Gottlob Frege - On Sense and Reference

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

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

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.

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 YouTube is covering him!

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.)

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.

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

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.