attitude
  ascriptions?
• Which one would be the indirect sense?

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• If the sense-referent is
• (i) Public sense Then this solution may work
  for proper names but will not for indexicals.
• (ii) Believer-sense Then it will be difficult
  to accommodate the intuition that two people
  believe the same thing. (Both A and B
  believe/said that C is F)

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• (iii) Ascriber-sense Then it turns out that the
  thought attributed and the thought believed may
  differ.
• (See Corazza 1999. Washing Away Original Sinn.
  Dialogue 38.)

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• A(1) Tim believes Fa
• A(2) Sue believes whatever Tim believes
• Thus A(3) Sue believes Fa
• is valid.
• Hence, the term a cannot switch reference from
  the premise A(1) to the conclusion A(3)

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• To know what one believes we must know how she
  understands the words.
• To do so we exploit the existence of accepted
  meanings by using words of which we have only an
  imperfect understanding (cf. division of
  linguistic labour).
• There is no sense in asking how much someone
  would have to know in order to know everything
  that determines the use of the name Bologna in
  the common language. (Dummett 1993 145)

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• saying vs. believing
• Saying exploits the common language while
  believing exploits the understanding of the
  language. We start with the study of common
  language rather than with the study of ones
  knowledge of it.
• Primacy of language over idiolects.
• vs. Humpty Dumpty conception.

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Meaning and Understanding

• They are correlated notions.
• For, the meaning of an expression is what one
  must know to understand it.
• Meaning is something that a speaker can know.

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• In which sense can one be said to know the
  meaning of an expression?
• This relates to the problem of knowing a
  language which is (partly) a practical ability
  manifested in the actual practice of speaking the
  language.

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• Theory of meaning
• It is a theory of understanding, it is a
  representation of a practical ability, i.e.
• (i) what a speaker must know in order to know a
  language, and
• (ii) in what the speaker having this knowledge
  consists (manifestation of it).