Valentí Simpson (University of Valencia): Talk about luck! (Anti-)Fregeanism & Loar’s Puzzle for Communication

In the backdrop of a long-standing debate between Direct Reference theorists (hereby Russellians) and mode-of-presentation or sense-based theorists (Fregeans) over the right construal of the semantics of language, Brian Loar (1976) presented a case which, for the author, was meant to score a victory for the Fregeans. Recently, however, the idea that Loar’s puzzle naturally provides support for Fregeanism has met resistance. Indeed, as some Russellians have pointed out, they too have a stake in the discussion. A knowledge-based, neo-Russellian approach to communication has recently emerged as a strong contender against the Fregean (Goodman, forthcoming; Onofri, 2019; Peet, 2019), claiming that the significance of Loar’s puzzle lies in an element of lucky communication at the heart of it (as it does in Gettier cases of the epistemology literature), such that communication is to be modelled on knowledge itself.
Taking seriously these new anti-Fregean directions towards the treatment of Loar’s puzzle, the aim of my talk is to critically assess the viability of this approach. On the one hand, I deploy a defensive move against some of the neo-Russellian’s attacks on the Fregean’s view on the basis of Loar’s puzzle. The sort of criticism that Fregeans typically receive rest on an uncharitable mischaracterisation of the view. If properly construed, I argue, the Fregean is not in so much danger as these anti-Fregeans tend to think. On the other hand, as an offensive manoeuvre, I go on to show that the epistemic Russellians’ knowledge-based view faces a problem of its own. By attending to an interesting case devised by Dickie (forthcoming), I show that there can be linguistic understanding even in the face of some significant element of luck. If correct, this shows that drawing an epistemic condition on communicative success from Loar cases such as the Russellian’s is simply unwarranted.
The general upshot of my discussion is that the Fregean approach to communication is still a strong contender as a general view of communicative success, standing a fair bit better than its more recent, neo-Russellian competitor.