Philosophy Concordance - online philosophical quotations

We have already indicated that those who embrace mentalism may want to invoke some specific, irreducibly mentalistic concepts, such as the concept of intension recommended by Searle.

The Aristotelian notion of essence was the forerunner, no doubt, of the modern notion of intension or meaning.

One can then associate expressions with an intension, which is a function from possible worlds to extensions.

The intension of a sentence is a function that is true at a possible world if and only if the sentence is true there: the intension of 'Plato was a philosopher' is true at all worlds where Plato was a philosopher.

The intension of a singular term maps a possible world to the referent of a term in that possible world: the intension of 'Don Bradman' picks out whoever is Bradman in a world.

The intension of a general term maps a possible world to the class of individuals that fall under the term in that world: the intension of 'cat' maps a possible world to the class of cats in that world.

When two expressions have the same extension and a different intension in this way, the difference in intension usually corresponds to an intuitive difference in meaning.

So it is natural to suggest that an expression's intension is at least an aspect of its meaning.

Carnap (1947) suggested that an intension behaves in many respects like a Fregean sense, the aspect of an expression's meaning that corresponds to its cognitive significance.

One might naturally suggest that this difference in sense is captured more concretely by a difference in intension, and that this pattern generalizes.