From The Begriffsschrift To "Über Sinn Und Bedeutung": Frege As Epistemologist And Ontologist

Abstract

Frege presents the eponymous distinction of "Über Sinn und Bedeutung" (USB) as a correction to the theory of identity he held in the Begriffsschrift. 1 His retrospective assessment has prompted different reactions from commentators. Many have simply taken him at his word. 2 Others, who have lingered over the relevant texts, have encountered a difficulty: in the Begriffsschrift Frege appears to raise the same problem 1 The translation of 'Sinn' and 'Bedeutung' raises a number of philosophical and stylistic complications. To avoid them I shall adopt the expedient of incorporating Frege's terms untranslated and unitalicized into the vocabulary of this paper. I extend that practice to quotations from translations of Frege's works written in 1891 (the year in which he explicitly formulates the Sinn-Bedeutung distinction) and after, but not to those from his earlier writings. A similar approach has been taken by other writers (Taschek (1992) and Beaney (1997)), who interestingly limit it to 'Bedeutung'. 2 Dummett ((1981a) 279, 544) is the most significant representative of this group of interpreters.