Gottlob Frege - On Sense and Reference

I am writing a book! If you want to know when it is ready (and maybe win a free copy), submit your email on my website: www.jeffreykap...
I won’t spam you or share your email address with anyone.
The compositionality of language: • The Compositionality o...
This is a video lecture about Frege's groundbreaking 1892 paper 'On Sense and Reference', which is sometimes translated from the original German as 'On Meaning and Nominatum' though those are silly and obscure terms, so I don't use them. This is the second lecture in a philosophy of language course. This lecture covers the sense (mode of presentation) and reference (object referred to) of names, but also definite descriptions, and the fact that the sense of a full sentence is the proposition or thought expressed and the reference of a full sentence is the truth value of that sentence.

[@jakobhedin1302]

As a Latin teacher and linguist, this video hyped me up so much when I saw it. More philosophy of language!

[@skladzasnimki6th818]

The video is a Latin teacher and linguist?

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@MoSec9]

@@skladzasnimki6th818He didn’t say he’s an English teacher 😅

[@skladzasnimki6th818]

@@MoSec9 🙂

[@kentuckyburbon1777]

“Latin teacher” your my hero

[@danmaier2824]

I just plain love the way you present anything. Mind-blowing topics that are explained in a way that isn't dumbed down but is easily understandable.

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda.

[@8685mike]

He really gets to the 'sense' of a subject!

[@rogercarl3969]

I have a semantics class starting tomorrow and came to this because my instructor did not do a very good job of explaining Frege in his video. Now it makes sense to me.

[@DrGBhas]

Exactly what the world needs. A deeper exploration of Sense and Reference . As I see it ; in Science, Medicine and Society, there is much to be understood in terms of words, ideas, meanings and the intersections of conflict in the public realm of thought.

[@vhawk1951kl]

" What the *world* needs.... bla bla bla..." Whose *world*? "Owing to the loss of the capacity to ponder and reflect,whenever the contemporary average man hears or employs in conversation any word with which he is familiar only by its consonance, he does not pause to think, nor does there even arise in him any question as to what exactly is meant by this word, he having already decided,once and for all, both that he knows it and that others know it too. A question, perhaps, does sometimes arise in him when he hears an entirely unfamiliar word the first time; but in this case he is content merely to substitute for the unfamiliar word another suitable word of Familiar consonance and then to imagine that he has understood it. To bring home what has just been said, an excellent example is provided by the word so often used by every contemporary man-”*world*.” If people knew how to grasp for themselves what passes in their thoughts when they hear or use the word”*world*,” then most of them would have to admit-if of course they intended to be sincere-that the word carries no exact notion whatever for them. Catching by ear imply the accustomed consonance, the meaning of which they assume that they know, it is as if they say to themselves “Ah, *world*, I know what this is,” and serenely goon thinking. Should one deliberately arrest their attention on this word and know how to probe them to find just what they understand by it, they will at first be plainly as is said“embarrassed,” but quickly pulling themselves together, that is to say, quickly deceiving themselves, and recalling the first definition of the word that comes to mind, they will then offer it as their own, although, in fact, they had not thought of it before. If one had the requisite power and could compel a group of contemporary people, even from among those who have received so to say “a good education,” to state exactly how they each understand the word *“world,”* *they would all so “beat about the bush” that involuntarily one would recall even castor oil with a certain tenderness."

[@australopithecus_lucis]

You can't imagine how happy I was when I saw the notification! Frege is among my favorite thinkers (alongside Wittgenstein, Spinoza and Chomsky), and I'm glad one of the best teachers on KZbin is covering him!

[@PhilipOlesen]

I'm not even a Frege fan, but getting notified that there's an obviously interesting as fuck video is a rare special occasion.

[@OriginalGansta88]

My favorite thinker is CardiB....i hope he does a video on her soon....

[@PhilipOlesen]

@@OriginalGansta88 Cardius Baximus was truly one of the thinkers of history ever.

[@jackdarby2168]

First we need to distinguish what we are studying form what linguistics do. Why do we need to distinguish what we do from what linguistics do? So that we can know the way we study things from the way linguistics study what they study so that we can study our subject first and take give to all other subjects a subordinate role, giving to whatever number of studies that fall under other subjects merley the role of perfecting the knowledge of our subject. Form the name itself it is clear that linguistics study language and language is signs. Natural signs signify from nature, as rain is signified by dark clouds or fire by smoke. Language is sound signifies from institution( vocalised is called "talking" but where drawn "writing"). The signifies produce concepts in our mind and these concepts refer to things in the world or beongs in the world. Similar signs can produce different concepts( this is called equivocation), as the written sign, "bat" refers to a baseball bat, or a bat( the animal), or "bank" refers to a bank the institution or a bank of a river. Linguistics studies the different ways in which words are used but philosophy studies both the ways in words, the concepts produced in the mind by the words and the things in the world which these concepts refer to. So after what linguistics study and what philosophers study is understood we can begin to understand what Frege is talking about. "Sense" refers to the subject that is linguistic i.e. the meaning but it is "reference" that refers to the thing of that all people experience. The same dots of light in the night sky has received different names over time in India compared to China( Indian Astrology and Chinese Astrology; and these are not the same as the names they recieved in the Europe) and clearly the sense of these names are not the same. Perhaps we need to distinguish a thinker from a philosophy; a thinker includes everyone and some thinkers simply are more notable than others but a philosopher is someone who almost in all cases seem to be dependent on a school of philosophy or another and these shools all have a founder( as Kant of German Idealism, Descartes of Rationalism, Locke of Empiricism, Frege, Wittenstein, etc. of Linguistic schools of philosophy, etc.)

[@jackdarby2168]

There are beings that exist in the mind and beings that exists outside the mind. Latter is called real beings and the fomrer is called being of reaosn. Dragon is a being of reason and not a real being. But being of reaosn is not always purely imaginary beings, nouns and verbs are beings of reason too but no one will claim that they don't exist( but imaginary beings of reason do not exist).

[@johnrogerson9834]

Please don't stop making these videos. I am enchanted by them.

[@cleganebowldog6626]

These videos are really fantastic, they are making topics that I find difficult to organize in my head crisp and clear. Thanks!

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@dominiks5068]

By now I've read hundreds of philosophy papers, but On Sense and Reference is still my absolute favourite. To write something like that in the 19th century is just unbelievably brillant

[@alfredttarski4521]

May I suggest you add _Frege plagiarized the Stoics_ by Susanne Bobzien to those philosophy papers you've read? It's well worth a read.

[@dominiks5068]

@@alfredttarski4521 I might! thanks

[@bluesque9687]

Why not in 19th century? If you feel so then do you wonder you could be a bit like a frog in 21st century well?

[@australopithecus_lucis]

@@bluesque9687 what?

[@Sandro987456321]

I really dont think so... he just used his brain, just as a human can today, or three thousand years ago... Not so impressive, really.

[@richardwhitehouse8762]

There are times when the internal logic of KZbin throws up something seemingly at random and which proves to be marvelous at the same time. I woke up early this morning because I am attending an introduction to a Counselling Skills course, today, that starts in a couple of weeks. And one of the things I'm realising about becoming a counsellor is that it's the ability to analyse what someone is talking about, as they are saying it, in order to identify clues about their meaning (for the client) which can then be explored further. I had never heard of Frege or this theory but I'm glad I have and I'm very glad I found your brilliant explanation of it. Thank you.

[@ThePicklish]

Just throwing in a comment for the algoritmo - excellent teaching, the kind of lecturer I wished I'd had

[@makishima807]

The best video I have watched on KZbin about "On Sense and Reference" and I have watched a lot of videos about it.Thank you so much, I'm so grateful.

[@erikbjorke5851]

It is much better than listening to A J Ayer mumble about it.

[@vincelovecchio2600]

You’re absolutely brilliant. You’re presentations and explanation had me gripped to the screen for every second of the clip. Thank you!

[@brendanward2991]

As Anthony Flew expressed it, The Morning Star and The Evening Star have the same denotation (Venus) but different connotations. Another great lecture from a great teacher!

[@davidsabo405]

Hesperus is Phosphorus

[@quill444]

_"The Sun is but a Morning Star."_ 🌞 - Henry David Thoreau -

[@haridathcu9999]

"Scariness" in "this tiger is scary" signifies a being that exists in the mind only. Likewise "dragon", "flying whales", etc. are beings that exist only when in our mind. This is a being of mind. But a dog is being the existence of which is not dependent on our mind. This is a real being. Given that the "connotation" of a word is sometimes said to have a "pejorative signification" and since no one is yet to speak of a "pejorative denotation", denotation seems to signify only real being but connotation both real and being if mind. The conotations for a word differs from a denotation in it includes the real being as the beings of reason signified by the word.

[@hyperduality2838]

"Desire is the ultimate expression of freewill" -- Lucifer Morningstar. Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@laurettecarolyne8599]

And different connotations imply different true values like Shawn Carter (the private guy) dresses unformal, but JAY Z (the ICON) dresses fancy.

[@jazminkathrin]

I think I have learned more from these videos than all my university courses! Please never stop teaching us

[@waterguyroks]

Interesting. I've been doing some reading on theories of language developed by neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists. Even as someone with training in that field, I find it frustrating that scientists seem to completely disregard prior theoretical frameworks developed by people outside their field, potentially ignoring valuable insight and risking "re-inventing the wheel." Most recently I've been reading Michael Tomasello's theory of language and trying to reconcile it with the traditional structuralist and post-structuralist semiotic theories more commonly studied in the liberal arts without much success. But having seen this video I actually think that Frege's framework might be the most compatible with the ideas presented by Tomasello. In a nutshell, Tomasello's main point is that language develops as a tool for humans to draw attention to certain features of external objects to others, and not as direct representations of those objects themselves. In "The Human Adaptation for Culture" (1999), Tomasello writes that "linguistic symbols do not represent the world directly, in the manner of perceptual or sensory-motor representations, but rather they are used by people to induce others to construe certain perceptual/conceptual situations- to attend to them-in one way rather than in another [...] linguistic symbols are perspectival, i.e. used to focus the attention of others on specific aspects of situations as opposed to other aspects." I would see the "perspectival" aspect of language under Tomasello as analogous to Frege's notion of "sense" as "mode of presentation" here. I haven't thought through to what extent Tomasello's formulation is theoretically robust but it's interesting to see that for both theorists the primary function of a word is not to refer to an object but rather in their presentational value. This is suggested to me in Frege by the fact that while multiple words might have the same referent, their cognitive value and therefore their identity is ultimately defined by their sense, as that is what makes a given word unique. One immediate difference between the two is that Frege disregards the internal cognitive processes generated when thinking of a word in favor of a common meaning, while in Tomasello it is those exact cognitive processes that one is trying to induce through language. If, as you say, internal cognitive processes are impossible to transmit then that situates Tomasello back in a slippery Derridean "the linguistic symbol evades capture" space, albeit for slightly different reasons. Either way, very interesting video. Will have to do some more reading on Frege. I would love for there to be a more concerted effort between the sciences and the humanities to merge theoretical frameworks, I think both fields are lacking in what the other provides (empirical evidence in the humanities, theoretical frameworks in the sciences).

[@thelawenforcementproject2705]

kinda like "the word is not the thing" and "the map is not the territory" ideas of General Semantics

[@Pranav_Bhamidipati]

​@Prodigious147Science used to be called "natural philosophy" once upon a time. It seems like people had good reason to call it that and it's quite unfortunate that the term fell out of use.

[@elis9851]

Seems to me that people are missing the point of reference to begin with. To reference an object and assign it the letters "Jay" would mean only that specific object, meaning Jay without his nose is something different. In reality though only so much can be translated and most things differ on one occasion to the next. This results in core attributes that are needed for Jay to be identified as "Jay". In turn we can discover "Jay-Z" (which in our representation had different core attributes) is the same object as "Jay" and in doing so we create a new reference attribute for both words that is two way (meaning they reference each other without other attributes needed for confirmation). We learned something linguistical because "Jay-Z" and "Jay" now reference another set of attributes than before. There is one problem with this example though as it would never happen like that in reality -> in the video we saw that person reference two different objects. All objects are made up of attributes (you can choose your level of division for where one attribute ends and another begins, but that I would argue is somthing completly different) which determines what object you are referencing. In this particular instance we had two completly (relativity) different objects that ended up referencing each other. To be even more clear and rightfully present our brain the word for "Jay" is an attribute too and the object is just an illusion. Complicating things is normal for humans and therefore making up words like sense to define principles around our language would not be out of the ordinary. The question is what does it escape? I would think this perspective can be used to determine some things like the morning and evening sun with more clarity. Though mode of representation just adds another infinity of representations and there if there is one thing I get hurt thinking about it is infinity. So for me that is not a healthy mindset.

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@isaacm4159]

​@@elis9851You should instead celebrate the infinite diversity of the senses. People are only afraid of what they don't understand, but having a complete final answer to everything would be miserable. It's like sacrificing freedom for the sake of comfortable structure.

[@jacquiecotillard9699]

I remember reading Wittengenstein mention Frege in Tractus when I was hired to read it cold as an audiobook. I knew nothing of either man’s work or anything about linguistics at the time. It was a difficult gig, that one. Thanks for your video!

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@jacquiecotillard9699]

@@hyperduality2838what of “place” vs “no place”

[@cow429]

Man if someone had started my logic class with meaning of propositions from Stuart to Frege, it would have saved a whole shitload of confusion that exists to date. Well done Kaplan, you've earned a subscription.

[@faust5742]

Thank you Prof Kaplan for your informative, yet digestible, breakdowns. You are doing great work in making philosophy easily accessible to us. Keep up the good work! It may be unlikely that you reach this comment, but I'm wondering if you're planning on doing a follow up video covering Kripke's "Naming and Necessity"? I'm sure you're aware of this paper and its focus on 'causal reference' which actually separates the mind from the equation entirely. I think it'd be a good compliment to this latest episode, with the side benefit of introducing a famous contemporary philosopher to your viewership.

[@luisvasquez5015]

Amazing work. Frege is one of my favourite Logicians and I always have a hard time explaining his work to people

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@biagio_montelisciani]

I’m worried on how much I missed this channel. happy to see an upload

[@l.w.paradis2108]

Thrilled this was recommended to me. I was just reading Colin McGinn's book, _Philosophy of Language: The Classics Explained;_ the chapter on Tarski, in fact. I mean, just today. I'm excited to follow this channel. (Your CV is off the charts great, btw.)

[@jgilbert91834]

Great breakdown of a complicated subject! I was waiting to hear about the king of France's beard, but there's a reason it takes a whole semester to really study Frege. Impressed with how much you covered in such a short amount of time.

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@lyndonsamson]

Very interesting. Made me think of C programming with pointers 😂

[@stephenmugisha5253]

😂😂😂

[@tharangamadhusankha]

Yes sir and I was thinking java

[@ithaca2076]

@@tharangamadhusankhadont ever think of that again

[@whophd]

Yep me too

[@whophd]

But then, I thought it was supposed to? Predicate logic was a core subject in the second semester of our computing science degree.

[@kathleentrinity7367]

This is a fantastically presented lesson, and condensed but not watered down.

[@Deepnil]

00:06 The paper 'Uber Zin un on sense and reference' by Dolab Fraga is important in the philosophy of language. 05:03 Sentence two can be informative and provide empirical information. 09:36 Fraga introduces an additional layer of meaning called the sense of a name 14:04 Different names can refer to the same point but have different modes of presentation. 18:28 Meaningful names can have a sense but not necessarily a reference 22:29 Fraga discusses the relationship between sense, reference, and compositionality in language. 26:23 The sense of a sentence is the thought expressed, while the reference is the truth value. 30:19 The truth value of a declarative sentence is its reference. thanks prof btw can i get the book by prof Jeffery kaplan/

[@rgarlinyc]

Perfectly explained and exposited Prof. K! As usual, I must add. Thank you.

[@gillesmeura3416]

I'm 61; I have known about Ferdinand de Saussure's theory, and about Alfred Korzibsky's, since my teenage years. I can't believe I have never heard of Frege. Thank you !!! 😊

[@JP092130]

Be gentle upon yourself,😊 mortal. Among the stars is space so inconceivable and vast that we ... it, to bring it into mind.

[@GlenSify]

I don't know who you are but I could listen to you talk all day. Thanks for a very interesting video.

[@daithi1966]

I'm only 15 minutes into this lecture, and I'm already a bit more knowledgeable. I often learn more from professor Kaplan's lectures in 30 minutes than I learn from spending 10 hours reading a book (which I still enjoy as well).

[@sebastiangjoni3881]

always lovely seeing new videos of you. i really appreciate these lectures

[@haydensmith6743]

I had his dad for Frege at UCLA in the nineties. A beautiful man and a great teacher.

[@aakritimehndiratta3545]

i almost never comment on a video but this is simply too engaging and very well explained. i hope you cover each and every topic there is

[@vafkamat]

Your videos on this topic are the best I have run into.

[@femenscellner8778]

Thank you so much for your explanations on these fascinating topics. I appreciate them immensely.

[@justenbarks9090]

You can't imagine how excited I was to get thus notification! I've been jonesing for a Prof. Kaplan video, chasing the dragon around YT for a fix for the last 2 months.

[@luisfvillamizar8221]

I would like to thankyou (and hope on behalf of many) for these lectures. I had to watch this one carefully, going back and forward but at the end I got it. I hope you can keep on sharing.

[@alisonurfe1119]

omg!! you've had only like 20k subscribers when I discovered your channel years ago. I feel kinda proud idk why. You finally have the attention you deserve!

[@mikahundin]

Jeffrey Kaplan is discussing Gottlob Frege's paper "On Sense and Reference," which was published in 1892. Kaplan explains that the paper is very complicated but he will attempt to explain it. Kaplan begins by discussing the puzzle that led Frege to his theory of sense and reference. He uses an example of a woman named Ellen who is sitting on a train next to a man. The man tells her that he is on his way to a performance in Brooklyn, and Ellen realizes that the man is Jay-Z, a famous rapper. Kaplan notes that Ellen already knew the meaning of the name Jay-Z, so she did not learn anything linguistic. Instead, she learned an empirical fact about the world, namely that the man sitting next to her is Jay-Z. Kaplan then explains Frege's theory of sense and reference. He notes that Frege realized that linguistic terms, such as words, have two levels of meaning. They have a sense, which is the way that the referent is presented or described, and a reference, which is the actual object or thing that the term refers to. Kaplan illustrates this theory with an example of two sentences: "Shawn Carter is Shawn Carter" and "Shawn Carter is Jay-Z." Shawn Carter is the real name of Jay-Z. Kaplan notes that the first sentence is uninformative, because it simply states that an object is identical to itself. However, the second sentence can be informative, because it provides a new description or way of thinking about the same object. This is true even though the reference of both sentences is the same, namely the person Shawn Carter/Jay-Z. Kaplan then discusses the implications of Frege's theory for the philosophy of language. He notes that it provides a way to explain how we can understand and use language, even though the meanings of words are not fixed or objective. Instead, the meanings of words are dependent on the way that they are used and the context in which they are used. Kaplan concludes by noting that Frege's theory of sense and reference has been very influential in the philosophy of language, and it is still widely discussed and debated today.

[@mp630720]

Kudos to this comment 👏

[@Dizma_Music]

And of course, Beyoncé = Beyoncé Keep it real y’all

[@evaanjos]

I'm a Cognitive Sciences student and your videos make philosophy of mind/language etc so fun. Thank you!

[@arthurwieczorek4894]

A favorite of mine is what I call Lee's Elucidation. A finite number of words must be made to represent an infinite number of things and possibilities.

[@dwokie1]

Amazingly, I am watching this video outside enjoying the morning and staring at the “evening star” at 7am … perfect!

[@khc8800]

Awesome presentation! The sense and references layered with all the reverse writing on glass dragging Shawn Carter through the paces in such drama and humor truly did it. That’s the truth value. It’s so co-referring!

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@brynbstn]

wow really dynamic presentation; and the repetition! - perfect for dummies! you know your audience! Seriously, very clear, I feel like I don't have to read it now.

[@CalebGrossLovesJackandLinda]

Dr Kaplan, Welcome back from summer vacation! This was a great video to start the new semester. Very interesting topic!

[@juanmariaprietoiborra]

Congrats on a great video! Would you consider making one on Frege's referential opacity and the apparent failure of Leibniz's salva veritate in proposition expressing someone's knowledge or belief? I think it would be an incredibly interesting follow-up to this video. If there are people out there who are familiar with/curious about these theories consider upvoting this so it gets some traction. Thanks!

[@di36ol9on3]

i could not understand what Frege what saying at all, this video saved me a lot of stress and headaches. Thank you so SO much !

[@mahoneytechnologies657]

If only English had been taught this way! I would have found the study of English much more interesting and would have studied English much more, I would have learned as I went along, and not have taken the 70 plus years to know the little that I now know. When I lived and worked in Japan I found A book that discussed The Mathematical bases of Language that I found very interesting but on that day I delayed buying it, then I never found the book again! If my teachers had explained why engineers and scientist needed to communicate clearly I would have studied much harder, I had a speech problem because an ear infection during my first two years caused a hearing problem, I lagged behind in language and this caused me much embarrassment in class, so I spent all my efforts in math and science. Teachers, good and alert teachers make a difference, the earlier the better! Parents are the first line of teaching! Teach kids to love to read! Yes there is much value in online learning with the added value of graphics and animations, but real reading requires much more concentration, and the reader is much more likely to stop and re read as required to understand something! Then taking the time to write, and re write in the reader’s own words does a lot to reinforce understanding! The concept of having students tackle a problem together, incorporating math, science, language, and any other disciplines, relevant to the problem at hand, makes for much more interest for the students and ties subjects together at the same time.

[@talastra]

Thanks for the video. I appreciate especially when you read a passage and explicate it. Always a powerful way to teach and present ideas. Leaving out the "associations" is the most convenient way to stop talking about the phenomenon in question, isn't it? It's no wonder we have to go on to implicatures to start defending the notion of "truth value" (although that goes around in circles no less). One is acculturated to a mode of presentation for the sake of coordinating behavior in the social world, not to refer to referents, establish truth value, or even make sense. I don't like the word "intention" (it's a mess), but in the sense that my verbal utterance attempts to coordinate with others, I attempt to make an utterance (not a sense, not a reference to a referent) that elicits or prompts that coordination (what could be called an "understanding" between myself and the one I am communicating with). Also, the entire "language generating function" is massively unconscious, so the processes by which we somehow account for "referents" and "modes of presentation" are fabulously murky. To me, it is rather grotesque to think to explain language by starting with the simplest case (names). Very long ago, Duns Scotus already noted that the fundamental property of anything, even nonexistent things, is "existence". Our language use ascribes "existence" as a property to whatever we are speaking of, at least for the purpose of making a referent. Hence, "God exists" is an apparently legitimate thing to say. This is like Jordan Peterson thinking he can refer to human experience by the example of lobsters, or Richard Dawkins referring to insects, or consciousness reduced to atomic particles. Also, as a related but minor thought this video prompted, one can see why Frege thinks sense is additive (i.e., that different modes of presentation "accumulate" and thus approach the same point of referent, as the triangle illustrates). And maybe it was just a quick mis-speaking, but the referent is subtractive, not additive. The sentence "Shawn Carter is rich" by no means has has a single referent, except in the mind of the person creating the example, who has decided ahead of time what the truth-value of the sentence is supposed to be. There are many Shawn Carters in the world who could meet a criterion of "rich". Equally, one could think of the line AB as existing over its full length, not just by intention in advance referring only to the center of the triangle; it is precisely by juxtaposition to the second statement about line BC that an intersection occurs, in the same way that "Jay-Z is rich" subtracts ever other rich Shawn Carter from the possible range of referents. Hence, my statement that the accumulation of referents in a sentence (even a single one) is subtractive, eliminating all the things that the utterance does not intend to refer to. The fact that Frege thinks there is no celestial object at the greatest distance from the Earth is really telling as well, since it clearly seems to imagine that "reality" has some invariant quality to it that it does not. At every single moment, there is always some object that is most distant from the Earth (whether we can identify it or not), and as both the Earth, the other object, and the entire universe moves, the object most distant will change, thus negating the truth value that a moment ago was true. (Or will Frege seriously suggest in his framework that truth value is dependent on the person making the statement or that the "actual" truth value of a statement might not be determinable? It seems pretty obvious that Frege is quite confident about the truth values of the things he decides in advance are truth values, as self-evident facts.) So there is most definitely a "referent" we could assign to "the most distance object from Earth" (based on whatever criterion we select as the basis for making that assignment). "YHWH exists" would have been a better example of something with no referent.

[@mutabazimichael8404]

That was a magnificent presentation . I first heard of Frege a few years ago while reading a history of western philosophy by Bertrand Russell where he states that in spite of Frege having written the begriffsschrift (1879) and On sense and reference(1892) in the epoch of the birth of set theory (1874) and the whole debut of the rethinking of the foundations of Mathematics, no one batted an eye on his work until Russell himself came across it in 1903 and made him popular by citation in his own work . Now Frege, as he rightfully deserve, is seen as the greatest logicians since Aristotle alongside Boole,Leibniz,Gödel . Russell's paradox of set containing themselves, also his Principia Mathematica , and Gödel's incompleteness theorems are , i think, based on some Frege,s line/method of "Logic" .

[@scrumptious9673]

Interesting. What did you think of the history of western philosophy book?

[@clarkkant5322]

Russell's paradox is a direct response to Frege's "The Foundations of Arithmetic" (Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik), which he viewed as his magnum-opus-to-be, and is what ultimately made Frege's entire foundations of mathematics fail.

[@mutabazimichael8404]

@@clarkkant5322 Oooh yeah i have seen videos about that . Apparently he even had a meltdown after he received the letter and he was about to publish the new edition of the book when he received the letter and by pure intellectual honesty decided to make it be published with an addendum mentioning Russell's observations.

[@mutabazimichael8404]

@@scrumptious9673 I know professional philosophers don't really praise it because there are some inaccuracies but on the whole I really liked it. Especially because of the purpose of the book of giving the intellectual zeitgeist that made a thinker come to consider certain proposition . Beside ,you can see how he tries to show the relevancy of philosophy and science and mathematics for each timelines 🤌🏾. Highly recommend mostly because this synthesis of how relevant is philosophy vis à vis the science of the day made me interested in reading the philosophers who influenced the applied and social sciences (Kant, Leibniz,Descartes, Nietzsche,etc) and the sciences themselves like (Freud,Darwin,Noam Chomsky,etc .) In my eyes having read it at 19 just before starting Law at university,it was mind-blowing and eye opening on how I ought to think by certain method.

[@clarkkant5322]

@@mutabazimichael8404 Well, it destroyed his life's work, to an unsalvageable extent. Neither he, nor anyone else, managed to recover the project of a logicist foundation of mathematics from that point onward. He then resigned himself to writing on philosophy of language, and spiralled into depression.

[@astroza_science]

Amazing! In the first half I though "that doesnt seem so striking" (although it was very informative to learn the puzzle and the previous ideas of language), and then I heard "but there more, so much more". Keep it up please, these are very helpful (I wont tell for what).

[@MasoudNassor]

Amazing stuff, never took Frege that seriously until this!

[@levixdl4911]

I'm in deep love with the philosophy of language in general and semantics in particular. For this reason, I wrote my MA thesis in semantics.

[@imsorryyourewelcome]

My faith in you waned for 30 seconds over the morning star. I was one sentence away from pausing the video and typing away like "Awe, no, Jeffrey, no!", but then you "-but someone realized..... and it's not even-" and I legitimately sighed in relief. 😌👍

[@beagle9662]

these videos are great! so glad to see a new upload

[@Dave-py9re]

I find this a very interesting conversation. I support bilingual education and playing around with the triangle illustration I think can be very helpful in understanding that "languages" are a sense and not a referent. Chomsky would refer to this as universal grammar I think which is a different topic, but none the less there is multiple ways to get to the same understanding. Thanks for the clear explanation of a dense topic.

[@alanfactor4882]

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

[@dwinsemius]

This perspective is useful in explaining errors in computer programming. Syntactic correctness is different than semantic correctness.

[@EugeneSeidel]

As a non-specialist, here are my thoughts. I barely knew of Frege, so I appreciate the effort to acquaint the public with his writings. The general topic area is of course one that should be of great interest to anyone using language as a principal tool in their line of work (in my case, conference interpreter and translator). Until now, I had been content with a bird's-eye view of semiotics, dipping briefly into de Saussure, Starobinski or Eco. But of course, there were other thinkers in the field besides these, and it's good to find out more about Frege, for example. This video, while again I am appreciative, seems to suffer from a number of issues. One, ironically but unavoidably, is language. It can be surprisingly difficult to translate philosophical / philological texts from German to English, one Germanic language to another. Beware of "false friends", incongruous cross-language semantics, implicit conventions of interpretation, and other pitfalls. Here, starting with the title of Frege's magnum opus, in which "Bedeutung" is translated as "Reference" instead of the obvious "Meaning". Jeffrey claims that "meaning" is a silly term (and rightly notes that an alternative translation of "Nominatum" for "Sinn" is obscure), but that critique would apply equally to Frege's original use of "Bedeutung". Do the people replacing one word for another believe they know better than Frege himself which words he should have used? Now again, as a non-specialist I am not in a position to judge, but when I try to read the original German, I am stumped at various points by what I consider unclear or ambiguous passages. Jeffrey seems awfully confident that he knows exactly what Frege is saying all the time, and perhaps justifiably so. I have an uneasy feeling about this, knowing how German philosophical writings can be labyrinths of arguments, byways, cutbacks, blind alleys that require great confidence to navigate. Hegel's "Phenomenology of Mind [/Spirit]" is an example of this, and I marvel at the confidence of modern interpreters (but who seem strangely oblivious of one another and the incompatibilities of their interpretations). Did Frege ever put out a second edition, to clarify any parts of the first edition that gave rise to misunderstanding or multiple interpretations?

[@williamshears9953]

Thanks for this great comment

[@sorinsviolin4114]

Not only is this a mockery of philosophical thought, but the speaker clearly does not understand German. To confuse the concept of meaning with the concept of reference, and then to vulgarize through trivial examples philosophical ideas that were clearly not understood by the speaker are a sad commentary on what passes for philosophical thinking in America today.

[@SkewtLilbttm]

Great post and I agree. That said, I find the biggest issue with the video is its length. Personally, I've no qualms about watching a video of any particular duration if I find the content interesting and I definitely find this topic very interesting. My issue is that, especially in the first half or so of the video, our host repeats what are oftentimes the most base, easily explained facets of the topic ad nauseum. Soon, he's completely bogged down by minutiae and thus quickly becomes rather grating and needlessly inflates the run time and certainly causes some viewers to venture elsewhere prior to our host finally finding the freedom to continue on with the lesson.

[@Mīmāmsā96]

Am I paranoid or all these comments seem right out of chatgpt

[@EugeneSeidel]

@@Mīmāmsā96 You are paranoid. Apologies for the late reply, but I was in the shop for a week getting the software update.

[@444-w8k]

The sense of a word is not so much "public" but more slightly different replications of an original sense of the word. Everyone's sense of a word is indeed private and is slightly different for each person. Its just that a useful word has a sense which is similar enough to all parties communicating in order to communicate the desired meaning.

[@jessicaholden3019]

I could be very wrong here, but I think a more modern approach might suggest that to the extent that there is such a thing as the sense of a word (or term) that is different from the conception, the sense exists in the aggregate of all conceptions of those who use it, hear it, hear it and then use it, etc. Like, today the sense of "the morning star" includes "the planet Venus" and certain associations with the planet Venus - but before Venus was discovered, it didn't include that, despite that planet being the referent.

[@444-w8k]

There is no aggregate of all conceptions. There is only the many individual conceptions. If two parties concieve of a word in a way that is just too different, then they will not be able to communicate with that word effectively until they first realign their conceptions. There is no "aggregate of all conceptions" to be appealed to. @@jessicaholden3019

[@jessicaholden3019]

@@444-w8k But your conception of a word is never going to be exactly identical to my conception of a word - and there is no thing that exists in the universe, separate from our conceptions, that is The Sense. The aggregate to which I refer is simply a consensus, which absolutely does exist; this is what dictionaries attempt to record. And that consensus is also not identical to any one person's conception.

[@444-w8k]

I agree@@jessicaholden3019

[@trayvon4484]

Google afternoon, Mr. Kaplan. We really appreciate your video lectures that explain a variety of subjects. Have a great day! -t

[@picksalot1]

This is very important in Philosophy where the Truth Value of a statement is to be ascertained. Thanks

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@johntent]

Hi from Viña del Mar. Chile What a clear ideas you pass on! Thank you very much!

[@denverharrington8768]

In all cases our senses come first and we build neural connections via language to those senses. I think in our days what is described here as 'reference' is a kin to metaphor, exemplars, frames and prototypes. With what we know today about the brain from neuroscience and cognitive linguistics, Frege's work demonstrates an impressive attempt to get granular into how the brain categorises. But ultimately, he is implying the words pick out objects and puts a great deal of agency onto the symbolic frames (words) themselves as references to the physical world. But it's not the case. We are doing that. We are using our senses and utilizing metaphors to refer to events, structures, observations and general experiences about the world. All the same, interesting stuff.

[@pinecone421]

Yes! Keep the philosophy of language coming 😎. I’m going to start doing some public humanities work soon for a graduate school project I’m working on. Videos like yours inspired me

[@ragozzinehq]

33:10 Thank you for the diplomatic term "comprehensible English" 😸 I'm gonna use the heck out of that from now on

[@jonathanjocobo5654]

Love your videos, would be fascinated if you did one on wittgensteins private language argument. Thanks for the knowledge

[@staninjapan07]

Damn, that was entertaining. I could not have told you what Jay-Z looked like before watching this, but now I know he looks like Shaun Carter, HOV, Jay-Z, Venus, the Morning Star and the Evening Star. You did a great job with this. Even having an interest in linguistics I was glad of the humour. It helped me, I am sure. Thanks.

[@ahmedhaaqilrifky3531]

I have always asked the same question about my medical studies as well. You seem to always learn something about something when coming at it from a different angle. For example, you might learn something new about Kidney Physiology, whilst studying heart and and something wholly new to you while learning reproductive physiology. Does that mean that my learning of Kidney Physiology was inadequate when I learnt about the kidney on its own? Fascinating. It's such a good case for interdisciplinary learning.

[@rafaelarevalo8047]

thank you so much for this very illuminating video. can't wait for the video on wittgenstein, particularly the latter.

[@GerasimRastamanovich]

So if I take any 2 true statements, let's say "A cow is an animal" and "Black is darker than grey", then they both will have the same reference which is "Truth" but different senses. What's the point of such model?

[@rektator]

It is interesting to note that Frege also developed first order predicate logic around that time. Essentially what mathematical logicians do is the something very similar: They study symbols, models and interprations of symbols in models. As an example, the sequence of symbols x*x = 2 to make sense, we have to know where the variable x is interpreted (what is the model, is x thought in the context of integers, rationals, real numbers, matrices, perhaps somewhere else?). Moreover, the operation * have to be also interpreted somehow to make this equation x*x = 2 to be meaningful. As does the symbol 2 need to be interpreted. In the model of rational numbers with * interpreted as the multiplication of rationals, no number satisfies such an equation. In constructing logic, one starts with symbols or sometimes called a signature. A signature can have a model which is something where the symbols are interpreted. A model can satisfy formulas defined from the signature. This is why there is a separation of syntax from semantics. The intricacies of model's can be studied by how different syntactical things relate to each other in the model via the interpretation. In the Jay-Z setting, we have a signature defined by our alphabet, we have words "Jay-Z" and "Shawn Carter". We know that there is an interpretation that map these words to some humans. Our deduction system trivially has "Jay-Z = Jay-Z" but doesn't apriori have "Shawn Carter = Jay-Z". The extra info is then new knowledge that the interpretation of these syntactic things are the same. Sorry if this was hard to follow, I am awake way too late.

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@pillmuncher67]

I remember having long discussions with people on the usenet that insisted that the referent of a sentence was a fact, that is, a snippet of the world that is denoted by the sentence and is not denoted by any other sentence that does not have the same meaning. A small dose of Davidson's Slingshot cured that ailment.

[@AdrianMcGavock]

excellent suggestions KZbin algorithm... I'm not a philosophy student but I've always enjoyed hearing about Wittgenstein - hope you get a chance to cover him also 👍

[@joshuasroka4403]

Hi Professor, I was wondering if Frege considered pseudonyms which may cause the truth value of a statement to be false. An example of this could be: 1. Mark Twain is a famous author whose work is recognizable by his name. 2. Samuel Clement is a famous author whose work is recognizable by his name. 1 would be obviously true while with 2 it does not seem to be true, while keeping the same referent, right? Or am I doing something tricky by changing the "signifier" into the "referent" in the second half of the sentence? I honestly do not know how Frege would come out on that. Thanks for the video.

[@stsglnt]

wow this exactly what I'm trying to figure out now and here's a video from you. Thank you 🙂

[@issamelias1747]

Thank you so much for this excellent presentation ❤

[@therenpoulin]

Always love your videos! Just had a thought about an example that may not fit this. Charlie Chaplin is The Tramp- Charlie Chaplin is rich - The Tramp is rich. They don't equal the same truth value. I assume maybe this is clarified in the rest of the writing that you didn't go over but just thought I'd throw it in there. Keep doing good stuff! I love it!

[@arasheskandari4023]

Thank you so mucu .please keep sharing about philosophy of language.

[@Thomas_H_Sears]

What word is translated as 'thought'? er Gedanke - thought, idea, concept, reflection, sentiment, reflexion das Nachdenken - reflection, thought, meditation, contemplation, reflexion die Idee - idea, concept, notion, thought die Überlegung - consideration, reflection, deliberation, reflexion, thought I don't know, but it seems there might be a translation more expressive in English.

[@CadenHerman-m3p]

Keep it up! Great job! Greetings from Poland! :). these videos are great! so glad to see a new upload.

[@dansheppard2965]

Towards the end I got a bit nervous about the amount of wiggle room allowed in the substitution process if the truth value of propositions is their referent. When you're talking about subjects you can swap senses and as long as they refer to the same referent these sentences are somehow clustered, they're "about the same thing". So if you said something about the morning star (say, that it's bright) and you already knew it was Venus or the evening star then you can make in some sense "close cousin" statements using those senses. The sense of "Venus is bright" seems to be very "friendly" with "The Morning Star is Bright". You might not know it (because you don't know the astronomy) but there seems to be some sense in which that these senses are associated. But if you changed "Venus" for, say, "my torch from ebay", it seems to me even the proposition "my torch from ebay is very bright" and "Venus is very bright" are much less closely associated sentences: you're doing something different here to just swapping names, aren't you? Some of the kind of "structure of pointing at things" in the individual bits of a proposition (the subject, the predicate etc), must surely leak through into the referent beyond its truth value? The thing that a proposition *is* doesn't seem natural to me unless it does?

[@gabesorganic]

Frega can’t be right because you can absolutely have a sentence’s truth value change by substituting a different name with the same referant. For example: Jay-Z is a well known artist vs Shawn Carter is a well known artist. Either frega’s proposition is false or the name Jay-Z refers to something different and distinct than the name Shawn Carter. Or there is something in the sense that changes the truth value of a sentence or (and this is my suspicion) names do not actually have referents at all, only senses. Anyway, thanks for another awesome and intriguing philosophy video! Top notch content!

[@katie-ampersand]

What about "clark kent is a publicly knoun figure" vs. "superman is a publicly known figure"? these have two different truth values, but superman is a co-referrenh of clark kent

[@pirmudasir6067]

Please make a video on Speech Acts Sir. Your way of explaining complex concepts is awesome

[@marecku21]

I'm unclear about the translation of the title of the article. I'm not fluent in German, but I believe Sinn und Bedeutung should be translated to Sense and Meaning.

[@jaredgray7872]

I really enjoy your videos, thanks for sharing your (and others) ideas. One thing you might consider in your examples is using more discrete words. Instead of using the word rich, consider using a word like wealthy. The word rich can be a distraction for some people. While you're going on with your lecture someone might be contemplating the meaning of the sentence with the word rich and its definition abundant.

[@egemenpamukcu]

Would this claim (that a sentence's reference is its truth value), also mean that all true statements have the same reference? E.g. are propositions "Jay Z is rich" and "Jay Z is from Brooklyn" and "Earth is round" all have the same reference? This makes me think of how those statements would be equivalent in computer programs. They would only refer to "Truth", even though through different modes of presentation (code).

[@sketchtwenty2]

Like the c programmer Sence and Reference reminds me of the one to one, one to many, and many to many relationships between data. It also made me think of G. E. Moore's Refutation of Idealism wherein he demonstrates that every perception must be about something other than itself. Overall, these analyses point to the nature of Duality as not consisting of two states of being (spiritual vs. material). Instead, Duality is a necessary condition of the relationships between phenomena (of and about).

[@mitchellwelch9135]

29:58 so it’s linking verbs… how is it that this whole time theres not been any mention of any actual parts of speech?

[@SomeoneElse-fr8yu]

I've got a refinement of this. In my theory, people do not know the real world, but rather hold a model in their head of the world that they build up based on sensory information. Thus, in one's mind model, they have a list of entities they know exist along with one or more labels for those entities and one or more ways of recognizing the entity and what they know about that entity. Sense is basically meaning one of those methods of identifying an entity. Sense in my theory, is both public and conception, as everyone has their own way of identifying an entity but identification occurs based on easily perceived elements. For example, when someo e hears a new song, they know someone must sing it, so when they hear the new song, two new entries are made in their mind, one entity is the song, the other entity is the singer, but they only know one way of identifying the singer at first which is identifying them by their relationship to the song, but as they get familiar with the song they might add a new way to identify the singer, by their voice, and thus now the one entity has two methods of identification. Niw they may have also heard the name JayZ leading to an entity entry in their mind for them, but when their friend tells them that JayZ is the singer of the song, the person can then integrate the entities in their mind into one entity. These methods of identification seem to me to be the "sense" discussed in this video. The big difference I hold is that while sense is easily matched with others through trial and error and familiarity with patterns, they are still unique as conceptions themselves and this is why two people speaking the same language can have slightly different understandings of words and thus occasionally miscommunicate.

[@celebrim1]

This is an important discussion and distinction in the context of large language models, which can learn a lot of things about sense but are failing to learn reference.

[@hyperduality2838]

Logical propositions:- truth is dual to falsity. "The relation of ideas" is dual to "the matter of facts" -- Hume's fork. Absolute truth (universals, rational) is dual to relative truth (particulars, empirical) -- Hume's fork. Concepts are dual to percepts -- the mind duality of Immanuel Kant. Two equivalent descriptions of the same thing or object = Duality (isomorphism). Two different perspectives or sensing, perceiving of the same object (referent) = two dual perspectives! Same is dual different. Colours are different aspects or frequencies of the same substance namely energy. Lacking is dual to non lacking. The colour black (lack of colour) is dual to the colour white (non lacking, a spectrum, all colours) -- colours are dual. Energy is duality, duality is energy -- waves (Bosons) are dual to particles (Fermions) -- quantum duality. Bosons like to exist in the same state, Fermions like to exist in different states -- same is dual to different. Homomorphism is dual to hetero-morphism, homoousious is dual to heteroousious. Duality creates reality. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Enantiodromia is the unconscious opposite or opposame (duality) -- Carl Jung.

[@celebrim1]

@@hyperduality2838 ??? 1) Did you take your meds today? You are writing like a high function high IQ schizophrenic. That sort of high confidence mental flow state you seem to be in is dangerous. 2) Assuming you did remember to take you meds, I subscribe to a trinary logic system and as such duality isn't to me a particularly accurate way of describing things. For example, by focusing on duality of truth and falsity you are excluding the necessary category of things that are neither true nor false.

[@sachinkainth9508]

What about these sentences: "Superman is a superhero" and "Clarke Kent is a superhero". Clarke Kent is superman but he isn't a superhero though.

[@vedanshvedansh844]

As per "common sense/ public knowledge" superhero is not a proper name.

[@scottydubbs22]

In the video, "rich" isn't a proper name either, it's part of a predicate and that's the main distinction. The Superman Example is somewhat similar to the Jay-Z example. Both Clark Kent and Shawn Carter have pseudonyms and attributes between the pseudonyms can be shared with the attributes from the actual names. Same Referent, different Senses, and different Signs.

[@gregshirley-jeffersonboule6258]

Problem of transitivity

[@fateh2345]

As you have alredy proven, he is the superhero, if his is the superman. But, you think superman as a character in first sentence, while thinking of him as a real superhero in the second. In fact, as Frege states, one of the biggest problems, we face in propositions is "ambiguity"

[@jupitereye4322]

It is interesting how he chose the triangle for the demonstration of his theory, as the triangle is the minimal geometric construct that can offer a stability/rigidity of the whole system, for example in construction.

[@DumblyDorr]

Good job summarizing the paper! And definitely a good paper to summarize. Russell, Tarski, and Kripke might be good topics for follow-ups, their importance is hard to overstate. If I may offer a bit of constructive criticism: I felt a few points were repreated a tad often without adding value - the pacing may benefit from a bit of streamlining. I remember being introduced to Frege's distinction between sense and reference in the very first week of studying philosophy in 2005. It was a highly fascinating start to a very engaging and illuminative course of studies. Still - wanting to do philosophy, I questioned the point where we are supposed to take the referent of a declarative sentence to be a truth value. We take (and want to take) declarative sentences as talking about something (reference). Under Frege's conception, sentences are disconnected from the world in terms of representation by claiming that their referent is only their truth-value. Where words / terms may have referents that are things in the world, the entire infinity of possible meaningful sentences has only two possible referents - "true" and "false". Logical compositionality is maintained for non-atomic propositions, sure - but referential compositionality isn't. "The moon and the earth both orbit their center of mass" is true. But "true" isn't something that is composed of the moon, the earth, and the fact that both orbit their gravitational center (to first approximation). From that very first week of studying philosophy, I've wondered why Frege didn't consider the (to my mind) obvious candidate for referents of declarative sentences: States of affairs. These may obtain in our actual world or not - but they have all the desiderata (referential transparency, compositionality of reference) and don't introduce a radical disconnect between the referents of terms and sentences.

[@fightForYourExistence]

11:35 Eveningstar = Morningstar Identity => Deixis = instantiation of ( x = y ) = not(void) [ Assembler Expansion like C ]

[@veronica_._._._]

There was a suggestion once that language developed in the social grooming and the gestural parts of the brain. I would suggest that massaging the facts and the narrative for social points, and, also, using metaphor and analogy to point at complete novelty, emerge from these 2 origins.

[@billyfudd818]

Thanks for the nice chat on Frege. I'd love to get your take on Susanne K. Langer and Ruth G. Millikan

[@psikeyhackr6914]

General Semantics by Alfred Korzybski There is almost certainly someone else somewhere named Shawn Carter. And also a Sean Carter. If you just hear it can you tell Sean Carter from Shawn Carter. The symbol and the referent are two different things. The person just has to know which sumbol to link to which referent.

[@mentalitydesignvideo]

man, this makes so much more sense in German... So ungainly and thorny in English...

[@alfredttarski4521]

Ach was!

[@oneeyejohn69]

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet” William Shakespeare

[@Dizma_Music]

🌹

[@christianw7366]

I have some questions for people who perhaps understand these argument better than me. 1. If references are “empirical” or “the object named” how can truth values be references? Is this because abstract objects are also considered ‘empirical’? 2. “Nothing else stays the same about the sentece, but its truth value, when swapping out words with the same referant” doesnt seem true. Something else that doesnt change either is the sequence of referants of each word in the sentence. Couldn’t the sentences referant simply be the sequence/collection of individual word referants?