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P hilosophy of language In philosophy of language, the claim that in natural languages there are relationships at an independent level of semantic structure that determine the denotations and truth conditions of expressions, and that they cannot be reduced to the relationships at any other level of semantic structure. This position, which is proposed by Frege and Church , suggests that sense determines reference , but it is challenged by Quine 's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction. Intensionalism is opposed by extensionalism , which rejects intensional logic and proposes that we should translate all statements containing intensional notions into statements containing only extensional terms . Recently, a weaker version of intensionalism has been developed. It distinguishes between type-reference (referring expressions as the words and phrases of a language) and tokenreference (referring expressions as utterances or inscriptions of the words and phrases that are produced in the use of language). The weaker version then claims that sense determines type-reference, but not token-reference. “Intensionalism claims that there is sense as well as reference, that sense can be complex, and that as a consequence of sense inclusion, there is special form of necessity, truth, analyticity, and a special form of valid inference, analytic entailment.” Katz, Cogitations ... log in or subscribe to read full text