The phenomenon of quantification into attitude ascriptions has haunted broadly Fregean views, according to which co-referential proper names are not always substitutable salva veritate in attitude ascriptions. Opponents of Fregeanism argue that a belief ascription containing a proper name such as 'Michael believes that Lindsay is charitable' is equivalent to a quantified sentence such as 'there is someone such that Michael believes that she is charitable, and that person is Lindsay'. They conclude that the semantic contribution of a name such as 'Lindsay' is the same as the semantic contribution of a variable under an assignment, which these opponents suggest is merely the object assigned to that variable. However, renewed interest in variables suggests that they make a more complicated contribution to the semantic processing of sentences that contain them. In particular, a variable contributes both an assignment-unsaturated and an assignment-saturated semantic value. I use this dual role of the semantics of variables to develop a response to the argument from quantifying in. I take as my point of departure Cumming's (2008) view that an attitude ascription relates the subject of an attitude to the assignment-unsaturated semantic value of an open sentence. I argue that this approach fails. I propose an alternative, according to which the truth of a belief ascription depends on both the assignment-saturated and the assignment-unsaturated semantic value of the open sentence in its that-clause. This approach reverses standard assumptions concerning the relation between quantification and substitution.Millianism is the view that names and other singular terms such as indexicals and demonstratives are directly referential, contributing nothing more than their referents as inputs to the semantic processing of sentences that contain them. This entails that sentences differing only by the substitution of co-referential proper names are synonymous. Many take this to be a strike against Millianism, since there are contexts in which the substitution salva veritate of co-referntial proper names looks implausible. The worry is most pressing in the case of attitude ascriptions. For instance, even if 'Lindsay' and 'Nellie' refer to the same individual in the relevant context, it is tempting to suppose that (1) and (2) may differ in truth-value at a time when Michael is ignorant of the fact that Lindsay has two names.(1) Michael believes that Lindsay is charitable.(2) Michael believes that Nellie is charitable.C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The theory of quantification and variable binding developed by Tarski is a fixed point for many debates in metaphysics, formal semantics, and philosophy of logic. However, recent critics-most forcefully, Kit Fine (2003, 2007)-have posed an intriguing set of challenges to Tarskiis account, which re-expose long sublimated anxieties about the variable from the infancy of analytic philosophy. The problem is a version of a puzzle confronted by Russell, which Fine dubs the antimony of the variablee. This paradox arises from seemingly contradictory things that we wish to say about the variable. On the one hand, there are strong reasons to deny that x and y are synonymous, since they make different contributions when they jointly occur within a sentence. Consider, for instance, the sentence ∃∃ ≤. One cannot replace the second occurrence of x with y yielding ∃∃ ≤ without change of meaning. On the other hand, there is a strong temptation to say that distinct variables x and y are synonymous, since sentences differing by the total, proper substitution of x for y always agree in meaning. For instance, ∀ ≤ and ∀ ≤ are synonymous in the strongest possible sense. As Fine says, they are mere notational variantss. We suggest that it is best to construe this very strong synonymy as an identity in structured meanings: the sentences and their corresponding parts are synonymous all the way down. This suggests that the variables occurring in corresponding positions in these formulas are also synonymous. One of the innovations of Tarskiis (1935) semantics is that a variable refers to or designates an object only relative to a sequence. One might hope that this goes some way towards resolving the antinomy, since Tarski need not assign any sort of referent to the variable. But this is not enough, since the antinomy concerns whether two variables are synonymous. As we formulate the antinomy, it concerns the variablees contribution to the structured meaning of a sentence that 2 contains it. Even on Tarskiis sequence-relative semantics, x and y may designate different individuals even relative to the same sequence. This suggests that their meanings are different. But this leaves Tarski unable to account for the felt sameness of meaning between distinct but corresponding variables in alphabetic variants. These challenges would overturn seemingly settled doctrines about the relationship between language and the world. A dramatic reconceptualization of the role of variables in mathematical practice, in natural language semantics, and even in first-order logic would be called for. Fine suggests semantic relationism, a radical departure from standard compositional semantics. (owever, Tarskiis semantics for variables has the resources to resolve the antinomy without abandoning standard compositional semantics. In a neglected passage, Tarski worried about how to determine the value of a variable relative to a sequence. He suggests that, in a given sentence, the first variable should be associated with the first position, the second variable with ...

I defend the view that ordinary objects like statues are identical to the pieces of matter from which they are made. I argue that ordinary speakers assert sentences such as 'this statue is a molded piece of clay'. This suggests that speakers believe propositions which entail that ordinary objects such as statues are the pieces matter from which they are made, and therefore pluralism contradicts ordinary beliefs. The dominant response to this argument purports to find an ambiguity in the word 'is', such that 'is' in these sentences means the same as 'constitutes or is constituted by'. I will use standard tests for ambiguity to argue that this strategy fails. I then explore and reject other responses to the argument.

I take the term from (Cresswell 2002). As shall become clear, this is a 'leading idea' in Montague Semantics (Heim and Kratzer 1998, p. 13), though semanticists depart from this core model of semantic composition in various ways.2 See (Partee 2008c, p. 9). 1(1) Terry believes that Sam flies.(2) Terry believes that Sam flies and Sam's father existed.Yet, the existence of a human being necessitates the existence of her material origins. So the sentences in the complement clauses of ( 1) and ( 2)-'Sam flies' and 'Sam flies and Sam's father existed'-have the same intension. As a result, they make the same contribution to (1) and ( 2), and these attitude ascriptions themselves have the same truth-value at every point of evaluation.A standard diagnosis concludes from these substitutivity failures that the compositional semantic values of sentences must do justice to our underlying theory of the objects of attitudes that they express. I focus on one model due to Moore (1899) and Russell (1903Russell ( /1996: the object of an attitude is a structured entity, a structured proposition, made of objects and properties. The proposition that Sam flies is composed of Sam and the property of flying. The proposition that Sam flies and Sam's father existed contains additional constituents. On a rival model due to (an interpretation of) Frege, a proposition is composed not of individuals and properties but of representations. 3 If propositions are the compositional semantic values of sentences (in context -a qualification I normally suppress), then semantics should describe how the proposition expressed by a sentence depends on the compositional semantic values of its constituents and their arrangement. Standard structured propositionalists see that, in the ideal case, the constituents of a structured proposition correspond to the constituents of a sentence that expresses it. 4 Thus, 'Sam flies' expresses a structured proposition with Sam and the property of flying as constituents. Typical proponents of structured propositions infer-wrongly as I shall argue-that the compositional semantic value of an expression is always the propositional constituent, if any, corresponding to it: that the semantic value of the name 'Sam' is the woman herself and the semantic value of the predicate 'flies' is the property of flying. Almost all recent proponents of structured propositions in the tradition of Russell and Moore-including Nathan Salmon (1986), Scott Soames (1987), and Jeff King (2007)-propose semantic theories along these lines.Such semantic theories depart not only from intensional semantics, but also from functional compositionality, which Heim and Kratzer call Frege's Conjecture.[T]here will be many small and some not-so-small departures from the semantic analyses that Frege actually defended. But his treatment of semantic composition as functional application 3 The most explicit statement is (Frege 1963, p. 1). This interpretation is defended in (Dummett 1981, pp. 152-7) and challenged in (Geach 1976). See (Klement 2002, chapter ...

The principle of compositionality requires that the meaning of a complex expression remains the same after substitution of synonymous expressions. Alleged counterexamples to compositionality seem to force a theoretical choice: either apparent synonyms are not synonyms or synonyms do not syntactically occur where they appear to occur. Some theorists have instead looked to Frege's doctrine of "reference shift" according to which the meaning of an expression is sensitive to its linguistic context. This doctrine is alleged to retain the relevant claims about synonymy and substitution while respecting the compositionality principle.