Sense and Reference

Essay by MabLCollege, Undergraduate April 2011

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In this essay I will cover Frege's distinction between his notion of Sense and Reference. This paper will be a discussion and objection of some of Frege's claims and assertions about meaning and the discussion of names. Wherein I will cover criticise and appraise objections or claims made by other philosophers in relation to Frege. I will initially carry out an in-depth analysis and definition of Sense and Reference by Frege and then problems evolving from subjectivity of sense as well as presupposition of reference. I will discuss the idea of sense without reference and its possibility while evaluating Frege's continuity and or contradiction in his 'concrete' notion of shared sense. Further there will be an explanation and exploration of what sense infers and equally what reference delegates with a related discussion of the morning and evening star. The sharing of sense and reference between people is a major area of impermanence.

Frege's sense and reference of what can and cannot be shared will also be scrutinized. Potential tautologies and descriptivist claims have been made against Frege from a range of other philosophers over time. These will be covered and discussed concluding with a summation of Frege's claims and their culminating strength.

Gottlob Frege in Sense and Reference sets out to ascertain that there is "a relation between objects, or between names or signs of objects."� Additionally proper names do not just have a reference, but also a sense also. Originally Frege used the statements: "A = A" and "A = B" however eventually saw these as a convention that man has created and needed a more in-depth discussion of how to explain meaning and truth values in language. His conclusion of this is that we could only use this example if each (A and B) designate something, or...