Editing Sense and reference (section)

{{Short description|Distinction in the philosophy of language}}
{{redirect|Sinn}}
{{distinguish|Signified and signifier}}
[[File:Ueber Sinn und Bedeutung Frege 1892.jpg|thumb|right|360px| ''Die Gleichheit fordert das Nachdenken heraus durch Fragen, die sich daran knüpfen und nicht ganz leicht zu beantworten sind''. Equality gives rise to challenging questions, which are not altogether easy to answer.]]

In the [[philosophy of language]], the distinction between '''sense''' and '''reference''' was an idea of the German philosopher and mathematician [[Gottlob Frege]] in 1892 (in his paper "'''On Sense and Reference'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA; 'On Sense and Reference' redirects here-->"; German: "Über Sinn und Bedeutung"),<ref name=A/> reflecting the two ways he believed a [[singular term]] may have [[Meaning (philosophy)|meaning]].

The [[reference]] (or "[[referent]]"; ''Bedeutung'') of a ''proper name'' is the object it means or indicates (''bedeuten''), whereas its [[Intension|sense]] (''Sinn'') is what the name expresses. The reference of a ''sentence'' is its [[truth value]], whereas its sense is the thought that it expresses.<ref name="A">"On Sense and Reference" ["Über Sinn und Bedeutung"], ''[[Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik]]'', vol. 100 (1892), pp. 25–50, esp. p. 31.</ref> Frege justified the distinction in a number of ways.
#Sense is something possessed by a name, whether or not it has a reference. For example, the name "[[Odysseus]]" is intelligible, and therefore has a sense, even though there is no individual object (its reference) to which the name corresponds.
#The sense of different names is different, even when their reference is the same. Frege argued that if an identity statement such as "[[Hesperus]] is the same planet as [[Phosphorus (morning star)|Phosphorus]]" is to be informative, the proper names flanking the identity sign must have a different meaning or sense. But clearly, if the statement is true, they must have the same reference.<ref>"On Sense and Reference", p. 25</ref> The sense is a 'mode of presentation', which serves to illuminate only a single aspect of the referent.<ref>"On Sense and Reference", p. 27</ref>

Much of [[analytic philosophy]] is traceable to Frege's philosophy of language.<ref name=Speaks>Jeff Speaks, [https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/2011-12/83104/handouts/frege-reference.pdf "Frege's theory of reference"] (2011)</ref> Frege's views on logic (i.e., his idea that some parts of speech are complete by themselves, and are analogous to the [[Argument of a function|arguments]] of a [[Function (mathematics)|mathematical function]]) led to his views on a [[theory of reference]].<ref name=Speaks/>