Background
Follesdal, Dagffin was born on June 22, 1932 in Askim, Norway.
Theorist of reference Husserlian
Follesdal, Dagffin was born on June 22, 1932 in Askim, Norway.
1950-1957, studies in Oslo and Gottingen for the Cand.Mag. and Mag.Art. in Mathematics, Mechanics, Astronomy and Philosophy. 1961, PhD in Philosophy, Harvard.
Since 1955, numerous teaching and research posts in Oslo and at Harvard: since 1967, Professor in Oslo. 1968. Professor at Stanford. Visiting Professor, University of California, Berkeley, 1971, Collège de France, 1977, and University of Auckland, 1982.
Main publications:
(1965) ‘Quantification into causal contexts’, in Cohen and Wartofsky (eds). Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. II, New York: Humanities Press.
(1966) Referential Opacity and Modal Logic, Oslo: Oslo University Press (revised PhD Thesis, Harvard 1961).
(1969) ‘Husserl’s notion of nocma’. Journal of Philosophy 66.
( 1986) ‘Reference and sense’, in Venant Cauchy (ed.), Philosophy and Culture: Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy, Montreal: Editions de Beffroi, Editions Montmorency.
(1989) ‘Husserl on evidence and justification’, in Robert Sokolwski (ed.). Edmund Husserl and the Phenomenological Tradition: Essays in Phenomenology, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press.
(1990) ‘Indeterminacy and mental states', in Robert Barrett and Roger Gibson (eds), Perspectives on Quine, Oxford: Blackwell.
Follesdal has consistently argued the need for ‘genuine single terms'—akin to Kripke's ‘rigid designators’—if we are able to devise a semantics for modal contexts impervious to Quine's objections. But the link between word and reference is not guaranteed by a causal tie. In place of this, Fellesdal argues in favour of a ‘normative' theory of reference. In general, he stresses the social nature of language and takes Quinean indeterminacy of translation to arise from this source. Thus indeterminacy does not depend upon physicalism. As regards Husserl. Follesdal interprets the notion of noema as a generalization of the concept of meaning to the realm of acts. Also, rather than taking Husserl's notion of ultimatcjustification to betray this philosopher as a l'oundationalist. He argues that Husserl’s notion resembles Rawls’s idea of ‘reflective equilibria’.