Names, Sense and Kripke’s Puzzle

From the Logical Point of View 2:11-26 (1992)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Frege introduced the distinction between sense and reference to account for the information conveyed by identity statements. We can put the point like this: if the meaning of a term is exhausted by what it stands for, then how can 'a =a' and 'a =b' differ in meaning? Yet it seems they do, for someone who understands all the terms involved would not necessarily judge that a =b even though they judged that a =a. It seems that 'a =b' just says something more than the trivial ’a = a' - it seems to contain more information, in some sense of 'information'. So either we have to add something to explain this extra information, or sever the very plausible links between meaning and understanding. This is what some writers have called 'Frege's Puzzle' It is undeniable that there is a phenomenon here to be explained, and it was Frege's insight to see the need for its explanation. But how should we explain it? Frege's idea was to add another semantic notion - Sinn, or Sense -— to account for the information conveyed. Sense is part of the meaning of an expression: it is the 'cognitive value' of the expression, or that ’wherein the mode of presentation is contained' (Frege 1957 p.57). Sense has a role to play in systematically determining the meanings of complex expressions, and ultimately in fixing the contents of judgements. It is the senses of whole sentences — Gedanken or Thoughts - which are candidates for truth and falsehood, and which are thus the objects of our propositional attitudes. Of course, introducing the notion of sense in this way does not, by itself, tell us what sense is. It only imposes a condition on a theory of meaning (and ultimately) belief: that it must account for distinctions in cognitive value or 'mode of presentation' (this is not a trivial thesis —- some philosophers today would deny that an explanation of Frege's Puzzle must occur within semantics or the theory of meaning: see Salmon 1985). In this paper I want to explore one way of meeting this condition for the theory of names in natural language, by examining Kripke's well-known 'Puzzle about Belief' (Kripke 1979)..

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

I. Frege as a Realist.Michael Dummett - 1976 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 19 (1-4):455-468.
Frege on indexicals.Robert May - 2006 - Philosophical Review 115 (4):487-516.
Frege’s Distinction Between Sense and Reference.Gideon Makin - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (2):147-163.
Sense, Reference and Hybridity.Wolfgang Künne - 2010 - Dialectica 64 (4):529-551.
Sense and Mode of Presentation.H. G. Callaway - 2008 - In Meaning without Analyticity. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 49-72.
Can Frege pose Frege's puzzle?Stavroula Glezakos - 2009 - In Joseph Almog & Paolo Leonardi (eds.), The Philosophy of David Kaplan. Oxford University Press. pp. 202.
On sense and intension.David J. Chalmers - 2002 - Philosophical Perspectives 16:135-82.
Conventions and Coreferentiality.Rod Bertolet - 1994 - Journal of Philosophical Research 19:257-262.
Sense and Proof.Carlo Penco & Daniele Porello - 2010 - In M. D'agostino, G. Giorello, F. Laudisa, T. Pievani & C. Sinigaglia (eds.), New Essays in Logic and Philosophy of Science,. College Publicationss.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-01-06

Downloads
417 (#43,063)

6 months
48 (#75,764)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Tim Crane
Central European University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references