Apriority, Super-Rigidity, and Fregean Content

ROBERT SMITHSON: Apriority, Super-Rigidity, and Fregean Content (Under the direction of William Lycan) What is the difference between an utterance of the sentence 'Hesperus is Hesperus' and an utterance of the sentence 'Hesperus is Phosphorus'? David Chalmers claims that these sentences are psychologically and epistemologically distinct because they are associated with distinct fine-grained Fregean propositions. In " The Nature of Epistemic Space " (2011a), Chalmers offers a rigorous analysis of epistemic possibility that he claims can be used to ground an account of Fregean content that is available to a wide variety of theorists. In this thesis, I will identify the assumptions required by Chalmers' construction of epistemic space in order to evaluate whether it is indeed capable of grounding a widely acceptable account of Fregean content. I conclude the thesis by comparing Chalmers' Fregean content to alternative Russellian accounts of cognitive significance.