The Meaning of 'Bedeutung' in Frege Author(s): Ernst Tugendhat Source: Analysis, Vol. 30, No. 6 (Jun., 1970), pp.

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ANALYSIS

30.6
OF 'BEDEUTUNG'

JUNE
IN FREGE

1970

THE MEANING

By ERNST TUGENDHAT

HE rendering in English of Frege's term 'Bedeutung' as 'reference', which has become popular since the translation of Geach and Black, is quite as misleading as the earlier renderings 'denotation' and 'nominatum'. They all suggest that what Frege meant by the Bedeutung of an expression is the object which the expression names. This cannot be correct, since Frege speaks of the Bedeutung not only of names but also of predicates. It is true that Frege often used the term 'name', in keeping with the then accepted usage in logic, for predicates as well, reserving for what are normally called names, words that name objects, the term 'proper name'. But this extended use of the term 'name' should not mislead us, since it is well known that Frege insisted that predicates, in contrast to proper names, do not name objects at all. In a recently published manuscript Frege himself expressly repudiates the extended use of the term 'name': 'The word "common-name" may mislead one into assuming that a common-name, like a proper name, essentially But this is incorrect; and consequently I prefer to refers to objects.... instead of "common-name".'1 Therefore, although say "concept-word" it is true that in the case of proper names, including assertive sentences, of the expression to be an object named Frege considered the Bedeutung by it, the name-relation cannot be implied in the very meaning of the word 'Bedeutung'.What, then, did Frege mean by this word? In order to state the problem without begging the question, we have in English to use a word which is as free of definite associations from semantic theory as the German word 'Bedeutung' in Frege. 'Bedeutung' is not free of such associations in ordinary German usage, but Frege made it so for the German reader simply by using it in an unusual way. The translators have preferred to withhold from English readers the puzzlement which every German reader experiences with this word on first reading Frege's essay 'Uber Sinn undBedeutung'.They chose to anticipate an answer, and to have done this is perhaps worse than that it happens to be the wrong one, since it deprives English readers of the opportunity even to become aware of the question. It seems safest to use for Frege's term the nearest English equivalent to the word 'Bedeutung'in ordinary German usage. In semantical contexts other than that of Frege the word 'Bedeutung' is usually trans1 Frege, Nachgelassene Schriften(Hamburg 1969), p. 135. In the same manuscript, Frege even goes so far as to consider misleading the term 'die Bedeutung', when applied to conceptwords, on the grounds that the definite article suggests that the predicate must refer to something (p. 133). 177

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ANALYSIS

lated by the English word 'meaning', and therefore Mr. Dummett renderedFrege's 'Bedeutung', in his article 'Frege' in TheEnfyclopaedia of is Philosofhy,adequately enough as 'meaning'. However, 'Bedeutung' used in Germannot only in the sense of 'meaning',but also in the sense of 'importance', 'significance'. And since Frege obviously did not understandby 'Bedeutung' what the word means in normal semantical contexts,we should expect the second, not specificallysemantical,sense of the word to have had some weight with him when he chose this word in order to introduce a new concept into semantics. In English, the word 'significance'is used, more or less like the German word 'Bedeuung',in the sense of 'meaning'as well as that of 'importance'. The word 'significance' further recommends itself as the rendering of Frege's term by being relatively free of definite associations from semantic So much for terminology;now to the problem. I shall deal with the significanceof predicateslater by way of supplementaryconfirmation and shall tackle the problem of significancefirst at a point which has found extensive though unsatisfactorytreatment in the literature. I mean Frege's doctrine of the significanceof assertive sentences. Here the translationof 'Bedeutung' by 'reference'seems partiallyjustified,since of as propernamesand takes their significance conceives sentences Frege to consist in one of two objects, "the True" and "the False" (SB 34).2 But of course it is misleadingeven here to anticipatethe answer by the choice of the word used to state the question. Over this Fregeandoctrine of the significanceof assertivesentences logicians have been divided into two camps, in dispute not concerning but concerningthe evaluationof the doctrine. On the the interpretation are one side, there thosewho, like Kneale,find Frege'sdoctrineunacceptable because the assimilationof sentences to proper names obliterates and becausethereis no way of identifyimportantsemanticaldifferences ing the alleged objects "the True" and "the False" except as properties with Church, insist on the analogies which Frege has shown to exist between the reference of a name and the truth-value of a sentence.4 Surely both parties have a point, but neither point is enough for an outright rejectionor an outright acceptanceof Frege's doctrine. Let us grant to the second party that the referenceof a name and the truthvalue of a sentencehave somethingin common, and let us call this their significance;does it follow that, since the significanceof the name is the
1 owe this suggestion and other advice concerning this paper to Mr. J. L. H. Thomas of All Souls College, Oxford. 2All citations are to the original German edition. The translation by Geach and Black and the German edition of Patzig give the pagination of the original. I use 'SB' as abbreTranslations are my own. viation for 'UberSinn undBedeutung'. 3W. and M. Kneale, The Development of Logic, pp. 576f. to Mathematical 4A. Church, Introduction Logic, pp. 23-25.

theory.'

of sentences or propositions.3 On the other side, there are those who,

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object named, the significanceof the sentencemust also be thought of as an object? Surelynot. And if we grant to the first party that sentences are not names, do these philosophersnot agree that there is a functional connection between the referenceof a name and the truth-valueof the sentences of which the name may be a part and that so far they have somethingin common? Let us call this again their significance. Now if the significanceof a sentence cannot be thought of as an object named, this party ought to present an alternativeaccount of significance. The two partiescould thereforebe reconciledon the basis of a new account of significancewhich is not biased towards the name relation and yet does full justice to Frege's discovery of the functional connection between objects of proper names and truth-valuesof sentences. Nothing would seemeasierthanto provide such an account. Modern semanticsis already in possession of a technical term for significance which is not biasedtowardsthe name relation,the term 'extension'. We speak of the extension of names and of sentences (and of predicates) without necessarilyimplying that the extension is, except in the case of names, an object. So the solution to our problem seems ready at hand: the significanceof an expression is its extension.l Although I believe that this answer leads in the right direction, it is not satisfactoryas it stands, because the term 'extension' is defined in a differentway for names and for sentences(and again for predicates). Two sentenceshave the same extension if and only if they have the same truth-value,and two nameshave the same extension if and only if they refer to the same object. The term 'extension'is used in both cases for the same reasonas Frege used the term 'significance'in both cases, but whilst Frege gave an answer to what it is they have in common, the term 'extension'does not give an alternativeanswer, it simply leaves the matter open. Our question can now be reformulatedthus: what is it that the extension of names and of sentences have in common? Can we find a unitary definitionof 'extension'which is not biased towardsthe name-relation? Let us take as our point of departure Frege's own introductionof the term 'significance'for sentences. He writes (SB 32f): Does a sentenceas a whole perhaps have only a senseand no significance? It might indeedbe expectedthat such sentences occur,just as there are parts of sentenceshaving sense but no significance. And whichcontain nameswithoutsignificance sentences will be of this proper kind. The sentence 'Ulysseswas set ashoreat Ithacawhilesoundasleep' whether the name'Ulysses' in dearlyhasa sense. But sinceit is doubtful that sentence it is also doubtfulwhetherthe sentence has a significance, as a whole has one. But what is certainis that anyonewho seriously takes the sentenceto be true or false ascribesa significance, and not a sense,to the name'Ulysses'... Thatwe concern with ourselves merely
1 This is Camap's answer, given in his book Meaning and Necessity, to which the present paper owes much.

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ANALYSIS

at allis a signthatas a rulewe also of partof the sentence the significance itself to havea significance.... the sentence and require, acknowledge, nameto havenot onlya sense, Butnow whyis it we require everyproper with the thought as well? Why are we not satisfied but a significance with its truth-value. alone? Because,and insofaras, we are concerned ... It is the strivingfor truth,then, that urgesus in all casesto press fromthe senseto the significance. forward The conclusion which Frege draws from this line of reasoning is: 'Thus we are impelled to accept the truth-value of a sentence as its significance'. But the passagesuggests a furtherconclusion. Frege says that we are interestedin the significanceof any part of a sentence only insofar as we are interestedin the truth-valueof the sentence. Is this not to say that the significanceof the partsof sentences,and in particular of names, consists in their contribution to the truth-value of the sentences into which they may enter? In this case we should have to the take the significanceof sentencesas primary.Insteadof transferring of namesto that of sentences,we should of the significance characteristics reversethe orderand try to definethe significanceof namesby meansof the concept with which the significanceof sentencesis defined. In order to do this I propose the technicalterm 'truth-valuepotential'. As a first step, this term can be definedfor names in the following way: two names 'a' and 'b' have the same truth-valuepotential if and only if, whenever each is completed by the same expression to form a sentence,the two sentenceshave the same truth-value. This, of course, is only a cumbersomeway of expressing the well-known definition of extensional equivalence: a=b =Def. (P)Pa=Pb, which is Leibniz' Principle of the Identity of Indiscemibles, to which Frege himself explicitlyappeals(SB 35). But now a furtherstep suggests itself. With slight modification, the definition can be converted into a general definitionfor the truth-valuepotential of an expression,whether name kandib havethesametruth-value or sentence or predicate:two expressions toform is comfileted each whenever bythesameexpression if andonlyif, potential names If we substitute truth-value. same the have thetwosentences a sentence, I definition. first the with identical for q6and b,this definitionbecomes for sentences we substitute If shall returnlaterto the case of predicates. 0 and 0, we obtain the following statement:two sentences 'p' and 'q' have the same truth-valuepotential if and only if, whenever each is completedby the same expressionto form a sentence,the two sentences have the same truth-value. Now 'p' and 'q' are alreadysentences; they are not susceptibleto being completedas sentencesby a furtherexpresin this case, and the definitionis reducedto the simpleform: superfluous two sentences'p' and 'q' have the same truth-valuepotentialif and only if they have the same truth-value. It is obvious that the two definitionsfor the samenessof truth-value
sion. Therefore, the addition 'whenever each is completed ... ' is

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potential of names and of sentences are identical with the well-known definitions for the sameness of extension of names and of sentences. But they now appear as applicationsof a single general definition of sameness of extension. The concept of truth-value potential, thus defined, can thereforebe consideredas an alternativeaccount of significance to that given by Frege. Let us compare the merits of the two accounts. I shall first show that the new account is more valuableeven in understandingFrege's own exposition. Frege's reason for calling both the object of a proper name and the truth-valueof a sentencetheir 'significance'lies in what has been called by Carnap the 'principle of interchangeability':if in a sentence we replace one part by another with the same significancebut a different sense, then the sense, but not the significance, of the sentence may change (cf. SB 32). Frege did not give a justificationfor this principle, and his interpretershave been puzzled over its precise status. Frege enunciatesthe principlebefore saying what the significanceof sentences consists in, and he clearly uses it precisely as an instrument for discovering what the significanceof a sentenceis. The principletherefore does not seem to be a propositionthat can be true or false, but functions ratheras a definitionfor introducingthe term 'significanceof a sentence'. We shall,Frege seems to say, call the significanceof a sentencewhatever it is which remainsunchangedwhen we replacea name in the sentence by another name with the same significance. However, critics have observed that this is unsatisfactory,since the truth-valueis not the only thing that remainsunchangedwhen a name is replacedby anothername of the same object. We can, for example, think of all the sentences which have the same predicate and whose subject-termsrefer to the same object as belonging to the same object-class. Then the objectclass of a sentence evidently meets the requirementof the principle of interchangeability just as the truth-valueof the sentencedoes. The difficultyis solved if we go about it the other way and take the function of the principle of interchangeability to consist in the introduction of the significance,not of sentences, but of names. We then start from the truth-valueof sentences, call this their significance,and proceed to say that whateverpropertyof names remainsthe same when we exchange them in otherwise identical sentences without changing their truth-valueshall be called the significanceof the names. And this simply amounts to saying that we shall call the truth-valuepotential of names their significance. Proceedingin this direction,it then turns out, instead of being assumed, that the significanceis, in the case of names, the object referredto.1
'As has been pointed out to me by Mr. Dummett, it is not strictly correct to say that the truth-value potential is the object referred to. All we can claim is that two names that refer to the same object have the same truth-value potential. Consequently, it would be preferable to say that the truth-value potential of a name is, rather than the object referred to, its reference to that object.

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ANALYSIS

One merit thereforeof the account of significancehere advancedis that it permits a better understandingof Frege's own exposition. The in the interpretationhere given, simply principle of interchangeability, the of represents Principle the Identity of Indiscemibles, and Frege himself refersto it in this form when he proceeds to the final test of his proposal (SB 35). The conclusions drawn from the previous considerations he calls mere 'conjecture' ('Vermutung').Nonetheless, Frege thought even then that he was proving by means of the principle of that the truth-valuesof sentences correspond to the interchangeability can objects of names, whereasin fact the principleof interchangeability only prove that the objects of names correspondto the truth-valuesof sentences. That Frege proceeds in this reverse direction-from names to sentences--must have been the main reason why he appliedthe terminto the significanceof sentences. There was, ology of the name-relation of course, an additionalreason,and that was his well-known distinction between completeand incompleteexpressionsand his doctrinethat both sentences and names are complete expressions.' But this doctrine in itself is not enough to accountfor Frege's conception of the significance of a sentenceas an object, becauseeven if it be conceded that names and sentencesform one class of expressionsin contrastto predicates,it does not follow that this classhas no essentialsubdivisionsin turn. And why from the sub-classof names to the name-relationshould be transferred the sub-classof sentencesFrege never explained on any grounds other than the principle of interchangeability.Hence we must conclude that Frege'sapplicationof the terminologyof 'name'and 'object'to sentences and their significance is due, in the last analysis, exclusively to the traditionaldoctrine that the prototype of a complete ("categorematic") expressionis the name. And yet it was Frege himself who had opened a derArithmetik new approachwith the famous dictum in his Grundlagen (?60): 'Only in the context of a sentencedoes a word signify anything'. It is this statementwhich points to the conception of significanceas truth-valuepotential. So far I have been concerned to show the advantagesof the new conception of significancefor the interpretationof Frege's own text. Let us now comparethe two conceptions in their own right. There exists a connection between names and sentences, expressed the by principleof interchangeability.This, and this alone, is the fact to be accountedfor. What the principleof interchangeability expressesis not the symptom of anything else, of some deeper propertythat names and sentences might have in common. If we wish thereforeto characterize both names and sentencesby one and the same property, which we can call the propertyof having a significance,this propertymust not
1 Cf. the essay 'FunktionundBegriff',especially p. 18.

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consist in anything over and above the functional connection which is expressed by the principle of interchangeability. This requirementis met by the conception of the significanceof an expression as its truthvalue potentialand is not met by the conception of the significanceof an expressionas the object named by it. But the argument decisive for the adequacy of the account here proposed, and for the inadequacyof Frege's own account,is the following. Granted on the one hand that names and sentences form two differentsemanticcagetoriesand on the other that they have something in common, we must requireof an adequateaccount of what they have in common that it should not obliteratetheir differences. This requirement is only met by the present account. Why is this so? Why is it that if we interpretthe significanceof sentencessetting out from names, we cannot help assimilatingsentences to names, whilst names are not assimilated to sentences when we interpret the significanceof names setting out from sentences? The reasonis that we have here an instance of a functionalconnectionbetweenpartand whole. In any suchinstance, for example a tool, machine, or organism, the part can only be defined by its relation to the function of the whole and not viceversa. Since the relation of part to whole is functional,the referenceto the whole in the definitionof the part does not resultin the assimilationof the properties of the part to the properties of the whole. On the other hand, any attemptto define the whole by means of its partsis bound to result in a non-functionalaccount of the whole which either assimilatesits properties to the propertiesof the part or defines it as a mere conglomeration of its parts, or both. Thus the fact that the interpretationof significanceas truth-value potential is adequatewhile its interpretationas referenceis inadequate sheds light on the nature of sentences and their composition: it can be used as evidence for the claim that the primary semantic unit is the sentence and it can also be used to protect this claim from misunderstanding. The contention that the sentenceis the primaryunit of meaning does not exclude its divisibility into meaningful parts; it only claims that the significance, and consequently the sense, of words cannot be understood in isolation, but rather consists in their contribution to the significanceor sense of sentences, respectively. Wheels, cranksand pistons can exercisetheir function only as partsof a machine; but this is not to say that they cannot be taken apart and used in the constructionof a new machine. What I have said so far can be summarizedas follows. The correct account of Frege's term 'significance'would seem to be to understand it as truth-valuepotential; and since this account also agreesbetter with some partsof Frege's exposition than his own account does, we can also say that this was what Frege himself really meant and that he was only

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ANALYSIS

prevented from saying so by his attachment to the traditional conception which he was overthrowing. Now a claim such as this, that an author really meant something that he did not actually say, easily arouses suspicion. It is therefore fortunate that my proposal is practically confirmed by Frege himself, at least as far as the significance of predicates is concerned. In his published writings Frege never treated explicitly of the distinction between sense and significance in the case of predicates, and among students of Frege there has been considerable uncertainty and disagreement on this matter. In particular, it has seemed strange to some that in 'Begriffund Gegenstand'Frege says that the concept is the significance of the predicate (198). If that is so, what should we suppose the sense of the predicate to be? Might one not have expected the sense of the predicate to be the concept and the significance its extension? On the other hand, the contrast between concept and object, so essential to Frege's thought, obviously committed him to thinking that the concept is to the predicate what the object is to the name-it could only be the significance of the predicate. These difficulties can now be resolved thanks to the publication in Frege's Nachlass of a small manuscript1 in which Frege deals with the problem of the sense and significance of predicates, which was left open in his essay. The manuscript, which the editors have published under the title 'Ausfiihrungen iiber Sinn und Bedeutung',opens with the remarks: following I distinguished in an essay ('On Sense and Significance') at first between the sense and significanceonly of proper names.... Now the same distinction can also be drawn for concept-words. Uncarity, however, may easily arise through confusing the distinction between concepts and objects with the distinction between sense and significance,with the result that sense and concept on the one hand and significance and object on the other are conflated (p. 128). Frege here anticipates the confusion which has led to the translation of 'Bedeutung' by 'reference'. He then explains: Just as the proper names of the same object can replace each other the same holds of concept-words too if the extension of the salvaveritate, is the same. Admittedly, as a result of such concept (derBegriffsumfang) substitutions the thought will be changed; but this is the sense of the sentence, not its significance. And the latter, that is to say the truthvalue, remains unchanged. So one could easily be led to consider the extension of the concept as the significance of the concept-word; but then one would overlook the fact that the extensions of concepts are objects and not concepts . . . Nevertheless there is an element of truth in this (p. 128f). The explanations which follow in the manuscript show that what Frege
1

Schriften,pp. 128-36. Frege, Nachgelassene

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means is that, although we should not say that the significance of a concept-word is the extension, 'two concept-words have the same significanceif and only if their extensions coincide'(p. 133). So here we have a case where Frege refusesto considerthe significanceas any kind of object whatsoever and is content to say under what condition two predicateshave the same significance. And althoughFrege does not put it in these words, this condition clearlyconsistsin having the sametruthvalue potential. What Frege says in this manuscriptabout 'having the samesignificance' corresponds to the characterizationof 'having a significance' which he gives in the GrundgesetZe ?29. A predicate,he there says, has a to when if, significance applied any propername that has a significance, it yields a sentencethat itself has a significance.1 These explanationsare furtherconfirmedby what Frege says about what it means for a predicate to have no significance: 'When we are concerned with truth, . . . we have to reject concept-words whose is indistinct. Of every objectit must be determined demarcation whether it falls under the concept or not; a concept-wordwhich does not satisfy this requirement has no significance.'2 This passage is particularly illuminating, for Frege is here pointing to the specific kind of truthvalue potentialof predicates,which is essentiallydifferent from the truthvalue potentialof names. This distinctionis all too easily blurredby the usualaccount,accordingto which both objectsand conceptsareregarded by Frege as "entities". Frege did not use such a term, and his so-called "realism"appearsto be overemphasized in the literature. Although we a that a concept, just as a name for" may say concept-word "stands for what stands an object, this means in the case of a concept-wordis that it provides a demarcationfor the distinction of objects. Looking back now at names, sentences and predicates, we can conclude that what Frege discovered was not, as is often said, that names have, besides a reference,a sense and that sentences and predicates have, besides a sense, a reference,but that all these expressions normally have, besides a sense, a significance in terms of truth and insofar as they are true falsity:3sentencesare significant('bedeutungsvoll') or false; predicatesare significantinsofaras they are true of some objects
1 The property thus definedhas been labelledby Montgomery of predicates Furth,in his in Logical ed. N. Rescher,Oxford 1968, article'Two types of denotation'(Studies Theory, Z'. Furththinksthat 'the problemis: is possessingthe propertyZ pp. 9-45) the 'property and (p. 31). But Fregedid not use the word 'denotation', anythinglike havingdenotation?' the word which he did use does not commitus to askingany such furtherquestion. The analogieswhich Furthproceedsto point out betweenwhat he calls two kindsof denotation insofaras both have are preciselythe analogieswhich obtainbetweennamesand predicates a truth-value potential. 2 Schriften,p. 133. 3Nachgelassene in the sense of "significance" Here the non-technical comes to meaningof "Bedeutung" the surface.

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ANALYSIS

and false of others; and names are significantinsofar as they refer to something of which predicatescan be true or false. In the last part of my paper I shall try to show how the explanation of significance as truth-value potential also helps us to understand Frege's theory of complex sentences and his doctrine of "oblique significance". Frege begins his analysis of sense and significance in complex sentencesby enunciatingthe principleof interchangeability for this case also (SB 36), as if it were self-evident that it should hold universally. He did not explicitly give any reason why this principle should hold in the case of simple sentences,nor does he give any reasonnow in the case of complex sentences. In the former case we found the unexpressed reasonto be that the significanceof the partswas definedby the principle itself. This was possible, as we saw, because the significanceof a part of a simple sentence can be taken to consist in the contributionit makes to the significanceof the whole. This rationale obviously cannot in turn be appliedto the case where the partitself is a sentence. We cannot define the significanceof the sentenceas its contributionto the significance of complex sentences, since its significanceis alreadydefined,it is its truth-value. If, therefore, the principle of interchangeability is to hold in this second case too, it can do so only for the contraryreason: whereas the significanceof the part of a simple sentence consists, by definition, in its contribution to the significance of the whole, the significanceof a complex sentencewould have to depend on the significance of its parts. And this is, of course, what we find actuallyto be the casewhereverthe principleof interchangeability holds at all for complex sentences: the complex sentences are defined in these cases as truthfunctions of their component sentences. But what of the other cases? It might seem that the explanationjust does not given shows that, and why, the principleof interchangeability of in fact have universal application in the case complex sentences but holds only in those cases where the significance of the complex sentenceis definedby this principle. In all other cases the significance of the whole depends on the sense, and not on the significance,of the parts. It is well known how Frege solved the difficulty which thus holds seems to arisefor his claim that the principleof interchangeability of a sentence, universally:he callsthe sense of an expression,in particular its 'oblique significance'('ungerade And he thinks that he is Bedeutung'). entitled to assert that where complex sentencesare not truth-functions of their component sentences, the significanceof the latter is not its normal significance, its truth-value, but its oblique significance, its sense. For in these cases the sentence is nominalizedand functions as the name of what normallyis its sense(cf. SB 28, 36f). The universality of the principle of interchangeability is thus restored: the significance

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of the complex sentence depends in one case on the normal significance of the component sentences and in the other on their oblique significance, in every case thereforeon their significance. This theory is usually considered to be somewhat artificial and invented solely in orderto save the universalityof the principleof interchangeability. Besides, Frege is accusedof having let himself be misled by the close connection between significanceand the name-relation;it is true that a sentence may function as a name, but how could the significanceof a sentence, in Frege's technical sense of the word 'significance',ever be anythingbut a truth-value? Is it not, then, more satisfactory to throw overboard the universality of the principle of interchangeabilityand remain content with saying, as one normally does in contemporarysemantics,that there are extensional contexts and intensional contexts? I think not. The suggestion just made that a sentencecould have no other significance, in Frege's technical sense, than a truth-value, is mistaken. A significance,in Frege's technical sense, can be anything which may be considered a truth-value potential of any kind. Now when a sentence is nominalized and a predicateattachedto it, or as is common in intensional contexts a two-place predicateis attachedto it and another name, the sentence, Frege says, merely expressespart of a "thought", and only togetherwith a predicatecan itforma sentence,that is to say, express a thought; such a sentence cannot stand by itself (cf. SB 36f). And, we may add by way of elucidation, the truth-value potential of such a sentencewhich cannot stand by itself cannot consist in a truth-value. It can only consist in the contributionwhich it makes to the truth-valueof sentencesinto which it may enter as a part. Applying our generaldefinitionof truth-valuepotentialto this case, we obtain the statementthat two nominalizedsentenceshave the same truth-value potentialif and only if, whenever each is completedby the same expression to form a sentence, the two sentences have the same truth-value. And, since this is only the case when the sentences which have been nominalized have the same sense, Frege's contention is fully justified that what he calls the oblique significance,that is to say the significance of the sentence in its new role as subject of a second-ordersentence, is the sense which the sentence has when it functions independently. Nominalization,then, is not just an accidentalgrammaticalfeature. In whateverway it may be grammatically expressed,a sentenceassumesthe role of a name, when it is so used that its truth-valuepotential standsin need of supplementationby a predicativetruth-valuepotential to yield a truth-value. This result shows once more that Frege's concept of is functional:the significanceof one and the sameexpression significance differsaccordingto whetherit expressesa self-sufficient semanticwhole, a "thought", or only part of one.

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ANALYSIS

This Fregeanaccountmaybe contrastedwith the usualcontemporary version of Frege's discovery in terms of extensional and intensional contexts by taking an example in the classificationof which the two accountsdiffer. Sentencesformedby applyingto a nominalizedsentence 'thatp' the predicate'is true' or 'is false' areextensionaland thereforedo not differat all, according to the usual version, from any other truthfunctionalcomplex sentence. According to the Fregeanaccount, on the other hand, the significanceof 'thatp' is, in this case as in any other, not the truth-valuebut the sense of 'p'. However, the significanceof the whole sentence'thatp is true' does not depend on the sense, but only on of 'p'. Does this not show thatFrege'srelianceon nominthe truth-value alizationis, afterall, mistaken,and that the usual contemporary account, which is based on the principleof interchangeability alone, is really far more satisfactory? I think not. The reasonwhy the significanceof the sentence 'that p is true' depends on the truth-value, and not on the sense, of 'p' is to be found in the particularmeaningof the predicate'is true' and not, as in other truth-functional sentences,in the construction of the sentence. This distinctionis effacedby the contemporary version, whereas it is brought out perfectlyby the original Fregeanaccount.1 What conclusion are we to draw from this vindication of Frege's ? Should we say that afterall Frege was doctrineof oblique significance of the as a universallaw? in principle interchangeability right assuming But this in itself would not be very illuminating. We have seen that the holds for quite differentreasons in the principle of interchangeability sentencesand in the case of complex sentences. case of subject-predicate The importantresult, which was not expressedby Frege himself, rather seems to be the curious primacywhich apparentlybelongs to subjectpredicatesentencesin assertivelanguage. This primacyconsists in the fact that the significance(and, in consequence, the sense) of all other expressionswithin assertivelanguageis definedin terms of the significsentences. The parts of subjectance (or the sense) of subject-predicate predicate sentences are essentially components; their significance consists therefore in what they may contribute to the significance of sentences. These expressions in turn are essentially subject-predicate wholes. If thereforethey are to enteras partsinto largerunits which are of theselargersentences to be sentencesthemselves,eitherthe significance must be definedas a function of the significanceof the simple sentences, or else the simple sentences can no longer function as sentences, but
1 On the other hand, a weakness in Frege's account might be discerned in the fact that names can occur intensionally in contexts other than nominalized sentences, as in 'a is believed to be different from b'. However, such a sentence can always be transformed into a sentence part of which is a nominalized sentence. Again, it would seem that although the Fregean account is more involved than the usual version, it is nevertheless more illuminating, because it refers us back to the reason for the intensional occurrence of expressions: intensionality is, it seems, bound up with intentionality, which is to be found primarily in propositional attitudes, and these are directed to what is expressed by nominalized sentences.

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must be converted into names, and the larger sentences then turn out to be themselves subject-predicate sentences. The universality of the of this primacy of is, then, a consequence principle of interchangeability the subject-predicate sentence. I have passed over sentences with 1st and 2nd order quantifiers. But their significance is also defined in terms of the significance of subject-predicatesentences. There are, however, kinds of sentence which seem to resist this account, in particularcausal sentences and But such sentencespresent difficultieson contrary-to-fact-conditionals. any account. Frege tried, in the last part of his essay, to explicate some of these more recalcitrant causal types of complex sentence,in particular sentences,but he did not attemptto relatehis explicationof these types to the assumeduniversalityof the principleof interchangeability.
Universityof Heidelberg