Chapter 11 - In Search of Strawsonian Modes of Presentation

Summary

THE PLAN

There are many alternative ways that a mind or brain might represent that two of its representations were of the same object or property – the “Strawson” model, the “duplicates” model, the “equals sign” model, the “synchrony” model, the “Christmas lights” model, the “anaphor” model, and so forth (Section 10.1). In the last chapter I discussed what would constitute that a mind or brain was using one of these systems rather than another in order to mark identity. In this chapter, I discuss the devastating impact of the Strawson model of identity marking on the notion that there are such things as modes of presentation in thought. I will then argue that Evans' idea that there are “dynamic Fregean thoughts” has exactly the same implications as the Strawson model. In Chapter 12, I will claim that, in fact, all of the other models of identity marking we have discussed are strictly isomorphic to the Strawson model, hence have exactly the same devastating results for modes of presentation. There is no principled way to individuate modes of presentation such as to achieve any semblance of the set of effects for the sake of which Frege introduced them.

NAIVE STRAWSON-MODEL MODES OF PRESENTATION

Suppose that our minds/brains used Strawson markers for marking identity. Keeping clearly in mind that the project here is neither exegesis of Strawson's text nor exegesis of Frege's, let us ask what, on this model, would correspond most closely to the Frege-inspired notion that the same object can be thought of by a thinker under various different “modes of presentation.”