Frege: Indirect Reference

This paper argues against the claim that Frege is committed to an infinite hierarchy of senses. Carnap and Kripke, along with many others, argue the contrary; I expose where all such arguments go astray. Invariably these arguments assume (without citation) that Frege holds that sense and reference are always distinct. This is the fulcrum upon which the hierarchy is hoisted. The counter to this assumption is based on two important but neglected passages. The locution ‘indirect sense’ has no ontological significance (...) for Frege. It was just a ‘short expression’ (his term) to indicate that the customary relation between sign, sense, and reference is suspended in what he called the exception case of indirect context. Once the hierarchy is abandoned, the alleged problem of just what indirect sense is, as well as questions as to why Frege said so little about it and why he did not examine iterative indirect contexts are resolved. Of course, with no hierarchy, Davidson’s “unlearnability argument” turns out to be a non-starter. Some objections to my interpretation are considered and answered. Additionally, comparisons to Dummett’s one-level view of sense, which is similar to mine are made, as well as to some two-level views (Parsons and Skiba). (shrink)

We draw attention to a series of implicit assumptions that have structured the debate about Frege’s Puzzle. Once these assumptions are made explicit, we rely on them to show that if one focuses exclusively on the issues raised by Frege cases, then one obtains a powerful consideration against a fine-grained conception of propositional-attitude content. In light of this consideration, a form of Russellianism about content becomes viable.

Goodman and Lederman (2020) argue that the traditional Fregean strategy for preserving the validity of Leibniz’s Law of substitution fails when confronted with apparent counterexamples involving proper names embedded under propositional attitude verbs. We argue, on the contrary, that the Fregean strategy succeeds and that Goodman and Lederman’s argument misfires.

The principle of compositionality requires that the meaning of a complex expression remains the same after substitution of synonymous expressions. Alleged counterexamples to compositionality seem to force a theoretical choice: either apparent synonyms are not synonyms or synonyms do not syntactically occur where they appear to occur. Some theorists have instead looked to Frege’s doctrine of “reference shift” according to which the meaning of an expression is sensitive to its linguistic context. This doctrine is alleged to retain the relevant claims (...) about synonymy and substitution while respecting the compositionality principle. Thus, Salmon (Philos Rev 115(4):415, 2006) and Glanzberg and King (Philosophers’ Imprint 20(2):1–29, 2020) offer occurrence-based accounts of variable binding, and Pagin and Westerståhl (Linguist Philos 33(5):381–415, 2010c) argue that an occurrence-based semantics delivers a compositional account of quotation. Our thesis is this: the occurrence-based strategies resolve the apparent failures of substitutivity in the same general way as the standard expression-based semantics do. So it is a myth that a Frege-inspired occurrence-based semantics affords a genuine alternative strategy. (shrink)

There is an inconsistency among claims made (or apparently made) in separate articles by Alonzo Church concerning Frege's distinction between sense and denotation taken together with plausible assertions by Frege concerning his notion of ungerade Sinn-i.e., the sense that an expression allegedly takes on in positions in which it has ungerade Bedeutung, denoting its own customary sense. As with any inconsistency, the difficulty can be avoided by relinquishing one of the joint assumptions from which contradiction may be derived. Yet what (...) seems the most plausible resolution, in light of Church's own arguments, involves abandoning the theory of sense and denotation, in the form in which it has been staunchly advocated by both Frege and Church. That theory has come under sustained criticism from several quarters. Whereas the present difficulty supplements the case against the theory, it is unlike more familiar criticisms, since it is not framed from the perspective of an alternative theory (or picture) but is based instead on an internal conflict, and therefore has special force. (shrink)

In the last forty years Dummett, Hanks, Künne, and Bobzien have claimed that when Frege wrote ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question [Satzfrage] was not a thought [Gedanke] ((Dummett 1981: 307–308); (Hanks 2007: 142–143); (Künne 2010: 427–429); (Bobzien 2021: 163–164)). Recently, Textor has claimed that when Frege wrote ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was not a question [Frage] (Textor 2021: 227 fn.2). I think it is possible that (...) when Frege wrote ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was a question and a thought. To show that this possibility should not be overlooked, I have written a dialogue in which Frege responds to Dummett, Hanks, Künne, Bobzien, and Textor. -/- Bobzien seems to think that when Frege wrote ‘Die Verneinung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was not a question (Bobzien 2021: 163–165). I think it is possible that when Frege wrote ‘Die Verneinung’, he thought that the sense of a sentence-question was a question and a thought. Hence, I have also written the dialogue to show that this possibility should not be overlooked either. (shrink)

Georgalis claimed that when Frege wrote ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’ Frege thought that the indirect [ungerade] sense of an expression was identical to its normal [gewöhnlich] sense (Georgalis 2022: e.g. 4, 5, 13). In this paper, I present five arguments for the falsity of Georgalis’ claim which are based on three pieces of apparent counterevidence: a passage from Frege’s letter to Russell dated 28.12.1902; a passage from Frege’s letter to Russell dated 20.10.1902; and a passage from ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’. (...) I outline possible counter-arguments and responses. (shrink)

I draw attention to two questions which arise from: Frege’s underlining in a letter to Russell, some of his remarks in ‘Meine grundlegenden logischen Einsichten’/‘My basic logical insights’, and a plausible thesis regarding indirect Bedeutungen. Addressing these questions is necessary for a proper understanding of Frege’s account of „dass“-sentences/“that”-clauses.