Frege: Criteria for Sense Identity

The present article reviews the Polish-language edition of Gottlob Frege’s scientific correspondence. In the article, I discuss the material hitherto unpublished in Polish in relation to the remainder of Frege’s works. First of all, I inquire into the role and nature of definitions. Then, I consider Frege’s recognition criteria for sameness of thoughts. In the article’s third part, I study letters devoted to the principle of semantic compositionality, while in the fourth part I discuss Frege’s remarks concerning the context principle.

Frege believes that the content of declarative sentences divides into a thought and its ‘colouring’, perhaps combined with assertoric force. He further thinks it is important to separate the thought from its colouring. To do this, a criterion which determines sameness of sense between sentences must be deployed. But Frege provides three criteria for this task, each of which adjudicate on different grounds. In this article, rather than expand on criticisms levelled at two of the criteria offered, the author focuses (...) on the most promising candidate. As it stands, this criterion has problems, but not insuperable ones. He suggests an adjusted criterion that relies on the epistemic notion of triviality. He recommends this criterion as both harmonious with Frege’s broader thought and preferable to alternatives offered. The moral is that Frege individuates thoughts by deploying an epistemic concept, and this is the only suitable way for him to do so. (shrink)

عنوان المقالة: الثقافة بين الأنا والآخر-مقاربات للتفكير.. الاسم الكامل: الصديق الصادقي العماري... .جامعة سيدي محمد بن عبد الله، فاس، المغرب.... ....التخصص: علم الاجتماع...... ...ملخص: .... لكل أمة ثقافة تعبر عن كينونتها، وتعكس طبيعتها، وتسجل إنتاجاتها المتراكمة عبر التاريخ، فتخلق منها أمة ذات تفردات تميزها عن غيرها من الأمم. وكذلك هي الثقافة في تميزها عن الثقافات السائدة، سواء في الزمن الواحد، أو في أزمنة متطاولة، وإن كانت تأخذ عنها، وتقتبس منها، وتتلاقح معها، فتتقارب، وتتحاور، وتتفاعل بطرق متباينة، فتكتسب قوة في المناعة، (...) وقدرة على التناغم مع البيئة، وعلى التكيف مع المحيط الإنساني العام، وتلك هي طبيعة الثقافة لدى أي أمة من الأمم، وفي كل عصر من العصور. كما أن لكل ثقافة هوية، ولكل هوية جوهر تعبر عنه خصوصيات معينة، وتنبثق عنه قيم سامية ومثل عليا، هي عنوان الأصالة والعراقة اللتين تعتبران القواعد الراسخة للثقافة. غير أنه من الصعب الحديث عن عمليات تبادل وحوار ثقافي بين ثقافتين غير متكافئتين، لأن التفاعل يتم من خلال الاعتراف أولا بثقافة الآخر، وإعطائها القيمة والمكانة التي تستحقها إلى جانب نظيرتها، كما أن الحوار واحترام الاختلاف يجب أن يكون من الطرفين معا، لهم الرغبة المتبادلة بعيدا عن الإكراه والاستغلال. إذ أن تبادل أشكال وعناصر الثقافة بين الشعوب والأمم لا ينبع من الإعجاب والرغبة في التوظيف الإيجابي لصالح ثقافة الأصل، وإنما يخضع لاعتبارات سياسية وأيديولوجية بالدرجة الأولى، حيث أن هذه الأشكال تتصارع فيما بينها وتخضع لاعتبارات حاسمة. فالصورة السلبية والقدحية التي أصبحت الميزة الحقيقية للمثاقفة في العصر الحالي، من خلال اعتماد الثقافة كآلية وأسلوب للتحكم والسيطرة على المستضعفين، ولد لدى الشعوب والأمم، خاصة العربية منها، خوفا على الهوية العربية الإسلامية من الضياع، مما دفع بالكثيرين إلى السعي نحو التعريف بالتراث والثقافة الخاصة وإبراز أهم مكوناتها، غير أن مسألة الرجوع للتراث العربي الإسلامي اختلفت حسب نوع التوجه والقناعة، ونوع المرجعية التي تؤطر كل فئة ولو من داخل نفس الشعب. مما نتج عن ذلك اختلافات وتشعبات في قراءة هذا التراث، حيث استند البعض على الأصولية الحادة، أما البعض الآخر اشتغل من داخل الاتجاه اليساري أو اللبرالي. من أجل تحليل وتفتيت هذا الإشكال بخصوص محورية الثقافة بين الأنا والآخر المختلف، تسعى هذه المقالة إلى الوقوف عند مفهوم الثقافة من داخل الأنثروبولوجيا وعلم الاجتماع، وإبراز العلاقة التلازمية بين الثقافة والهوية وطريقة تشكلهما، ثم التطرق لظاهرة المثاقفة والتثاقف وأهم الوظائف المميزة لهما، وأخيرا إبراز وتحليل الأسس التي تنبني عليها العلاقة بين الثقافة العربية وثقافة الآخر المختلف، وأهم الجوانب التي تحكمهما. ............. Each nation has a culture that expresses its identity, reflects its nature and records its accumulated productions throughout history, creating a nation unique in relation to other nations. Culture is also distinct from traditional cultures, both in time and in extended periods, although it takes, quotes and insinuates with them, converges, interacts and interacts in different ways, gaining the strength of immunity, the ability to align with the environment, the ability to adapt to the human environment in general, and that’s the nature of the culture of every nation and nation. (shrink)

In this paper, I revisit Frege's theory of sense and reference in the constructive setting of the meaning explanations of type theory, extending and sharpening a program–value analysis of sense and reference proposed by Martin-Löf building on previous work of Dummett. I propose a computational identity criterion for senses and argue that it validates what I see as the most plausible interpretation of Frege's equipollence principle for both sentences and singular terms. Before doing so, I examine Frege's implementation of his (...) theory of sense and reference in the logical framework of Grundgesetze, his doctrine of truth values, and views on sameness of sense as equipollence of assertions. (shrink)

According to a criterion of difference for thoughts derived from Frege, two thoughts are different if it is at the same time possible for a rational subject to take conflicting epistemic attitudes toward them. But applying this criterion to perception-based demonstrative thoughts seems to slice thoughts too finely and lead to their proliferation which makes the criterion implausible. I argue that such a proliferation of thoughts is blocked by transforming this criterion into a related one that is shown to be (...) essential in individuating thoughts as they are conceived of in this paper. This has to do with the fact that what makes demonstrative sense synchronically or diachronically the same is the subject’s unreflective taking-for-granted that the object that she is perceiving is a single object that does not require her to keep track of it in the sense supposed by Evans and Campbell. (shrink)

Frege's mature writings apparently contain two different criteria of sense identity. While in "Über Sinn und Bedeutung" (1892) and in "Kurze Übersicht meiner logischen Lehren" (1906?) he seems to advocate a psychological criterion, his letter to Husserl of December 12, 1906 offers a thoroughly logical criterion of sense identity. It is argued that the latter proposal is not a "momentary aberration", but rather Frege's official criterion; his psychological criteria only serve as a way of illustrating questions of sense identity by (...) appealing to the thoughts of completely rational thinkers. (shrink)

This paper develops a criterion for sameness of Fregean senses. I consider three criteria: logical equivalence, intensional isomorphism, and epistemic equipollence. I reject the first two and argue for a version of the third.

In this paper, I will discuss a well-known oscillation in Frege’s conception of sense. My point is only partially concerned with his two different criteria of sense identity, and touches upon a more specific point: what happens if we apply Frege’s intuitive criterion for the difference of thoughts to logically equivalent sentences? I will try to make a schematic argument here that will preempt any endeavor to make Frege more coherent than he really is. In sections A and B, I (...) will present two alternative Fregean ways to treat the sense of logically equivalent sentences. Frege really oscillated between two alternative conceptions of sense, and his inability to detect the contrast between the two alternative conceptions is partly due to his strong conception of rationality. To apply the criterion of difference of thoughts to logical matters, we may also use a weak notion of rationality, or at least a notion of rationality of human agents, with limited computational resources. The distinctions towards which Frege was striving are better understood nowadays from the point of view of the treatment of limited rationality, which imposes itself even in logical matters. (shrink)

One particular topic in the literature on Frege’s conception of sense relates to two apparently contradictory theses held by Frege: the isomorphism of thought and language on one hand and the expressibility of a thought by different sentences on the other. I will divide the paper into five sections. In (1) I introduce the problem of the tension in Frege’s thought. In (2) I discuss the main attempts to resolve the conflict between Frege’s two contradictory claims, showing what is wrong (...) with some of them. In (3), I analyze where, in Frege’s writings and discussions on sense identity, one can find grounds for two different conceptions of sense. In (4) I show how the two contradictory theses held by Frege are connected with different concerns, compelling Frege to a constant oscillation in terminology. In (5) I summarize two further reasons that prevented Frege from making the distinction between two conceptions of sense clear: (i) the antipsychologism problem and (ii) the overlap of traditions in German literature contemporary to Frege about the concept of value. I conclude with a hint for a reconstruction of the Fregean notion of ‘thought’ which resolves the contradiction between his two theses. (shrink)