Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Principles
- Preface
- 1 Biography
- 2 Function and Argument
- 3 Sense and Reference
- 4 Frege's Begriffsschrift Theory of Identity
- 5 Concept and Object
- 6 Names and Descriptions
- 7 Existence
- 8 Thought, Truth Value, and Assertion
- 9 Indirect Reference
- 10 Through the Quotation Marks
- Appendix A Begriffsschrift in Modern Notation: (1) to (51)
- Appendix B Begriffsschrift in Modern Notation: (52) to (68)
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Concept and Object
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Principles
- Preface
- 1 Biography
- 2 Function and Argument
- 3 Sense and Reference
- 4 Frege's Begriffsschrift Theory of Identity
- 5 Concept and Object
- 6 Names and Descriptions
- 7 Existence
- 8 Thought, Truth Value, and Assertion
- 9 Indirect Reference
- 10 Through the Quotation Marks
- Appendix A Begriffsschrift in Modern Notation: (1) to (51)
- Appendix B Begriffsschrift in Modern Notation: (52) to (68)
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
It is natural, now, to think of there being connected with a sign (name, combination of words, written mark), besides that which the sign designates, which may be called the Bedeutung of the sign, also what I should like to call the sense of the sign, wherein the mode of presentation is contained.
Thus Frege (1892c: 152) introduces the sense/reference distinction. A sign, he says, expresses [Ausdrucken] its sense and stands for, refers to, denotes [Bedeuten] or designates [Bezeichnen] its reference. Frege (1892c) confines his discussion to proper names [Eigennamen]; but he intended the sense/reference distinction to apply as well to concept words [Begriffswörter], and to function-expressions generally. A careful reading of Frege's later writings confirms this, but the decisive evidence is to be found in the unpublished manuscript which the editors entitled “Ausführungen über Sinn und Bedeutung”:
In an essay (“On Sense and Reference”) I have primarily distinguished between sense and reference only for proper names (or, if one prefers, singular terms). The same distinction can also be drawn for concept words. Now, a confusion can easily develop here, in that one so mixes up the division between concept and object with the distinction between sense and reference, that one runs together sense and concept on the one side, and reference and object, on the other. To each concept word or proper name, there corresponds, as a rule, a sense and a reference, as I am using these words.
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- The Philosophy of Gottlob Frege , pp. 63 - 83Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005