Frege on subject matter and identity statements
ISSN: 1467-8284
Year of publication: 2015
Volume: 75
Issue: 4
Pages: 562-565
Type: Article
More publications in: Analysis
Abstract
In formulating the puzzle about cognitive significance in ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, Frege rejects the approach he suggested in the Begriffsschrift on the ground that if the utterance of a sentence of the form a = b (e.g. ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’) is understood as ‘a’ and ‘b’ referring to the same object (i.e. they are co-referential) we lose the subject matter. In this note, we will show how Frege’s concerns can be understood and circumvented