Frege on Sinn �/��Philosophy of Language, Fall ����Peter van Elswyk, Rutgers University

� ContentLast week, we looked at speech acts. Speech acts involve the u�erance of sentences in acontext which express propositions. Previously, I mentioned that sentences can expresspropositions in more than one way. Sentences can presuppose, implicate, or directlyconvey a proposition in virtue of their meaning. We will call the proposition directlyexpressed by a sentence the semantic content. Semantic content is the focus for todayand the next few class sessions.

� CompositionalityWhen thinking about semantic content, it is helpful to consider the meanings of the wordsthat occur in the sentence expressing the content. Frege (����) follows this practice byfocusing on the meanings of names. Frege does this because he endorses the followingprinciple:

����������������: �e meaning of a complex expression depends on themeanings and arrangements of its constituent expressions.

To see this principle in action, consider the meaning of the complex description the red dog.By ����������������, the meaning of this expression will depend on the meaning of the,red, and dog since they are its constituents. And this is what we �nd. �e contributes thatthere is one salient thing being referred to, red contributes that the thing being referred tohas the property of redness, and dog contributes that the thing being referred to is a dog. If

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a thing fails to satisfy what each of these words contributes to the meaning of the whole,it cannot be referred to with the red dog.

���������������� also predicts that changing the constituent of a complex expressioncan change its meaning. Again, this is what we �nd. Replace the with a di�erent determinerlike every, replace red with a di�erent adjective like small, and/or replace dog with adi�erent noun like �sh, andwe produce a new expressionwith an entirely di�erentmeaningfrom the original expression the red dog.

Sentences are complex expressions too. For example, the meaning of (�) can change ifconstituents are replaced.

(�) �e red dog ate the cake.

Additionally, the meaning of (�) will change if we change how the words are arranged.Swap the nouns dog and cake and put each world in the other’s position in the sentenceand you get an entirely di�erent meaning.

I have thus far been talking about ���������������� informally. But it should be notedthat the behavior of meanings to compose with each other to comprise the meaning of asentence is a behavior that can be mathematically modeled using resources from lambdacalculus and a few other places of mathematics. In fact, Montague (����), wanting toformally implement Frege’s vision of language, was one of the �rst to put these resourcestogether for this purpose.

����������It is evident that some if not most of language iscompositional. But can you think of any counterexamples to����������������?�ese will be cases where the meaningof a complex expression does not depend on the meaning ofits constituents or how they are arranged.

� Frege’s puzzlesFrege begins his paper with a few puzzles that must be solved when trying to understandingthe meaning of names.�ere are two puzzles.

But before we consider each puzzle, it will be helpful to have the theory of namesin view that is Frege’s target. �e theory of names that Frege is taking aim at is o�encalled Millianism and is owed to the philosopher J.S. Mill. According to Millianism, themeaning of a name is exhausted by what the name references. �e meaning of the nameKobe Bryant is therefore the object that these two words reference. �at is, the meaningof this expression is just Kobe Bryant. So names are linguistic placeholders for the objectsthey reference.

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�.� Cognitive signi�cance

�e �rst puzzle concerning the meaning of names involves the relation of identity. Likeany relation, identity has relata. In other words, identity relates one thing to another thing.But what kinds of things are related by identity? Answering this question brings usto the heart of Frege’s concerns about the meaning of names.

Suppose a and b are two distinct names for the same object. Now compare the followingtwo statements:

(�) a = a.(�) a = b.

Since we have supposed that a and b name the same object, both (�) and (�) have to be true.But (�) and (�) do not have the same meaning.

Each statement has a di�erent cognitive signi�cance. Suppose we did not know (�).Learning (�) would then be a signi�cant gain in our knowledge. But learning (�) is notsigni�cant. It is a trivial fact that things are self–identical. Here’s an example where wereplace a and b with more familiar names:

(�) Superman = Superman.(�) Superman = Clark Kent.

Once again, knowing (�) has a di�erent cognitive signi�cant than knowing (�). Everybodyknows (�) if they take a moment to re�ect. But it is not trivial that Superman is Clark Kent.�is is a revealing fact about the Superman universe.

Frege uses this puzzle about cognitive signi�cance as an argument against Millianism.�e argument runs as follows.

(�) Sentences s1 and s2 di�er in cognitive signi�cance.(�) If s1 and s2 di�er in cognitive signi�cance, then s1 and s2 di�er in meaning.(�) If s1 and s2 di�er inmeaning, then s1 and s2 either have parts with di�erent

meanings or the parts are arranged di�erently. by ����������������(�) �e parts in s1 and s2 are not arranged di�erently.

(�) s1 and s2 have parts with di�erent meanings.

�e conclusion spells trouble for Millianism. Names cannot be mere linguistic placeholdersfor objects if sentences containing co–referring names di�er in cognitive signi�cancebecause of the names they contain.

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����������One way to resist this argument is to think that a di�erencein cognitive signi�cance between two sentences is not owedto a di�erence in meaning. Is there a plausible way to workout this objection?

�.� Substitution failure

�e second puzzle concerning the meaning of names involves substitution of co–referringnames. �ere are a number of verbs v that denote a relation between an agent and theproposition v’d by the agent.�ese verbs denote propositional a�itudes and include know,believe, hope, fear, and a few others. For example, in (�)

(�) Suzie believes that fall has arrived.

it is conveyed that Suzie stands in the belief–relation to the proposition that is expressedin the complement clause (i.e. Fall has arrived).

Using one of these a�itude verbs, we can now generate another puzzle. Again, take twoterms such as a and b that refer to the same object. Even though these objects refer to theexact same object, we cannot replace an instance of a with an instance of b or vice versawhen they occur in the complement of an a�itude verb.

(�) Suzie believes Superman is a hero.(�) Suzie believes Clark Kent is not a hero.

�e truth of (�) and (�) are independent of each other even though the names co–refer. Suziemight believe (�), but not believe (�). So the names cannot be freely substituted with eachother.�is is known as substitution failure.

Frege also uses this puzzle as an argument againstMillianism.�e argument runs nearlyidentically to the previous argument. If two sentences di�er in truth–value, then they di�erin meaning. If two sentences di�er in meaning, then ���������������� requires that thedi�erence is owed to the sentences having di�erent parts and/or having their parts arrangeddi�erently. Since the only di�erence between the statements are the names that occur ineach and these names co–refer, the meaning of a name cannot merely be the object that thename references.

����������Frege demonstrated substitution failure with the use ofa�itude verbs. Can you think of other expressions thatnamesmight interact given ����������������which couldalso generate substitution failures?

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�.� �e puzzles compared

�e two versions of Frege’s puzzle are di�erent but related. �e di�erences are easyto observe. �e �rst puzzle involves cognitive signi�cance as the central problem forMillianism and the second puzzle involves substitution failure. But here is something that isinteresting. You can always create substitution failure puzzles by taking identity statementslike (�) and (�) that di�er in cognitive signi�cance and placing them under a�itude verbslike believes or knows.

�.� �e upshot

What each puzzle appears to reveal is that the meaning of names cannot be exhausted bythe objects they reference. In each puzzle, we have two names that refer to the exact sameobject, but these names bring about di�erence e�ects in the meanings of the sentencesthey occur in. When identity statements are learned, the cognitive signi�cance of what islearned can vary depending on the names used. Similarly, the truth of statements usingnames that are embedded under a�itude verbs can vary according to which names occur.Since ���������������� requires the meaning of sentences to depend on their parts, thedi�erent e�ects on meaning brought about the names must be owed to the meanings ofthe names themselves. And since the names are co–referring, there must be more to themeaning of names than the objects they reference. It looks like Millianism about names isdown and out.

� Frege’s alternative

�.� Sinn

Frege deniesMillianism. His alternative view of namesmaintains that a name has a sense inaddition to a referent. Here is how Frege (����: ���) �rst talks about senses in the assignedreading:

A di�erence can arise only if the di�erence between the signs corespond to a di�erence in themode of presentation of the thing designated. [. . . ] It is natural, now, to think of there beingconnected with a sign (name, combination of words, wri�en mark), besides that which the signdesignates, which may be called the Bedeutung of the sign, also what I should like to call thesense of the sign, wherein the mode of presentation is contained.

�e sense of a name therefore provides the way in which that word is presented to the userof the word. Later on, Frege (����: ���) gives us an analogy to help us understand how asense is a mode of presentation:

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�e Bedeutung of a proper name is the object itself which we designate by using it; the ideawhich we have in that case is wholly subjective; in between lies the sense, which is indeedno longer subjective like the idea, but is yet not the object itself.�e following analogywill perhaps clarify these relationships. Somebody observes the Moon through a telescope. Icompare the Moon itself to the Bedeutung; it is the object of the observation, mediated by thereal image projected by the object glass in the interior of the telescope, and by the retinal imageof the observer. �e former I compare to the sense, the la�er is like the idea or intuition.

�e sense of an expression is therefore like the real image of the Moon projected onthe telescope. It sits between our retinal image of the Moon and the Moon itself. It is apresentation of the Moon without which we could not see the Moon. In other words,senses are not psychological entities. As Frege (����: ���) earlier insists, they can be sharedamong many people who all grasp the sense. �ey sit between the idea of the thingassociated with the name and the thing that it is referenced by the name.

�e interrelationship between an expression, the sense, and the referent is then asfollows:

Expression Sense Referentexpresses determines

designates

An expression designates its referent, but it expresses a sense that determines the refer-ent. Put di�erently, the sense of a expression determines what the expression designates. Inthis way, the sense of an expression can be thought of as acting like a rule that determineswhat the expression can be used to designate.

Sense are what we understand when we understand what an expression means. Here’sFrege (����: ���):

�e sense of a proper name is grasped by everybody who is su�ciently familiar with thelanguage or totality of designations to which it belongs; but this serves to illuminate only asingle aspect of the Bedeutung, supposing it to have one. Comprehensive knowledge of theBedeutung would require us to be able to say immediately whether any given sense a�aches toit. To such knowledge we never a�ain.

If you understand a language, you grasp senses. Senses are public. You might not knowif every word has a Bedeutung, but knowing as much is not knowledge about a language. Itis knowledge about the world.

�.� �e solution

Maintaining that names have senses provides Frege with interesting things to say aboutboth of his puzzles. With respect to cognitive signi�cance, Frege can explain the di�erence

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in signi�cance between identity statements by suggesting that the names in the identitystatements have di�erent senses. Self–identity statements are trivial because the name thatoccurs on both sides of the identity sign has the same sense. But other identity statementswith di�erent names �anking the identity sign involve expressions with di�erent senses.With respect to substitution failure, Frege can again appeal to a di�erence in sense. But thedetails of this solution will have to wait till next class.

����������How do senses act like rules for determining referents in thecase of �ctional names?

�.� �ird realm

You might think that senses are somehow psychological. Not for Frege. He thought theyexisted in a third realm. �e third realm is distinct from the inner realm of our privatethoughts and the outer realm of material objects.

Undeniably, the view that senses belong to a third realm is very mysterious. Dumme�(����: ���–���) writes:

Frege’s conception of thoughts and their constituent senses is mythological. �eseeternal, changeless entities inhabit a ’third realm’, distinct from the physical universe andequally distinct from the inner world of any experiencing subject. Despite their separationfrom the physical world, many of these thoughts are about that world, and are true or false,not indeed by corresponding to anything in it or failing to do so, but in so far as they areabout the external world, in virtue of how things are in that world. Somehow we grasp thesethoughts and sometimes judge them to be true or false; indeed, it is only by grasping themthat we become aware of the external world, rather than only of our own inner sensationsand feelings. Somehow, too, we associate senses with words, and so communicate thoughts andjudgements to one another. As long as this perspective is dominant, all is mysterious.�ere is no way of explaining how thoughts relate to things in other realms of reality,that is, what makes them about anything.�ere is no way of explaining howwe graspthem: no wonder Frege wrote, ’this process is perhaps the most mysterious of all’. Above all,there is no way of explaining howwe a�ach senses to words or expressions, that is, what makesthem senses of those words and expressions. All this is obscured for us by Frege’s having hadvery good, if not fully complete, explanations of all these things. It is just that these explanationscannot be reconciled with the mythological picture. When we have Frege’s theory of meaningin view, our perspective has wholly altered: the third realm has receded to in�nity.

� Moving beyond namesFrege uses the puzzles about names to motivate the existence of senses. But he does notstop with names. All expressions have senses. Let’s consider how this works with respectto sentences.

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�.� Senses of sentences

A declarative sentence expresses what Frege calls a thought. A thought is the same thingas a proposition. It is the information conveyed.

But should the thought of a sentence be the referent or sense of a sentence? �is isa question about how we should understand the nature of a proposition. Here we face asimilar decision to the decision faced earlier when trying to understand the meaning ofnames. Unsurprisingly, Frege’s answer to this decision is the same as the earlier answer.�oughts are the senses of sentences and not the referents of sentences. Frege’sreasons are similar too. Take a sentence like (�):

(�) �e bar across from my o�ce serves beer.

We can replace a part of this sentence with something that is co–referring. For example,we can slide in a di�erent description.

(�) �e bar on Easton and Somerset serves beer.

Since both descriptions co–refer and still ���������������� holds, the referent of thesentence must be the same in (�) and (�) regardless of what is the referent. And yet, (�)and (�) have di�erent meanings. We can realize this by repeating either of the two puzzlespresented by Frege.

�.� �e True,�e False

But what is the referent of a sentence? Frege’s answer is that the truth–value of a sentenceis the referent. Frege (����: ���–���) writes as follows:

We are therefore driven into accepting the truth-value of a sentence as constituting itsBedeutung. By the truth-value of a sentence I understand the circumstance that it is true orfalse.�ere are no further truth-values. For brevity I call the one the True, the other the False.Every assertoric sentence concerned with the Bedeutung of its words is therefore tobe regarded as a proper name, and its Bedeutung, if it has one, is either the True or theFalse.�ese two objects are recognized, if only implicitly, by everybody who judges somethingto be true—and so even by a sceptic. (Emphasis added.)

�is answer make the True and the False objects that can be designated. According toFrege, sentences are names that designate one of two objects.

Let’s put the pieces together. Since thoughts are the senses of sentences, thoughtsdetermine truth–values since senses determine referents. In this way, thoughts are modesof presentation. �ey are ways of presenting of �e True and �e False. So thoughts actlike rules that help us determine a sentence’s truth–value.

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A few interesting consequences follow from this answer.�e �rst is that every sentencethat expresses a true thought has the exact same Bedeutung. So does every sentence thatexpresses a false thought.�is �rst consequence follows from the fact that the only objectsthat can be designated by sentences are�e True and�e False.

Frege thinks this consequence is not a problem for his view. It just requires us to not beinterested in only the referent of a sentence. We should also be interested in the thoughtof the sentence too.

����������What reasons do you see for or against making truth andfalsity objects that sentences reference? How else would yourelate truth/falsity to sentences and/or the propositions theyexpress?

Another interesting consequence follows from Frege’s answer. Recall that every name hasa sense, but not every name has a referent. Sometimes a name can fail to refer to anythingbecause the rule provided by the sense cannot be satis�ed. Such failure is what happenswith�ctional names. Since sentences are names, Frege is commi�ed to thinking that sentencescan fail to designate �e True or �e False. Frege (����: ���) endorses this conclusionoutright:

�e sentence ‘Odysseus was set ashore at Ithaca while sound asleep’ obviously has a sense.But since it is doubtful whether the name ‘Odysseus’, occurring therein, has a Bedeutung, itis also doubtful whether the whole sentence does. [. . . ] Whoever does not admit the namehas a Bedeutung can neither apply nor withhold the predicate. But in that case it would besuper�uous to advance to the Bedeutung of the name; one could be satis�ed with the sense,if one wanted to go no further than the thought. If it were a question only of the sense ofthe sentence, the thought, it would be needless to bother with the Bedeutung of a part of thesentence; only the sense, not the Bedeutung, of the part is relevant to the sense of the wholesentence. �e thought remains the same whether ‘Odysseus’ has a Bedeutung or not. �e factthat we concern ourselves at all about the Bedeutung of a part of the sentence indicates thatwe generally recognize and expect a Bedeutung for the sentence itself.

In defending what we will call truth–value gaps, Frege once again appeals to the principleof ����������������. �e referent of a sentence is determined by the thought of thesentence.�e thought of the sentence depends on the senses of the words that the sentencehas as parts. Since a sentence can contain a non–referring name (e.g. Odysseus), the entiresentence can fail to have a referent. As Frege puts it above, “we can neither apply norwithout the predicate” ascribing a property to Odysseus because there is no individual toexamine and see if they have the property.

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���������� � �������Do you think it is a virtue or vice of Frege’s account ofmeaning that sentences can fail to have truth–values? Also:the topic of truth–value gaps will returnwhenwe talk aboutpresupposed content later in the semester.

� Talking about sensesTypically, we are talking about the referent of an expression when we are using it. Whenusing a name, we are interested in the person that name refers to and not the sense of thename that helps us �gure out who the name refers to. But sometimes we want to talk aboutexpressions or their meanings and not the referents. How does this work given Frege’s viewof sinn?

�.� �otation

�emost obvious waywe talk about words is with quotation.When quotation occurs, Fregemaintains that the quotedwords do not have their usual referent. Instead, quotation ensuresthat thewords enclosed by the quotationmarks are the referent of the entire quoted phrase.Here is Frege (����: ���–���):

One’s own words then �rst designate words of the other speaker, and only the la�er have theirusual Bedeutung. We then have signs of signs. In writing, the words are in this case enclosedin quotation marks. Accordingly, a word standing between quotation marks must not be takenas having its ordinary Bedeutung.

Frege doesn’t say a whole lot more in the assigned reading about quotation. But it isinteresting to note that he must be commi�ed to the existence of words as object if wordsare the referent of quoted expressions.

����������Why aren’t senses the referents of quoted expressions?Does Frege’s account of the meaning of quotation con�ictwith his endorsement of ���������������? If not, how canwe compositionally explain how quotation makes wordshave non–ordinary referents?

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�.� Indirect speech

�e next way we usually talk about what has been said is with indirect speech reports.�ese are sentences that have verbs like say, overheard, and con�rm and take a complementclause like the a�itude verbs we discussed last time.

(�) Snookie said that it was raining.| {z }complement

(�) Pauly D agreed that it was raining.| {z }complement

In (�) and (�), we have indirect speech reports and the complement clauses are clearlymarked. According to Frege, the complement clauses do not refer to truth–values. Instead,the complement clause designates a thought in (�) and (�). Again, an expression does nothave its ordinary referent in indirect speech reports.

Frege has two related reasons for thinking that the complement clause refers to its sense.�e �rst reason is that that the truth of the entire sentence does not depend on the truthof the complement clause. Regardless of whether it is true that it is raining, (�) and (�) canboth be true or false.�e truth of whether Snookie or Pauly D said what they are a�ributeddoes not turn on whether what they said is true.

�e second reason is related to the puzzle of substitution failure. If we place anothersentence in the complement clause which has the same true–value as the initial clause buta di�erent sense, then the truth–value of the entire sentence will change. For example, wecould replace the complement clause in (�) and (�) with �+�=�. On the assumption thatthe complements above are true, our substitution would preserve truth. But this does notma�er because the truth of (�) and (�) depends on the thought of each sentence: (�) and (�)are true only if the thought expressed by the complement clause is the same as the thoughtwhich Snookie and Pauly expressed.

In other words, when a sentence occurs as a complement under the right kind of verb,the sentence does not refer to �e True or �e False like it normally does. Instead, thesentence as complement refers to its own sense. Frege (����: ���) draws this conclusionfrom what he says about indirect speech reports:

In the cases so far considered the words of the subordinate clauses had their indirect Bedeutung,and this made it clear that the Bedeutung of the subordinate clause itself was indirect, i.e. not atruth–value but a thought, a command, a request, a question. �e subordinate clause couldbe regarded as a noun, indeed one could say: as a proper name of that thought, thatcommand, etc., which it represented in the context of the sentence structure.

Complement clauses for Frege are then a special kind of name for the though expressed bythe underlying sentence.

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����������What explains how an expression comes to refer to its senseas opposed to its referent? Are they really names?�ey feela li�le . . . di�erent.