KA GLOBALNOM EKSPRESIVIZMU: EKSPRESIVIZAM I FREGE-GIČOV PROBLEM
TOWARDS GLOBAL EXPRESSIVISM: EXPRESSIVISM AND THE FREGE-GEACH PROBLEM

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to explore the Frege-Geach problem as an argument in favor of global expressivism. Although Geach uses Frege’s point as the basis for his argument against various forms of expressivism, the author believes that the same argument can be used to support the rejection of representationalist and descriptivist approaches to language. The Frege-Geach problem is interpreted as an argument in support of the thesis of declarativism, which claims that a single semantic model is needed for all the declarative sentences. The author shows how the theoretical limitations of the representationalist semantic paradigm place different forms of discourse in a disadvantageous position, and postulates a form of expressivism as a general theory of meaning that can overcome these limitations. The arguments are based on the idea that assigning primacy to the act of assertion in a general theory of meaning removes the need for the assumption of radical disparity between different discursive practices, thus emphasizing the essential similarity in the way propositional and conceptual content is constituted. The first part of the paper consists of the genealogy of moral expressivism and the presentation of the bifurcation thesis, which consists in the assertion that there are two seemingly identical but essentially different forms of assertion: the one about the world and the one that is actually only an expression of the specific psychological states of the speaking subject. In the second part of the paper, the Frege-Geach problem is presented as the strongest criticism of expressivist theories, which shows how expressivist theories assume discontinuity of propositional content in asserted and unasserted contexts. Expressivism thus turns out to be an implausible theory of meaning, and moral, modal and normative vocabularies remain in an unenviable place as parts of objective language. In order to preserve the objectivity of these vocabularies, the fourth part of the paper proposes a general rejection of the representational and descriptivist paradigm of language, and the acceptance of global expressivism in the form of inferential pragmatism as a general theory of meaning that does not encounter the problems faced by representationalism and descriptivism, nor local expressivism. At the very end of the paper, the conclusions reached in these three parts are summarized.

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