Problems with frege on sense and reference pdf

Whats wrong with freges argument for senses brian kim. Pdf mark textor, frege on sense and reference researchgate. Frege on sense and reference 2 martin abreu zavaleta. Suppose that a fregean bites the bullet, and follows the strategy of responding to instances of frege s puzzle by supplying a di erence in meaning. It is argued that an indirect sense must be immediately revelatory of its reference. The essence of frege s philosophy of language lies on the fact that he was actually concerned about formulating a theory of meaning which is inseparably connected to the theories of sense and reference. The sense of a name, frege tells us, is not just a mode of presentation. Informative identities in the begriffsschrift and on. Frege and the logic of sense and reference by kevin klement.

Consider d and e d the inventor of bifocals invented bifocals. Thus a sentence a b would no longer concern the issue itself, but only our way of using signs. The problem was that if the referent of a sentence is always its truth value. Frege s reasons for thinking that a theory of reference must be supplemented with a theory of sense. Frege s argument for the distinction between sense and reference. The relation, as it were, is mediated through the connection of each sign with the same nominatum. Blackburns quasirealism and the frege geach problem simon blackburns expressivist account of moral language is meant to address the particular faults of emotivism as it pertains to the frege geach problem. References to gottlob freges works are cited in the text with the. His father, alexander, a headmaster of a secondary school for girls, and his mother, auguste nee bialloblotzky, brought him up in the. Lecture notes introduction to philosophy of language. Mark textors book, frege on sense and reference, is published in. Some exegetical notes focuses on frege on the hierarchy of senses and on the senses of i and now.

Meaningful pieces of language have two levels of meaning, their sense and their reference. One is a problem about identity statements that frege raised at the beginning of on sense and reference, and another concerns propositional attitude reports. A relation between objects, or between names or signs of objects. Gottlob freges sense and reference linkedin slideshare. Freges argument about the sense and reference of a sentence. General principles for frege s doctrine of sense and reference are sated, for both direct and indirect quotation, to be understood iteratively. His solution is to postulate two distinct aspects of meaning, which he labels sense or sinn and reference or bedeutung. Objections to freges theories of sense and reference. Frege s system really a kind of settheory was shown to be inconsistent by.

Frege s theory lacks an independent identity condition for senses, with the consequence that, although terms with the same reference are interchangeable salva veritate. The thought remains the same whether or not odysseus has a reference. Frege and the logic of sense and reference kevin c. In particular, i see a way in which frege s sense picks out only the most definite description of a name. Sense now it is plausible to connect with a sign name, word combination, expression not only the designated object, which may be called the nom. Why does frege think there are indirect senses and references.

Gottlob frege on sense and reference excerpt1 english translation of part of gottlob frege. Freges theory of sense and reference although frege accepted something like the naive theory in his early work, he later rejected it for reasons like those given above. Pdf on nov 16, 2014, michael kremer and others published mark textor, frege on sense. Frege, sense and reference, indirect senses, immediately. Frege on sinn and bedeutung aka on sense and reference frege has had an enormous influence on work in the philosophy of language in the past hundred years. Locke reference sense idea reference is an object perceivable by the senses an internal image arising from the memories of sense impressions which i have had and acts, both internal and external which i have performed not saturated with feelings saturated with feelings. Philosophy of language reading and guiding questions for.

Class notes 6 sense and reference, page 4 frege s solution, to separate sense and reference, allows the compositionality of meaning even when some terms lack reference. Frege used the word concept to refer to the sort of thing which is the reference of a predicate, and object to refer to the sort of thing which is the reference of a name. The reference of an expression, if it has one, is just what it denotes the objects that it is about. Unfortunately, the path is rugged and progress is slow. According to the curriculum vitae that the 26year old frege filed in 1874 with his habilitationsschrift, he was born on november 8, 1848 in wismar, a town then in mecklenburgschwerin but now in mecklenburgvorpommern. The direct sense of a sentence is the stand alone meaning of the sentence, i. Kripkes frege kripkes frege theory of sense and reference.

The relations between name, sense, and denotation thus look like this. Pdf a problem in the fregechurch theory of sense and. Philosophy of language reading and guiding questions for seminar 2. Equality 1 gives rise to challenging questions which are not altogether easy to answer. Pdf outline and assess two solutions to freges puzzle. In my understanding of frege s theory, and his definition of the sense, i see a very elegant solution to many of the problems posed by the referential theory of meaning. The term frege s puzzle is commonly applied to two related problems.

Frege on sense and reference ted sider phil language basic idea. The lecture notes are closely tied to the readings and are designed to help the student comprehend and consider the issues presented. Frege tends to describe the sense as if it is descriptive in. He worked as a mathematics professor at the university of jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philosophy, concentrating on the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics. This is the generally overlooked problem about the transition from the begriffsschrift to on sense and reference that i want to discuss. A free powerpoint ppt presentation displayed as a flash slide show on. Nor can a thought about etna contain lumps of solidified lava. Now the question is whether that thought is the sense or the reference of a sentence. Frege s response to this objection is to distinguish between the direct sense and the indirect sense of a sentence.

He also thinks that declarative sentences express what he calls thoughts. Notes to gottlob frege stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. The problem is that there are named which seem to refer to concepts for example, the concept horse. There is a still deeper problem with the metalinguistic solution. It is clear that frege has more in mind by sense than just conceptual content mode of presentation. On concept and object by gottlob frege first published in the vierteljahrsschrift fi4r wissenschaftliche philosophie, 16 1892. In fact, frege s argument does show that there is a distinction between sense and reference, but what it does not show is that senses have anything to do with thought. That is, the sense of a name determines its denotation. Objections to frege s theories of sense and reference. Whats wrong with frege s argument for senses brian kim. Freges theory of sense and reference that marcus family home.

Sinn to accommodate difficulties in his early theory of meaning 965 first, if the entire significance of a sentence consists of its truth value, it follows that the sentence will have the same significance if we replace a word of the sentence with one having an identical reference, as this will not change its truth value. Frege s new solution to the puzzle finds a way of rejecting 9b and 9c while avoiding the pitfalls we saw above i. Besides inventing modern logic, he could reasonably be credited with the discovery and original formulation of many problems that are still studied by contemporary philosophers of language. Frege s puzzle about identity sentences as frege says at the outset of on sense and reference, identity gives rise to.

He formulated a radical alternative, his famous theory of sinn and bedeutung. Pdf informative identities in the begriffsschrift and. Like all noncognitivists, blackburn maintains that the evalua. During the course of this essay i intend to explicate frege s puzzle regarding the semantics of identical proper names as introduced in on sense and reference. Argues that frege is committed to a doctrine of acquaintance and revelatory senses. The sense of a word is how its reference is presented. Frege s notion of sense is somewhat obscure, and neofregeans have come up with different candidates for its role. We here translate freges terms into english as sense and reference, respectively. For ease of reference, the original pagination is indicated in.

The clarity of its separate parts remains the same the clarity of. But in the passage from on sense and reference, frege is claiming that the metalinguistic view cannot generate the difference at all. The reasons which seem to favor this are the following. The fregean can avoid the problem if he is willing to abandon the claim that sense is transparent viz. Why does frege think there are indirect senses and. The problem is that there are instances of frege s puzzle for which this solution seems implausible. This is about how we should understand frege s move from the early metalinguistic solution to frege s puzzle to the solution in terms of sameness and difference in sense. Following this, i will assess its success in relation to two potential. In my paper, i shall not try to spell out in full detail how it is that the problems and solutions i am attributing to frege are manifested in the letter of the fregean texts. On sense and reference gottlob frege as reprinted in a.