Reason Without Freedom

Gottlob Frege is now regarded as one of the world’s greatest philosophers, and the founder of modern logic. In addition to his work on the foundations of mathematics, his writing on sense and reference remains deeply influential. Departing From Frege takes Frege’s work as a point of departure, but argues that we must depart considerably from Frege’s own views if we are to work towards an adequate conception of natural language. Mark Sainsbury suggests that the two aspects that are most important to retain in Frege’s work are the distinction between sense and reference, and the possibility of sense without a referent. Many philosophers today take the equation of sense with “mode of presentation of an object ” or “way of thinking of an object” as definitive of Fregeanism. Although some of Frege’s words do suggest this view, Sainsbury argues that it is not required for the distinction between sense and reference. Moreover, it makes it difficult to accommodate sense without a referent, and impossible to do justice to Frege’s clear commitment to sense as the common property of all who speak a language