WTFrege?

Context.  What is Frege doing?  Why is he doing it?  Frege's larger project is to create an artificial language that is logically complete.  This Begriffschrift is supposed to contain a totality of meanings.  All meanings should be able to be understood in terms of the meanings of other signs (words) in the language, and every sign must have a sense (mode of presentation) that has a referent (designated object).  The sign is the physical word.  It is the combination of symbols and letters.  The sense is something more abstract.  The sense is expressed by the sign.  It is the way in which we designate, or fix, the referent.  The essay we read is a critique of natural language.  He wants to show the limits of natural language, and to introduce new distinctions that can help us to use language more precisely.  At the most general level, he wants to talk about language, how we use it, and how we must use it if we are to do science (Wissenschaft)!

Why are we reading this text in this class?  One of the main themes of the course is to consider what role language plays in our interaction with the world, and how we ought to use language and logic when we do philosophy.  This text picks up on these themes and provides a radical alternative to our previous author, Nietzsche.  

Content.  What are the important things to remember from Frege?  First, you should understand the conception/sense/reference distinctions.  Second, you should be able to understand Frege's general worldview about language, logic and science.  Third, you should understand what it means to say that the referent of a true sentence is the truth.  Fourth, you should be able to explain the effects of putting words in quotation marks and how this changes the referent of the signs used.  

The referent of a word is the object to which the word refers.  In other words, it is the object designated by a sign.  In yet other words, it's the actual thing about which you are talking.  For example, when I say, "The Schwarz is not as huge has he used to be.", the person about whom I am talking is Arnold Schwarzenegger; he is the referent of the name 'The Schwarz'.  The sense is the way in which the referent is being presented.  It is also known as the mode of presentation.  It is the particular way that the object is conceived.  For example,when I say, "The former governor of California is not eligible to be president because he was born in Austria.", the referent of 'The former governor of CA' is the same as the name used above: Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Although the referent is the same, these are two ways, or modes, in which the object can be presented.  The conception is the particular subjective experience and feeling that one gets when he or she thinks of the name.  For example, a big fan may get goosebumps thinking about Schwarzenegger and may get lightheaded while thinking about his big muscles.  The conception is entirely dependent upon the individual subject who is having the experience.  The referent is an object in the world.  The sense is neither entirely objective (since it is not itself the object about which we are talking) nor subjective (since the different mode of presentation is available intersubjectively--we can all read the same word that expresses the sense).

Frege's general worldview is discussed above in the section labeled 'Context'.

The referent of a name is an object.  The referent of a declarative sentence (assertion) is the state of affairs in the world that fulfills the truth conditions for that statement.  For example, the sentence "Kobe Bryant is tall." refers to the fact that Kobe is tall.  A judgment is to recognize the truth value of a sentence.  So, to judge this sentence as true is just to recognize that is is the case that Kobe is tall.  The referent of this judgment, then, is not the state of affairs in the world, but the truth of the statement.  The sentence that makes a true claim is about the truth created by the satisfaction of the truth conditions of the statement.  In other words, the sentence is about the combination of the proposition's truth conditions and the actual real-world conditions that make that proposition true.  And that's the truth.  Phew!

When words are put in quotation marks, this changes the referent of the sign.  E.g., when I say, "Kobe is tall", then 'tall' refers to a feature of Kobe.  But when a friend asks a clarifying question, "What do you mean by 'tall'?", then 'tall' is no longer referring to the feature of being tall but to that mode of presentation itself.  To put words into quotation marks is to stop talking about the object itself and instead to talk about the mode of presentation of the object.  We do the same thing by putting words into <brackets>.