Scope and Substitution

Abstract

The problem of substitution failure in propositional attitude reports, raised by Frege (1892), led to the rejection of the Millian understanding of names. Taking after Frege, many have assumed that substitution failure depends upon the relevant names occurring within the scope of attitude verbs. It is also assumed that attitude reports (with one attitude verb) have exactly two kinds of readings: a substitution resisting one, and a substitution allowing one. The two readings are widely taken to be due to a syntactical ambiguity because of which the concerned names may be read either inside or outside the scope of the attitude verb. The overall received wisdom then is that scope is of absolute significance for the issue of substitution failure. I try to bring out a third kind of reading of attitude reports that, as I shall argue, show the received wisdom to be misplaced.