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Jayson_Virissimo comments on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? - Less Wrong
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Russellianism: The meanings of our (referential) words are the objects to which they refer. When I say "Socrates is mortal", the meaning of the word `Socrates' in that sentence is a particular person who lived in ancient Greece.
Fregeanism: The meanings of our words are not directly objects in the world but the particular way we conceive of those objects. Two words referring to the same object can have different meaning since they correspond to different ways of conceiving the object. For instance, "morning star" and "evening star" both refer to to the same object (Venus), but they have different meanings.
Other: Seems like a semantic problem about the word "meaning".
Not really. We can frame the debate between Russellianism and Fregeanism in pragmatic terms: is it useful to model expressions as having or relating to Fregean "senses" (ways of thinking about, objects, properties, and relations) in addition to "intensions" and "extensions"? Note that philosophers of language are already quite aware of the need to avoid purely semantic debates about the word "meaning". As evidence, see this paragraph from the SEP:
Other: Yes.
I'm not sure I entirely understand the question. Isn't it just the distinction between connotation and denotation?
Both Russellianism and Fregeanism make assumptions about the way language is related to the world that I reject.
What assumptions do you have in mind?
Other: This.
Likewise.
I take both views to be inconsistent with cognitive neuroscience. Or, at a more abstract, simplified, level, with Yudkwosky's suggestion of how to think about conceptual clusters, http://lesswrong.com/lw/nl/the_cluster_structure_of_thingspace/
There is also an important distinction between "Language" and "Languages" made by Lewis, relating to how people think about language as within, or separate from the world. I'm unable to find source though.
What exactly do they mean by "meanings"? Do they mean "mental state triggered by the word" or "what the word is referencing"? Because it could go either way, depending on which definition of "meaning" we're using.
I think that makes you a Fregeian.
Really? It seems to me just the opposite: that a Fregean believes the two concepts are the same.
Well, Frege's big thing (the big thing that didn't fall over, anyway) is a distinction between 'sense' and 'reference', where the 'sense' of a word is something like what we mean by it, and the reference of a word is the actual, real thing the word is about. He came up with this to explain why someone could know the meaning (in the sense of 'sense') of 'the evening star' and 'the morning star' without knowing that they're in fact the same thing (they have the same referent, i.e. Venus).
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_reference
Yes, but I was going by the definition given above. No claim that Frege himself was a "Fregean"!
Voted Other. I would say the meanings of our words are the desired state changes in the world correlated with the use of those words. I don't know if that position has a name.
It seems to me that we can mean things in both ways once we are aware of the distinction.
Other: some words are Fregeanian others are Russellian.
Other: Fregean thing seems right, but talking about the "meaning" of words is stupid. Words are symbols that cause the reader/listener to construct certain thoughts. Useful for communication, I hear.