Abstract

"Fregean Senses" is a close, systematic study of Frege's notion of Sense . My purpose is to give an accurate presentation of Frege's conception of Sense, and also to elaborate upon this conception in clearly Fregean ways in the hopes of presenting a comprehensive theory which is in centain ways superior to its major competitors and which is immune to certain criticisms of Fregean views found in the literature. My approach is primarily metaphysical, but I also cover various topics in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. I draw on nearly all of Frege's writings as well as a large amount of important secondary literature. ;The primary results of the dissertation are the following. Given Frege's general views on the nature of Senses, I argue, his metaphorical statements to the effect that one Sense can be a part of another Sense should not be taken literally, because Fregean Senses cannot be incorporated into a reasonable part-whole theory. I show how the notion of the determination of a function by a Sense can, in Frege's system, be reduced to that of the determination of an object by a Sense. I also argue against the widespread view that the determination of an object by a Sense is to be explained in terms of the object's satisfying some condition or conditions associated with the Sense. The above results, in conjunction with other considerations, lead me to the conclusion that object-determination is a primitive relation in Frege's system. Using this idea, I go on to develop a Fregean method for distinguishing de dicto and de re readings of sentences containing oblique contexts. In the last chapter I formulate a fairly detailed account of what it is to grasp a Sense. Finally, I argue that this account suggests a certain ontological reduction of Senses to other entities