ABSTRACT
The idea of a distinction between content and force has come of late to be viewed skeptically or worse, in various quarters for various reasons. Or at least some such idea (or ideas) has (or have). Some such skeptics claim Frege as the target. Some claim Wittgenstein as an ally. In both cases incorrectly I will claim. The first problem, though, is to say just what is being brought into doubt (or disrepute). For there are theses about language which might be expressed in the words of such denial, and then there are theses about thought (the object of thinking) so expressible. Crucial distinctions seem not (consistently) observed. So, first I plan in this chapter to point to the most crucial distinction (that between thought and language) and elaborate a bit on its nature and importance. I will then identify something quite possibly true of language, expressible in such denial; and something definitely not true of thought, also so expressible. In the course of drawing distinctions, I will also be able to dismiss as only pseudo a venerable supposed problem that of how the “unity of the proposition” is to be explained. (“Proposition” itself is a venerable waffle word, handy for obscuring what one means to say.)
