On Reference

Abstract

The problem of reference, and that of meaning, first come into clear relief and exhibit their problematic character, only when one has already drawn an initial distinction between meaning and reference. If one fails to make this distinction and thereby implicitly identifies the two, both the problems get watered down to how words or expressions could after all stand for something, — a question to which conventionalism provides a fairly convincing answer. The problem however is much deeper, and for an appreciation of it the Frege-Husserlian distinction between meaning and reference is an indispensable starting point.

Published in Delius and Patzig (ed.), Argumentationen, Festschrift für Josef König, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964, pp. 159–169.