Theory of Meaning: Dummett’s Canonical Framework

Abstract

Since Frege, the idea that sentences are decomposable into distinct components of sense and force has been developed by many others, most notably Richard Hare, Erik Stenius, and Donald Davidson, whose accounts differ very little apart from terminology and notation.¹ Frege originally restricted his account to declarative sentences, but later extended it to their corresponding interrogatives. That he explicitly refrained from extending it to imperatives is something that Dummett sees as a serious error (though an easily remedied one), since it leaves Frege’s account open to the charge that it fails to preserve a word’s meaning across different sentence types (1981a: 307-308). As Dummett has provided the most detailed examination of principles associated with this distinction, I shall for the most part confine my discussion to his writings on this topic, though most of what I say will apply to similar accounts, such as Davidson’s paraphrastic analysis of ‘mood’ (1984). The basic idea is simple and straightforward, and for a large range of sentences enjoys considerable intuitive appeal. It is easily brought out by considering a group of sentences like the following:

• (1) The puzzle is solved.

• (2) Is the puzzle solved?

• (3) Solve the puzzle!

• (4) Would that the puzzle were solved.