Sense and reference

The 1892 published essay about the meaning and significance is the work of Gottlob Frege. Frege explained in the basic concepts of his philosophy of language. The essay was also in linguistics, specifically in semantics, rezipiert ( cf. Lyons 1980).

Summary

Sense and meaning for proper names

The starting point of Frege's considerations is the observation that statements of the form "a = b" a different " cognitive value " than statements of the form "a = a". For example: The morning star is the same celestial body such as the Evening Star ( namely Venus). In contrast to the trivial statement true "Morning Star = Morning Star " expresses the statement " morning star = the evening star," a lesson from. Frege emphasizes, in the second case the same object (Venus) was " given " in two different ways ( even as a celestial body, the first thing in the evening, once as a celestial body that is last in the morning in the sky ).

Frege therefore distinguishes the object for which is an expression ( its reference ), by the nature of its " If one". The former ( in the example the Venus) he calls a bit misleading, the "meaning" of the term, the latter his " sense ": " It is obvious now, with a sign ( name, combination of words, characters ) except the signified, which are called the meaning of the sign, may still connected to think what I would call the sense of the sign, wherein the mode of presentation is contained. "(p. 26, here and below, the page numbers refer to the publication in the " Ztschr f Phil. philos and Krit. "). "Morning Star " and " Evening Star ", therefore, have a different meaning, but the same meaning. Frege considers it important that the meaning of an expression is not to be confused with an " idea ". An idea is something purely subjective, whereas " may be the common property of many" of meaning (p. 29).

The distinction between meaning and significance meets Frege initially for " proper names ". A proper name is the " name of a single object " (p. 27) for Frege. Frege used "object" in a broad sense, in addition to ordinary objects such as houses and tables he sums for example, people, places, times and numbers than anything on. A proper name can now consist of a single word, but " also consist of several words or other signs" ( ibid.). According to Frege so would "Morning Star ", but also labels as " the first man on the moon" and terms such as " 3 5" proper names. Frege points out that a " grammatically correct educated " Common Name "is always a sense " has (p. 28). He must not necessarily have a meaning. The term " the present King of France " for example, has a meaning, but no meaning (since there is no such king).

Meaning and significance for sentences

In a second step applies the distinction Frege on " assertions " to. The " thoughts " that expresses such a sentence, Frege equates with his mind, not with its meaning. The reason is that the meaning of a complex expression can not change if a subexpression is replaced by another with the same meaning (called the Frege principle): " Now we replace in [ the sentence ] one word for another of the same meaning, but a different sense, this may have no effect on the meaning of the sentence. " In such an operation, however, the expressed thought can change, " the morning star is a planet " pushes Frege another thought of as " the evening star is a planet ", as you can to keep a set for true and the other false, if you do not know, that morning star and evening star are the same. Therefore, the idea can not be the meaning of the sentence.

But what can not change when replacing an expression by another with the same importance to the truth or falsity of the sentence. Frege therefore understood as the meaning of a sentence whose " truth value " (p. 34). Frege knows exactly two truth values: " the truth " and " falsity ". This construction has the somewhat unexpected result that sentences are also proper names: "Every declarative sentence [ ... ] is therefore regarded as a proper name and that its meaning is [ ... ] either the truth or falsity " (ibid.). From Frege's point of view this is, however, consistently, since a proper name is a term that means an object, and the truth values ​​are for him objects.

Another implication is that all true sentences have the same meaning as are all wrong. Therefore, according to Frege, it is never alone on the meaning of a sentence to, but always on the importance together with the sense of the thoughts expressed. The juxtaposition of meaning and significance found in the "judgment" instead of " judgments can be taken as a progression from one thought to its truth values ​​" (p. 35).

Ordinary, even and odd speech

What has been said that the meaning of a sentence is its truth value, but applies only when the words in the usual way, ie, in "ordinary" speech, used. From ordinary speech Frege distinguishes between the "straight" and "odd" speech. " But it may also happen that one wants to talk about the words themselves or their sense. That happens, for example, if one cites the words of another in a straight speech. [ ... ] In the odd speech one speaks of the sense, for example, the speech of another person. "(P. 28).

So straight talk occurs in quotations when a statement is reproduced verbatim. Odd speech, however, is for example subordinate clauses beginning with " because" are introduced (p. 48) before or in those who " believe " are formed with (p. 37). In these cases, you can not just replace one expression by another, which stands for the same thing. For example, you can in the sentence " Kepler believes that the morning star, Venus is " not simply " morning star " replaced by " Evening Star " because it could be that Kepler indeed believes that the morning star, but not the evening star is Venus. Nor can the whole subordinate clause by replacing with the same truth value, eg by " that Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world is " because this is certainly nothing that Kepler believed.

According to Frege in such a ( sub- ) sets the words than the meaning, which is its meaning in ordinary " ordinary" speech. " The meaning of a word is odd so its ordinary meaning " (p. 28). The set as a whole is not its truth value, but rather the thoughts expressed by him. It is therefore that "the meaning of the sentence is not always its truth value, and that, morning star 'does not always mean the planet Venus, namely not know if this word has its odd meaning" (p. 38). The meaning of a word or sentence in odd speech is according to Frege, the meaning of his ordinary sense (p. 37).

In odd speech a subordinate clause expresses so no thought of ( but the thought of a thought ). Frege treated yet another case in which the subordinate clause expresses a thought. His example is

Here plays the phrase " a number" the role of a variable, Frege calls this expression, therefore, " a vaguely suggestive part " of the sentence (p. 46). Because of this constituent parts of the sentence are incomplete and therefore have a sense not a complete thought.