Frege’s Puzzle and methodology in the Philosophy of Language.

There are a myriad of solutions offered to Frege’s Puzzle and related puzzles concerning referential opacity to be found in the philosophy of language and linguistics. However, nearly all of these solutions share a common – and unmotivated – assumption: the any solution to Frege’s Puzzle must involve a departure from the naïve theory of linguistic content which generates the puzzle in the first place. Dr. Gerry Hough is currently working on a project which attempts to spell out the various motivations for this ‘content solution’ to be found in the literature. Current focus is on a sophisticated motivation to be found in the work of Frege and Russell, and developed in the work of Direct Reference Theorists like David Kaplan and John Perry. The intended outcome of the project is three-fold: to make it clear that a substantial motivation for the content solution is required, to demonstrate that there are completing motivations to be found in the content solution literature, and to put these various motivations to the test and in doing so being to consider the prospects of an alternative approach to Frege’s Puzzle and the lessons it might teach us about reference, truth and meaning. This final part of the project builds on renewed interest in the work of Ordinary Language Philosophers like J.L. Austin and Peter Strawson, and on recent contributions to the debate from Jennifer Saul, David Braun, Scott Soames, Nathan Salmon, and John Perry.