and those truth-conditions will standardly involve worldly items and states
of aVairs. Equally, a narrow-content theorist should agree that when one
thinks a token thought, the whole focus of one’s attention may be on the
worldly items which the thought concerns. But narrow-content theorists
deny what wide-content theorists assert, namely that the truth-conditions
of thoughts are essential to their identity. A narrow-content theorist will
say that the very same thought could have been entertained, in diVerent
circumstances, with diVerent truth-conditions.
The theory of content which derives from Frege (1892), and which has
dominated philosophical thinking for much of this century, distinguishes
two diVerent aspects of thought-content and sentence-meaning – there is
reference, which is constituted by the states of aVairs and objects in the
world which our thoughts concern; and there issense, which is themode of
presentation ofor themanner of thinking ofreference. The terms ‘Venus’
and ‘The Evening Star’ share the same reference but diVer in sense. And
the thoughts expressed by ‘Venus has set’ and ‘The Evening Star has set’
share the same truth-conditions, but diVer in the manner in which those
conditions are presented in thought. So one might, for example, believe the
Wrst thought to be true while denying that the second was, and vice versa.
As is suggested by this last remark, Fregean sense is to be individuated in
accordance withthe intuitive criterion of diVerence– two senses are distinct
if it is possible for someone rationally to take diVering epistemic attitudes
to thoughts which diVer only in that the one contains the one sense while
the other contains the other (as in the example of Venus and The Evening
Star just given).
On the Fregean account, sense is supposed todeterminereference. It is
supposed to be impossible that any term or thought-component should
share the very same sense as the term ‘Venus’ and yet diVer in reference.
(Reference, on the other hand, does not determine sense – there are many
diVerent ways of referring to, or thinking of, the planet Venus.) So it is
suYcient to individuate the content of a thought, or the meaning of a
sentence, that one should specify its sense, since the reference will thereby
have beenWxed.
DiYculties for the Fregean system began to arise when it was noticed
that there are many terms which do not appear to diVer in the manner in
which theypresenttheir referents (from a subjective point of view, at least),
and yet which refer to diVerent things. For example, the indexical term ‘I’
seems to have the same sense for each one of us, but picks out a diVerent
person in each case. So either (1) we have to say that sense does not
determine reference, or (2) we have to say that the actual reference belongs
amongst the individuation-conditions of a sense.
Defenders of narrow, or ‘internalist’, content take theWrst option. They
132 Content for psychology