Can Denoting Concepts Replace Fregean Senses?

William J. Greenberg

Can denoting concepts ground the semantic difference between a = a and a = b?

Armed with two not quite modern doctrines--F. H. Bradleys notion of individuality
1
and
Aristotles notion of identity as oneness in substance
2
--let us survey the semantic difference
between Hesperus is Hesperus and Hesperus is Phosphorus--for short: h = h and h = p.

According to Bradley, an individual comprises both a 'that' and a 'what--or as I shall say--a
'substratum' (sustrato
3
) and a 'haecceity'. Taking h and p as substrata, and H and P as
haecceities, I'll equate h and p with h.H and p.P--and h = p with h.H = p.P. According to
Aristotle, h.H = p.P is true when h.H and p.P are one in substance. When are these one in
substance? When there is some substance to which both belong.

What then of h.H = h.H and p.P = p.P? Do h.H and p.P owe their self-identity to the
iron-clad dictates of model-theoretic semantics?
4
Or is their self-identity/existence world-
bound?

If, as Aristotle suggests, things are identical that are one in substance--so that h.H = p.P is
true just in case there is some one substance in which h.H and p.P inhere, then h.H = h.H or

1
If we take up anything considered real, no matter what it is, we find in it two aspects. There are always two things we can
say about it; and, if we cannot say both, we have not got reality. There is a "what" and a "that," an existence and a content, and
the two are inseparable. That anything should be, and should yet be nothing in particular, or that a quality should not qualify
and give a character to anything, is obviously impossible. If we try to get the "that" by itself, we do not get it, for either we have
it qualified, or else we fail utterly. If we try to get the "what" by itself, we find at once that it is not all. It points to something
beyond, and cannot exist by itself and as a bare adjective. Neither of these aspects, if you isolate it, can be taken as real, or
indeed in that case is itself any longer. They are distinguishable only and are not divisible. (F. H. Bradley, Appearance and
Reality, p. 162)
2
En sentido esencial, las cosas son idnticas del mismo modo en que son unidad, ya que son idnticas cuando es una sola
su materia (en especie o en nmero) o cuando su sustancia es una (Met., V, 9, 1018 a 7. Cited in N. Abbagano, Diccionario de
Filosofa, Fondo de Cultura Econmica, Mxico, 1986, p. 640).
3
Sustrato (substrato) "Literalmente, 'substrato' significa algo que est debajo (sub) un estrato" --una capa, una masa, etc.-
-. El substrato es, pues, un apoyo, algo que sirve para apoyar (sub-portare) otra cosa. Hay varios 'apoyos' que pueden
considerarse como formas o variedades de substrato: la sustancia (sub-stancia), el sujeto (subiectum), el supuesto (sub-
positum). A cada uno de ellos puede darse el nombre de 'substrato', de suerte que este nombre puede usarse para designar a
cualquiera de ellos. 'Substrato' puede usarse, pues, como nombre comn de todo lo que est 'debajo de'." (Jos Ferrater Mora,
Diccionario de Filosofa 4, 1979, reimp., 1963, pg 3159.)
4
In Dispensing with Possibilia, Ruth Barcan Marcus writes (p. 39): The notion of an individual object or thing is an
indispensable primitive for theories of meaning grounded in standard model theoretic semantics. One begins with a domain of
individuals, and there are no prima facie constraints as to what counts as an individual except those of a most general and
seemingly redundant kind. Each individual must be distinct from every other and identical to itself (emphasis added).

p.P = p.P is true just in case there is some one substance in which h.H, or p.P inhere. So the
truth of h.H = h.H or p.P = p.P depends upon whether h.H or p.P inhere in substance.

By equating H and P with 'denoting' concepts,
5
and h and p with the entities they 'denote', we
arrive at an analysis which locates in Hesperus and Phosphorus the moments that give rise to the
semantic difference between Hesperus is Hesperus and Hesperus is Phosphorus.
6
Thus, a
referential theory of meaning framed by denoting concepts, a Bradleyan notion of individuality,
and an Aristotelian notion of identity as oneness in substance, accomplishes what no Fregean
theory of sense and reference can, by divulging what it is about Hesperus and Phosphorus that
sets their material and formal identity apart.
7





5
H and P are not aboutness shifters, as per Russell, but function alongside h and p as constituents of the propositions in
which they occur.
6
Compare: The fact that x = y . . . is just the fact that x = x. (Nathan Salmon, The Fact that X = Y, Philosophia (Israel),
vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1987), pp. 517518 [invited]; reprinted in Metaphysics, Mathematics, and Meaning, Chapter 8.
7
Also see http://www.structuredindividuals.com/paradox/5.html