Freges The Thought Meaning of true Grammatically appears

Frege’s “The Thought” • Meaning of “true” – Grammatically appears as an adjective – So a thing cannot be true, but a picture or idea about it might be The thing cannot be “true” A picture or idea about it can be It looks like Truth requires a relation between two things and is determined by whether they correspond

Frege’s “The Thought” • So you assume truth has something to do with correspondence, it’s a relation between two things • But “true” is not a relation word, it’s an adjective. It contains no reference to anything else two which something must correspond – If you don’t know what the picture or idea is meant to represent, you don’t know to what you should compare it to determine truth – Strictly speaking, for two things to correspond, they would need to be identical, and thus be the same thing

Frege’s “The Thought” • What we want to say is that our ideas correspond to reality in some way and are true – Not that they are identical, but that they correspond in some respect or other – But looking at any particular respect, you’d have to define characteristics and the same criticisms above would apply • Correspondence theory collapses

Frege’s “The Thought” • So Truth isn’t about the correspondence of things and pictures or ideas • Any time the question of truth comes up, one refers to a sentence = Picture/Idea = “My idea corresponds to the Cathedral” Sentence What we mean when we say the truth of an idea or picture is really the truth of a sentence

Frege’s “The Thought” • A sentence is just a series of sounds (or marks) with a sense • When we talk about the truth of a sentence, we really mean the truth of its sense • Big point: The truth of the sense of a sentence doesn’t consist in correspondence to anything else (or else endless regression) Written sentence Sense of sentence Picture/Idea Spoken sentence Truth

Frege’s “The Thought” • Frege uses the term “thought” to describe the sense of a sentence • It is not material, but ‘clothed’ in the material and perceptible (which are excluded from sphere of truth) • Truth is not a property of things, though properties of things are joined to truth in the property of a thought – “I smell violets” = “It is true that I smell violets”

Frege’s “The Thought” • Not all sentences have senses which are thoughts in Frege’s meaning: – Imperative = no – Declarative = yes – Exclamatory = maybe • If they communicate something agreed upon = yes • Venting feelings = no – Interrogative = maybe • Word questions = no “Why? ”, “When? ” • Yes/No questions = yes “Are you daft? ”

Frege’s “The Thought” • In sentences that express thoughts, there are two components: the content and the assertion – The content = the thought – The assertion = laying the thought out as true • So [kind of a jump here] – Apprehension of a thought = thinking – Recognition of the truth of a thought = judgment – Manifestation of this judgment = assertion Side note: sentences can also contain a third component that acts on the feelings, which isn’t part of content, but somehow relates to assertive style

Frege’s “The Thought” • Language is complicated – Stress during assertion can aid understanding (emphasis, word order, etc. ) without altering thought – He says “content” can go beyond thought, but I think he means assertion can go beyond thought – Sometimes assertion isn’t sufficient to convey thought – Sometimes thought is different for same assertion coming from different people

Frege’s “The Thought” • • People have their own inner world of senseimpressions, imagination, sensations, moods, inclinations, etc. Frege calls these “ideas”. Wholly interior & subjective, not part of independent, external world – – • Ideas cannot be seen, smelled, tasted, touched, heard Ideas are had Ideas need a bearer (same as #2? ) Every idea has only one bearer Question: is a thought an idea? (you should know the answer, but see the next slide…)

Frege’s “The Thought” • Thoughts ≠ Ideas – Two people can have the same thought, e. g. Pythagorean Theorem: x 2 + y 2 = z 2 – If every thought needed one and only one bearer, then there could be no shared thoughts, i. e. science, knowledge, etc. • Frege’s conclusion: thoughts are not ideas, nor are they part of the material, external world • Oooooohhh, snap!

Frege’s “The Thought” • Guess what this distinction gets you? – Defeat of idealism: ideas are not the only objects for consciousness – Defeat of radical skepticism: if you can apprehend something of which you are not the ‘bearer’ or producer, then there is something outside you – Problem of identity: if there were only ideas, the “I” would be an idea only. Thoughts allow one to distinguish between my thought of myself and the thing having the thought – Problem of solipsism: if I can identify myself as a bearer of independent thought, I can recognize others as the same • Was für ein Gedanke!