[2.2.12.] Thought, Force, Connotation.

 

Not all meaningful sentences express or contain thoughts.

 

·         Imperative sentences (commands) have senses, but these senses are not thoughts, since “the question of truth could [not] arise for” them. (95) For example, “Shut the door!” does express a sense, but it is not a thought, since there is no question whether it is true.

 

On the other hand,

 

·         Interrogative sentences (questions) have senses, and these senses are thoughts[1]—the question of truth does arise for the thought contained in “Is the door closed?” The difference between this sentence and the indicative sentence “The door is closed” is that the indicative sentence contains something else that is missing in an interrogative question: assertive force.

 

Frege points out that there is a third aspect of a sentence’s meaning that goes beyond its thought and its force: its connotation (he doesn’t use this English-language term; in fact he does not use any specific technical term for it at all; but this is what this aspect of language is usually called). This is the aspect of the sentence which affects the feelings or mood of the hearer.

 

For example, the difference between “The door is open” and “The damned door is open!” has nothing to do with the thought being expressed or the fact that the thought is being asserted rather than being asked about.

 

Connotation matters a great deal in poetry, but not at all in scientific and mathematical writing.

 

	indicative sentences (e.g., “The door is closed.”)	interrogative sentences (e.g., “Is the door closed?)	imperative sentences (e.g., “Close the door.”)
thought	yes	yes	no
force	yes: assertion	yes: request	[he doesn’t say, but presumably yes: command]
connotation	usually (less common in scientific and mathematical writing)	[he doesn’t say, but presumably usually]	[he doesn’t say, but presumably usually]

 

 

 

 

[2.2.13.] The Three Realms.

 

What sort of thing are the senses expressed by indicative sentences. In other words, what sort of thing are thoughts?

 

You should remember from “On Sense and Reference” that senses (be they of sense of words or sentences) are not in the mind. They are public, accessible by more than one person.

 

But Frege has also told us earlier in “The Thought” that they are immaterial and imperceptible; they are not part of the sensible material world.

 

So what are they?

 

Frege comes closer to a full answer to this question when he distinguishes among three different “realms.”

 

 

The First Realm

 

A person who is still untouched by philosophy knows first of all things which he can see and touch, in short, perceive with the senses, such as trees, stones and houses, and he is convinced that another person equally can see and touch the same tree and the same stone which he himself sees and touches. Obviously, no thought belongs to these things. (97-98)

 

·         This is the outer world, the world of material, perceptible things.

·         Things in this world can exist without being perceived or thought about by anyone.

·         Thoughts (propositions, the senses of indicative sentences) do not belong to this realm.

 

 

The Second Realm

 

                Even an unphilosophical person soon finds it necessary to recognize an inner world distinct from the outer world, a world of sense-impressions, of creations of his imagination, of sensations, of feelings and moods, a world of inclinations, wishes and decisions. For brevity I want to collect all these, with the exception of decisions, under the word “idea.” (98)

 

·         This is the inner world, the world of ideas, including sensations, feelings, moods, inclinations, wishes, etc. [Frege is using “idea” more broadly here than in “On Sense and Reference” – in that earlier paper, he limited ideas to mental images].

 

He goes on to list explain the following points about ideas (98):

 

·         “Firstly: Ideas cannot be seen or touched, cannot be smelled, nor tasted, nor heard.” You do not see your mental image of a tree; you see the tree, and that’s what it is to have a mental image of a tree.

 

·         “Secondly: Ideas are had. One has sensations, feelings, moods, inclinations, wishes. An idea which someone has belongs to the content of his consciousness.”

 

·         “Thirdly: Ideas need a bearer.” “An experience is impossible without an experient. The inner world presupposes the person whose inner world it is.” In this way ideas are unlike objects in the First Realm, which are independent of anyone.

 

 

·         “Fourthly: Every idea has only one bearer; no two men have the same idea.”

 

 

The fact that a given idea can be “had” by only one bearer indicates to Frege that thoughts are not ideas.

·         If thoughts were ideas, then there would not be a single Pythagorean Theorem (a²  + b² = c²) about which we all can communicate. Instead, there would be my Pythagorean Theorem, your Pythagorean Theorem, her Pythagorean Theorem, etc. etc.

·         More generally, if thoughts were ideas, then “there would be no science common to many, on which many could work.” (99) Frege imagines what truth would be like if truth-bearers (thoughts, propositions) were ideas and thus limited to one person:

 

But I, perhaps, have my science, namely, a whole of thought whose bearer I am and another person has his. Each of us occupies himself with the contents of his own consciousness. No contradiction between the two sciences would then be possible and it would really be idle to dispute about truth, as idle, indeed almost ludicrous, as it would be for two people to dispute whether a hundred-mark note were genuine, where each meant the one he himself had in his pocket and understood the word “genuine” in his own particular sense. If someone takes thoughts to be ideas, what he then recognizes to be true is, on his own view, the content of his consciousness and does not properly concern other people at all. If he were to hear from me the opinion that a thought is not an idea he could not dispute it, for, indeed, it would not now concern him. (99)

 

·         In that last sentence, Frege is suggesting an argument against the view that thoughts are ideas (and therefore mental, and therefore specific to one and only one person)... If thoughts are actually ideas, then it is impossible for a critic to object to Frege’s claim that thoughts are not ideas... since then, Frege’s claim would express an idea/thought that belongs only to Frege and that a critic could never grasp, or understand, or come to know.

 

 

So Frege concludes that there must a third realm...

 

The Third Realm

 

A third realm must be recognized. What belongs to this  corresponds with ideas, in that it cannot be perceived by the senses, but with things, in that it needs no bearer to the contents of whose consciousness to belong. Thus the thought, for example, which we expressed in the Pythagorean theorem is timelessly true, true independently of whether anyone takes it to be true. It needs no bearer. It is not true for the first time when it is discovered, but is like a planet which, already before anyone has seen it, has been in interaction with other planets. (99)

 

·         The Third Realm is the world of thoughts (i.e., propositions).

 

·         Like ideas, thoughts cannot be seen, heard, etc.

 

·         But like things in the First Realm, they do not need a bearer.

 

·         They are true (or false) whether or not anyone thinks they are.

 

·         A given thought can be apprehended by more than one person.

 

 

Stopping point for Friday January 30. For next time, read Russell, “On Denoting,” pp.33-36 (to the end of the very first paragraph on p.36). Note the following:

·         Russell translates Frege’s term “Sinn” not as “sense” but as “meaning.”

·         And he translates Frege’s term “Bedeutung” not as “reference” but as “denotation.” What Russell says that some terms denote; this is what Frege means when he says (in translation) that some terms refer.

·         So when Russell is talking about Frege’s distinction between sense and reference, he uses the terms “meaning” and “denotation.”

Come to class prepared to answer the question:

·         According to Russell, is the sentence “The King of France is bald” true, false, or neither?