Gottlob Frege: Sense and Reference Explained

One of Frege's greatest contributions to the philosophy of language is his distinction between sense and reference. His claim is that the meaning of words comes in two distinct layers, and that layers each have a specific role in our knowledge about the world. In this video I explain this distinction and its importance by first discussing Frege's older theory and why his dissatisfaction with it lead him to distinguish sense and reference. From this it becomes clearer why he drew the surprising consequences that he did regarding the nature of truth.

This video is an introduction to a reasonably advanced, but highly interesting topic. It should be helpful for both those that find philosophy interesting and philosophy students alike. It will also help make sense of some of the debates in analytic philosophy, and provides a counterpoint to Russell's theory of descriptions which is covered in another video.

#Frege #Sense #Reference

----------Video Contents----------

00:00 - Introduction
00:51 - A Theory of Content
02:46 - Problems with Content
04:56 - A Failed Solution
05:27 - Sense and Reference
12:14 - A Radical Consequence
13:23 - Ending

----------Channel Details----------

This channel features videos about big ideas in philosophy, explained as simply as I can. The focus is on late 19th and early 20th century thought, with a particular emphasis on the British Idealists (e.g. F. H. Bradley, J. M. E. McTaggart) and early analytic philosophers (Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Frank Ramsey). Welcome to the channel!

----------My Details----------

I am a PhD student and Gates Scholar at Cambridge near the end of a thesis on Frege's views on Truth. I have lectured at Cambridge on Frank Ramsey and Bertrand Russell, regularly taught undergraduate logic classes, and have also supervised students in metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, epistemology, and early analytic philosophy. But I have a keen interest in the British Idealists that I hope to pursue by making videos about what I'm reading, so much of the content of this channel will be an outlet for that interest.

----------References----------

Frege, G. (1972). Conceptual Notation and Related Articles. (T. W. Bynum, Ed. & Trans.). Oxford, UK: Oxford Clarendon Press.

Frege, G. (1979). Posthumous Writings. (H. Hermes, F. Kambartel, & F. Kaulbach, Eds., P. Long & R. White, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

Frege, G. (1984). Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy. (B. McGuinness, Ed., M. Black, V. H. Dudman, P. Geach, H. Kaal, E. H. W. Kluge, B. McGuinness, & R. H. Stoothoff, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

[cpolychreona]

One of the very few YouTube philosophy videos that a reasonably intelligent non-philosopher can understand and follow. Thanks!
Analytical philosophy, where all you have to do is define your terms, makes this feasible (though not necessarily easy). I have long ago given up on the word salads expounding on the "continental" tradition (the likes of Kant, Hegel or, my favorite, Heidegger), where the question "what did you mean by this word you just used" is taken as an insult.
This said, I think that much of the problem that Frege was addressing stems from a peculiarity of European languages, where the verb "to be" (être, sein, essere in modern languages, or "sum", and "ειμί" in Latin and classical Greek) is indiscriminately used to mean two entirely different things. It either identifies an object (this "is" my house), or merely assigns it a property (my house "is" small), two entirely different senses. In Chinese, the word/symbol 是 (shi), the closest translation of the English word "is", only conveys identity--as in "this is my house" (这是我的房子)。 There is only one house that is mine. and this is it. 是 is not used to merely assign a property, as in "my house is small"（我的房子很小）。There are myriads of houses that are small. Interestingly, Spanish does attempt to make the distinction (only partially) by using two verbs, "ser" and "estar", either of which can only be translated in English as "to be"--the only European language I am aware of that tries to make the distinction.

[KenCAgron]

Thank you for a high quality presentation on Frege's
sense/reference distinction and theory----and its implications. And also some closely related issues.

[DocBolus]

Been such a long time since I thought about Frege. Just came looking for some samples about truth and ended up watching the whole series. I have been trying to explain to people for years how truth does not work the way they think it should. Definitely changes how the world looks when you think of truth as a value judgement.

[RalphBrooker-gniv]

The early remarks of your talk helped me understand Gareth Evans’ discussion of the notational convention he adopts discussing Frege’s concept/object distinction in Varieties of Reference. This may seem a tiny take-home point but for all its brilliance, and not having ever read Frege, I feel Evans’ prose is a bit obscure. I hope that’s fair.

[nabereon]

Wow! Superb explanation, made everything crystal clear for me. Subscribed!

[aldensmith]

As usual, you take complex ideas and explain them well - looking forward to more of these great videos.

[hollypusheen]

Can't concentrate because the lampshade looks animated

[JohnSmith-rzfh]

Very clear and concise video, you’ve just earned yourself a subscriber. With that said, I have a few thoughts on Frege’s ‘sense’ that I wished to share along with a few questions. You described his sense as “the way in which we think about the object when we understand the name” and also as “the way in which the object that it refers to is presented to us”. Speaking to the latter, Frege himself describes ‘sense’ in this manner, though I don’t find it to be coherent as Frege is adamant on separating the syntax or ‘sign’ of a sentence from the ‘sense’ of a sentence, describing sense as a property of the syntax itself. So, what exactly is meant by Frege when he speaks of ‘mode of presentation’?

Your explanation of that was the initial statement I quoted from you, though I must say that this explanation runs contrary to what Frege himself said. ‘The way in which we think about the object when we understand the name’ is, according to Frege, a concept. Frege is insistent on the fact that what he refers to as ‘sense’ is separate from ‘concept’, I quote:

“The conception is subjective: One man's conception is not that of another. There result, as a of course, a variety of differences in the conceptions associated with same sense. A painter, a horseman, and a zoologist will probably connect different conceptions with the name "Bucephalus." This constitutes an essential distinction between the conception and the sense, which may be the common property of many and therefore not a part or a mode of the individual mind.”

So it seems that it cannot be the case that Frege’s ‘sense’ refers to “the way in which we think about the object when we understand the name”. It seems that ‘sense’ is something extremely vague and nearly indescribable, I am bordering on the thought that it’s an incoherent concept, let me know your thoughts.

[tomkarl]

Thank you for the great presentation! If the function or concept can be the reference of an incomplete expression, it seems pretty plausible to regard truth values as mathematical objects to be referred to by a sentence. After all, the sentence itself is a kind of complete expression.

[donaldwhittaker]

Well done. The Vienna circle and their offshoots did a great service to philosophy -- they got rid of metaphysics and none too soon !

[dee-vzpe]

you explained this very well, i was having a hard time understanding some things but you solved all my questions!

[stunnaraymi]

This is great! I feel I understand it better now than I did 2years ago. Thanks!

[BorisGrozdanoff]

Hey, very good exposition, well done.

[gavinthompson]

A good friend of mine was really into Frege. He extolled Frege over against Derrida. I guess I'm hopeless, because I can't see how the binary between Sense and Reference doesn't also breakdown at some point.

[ataraxia]

What is the significant difference between sense and conceptions? The way I understood it in his text, conceptions were subjective. Please enlighten me. Thank you!

[scartinojoseph]

thank you for the video, very clear. but i do have a comment. in you 2 videos with professor potter, especialy in the first one on frege, i emerged that frege was wholly antipsyhologistic. however here in this video, the notion of sense, as i understand it, seems to be almost completely psychologistic.
so one thing i wonder is if this is a different phase of freges thinking, ie previous to his philosophy of arithmetic?
anyway, thanks again, and please know i am not a philosopher.

[chiyanlau]

Thanks for your valuable explanation in the video. For further discussion, may I know how to distinguish the following similar pair terms?

Referent of a name vs denotation of a name

The confusion of these terms arose when I read the [intro] from Alonzo Church.

Also, can I understand that the sense of a name as its intension of the expression of that name and the referent of a name as its extension?

As I read the book [intro] from Rudolf Carnap, he did not mention sense and the referent but rather divided into three categories which are, expression, intension, and extension. It seems these ideas are closely related to sense and referent but somehow no further discussion on their conceptual distinctions.

Many thanks again and I hope these can be explicated clearly.

[richardrumana]

If "The False" is an object of reference, what "object" is it referring to? The "absent" object? The "empty" object? A mysterious terms?

[andrewjacks]

I really wish this video existed when I was in a semantics class. Great stuff! Just subbed, I hope your channel takes off!

[bigdaddy-ku]

very clearly articulated. thanks mate!