Abstract

A recurrent problem in much of recent philosophy concerns the proper analysis of cognitive attitude contexts. The problems posed by such contexts fall into two groups: the apparent inability to substitute co-referring expressions for one another salva-veritate and the fact that we can apparently have cognitive attitudes directed towards non-existent objects. ;This dissertation suggests that these two problems can be resolved by a proper specification of the objects of cognitive attitudes. The argument proceeds in four stages. First, it is argued that there are two kinds of reference: semantic and speaker. Second, that cognitive attitudes are relational. Third, that the objects of such relations are mental representations. Finally, that the "about-ness" of mental representations is to be accounted for in terms of their speaker reference. ;The dissertation is based principally upon ideas developed in the past 10 years by Patricia Churchland, Donald Davidson, Fred Dretske and Saul Kripke, and in the earlier work of Franz Brentano and Rudolf Carnap