Re: Existence and presupposition

> William of Ockham wrote:

> The German "Bedeutung" means "signify" or "mean". As in "Die
> Bedeutung des Todes in der Gesellschaft heute" ("The Meaning of Death
> in Society Today).

In "The Meaning of Death" the kind of meaning in question is not
linguistic meaning but existential meaning.

> Before the 3d edition of Gach and Black, they translated "Bedeutung" by
> "reference". After that, they translated it by "meaning". Hence
> "sense and reference" becomes "sense and meaning". Modern translators
> just use the word "Bedeutung".

If a translator decides to translate Frege's "Bedeutung" quite
literally as "meaning", then he must add the following introductory
note so as not to lead the contemporary readers astray:

"Always keep in mind that when Frege uses 'Bedeutung' he doesn't mean
what we now mean by 'meaning' but what we mean by 'reference'!"

Here's an example from Frege's "Ausführungen über Sinn und
Bedeutung":

"Die Bedeutung eines Eigennamens ist der Gegenstand, den er bezeichnet
oder benennt."

The literal translation is:

"The meaning of a proper name is the object which it denotes or names."

But the semantically faithful translation is:

"The reference (referent) of a proper name is the object which it
denotes or names."


Regards
PH

.

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