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Experienced Fregeans will recognise a number of places in which I simplify or omit. Some Fregeans doubt that his theory was meant to apply to natural language, that his remarks were only to explain his artificial symbolic language, his Begriffsschrift(concept-script). I think he thought that his Begriffsschrift more exactly mirrors what goes on more vaguely in natural language, namely the expression of thoughts, of propositions.
G. Kemp, What is this thing called Philosophy of Language?(2018) pp. 47-48

Considering the context, I think that for the correct explanation, the sentence bolded should mean the followings:

Some Fregeans do not think that his theory was meant to apply to natural language.

Those Fregeans do think that his remarks were only to explain his artificial symbolic language.

But it seems to me that some readers might think that some Fregeans doubt both.

So, I wonder if this use of "doubt" is proper and common or not. Thanks.

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  • If we doubt that something is the case, we are unsure that it is, or think that it is not, the case. Doubt (verb) to not feel certain or confident about something or to think that something is not probable (Cambridge Dictionary)
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 8:16
  • It's not that doubt is used incorrectly where it's used. Most likely the problem is that by the time the writer got to the next element (that his remarks were only...), he'd forgotten that he used doubt - he remembered it as the precisely equivalent don't think, in which case he was free to "parallel" just [they] think. Or perhaps he did actually write don't think originally, and didn't notice the problem when he later changed it to doubt.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 10:55
  • Searl, I hope you don't mind, I've changed the title to reflect what I believe your intent was. As phrased, it was a request for proofreading, which is strictly off-topic on this site. I read your question as asking what "doubt" applies to, or if it's ambiguous.
    – gotube ♦
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 19:15

2 Answers 2

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There is something slightly off about the parallelism here.

The first part is fine. "Some Fregeans doubt that his theory was meant to apply to natural language". So although they are not sure, they think it unlikely that the theory applies to natural language.

The second part seems to be parallel, "[Those Fregeans doubt] that his remarks were only to explain his artificial symbolic language". But this doesn't seem to follow. It says that they think it unlikely that it only applies to Begriffsschrift. But that is contradictory in meaning.

So I'd assume that the intended meaning is "[Those Fregeans believe] that his remarks were only to explain his artificial symbolic language". I'm reading between the lines, and assuming that the writer isn't intentionally contradiction themself.

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  • Thank you a lot! Then, that's not a clear sentence, right? Is it okay for me to think that sentence in the paragraph is not good?
    – Clean93
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 10:10
  • It's not a great sentence
    – James K
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 10:16
  • @Searl93 — Yes, it's sloppy writing.
    – ralph.m
    Commented May 30, 2023 at 10:24
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The intended meaning is that some Fregeans doubt the first part of the sentence, and believe the second part.

Grammatically speaking, "doubt" ought to refer to the second part of the sentence as well because otherwise the second part doesn't have a verb, like "believe" to explain how those Fregeans feel about it.

Semantically, however, it's clear that "doubt" does not refer to the second part, and this semantic rule happens to overpower the grammatical one, so the meaning is clear. It's still a terrible sentence though.

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  • It's very clear! BIG Thanks!!
    – Clean93
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 13:45

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