Do Names Have Sense and a Reference - Assignment Example

Do Names have а Sense and а Rеfеrеnсе? What Difficulties are Faced by the View that they do? Discuss with Reference to Frege. Name: Institution: Date: Do Names have а Sense and а Rеfеrеnсе? What Difficulties are faced by the View that they do? Discuss with Reference to Frege Introduction Issues of names appear to be occupying a center stage in the contemporary debates of analytical philosophy. Gottlob Frege is considered as an intellectual giant in philosophy of language. This is largely because he raised the issue of meaning through the formulation of the theory of meaning which forms an essential part of natural language.1 Frege emphasizes the fact that meaning of any sentence is dependent on the meanings of the constituent parts.2 The main objective of this paper is to assess the senses and references in names. In addition, the paper will also discuss the difficulties faced by the contention that names possess senses and references in relation to the views of Frege. Do names have both a sense and reference? While accepting the Naïve Theory in his initial works, Frege formulated a radical theory of Sinn and Bedeutung which when translated in English connotes Sense and Reference, respectively.3 The understanding of whether names possess reference and senses is understandable through the illustration of sentences that contain definite descriptions. For instance, the man who invented bifocals was also the first Postmaster General of the United States.4 These are definite descriptions, which refer to the same object, Benjamin Franklin. This is despite the fact that these descriptions seem to be presenting and determining the given object in different ways. This is especially because one of the descriptions presents him as an inventor, whereas the other part of the description presents the individual as a Postmaster General. According to Frege, this is enough evidence that these definite descriptions were different in terms of sense. A sense, in the view of Frege is the mode through which an object is presented and the way of thinking of an object. A sense can therefore present or determine an object. In the above example of Benjamin Franklin for instance, each of the definite descriptions is an expression of a sense and each refers to the object that its sense represents.5 Kripke agrees with the view of Frege, which claims that proper names also express sense and each of the names refers to the object that the sense represents. The sense of a proper name is therefore synonymous to a definite description.6 The senses of a proper name such as ‘Socrates’ can be expressed by the definite description ‘the philosophical teacher of Plato.’ In the process of understanding the notion of self and references, Frege provided an extension of the sense and reference to all expressions7. A predicate in the view of Frege is an expression of a sense that presents a set of objects. This means that the predicate is a characteristic function of a set of objects. These objects are therefore references to the predicate. The truth-value of any sentence can therefore be arrived at by the references of its parts. For example, “Albert Russell is human” can be said to be true because the referent of the name is part of the referent of the predicate. The predicate ‘…is human’ can be related to a set of objects, which is a set of humans. This according to Frege means that the reference of any sentence is its truth-value.8 The question of whether name has a sense and a reference is understandable from the relationship that exists between the mind and the external world. Searle provides this understanding through his works on the intentionality of perception. Perception in the view of Searle is an intentional and causal transaction that exists between the mind and the world.9 This is largely understood with the flow of information from the mind to the world and from the world to the mind. The main concern of intentionality is to understand the elements that make up the truth conditions of sentences of the form ‘A sees B’ where A is the perceiver and B is the object.10 Searle introduces the problem of intentionality and perception using the example “when I see a car, or any object, I have some sort of visual experience.” While perceiving the car visually, one does not see the visual experience but sees the car. However, in seeing the car, the individual has a visual experience and this is the visual experience, which is an experience of a car. From this example, it is important to note that Searle asserts that the visual experience is not a visual object and therefore it does not make sense when individuals assert to the visual experience the visual properties of the object about which the visual experience is of.11 Searle’s assertions are a negation of Frege’s claim that names to possess a sense and a reference. This is especially when he claims that it is important for individuals to distinguish between experience and perception considering that the notion of perception entails the notion of succeeding in a manner that the notion of experience does not.12 While supporting his suppositions of the presence of reference and senses in proper names, Frege argues that his theory allows names to express senses that do not present any object.13 For example, the name Pegasus is an expression of a sense that might be used in the description of a winged horse. However, this sense does not present an object and therefore such a name fails to provide a reference.14 However, the name is a representation of a thought that can be understood as useful and meaningful in everyday activities. This would mean that the sentence ‘Pegasus exists’ cannot be said to be in possession of a truth-value since it does not have a predicate. Consequently, Frege argues that when a name appears in an existential manner, it refers to its usual sense.15 This would mean that the statement Pegasus exists might be said to be synonymous to the sense expressed by ‘Pegasus’ which presents an object.’ Difficulties faced by the view that names have a sense and a reference For an individual to be able to substantiate the fact that names possess a sense and a reference, it would be important for such an individual to understand the sense of the expression that is determined by the object to which the said sense corresponds.16 This form of understanding is not only directed to the specific object and its meaning but also to the mode of presentation. It is therefore important for the theory of sense as presented by Frege to provide an understanding of the content present in the sentence as this constitutes the subject matter of the content. This means that for a proper name to be said to be in possession of a sense and a reference, it must fix the content by of the name by explaining how the intentional utterances of the name can be understood. This means that there is need for a relationship between the perceived word and its meaning in reality.17 In the sentence, ‘Atep Mountain is over 5,000 meters high’, which contains singular expressions of proper names are understandable by comprehending the content of the sentence. The truth-value of the name ‘Atep’ can be substantiated if and only if the mountain is more than 5,000 meters high. There has to be some form of justification of the correspondence the singular expression in the proper name and the justification that is attached to the said name.18 This means that the sense attached to two proper names have to be the same. If this is not the case then the meaning of expression used to describe the mountain will be affected and this will also affect the truth-value and this is against the objective of the truth-value of a proper name. It is important to note that Frege’s theory of senses fails to understand the fact that not everybody can think of a sentence containing any particular expression in the same way.19 The thought that a particular sense must be attached to a proper name would be an improper way of generalizing considering that not everybody is in a position to determine the height of a mountain as more than 5,000 meters high by themselves. There are individuals that may only believe in the testimony of other people regarding the same thing.20 Such beliefs may lead to divergent views and this may result in making senses and references out of some unsubstantiated truth. Inasmuch as it may be easy to give meaning to the assertions of other people concerning a reality the truth value of such a statement can be questioned on the basis of the process used in attaining the sense and reference.21 There is a possibility for an individual to argue that the theory of sense and reference, as explained by Frege, arrives at a conclusion that there is a definite way that can be applied for every name and this bears some expression in the natural language. However, the challenge is that it is not possible for one to construct out of such material some formula that while ensure that the sense and references of any name is true in every instance. This as Kripke argues is understandable if the said individuals that seek this form of definition argue from a causal theory of reference.22 However, if one should embrace the causal theory of reference then it means that the said individual will be refuting the descriptive approach as propounded by Frege regarding the behavior of proper names in relation to sense and reference.23 In matters related to dealing with atomic sentences, and the assertion that the object of an individual’s perception is often associated to some name providing earlier being its meaning, Frege’s notion that names do have a sense and a reference appears safe and justified. However, the process of dealing with pseudo thoughts as expressed by some pseudo contentions may contains some mock names.24 It is not possible for human thoughts to express the existence of a particular object whose subject reflects nonexistence of that object such that such a thought could not have in expressed in any way.25 Conclusion Frege’s attempts to present a model through which references to an expression may be fitted for direct application to a formal language such as arithmetic. The theory of references has its foundation on the notion of proper names, which has a direct impact on the theory of sense. Proper names according Frege expresses sense which is also a definite description that presents an object that can be said to be a the referent of a name. However, Frege’s theory of senses and references fails to understand the fact that not everybody can think of a sentence containing any particular expression in the same way. Bibliography Bach, K, ‘What’s in a Name?’ in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol 59, no 4, 1981, p. 372. Evans, G, ‘The Causal Theory of Names’ in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp vol 47, 1973, 1973, pp. 187-208. 4. Kripke, S, ‘A puzzle about belief’, in A Margalit (ed.), Meaning and Use, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1979, pp. 239-88 Kripke, S. Frege’s Theory of Sense and Reference: some Exergetical Notes1.THEORIA, 2008, 74, 190- 193 Lycan, W G, Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction, Routledge, London, chs. 3 and 4, 2000. McCulloch, G, The Game of the Name, Clarendon Press, Oxford, chs 4 and 8, 1989. Putnam, H, ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”’, Mind, Language and Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975, pp. 218-221. Sainsbury, M, ‘Philosophical logic’ in Philosophy: A guide through the subject, ed. A. C. Grayling, Oxford University Press, Oxford, especially section on names, 1959, pp. 65- 66. Searle, J, ‘Proper Names’ in Mind, vol. 67, no. 266, 1958, pp. 166-173. Searle, J, ‘Intentionality’ in The Philosophy of Language, ed. Martinich, ch. 23, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001 Read More