Frege's "On Sense and Reference". Elaborating Gottlob Frege’s Puzzles (eBook)

Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject Philosophy - Theoretical (Realisation, Science, Logic, Language), grade: 1,0, University of Luxembourg, language: English, abstract: While talking to someone, both may be speaking of the same thing, without realizing that they are doing so. When I am talking about the Morning Star, and someone else is talking about the Evening Star, are we both talking about the same thing? Or are we talking about two different things, as we are using different names for the thing we are talking about? To start an analysis on this topic, this paper will elaborate Frege’s Puzzle’s, which he introduces at the beginning of "On sense and reference".

He talks about two puzzles, one concerning identity statements, and the other, concerning propositional attitude reports. As he himself elaborates those puzzles, he will also try to find the solution to those puzzles. To understand his solution to the Puzzles, I will elaborate his solutions, giving various definitions, which are necessary to have a great understanding of what is being argued for. While his first puzzle is especially based on proper names, his second puzzle, will concern entire declarative sentences and forms of argumentation.

After having a clear understanding of what the problem with identity is, and how Frege claims to have solved it, we will see how one could oppose to Frege’s resolution to the puzzle. Analyzing multiple reproaches, would go beyond the scope of this paper. Therefore, we will only focus on a claim stated by Glezako Stravoula, saying that Frege started his argumentation wrong, by supposing that a=a can be known a priori.