In the
philosophy of language
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, ...
, the distinction between sense and reference was an idea of the German philosopher and mathematician
Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic ph ...
in 1892 (in his paper "On Sense and Reference"; German: "Über Sinn und Bedeutung"),
[ reflecting the two ways he believed a ]singular term A singular term is a paradigmatic referring device in a language. Singular terms are of philosophical importance for philosophers of language, because they ''refer'' to things in the world, and the ability of words to refer calls for scrutiny.
Ove ...
may have meaning.
The reference
Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a '' name'' ...
(or "referent"; ''Bedeutung'') of a ''proper name'' is the object it means or indicates (''bedeuten''), whereas its sense (''Sinn'') is what the name expresses. The reference of a ''sentence'' is its truth value
In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values ('' true'' or '' false'').
Computing
In some pro ...
, whereas its sense is the thought that it expresses.["On Sense and Reference" Über Sinn und Bedeutung" '']Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik
The ''Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik'' was an academic journal. It was established in 1837 by editor-in-chief Immanuel Hermann Fichte as ''Zeitschrift für Philosophie und spekulative Theologie'' and renamed in 1847. Notabl ...
'', vol. 100 (1892), pp. 25–50, esp. p. 31. Frege justified the distinction in a number of ways.
#Sense is something possessed by a name, whether or not it has a reference. For example, the name " Odysseus" is intelligible, and therefore has a sense, even though there is no individual object (its reference) to which the name corresponds.
#The sense of different names is different, even when their reference is the same. Frege argued that if an identity statement such as "Hesperus
In Greek mythology, Hesperus (; grc, Ἕσπερος, Hésperos) is the Evening Star, the planet Venus in the evening. He is one of the '' Astra Planeta''. A son of the dawn goddess Eos ( Roman Aurora), he is the half-brother of her other son, ...
is the same planet as Phosphorus
Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...
" is to be informative, the proper names flanking the identity sign must have a different meaning or sense. But clearly, if the statement is true, they must have the same reference. The sense is a 'mode of presentation', which serves to illuminate only a single aspect of the referent.
Much of analytic philosophy is traceable to Frege's philosophy of language.[Jeff Speaks]
"Frege's theory of reference"
(2011) Frege's views on logic (i.e., his idea that some parts of speech are complete by themselves, and are analogous to the arguments
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
of a mathematical function
In mathematics, a function from a set to a set assigns to each element of exactly one element of .; the words map, mapping, transformation, correspondence, and operator are often used synonymously. The set is called the domain of the functi ...
) led to his views on a theory of reference
In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the ...
.[
]
Background
Frege developed his original theory of meaning in early works like ''Begriffsschrift
''Begriffsschrift'' (German for, roughly, "concept-script") is a book on logic by Gottlob Frege, published in 1879, and the formal system set out in that book.
''Begriffsschrift'' is usually translated as ''concept writing'' or ''concept notatio ...
'' (concept script) of 1879 and '' Grundlagen'' (foundations of arithmetic) of 1884. On this theory, the meaning of a complete sentence consists in its being true or false, and the meaning of each significant expression in the sentence is an extralinguistic entity which Frege called its ''Bedeutung'', literally meaning or significance, but rendered by Frege's translators as reference, referent, 'Meaning', nominatum, etc. Frege supposed that some parts of speech are complete by themselves, and are analogous to the arguments
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
of a mathematical function
In mathematics, a function from a set to a set assigns to each element of exactly one element of .; the words map, mapping, transformation, correspondence, and operator are often used synonymously. The set is called the domain of the functi ...
, but that other parts are incomplete, and contain an empty place, by analogy with the function itself. Thus "Caesar conquered Gaul" divides into the complete term "Caesar", whose reference is Caesar himself, and the incomplete term "—conquered Gaul", whose reference is a concept. Only when the empty place is filled by a proper name does the reference of the completed sentence – its truth value – appear. This early theory of meaning explains how the significance or reference of a sentence (its truth value) depends on the significance or reference of its parts.
Sense
Frege introduced the notion of "sense" (German: ''Sinn'') to accommodate difficulties in his early theory of meaning.
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.["On Sense and Reference", p. 32.] The reference of the whole is determined by the reference of the parts. If ''the evening star'' has the same reference as ''the morning star'', it follows that ''the evening star is a body illuminated by the Sun'' has the same truth value as ''the morning star is a body illuminated by the Sun''. But it is possible for someone to think that the first sentence is true while also thinking that the second is false. Therefore, the thought corresponding to each sentence cannot be its reference, but something else, which Frege called its ''sense''.
Second, sentences that contain proper names with no reference cannot have a truth value at all. Yet the sentence 'Odysseus was set ashore at Ithaca
Ithaca most commonly refers to:
*Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey''
*Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca
*Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College
Ithaca, Ithaka ...
while sound asleep' obviously has a sense, even though 'Odysseus' has no reference. The thought remains the same whether or not 'Odysseus' has a reference. Furthermore, a thought cannot contain the objects that it is about. For example, Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc (french: Mont Blanc ; it, Monte Bianco , both meaning "white mountain") is the highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe, rising above sea level. It is the second-most prominent mountain in Europe, after Mount Elbrus, and ...
, 'with its snowfields', cannot be a component of the thought that Mont Blanc is more than 4,000 metres high. Nor can a thought about Etna contain lumps of solidified lava.
Frege's notion of sense is somewhat obscure, and neo-Fregeans have come up with different candidates for its role. Accounts based on the work of Carnap
Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. ...
and Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
treat sense as an intension, or a function from possible world
A possible world is a complete and consistent way the world is or could have been. Possible worlds are widely used as a formal device in logic, philosophy, and linguistics in order to provide a semantics for intensional and modal logic. Their me ...
s to extensions
Extension, extend or extended may refer to:
Mathematics
Logic or set theory
* Axiom of extensionality
* Extensible cardinal
* Extension (model theory)
* Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate
* E ...
. For example, the intension of ‘number of planets’ is a function that maps any possible world to the number of planets in that world. John McDowell
John Henry McDowell, FBA (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemology, ...
supplies cognitive and reference-determining roles. Michael Devitt treats senses as causal-historical chains connecting names to referents, allowing that repeated "groundings" in an object account for reference change.
Sense and description
In his theory of descriptions
The theory of descriptions is the philosopher Bertrand Russell's most significant contribution to the philosophy of language. It is also known as Russell's theory of descriptions (commonly abbreviated as RTD). In short, Russell argued that the ...
, Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
held the view that most proper names in ordinary language are in fact disguised definite description
In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or o ...
s. For example, 'Aristotle' can be understood as "The pupil of Plato and teacher of Alexander", or by some other uniquely applying description. This is known as the descriptivist theory of names
In the philosophy of language, the descriptivist theory of proper names (also descriptivist theory of reference) is the view that the meaning or semantic content of a proper name is identical to the descriptions associated with it by speakers, whil ...
. Because Frege used definite descriptions in many of his examples, he is often taken to have endorsed the descriptivist theory. Thus Russell's theory of descriptions was conflated with Frege's theory of sense, and for most of the twentieth century this "Frege–Russell" view was the orthodox view of proper name semantics. However, Saul Kripke
Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and em ...
argued compellingly against the descriptivist theory. According to Kripke, proper names are rigid designator
In modal logic and the philosophy of language, a term is said to be a rigid designator or absolute substantial term when it designates (picks out, denotes, refers to) the same thing in ''all possible worlds'' in which that thing exists. A designat ...
s which designate the same object in every possible world. Descriptions such as "the President of the U.S. in 1969" do not designate the same in every possible world. For example, someone other than Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
, e.g. Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
, might have been the President in 1969. Hence a description (or cluster of descriptions) cannot be a rigid designator, and thus a proper name cannot ''mean'' the same as a description.
However, the Russellian descriptivist reading of Frege has been rejected by many scholars, in particular by Gareth Evans in ''The Varieties of Reference'' and by John McDowell
John Henry McDowell, FBA (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemology, ...
in "The Sense and Reference of a Proper Name", following Michael Dummett
Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." He w ...
, who argued that Frege's notion of sense should not be equated with a description. Evans further developed this line, arguing that a sense without a referent was not possible. He and McDowell both take the line that Frege's discussion of empty names, and of the idea of sense without reference, are inconsistent, and that his apparent endorsement of descriptivism rests only on a small number of imprecise and perhaps offhand remarks. And both point to the power that the sense-reference distinction ''does'' have (i.e., to solve at least the first two problems), even if it is not given a descriptivist reading.
Translation of ''Bedeutung''
As noted above, translators of Frege have rendered the German ''Bedeutung'' in various ways. The term 'reference' has been the most widely adopted, but this fails to capture the meaning of the original German ('meaning' or 'significance'), and does not reflect the decision to standardise key terms across different editions of Frege's works published by Blackwell Blackwell may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Blackwell, Ontario
;United Kingdom
* Blackwell, County Durham, England
* Blackwell, Carlisle, Cumbria, England
* Blackwell (historic house), South Lakeland, Cumbria, England
* Blackwell, Bolsover, Alfre ...
. The decision was based on the principle of exegetical neutrality: that "if at any point in a text there is a passage that raises for the native speaker legitimate questions of exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretation ...
, then, if at all possible, a translator should strive to confront the reader of his version with the same questions of exegesis and not produce a version which in his mind resolves those questions". The term 'meaning' best captures the standard German meaning of ''Bedeutung''. However, while Frege's own use of the term can sound as odd in German for modern readers as when translated into English, the related term ''deuten'' does mean 'to point towards'. Though ''Bedeutung'' is not usually used with this etymological proximity in mind in German, German speakers can well make sense of ''Bedeutung'' as signifying 'reference', in the sense of it being what ''Bedeutung'' points, i.e. refers to. Moreover, 'meaning' captures Frege's early use of ''Bedeutung'' well, and it would be problematic to translate Frege's early use as 'meaning' and his later use as 'reference', suggesting a change in terminology not evident in the original German.
Precursors
Antisthenes
The Greek philosopher Antisthenes
Antisthenes (; el, Ἀντισθένης; 446 366 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Socrates. Antisthenes first learned rhetoric under Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates. He adopted and developed the ethical side ...
, a pupil of Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
, apparently distinguished "a general object that can be aligned with the meaning of the utterance” from “a particular object of extensional reference". According to Susan Prince, this "suggests that he makes a distinction between sense and reference".
The principal basis of Prince's claim is a passage in Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἀφροδισιεύς, translit=Alexandros ho Aphrodisieus; AD) was a Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle ...
' “Comments on Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
's 'Topics'” with a three-way distinction:
# the semantic medium, δι' ὧν λέγουσι
# an object external to the semantic medium, περὶ οὗ λέγουσιν
# the direct indication of a thing, σημαίνειν ... τὸ ...
Stoicism
The Stoic
Stoic may refer to:
* An adherent of Stoicism; one whose moral quality is associated with that school of philosophy
* STOIC, a programming language
* ''Stoic'' (film), a 2009 film by Uwe Boll
* ''Stoic'' (mixtape), a 2012 mixtape by rapper T-Pain
* ...
doctrine of refers to a correspondence between speech and the object referred to in speech, as distinct from the speech itself. British classicist R. W. Sharples cites ''lekta'' as an anticipation of the distinction between sense and reference.
John Stuart Mill
The sense-reference distinction is commonly confused with that between connotation and denotation, which originates with John Stuart Mill. According to Mill, a common term like 'white' ''denotes'' all white things, as snow, paper. But according to Frege, a common term does not refer to any individual white thing, but rather to an abstract concept (''Begriff''). We must distinguish between the relation of reference, which holds between a proper name and the object it refers to, such as between the name 'Earth' and the planet Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
, and the relation of 'falling under', such as when the Earth falls under the concept ''planet''. The relation of a proper name to the object it designates is direct, whereas a word like 'planet' has no such direct relation to the Earth at all, but only to a concept that the Earth falls under. Moreover, judging ''of'' anything that it falls under this concept is not in any way part of our knowledge of what the word 'planet' means.[Frege, "A critical elucidation of some points in E. Schroeder's ''Vorlesungen Ueber Die Algebra der Logik'', ''Archiv für systematische Philosophie'' 1895, pp. 433-456, transl. Geach, in Geach & Black 86-106.] The distinction between connotation and denotation is closer to that between concept and object than to that between 'sense' and 'reference'.
See also
* Descriptivist theory of names
In the philosophy of language, the descriptivist theory of proper names (also descriptivist theory of reference) is the view that the meaning or semantic content of a proper name is identical to the descriptions associated with it by speakers, whil ...
* Definite description
In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or o ...
* Direct and indirect realism
In the philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, the question of direct or naïve realism, as opposed to indirect or representational realism, is the debate over the nature of conscious experience;Lehar, Steve. (2000)The Function of Consc ...
* Frege's puzzles
* Intensional logic
Intensional logic is an approach to predicate logic that extends first-order logic, which has quantifiers that range over the individuals of a universe (''extensions''), by additional quantifiers that range over terms that may have such individuals ...
* Mediated reference theory A mediated reference theory (also indirect reference theory)Leszek Berezowski, ''Articles and Proper Names'', University of Wrocław, 2001, p. 67. is any semantic theory that posits that words refer to something in the external world, but insists t ...
* Temperature paradox
The Temperature Paradox or Partee's Paradox is a classic puzzle in formal semantics and philosophical logic. Formulated by Barbara Partee in the 1970s, it consists of the following argument, which speakers of English judge as wildly invalid.
# Th ...
* Theories of language
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may b ...
* Use–mention distinction
The use–mention distinction is a foundational concept of analytic philosophy, according to which it is necessary to make a distinction between a word (or phrase) and it.Devitt and Sterelny (1999) pp. 40–1W.V. Quine (1940) p. 24 Many philos ...
Footnotes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sense And Reference
Philosophy of language
Philosophical logic
Conceptual distinctions
Meaning (philosophy of language)