Re: Existence and presupposition

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

My German is not good enough for this, what is "existential" meaning?
Do you have any other (non-technical) examples that would make this
clearer? Beaney says that German speakers find Frege's use of
"Bedeutung" odd.


.... 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'!"

-----------

But the question is what WE mean by reference. This was not a
technical term before the 1950's. Johnson in the 1920's discusses a
story that begins'Once upon a time there was a boy who bought a
beanstalk,', then continues 'This boy was very lazy'. He says "the
phrase 'this boy' means 'the boy just mentioned,' the same boy as was
introduced to us by means of the indefinite article. Here the article
'this,' or the analogous article 'the,' is used in what may be called
its **referential** sense." (Logic 1.6).

It's clear that he means by "reference" what we now mean by "back
reference". It also suggests (given Johnson was in those days an
influential logician) that there was no other competing meaning for
"reference".

So, we could say that "reference" is an ordinary word in English that
acquired a technical meaning largely as a result of the translation
(originally by Black in 1948) of Frege. Hence, "reference" means
whatever Frege meant by "Bedeutung". (Whatever that means).


Holbach ---
The semantically faithful translation is:

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

This again begs the question of what "names" means. In another essay
(Geach and Black p.105), Frege says

"The word "common name" is confusing ... for it makes it look as though
the common name stood under the same, or much the same relation to the
objects that fall under the concept as the proper name does to a single
object. Nothing could be more false!

"The word "planet" has no **direct relation** [my emphasis] at all to
the Earth, but only to a concept that the Earth, among other things,
falls under [my emphasis]; thus its relation to the Earth is only an
indirect one, by way of the concept; and the recognition of this
relation of falling under requires a judgment that is not in the least
already given along with our knowledge of what the word "planet" means.
"


This makes his theory of reference look very much like a theory of
direct reference. He is saying that the relation between the word
"planet" and the Earth is accidental - in the sense that we can
understand what "planet" means without understanding whether anything
is a planet - just as we can understand what "unicorn" means. And he
is saying that the relation between "planet" and the Earth is totally
different from the way that a proper name (say, "Earth") is related to
the object it names.

Remember also that traditional logicians thought the relation between
proper names and the things they "denote" of is essentially like the
way common names are related to the things they denote. Proper names
just denote few things, that's all. Mill says that "Socrates" denotes
Socrates. But he says that "white" denotes white things.

The idea of a distinction between proper names (constants) and
variables was a late nineteenth invention (by Frege and Peirce) whose
huge importance we easily forget.

PS If you look at Johnson's example, does it remind you of an example
discussed by Strawson at the beginning of Individuals"? Strawson calls
this "story-relative reference". He does not mention Johnson (though
later in the book he mentions passages from Johnson that are in the
same vicinity).

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why choose a paragraph element for a paragraph?
    ... The man visiting the blonde women in the flat above you is your ... a meaning independent of the actual reference. ... refer to or point to the very same and one thing in the world. ...
    (alt.html)
  • Re: Why choose a paragraph element for a paragraph?
    ... a meaning independent of the actual reference. ... the other is something about the world outside of language. ... The answer to these concerns about causality lies in more than mere ...
    (alt.html)
  • Re: cdt glossary 0.1.1 (repost)
    ... and /or basic database research. ... A reference is a value used to refer ... ... "Known facts that can be recorded and have implicit meaning." ... variables of a pointer type - these variables ...
    (comp.databases.theory)
  • Re: ... feels a foot abroad ...
    ... It means that the earth feels his foot in movement when he might have ... meaning here as the word it's paired with, "Gadzooks", a mild oath. ... feels a foot abroad, a wing stirring, a gasp and a shudder. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Why choose a paragraph element for a paragraph?
    ... distinction I seem to be forever making between meaning and reference. ... The bomb caused the car to explode. ... Philosophers, ...
    (alt.html)
Loading