Senses as Ways Things are in Themselves

Markus Gabriel (Universität Bonn)

Abstract:

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part I argue that Frege does not successfully overcome psychologism about thought. He attacks psychologism about thought only insofar as he argues that not all aspects of truth-apt thought can be reduced to the contents of a mind. In particular, he sets out to show that the propositional content of thought (a “thought” in his sense of the term) cannot be thus reduced. However, his view is perfectly compatible with psychologism about thinking, or about grasping thoughts, precisely because he retains the psychologistic category of “representation (Vorstellung).” He is ultimately not able to give an account of the relation between thinking qua grasping of a thought and representation. Yet, psychologism about thinking, as we shall see, turns out to be even worse than psychologism about thought. In the second part, I develop the idea that we can do without (Fregean) representations. However, this entails that we should cease to think of thinking as a mental activity in the psychologistic sense. A result of this, fundamental to the theory I propose, is that things in themselves are similar to Fregean senses, and not at all like subjective perspectives. Senses are ways things are in themselves. This also means that we have to revisit Frege’s idea that all true thoughts refer to the same object and only differ in sense. Sense is already on the side of the object, an idea Frege tries to resist due to the residue of psychologism in his theory of thinking.

Markus Gabriel is Chair in Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Bonn, Germany. His areas of specialization are Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ontology, Ancient Philosophy, Kant and Post-Kantian Idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), Heidegger, and Wittgenstein.