Volume-XII, Special Issue, April 2026 |
Frege on Proper Names: Sense, Reference and First-Person Psychological Statements Mohasina Khatun, Research scholar, Department of Philosophy, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India |
Received: 03.04.2026 | Accepted: 09.04.2026 | Published Online: 10.04.2026 | Page No: 360-365 | ||||
DOI: 10.29032/ijhsss.vol.12.issue.specialW.304 | |||||||
ABSTRACT | ||
This article delves the context of the term I within the structure of two-tier meaning of proper name by Gottlob Frege. It begins by explaining how the problem of proper names arises from questions concerning linguistic reference and the capacity of expressions to refer particular objects. The discussion shall explore Frege’s expanded theory of proper names that is. According to him proper name is not only a ordinary names but also definite descriptions and declarative compelet sentences. So that Frege introduced a Central to the analysis is Frege’s distinction of sense and reference. The concept of sense is important to address cognitive significance of identitical statements. This article also analysis that the sense of a proper name is objective and shareable to every speaker of that speaker but distinct from subjective mental image. The central analysis of this paper is that can we apply this two-tier meaning of proper in the first person psychological statement such as ‘I am feeling anxiety for my thesis.’ It argues that, unlike ordinary proper names, the first-person pronoun “I” indicate a distinctive cognitive role that hold out against in terms of Frege’s concept sense. | ||
Keywords: Gottlob Frege, proper names, sense and reference, definite descriptions, truth-values, objectivity of meaning, first person psychological statements. |