Contemporary Western Philosophy

Frege's sense and reference

Frege distinguishes two semantic dimensions of an expression. The reference (Bedeutung) of a name is the object it denotes, whereas its sense (Sinn) is the mode of presentation under which that object is given. Two names can share a reference and still differ in sense, which explains why an identity statement can convey information. The statement a=a is trivial and knowable without empirical investigation, whereas a=b can extend knowledge, because the two names present one object in two different ways. Frege therefore concludes that the two statements differ in cognitive value. Identity is a relation between names or signs that designate objects, not a relation between the objects themselves. Since the statements differ in cognitive value, the judgments they express are distinct judgments, even though both statements are true and so share a truth value. Hence a=a and a=b have the same truth value but not the same sense. A definite description may have a sense without having a reference. The description 'the largest prime number' is meaningful and graspable, yet it denotes nothing, because the sequence of primes is infinite and no prime is largest. The general rule is that a sense need not have a reference, although an expression with a reference is always presented through some sense.

Quine's critique of empiricism

In Two Dogmas of Empiricism, Quine rejects two dogmas that he takes to define traditional empiricism. The first is the sharp distinction between analytic truths, which hold in virtue of meaning, and synthetic truths, which hold in virtue of fact. The second is reductionism, the view that every meaningful statement is equivalent to some statement about immediate experience. Quine denies that the verification theory of meaning can solve the problem of meaning, since meaning attaches to whole theories rather than to isolated statements. His positive alternative, which he calls empiricism without the dogmas, pictures total science as a web of belief. Experience bounds this web from outside, as the boundary conditions of a field of force. Because statements are logically interconnected, revising one statement requires adjusting others. Any statement can be held true come what may if sufficiently drastic adjustments are made elsewhere in the system. No statement is immune to revision in principle, including the laws of logic.

Sartrean existential freedom

For Sartre, human freedom is absolute and is not a matter of degree. Consciousness, or the for-itself, is itself freedom, so a person cannot be more or less free in the ontological sense; a person can only be more or less aware of the freedom that is already the structure of the self. Freedom is not confined to particular actions, since it is present in every choice the person makes. It is located in the self-determining choice of the person, which is not dictated by an external essence. Sartre's thesis that existence precedes essence underlies this account. A manufactured object such as a knife has its essence, that is, the concept and purpose its maker had in mind, prior to its existence. A human being, by contrast, first exists without a predetermined nature and only afterward defines himself through his choices. This thesis is what separates the ontology of human beings from that of artifacts.

Husserl's eidetic reduction

The eidetic reduction is the method by which Husserl moves from the individual experience to its essence, or eidos. The investigator takes an example of an experience, varies it freely in imagination, and identifies the features that remain invariant under variation. These invariant features are the essential structures that make a given type of experience what it is. Through this procedure, the eidetic reduction gives access to the sphere of essential structures of pure psychic processes, and it contrasts with the empirical description of accidental features of particular experiences. The eidetic reduction should be kept distinct from the transcendental reduction, which brings the transcendental ego and its constitutive achievements into view. Both are reductions, but they lead to different domains: essences in the first case and transcendental phenomena in the second.

Heidegger's Dasein

In Being and Time, Dasein is the name Heidegger gives to the human entity, the being for whom its own being is an issue. Dasein is distinguished from other entities because it is characterized by an understanding of Being. This understanding is a definite characteristic of Dasein's own being, and it belongs to Dasein's pre-ontological grasp of what it means to be. Among Dasein's possibilities is inquiring, that is, asking about the meaning of Being, and this questioning is one way Dasein exists. Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence, meaning that it projects possibilities for itself rather than understanding itself as a fixed thing with properties. Heidegger holds that Dasein is closest to us, and that it is what each of us ourselves is. The description of Dasein as something other than ourselves therefore misrepresents the concept.

Heidegger's ontological difference

The ontological difference is the distinction, central to Being and Time, between Being (Sein) and beings (Seiende). Being is the sense or meaning in virtue of which entities show up as the entities they are. Beings are the entities themselves. Heidegger holds that ontology must attend to this difference, since philosophers repeatedly confuse Being with some particular being, and that confusion obscures the question of Being. The ontological difference is therefore not a distinction between two kinds of entities, and it is not a distinction between Being and non-being. Dasein, though it is a being, is distinguished by the fact that its own Being is at stake in its existence, but it is not one of the two terms of the ontological difference itself.

Husserl's transcendental reduction and intersubjectivity

In the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Husserl examines what remains after the transcendental reduction to the sphere of ownness, that is, the sphere of what is peculiarly one's own. One might worry that this reduction isolates the subject from others, but Husserl argues that it does not fundamentally cut the subject off from the other. Within the sphere of ownness, the other is constituted through appresentation, as another ego whose body is perceived as analogous to one's own. The reduction is therefore a necessary methodological step for understanding how the objective world, including other subjects, is constituted, and it does not make that understanding unattainable.

Standpoint epistemology (Harding)

Sandra Harding's standpoint epistemology holds that knowledge is shaped by the social position of the knower, so the claim that science is value free cannot be accepted without qualification. Harding distinguishes standpoint theory from feminist empiricism, which she treats as a separate position that aims to correct bias within the existing framework of inquiry. The aim of standpoint theory is not to abandon objectivity but to strengthen it. Harding calls this stronger form strong objectivity, and she achieves it by making the social location of the researcher explicit and subject to scrutiny. Feminist standpoint science is therefore grounded in strong objectivity rather than in the rejection of objectivity.