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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Introduction
Frege's story about indirect contexts – ‘that’ clauses, like ‘Harry believes that’ and ‘Joan said that’ – is widely known and enormously influential. And yet it is only the briefest of sketches. Here is what he says in “On Sense and Reference”:
In indirect speech one talks about the sense, e.g., of another person's remarks. It is quite clear that in this way of speaking words do not have their customary Bedeutung but designate [bedeuten] what is usually their sense. In order to have a short expression, we will say: in indirect speech, words are used indirectly or have their indirect Bedeutung. We distinguish accordingly the customary from the indirect Bedeutung of a word; and its customary sense from its indirect sense. The indirect Bedeutung of a word is accordingly its customary sense. (Frege 1892c: 154)
It is quite elegant, the way he has knitted together the sense/reference distinction and the problem of substitutivity in oblique contexts. But it is not as tight as one might think. For we know what the customary reference of an expression is supposed to be: the customary reference is the thing the word stands for. We also know what the customary sense of an expression is supposed to be: the customary sense is, roughly, the meaning of the expression. So we know what the indirect reference is supposed to be: Frege explicitly identifies the indirect reference with the customary sense. But what is the indirect sense supposed to be?
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