Abstract
In the introductory chapter it was suggested that the intension/extension distinction (or some comparable distinction) is fundamental to an intensional logic.
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Notes
- 1.
In fact, Frege’s symbol for identity of content was intended to show how the same content might be determined in different ways: a view that, as will be seen, already mirrored his mature understanding of identity.
- 2.
The compositionality thesis appears to commit Frege to a claim about Sinne which is stronger than the comparable claim about Bedeutungen. Specifically, attempting to exchange component expressions that have different Sinne will apparently always change the Sinn of the whole sentence. But this is not always true in the case of Bedeutungen. For instance, in the sentence ‘Smith is tall’, ‘Smith’ might be exchanged for ‘Jones’, provided that Jones is tall, without altering the Bedeutung of the whole sentence. Yet ‘Smith’ and ‘Jones’ may each have a distinct Bedeutung.
- 3.
This principle could be extended to allow for existential generalisations on the indirect bedeutungen of predicates and sentences. Typically, this would be achieved by means of a second-order logic.
- 4.
In fact, the criterion as it stands will conflict with what Frege has to say elsewhere with regard to the Sinne of sentences such as ‘2 + 2 = 4’ and ‘22 = 4’. For instance, in Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (The Basic Laws of Arithmetic) (1964), where Frege gave his mature exposition of his logic proper, he gives ‘2 + 2 = 4’ and ‘22 = 4’ as examples of two expressions having the same Bedeutung, but differing with regard to the Gedanke that each expresses (Frege 1964, p. 35).
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Parsons, D. (2016). Frege’s Theory of Sinn and Bedeutung . In: Theories of Intensionality . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2484-9_2
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