ABSTRACT
This chapter considers L. Wittgenstein’s continued response to the problem in his later work, but for clarity of exposition it is appropriate at this point to discuss a view has attracted a vast amount of attention, and indeed is in danger of becoming the orthodoxy of the philosophical journals. Donald Davidson’s solution to the problem, while it is bolstered by an array of logical technicalities is, at heart, brilliant in its simplicity. First of all he encourages us to bring to the centre of the picture G. Frege’s second principle, or, Wittgenstein’s idea of an expression or a symbol. Frege’s moral should be seen as having no exceptions. Canonical notation is inappropriately applied to anything that truth can be appropriately predicated of, while of course it is entirely appropriately applied to what Frege called a thought or a judgeable content: that is the job for which it was devised.
