An Introduction to Frege's Puzzle's New Solutions

Abstract

The present article aims at presenting contemporary solutions to the problem of cognitive significance (or to Frege’s Puzzle). Both NeoFregean (namely François Recanati’s) and relationist (the formal and semantic varieties) theories will be presented. Those theories face the problem in different ways, characterizing the phenomenon of cognitive significance with their own resources. Both theories shall be discussed and, at last, we will make a brief assessment of their explanations. No decisive argument will be provided in favor or against them, however with the problem and its answers clearly expressed, we hope to show that to choose one theory instead of the other depends not only on their answers and explanations, but also on how each type of theory builds the scope of the problem.