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Full Idea
Meanings ain't in the head. Putnam's famous slogan actually fits Frege's anti-psychologism better than it fits Purnam's and Burge's anti-individualism. The point is that intensions of any kind are abstract objects.
Gist of Idea
Meanings aren't in the head, but that is because they are abstract
Source
Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 2)
Book Ref
Stalnaker,Robert C.: 'Ways a World Might Be' [OUP 2003], p.204
A Reaction
If intensions are abstract, that leaves (for me) the question of what they are abstracted from. I take it that there are specific brain events that are being abstractly characterised. What do we call those?
| 16422 | The necessity of a proposition concerns reality, not our words or concepts [Stalnaker] |
| 16423 | Conceptual possibilities are metaphysical possibilities we can conceive of [Stalnaker] |
| 16421 | Critics say there are just an a priori necessary part, and an a posteriori contingent part [Stalnaker] |
| 16429 | A 'centred' world is an ordered triple of world, individual and time [Stalnaker] |
| 16428 | Meanings aren't in the head, but that is because they are abstract [Stalnaker] |
| 16430 | Two-D says that a posteriori is primary and contingent, and the necessity is the secondary intension [Stalnaker] |
| 16431 | In one view, the secondary intension is metasemantic, about how the thinker relates to the content [Stalnaker] |
| 16432 | One view says the causal story is built into the description that is the name's content [Stalnaker] |