Husserl and Frege on Sense

This article presents and compares Frege’s and Husserl’s conceptions of sense, also taking into account their 1891 and 1906 correspondence. It is argued that while the similarities between their views speak in favour of a Fregean interpretation of Husserl’s notion of noematic sense, there are also important differences. With regard to the latter, it is argued that Husserl’s view yields a more general criterion of propositional difference and also provides a more detailed conception of the use of indexicals and non-descriptive singular terms, and of their reference. In this context, Husserl’s conceptions of constitution and genetic constitution analysis, respectively, are invoked and interpreted in terms of the epistemic notion of processing mental files or individual “concepts”.