Are Ideas Incommunicable but Expressible? (A Comparative Study of Frege and Searle's Views)

Frege argues that, contrary to thoughts that are concrete entities and independent of all minds, the content of an individual's mind (sense impressions, feelings, imaginations and so on) -that he calls ideas- are incommunicable in linguistic contact. His argument is that ideas depend on the knower and thus are private. In his theory of speech acts, Searle proposes the principle of expressibility which seems to refute the possibility of incommunicability of ideas. According to the principle of expressibility, "whatever can be intended can be said". Searle claims that this principle by itself does not repudiate private language and thus does not negate the possibility of the incommunicable.In their essay, the authors try to study this principle in the light of linguistic turn, its results and epistemological implications. Searle's theory of meaning suggests that understanding of the absolute private and its being rendered into experience is not possible, and if possible, it cannot carry a meaningful expression. Accordingly, in Searle's view, even mental entities -contrary to what Frege has said- are not absolutely private and inexpressible.