| FB-54868-10 | Research Programs: Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars | Richard L. Mendelsohn | Propositions, Scope, and Reference | 1/1/2010 - 8/31/2010 | $50,400.00 | Richard | L. | Mendelsohn | | | | Lehman College Library | Bronx | NY | 10468 | USA | 2009 | Philosophy of Language | Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars | Research Programs | 50400 | 0 | 33600 | 0 |
My project is to capture direct reference--the picking out of an object without the intermediation of any conceptualization of it--as a grammatical phenomenon, not as a feature of the lexical meaning of an expression. I interpret Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction as a (Russellian) scope phenomenon, and show how, given this propositional ambiguity, a plausible Fregean sense for the pronoun `I' gives the best account of the linguistic behavior of this pronoun, and in addition, a coherent account of de se attributions. I propose to write a monograph explaining and defending my approach in detail. |