Philosophy of Language - Essay Example

Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), who was among the founders of the so-called analytical movement within the Anglo-American philosophy, is known today as one of the most outstanding philosophers in terms of his influence on the philosophy of the twentieth century. While Freges main sphere of interest was related to the basics of mathematics, his mathematical studies as well greatly contributed to the development of the modern symbolic logic. At the same time, in his works Frege was also touching upon themes related to the analysis of the semantics of language, i.e. the study of meaning conveyed with its help. And it was in this aspect of his scholarly activity that contributions of Frege are perhaps the most wide-ranging. Indeed, Frege defined the majority of the primary problems that the philosophy of language had to surmount, formulated most of the fundamental concepts and theories in this field, and set new methodological standards of academic scrutiny for the philosophy of language. On ground of all this, the modern philosophy of language has even been likened to footnotes to ideas of Frege. Of course, already before Frege language was viewed as an indispensable tool employed by our memory to record our thoughts and used as a means of expression of our thoughts to people via verbal communication. But in the end of the nineteenth century some philosophers started to perceive language in an even more fundamental way - as a tool without the understanding of which it is impossible to tackle existing conceptual and ontological problems. It was in this respect that Frege offered a variety of new insights into the functioning of language and its true significance. He was advancing the view that the very human thought as such is influenced by language as a form of symbolic interaction, and as he was interested in the study of the structure of the human thought he was naturally bound to closely analyse language. This is why we may find in his works so many fine observations that aim to uncover the most elementary principles of language usage (Weiner 2004, pp.1-6, 159-165). One of such subtle themes in works of Frege is his account of indirect speech, which holds an important place within his scholarly system where every seemingly minor linguistic mechanism matters. Let us overview his analysis of indirect speech and try through its critical evaluation to find out whether Frege gives an adequate account of it. First of all, to understand the place of the analysis of indirect speech in the works of Frege we should provide a proper context for its complete understanding. For Frege one of the motivating sources of his linguistic investigations was the dilemma represented by the fact that while language is necessary for us to be able to generate meaningful thoughts, it is at the same time the barrier for the adequate expression of thoughts because, being a sensible entity, language is used to express insensible thoughts. To find a proper reference point for the judgement on the matter of the possible interrelation that may exist between thought and language, Frege formulated two important concepts that lie at the point of intersection between them. The first such concept is the so-called sense that is contained in each expression. Sense of an expression relates to the specific way of formulation of description of an object, conception, or function that a certain sentence aims to describe. We may liken the notion of sense to the question 'how' is something expressed in a sentence. Another crucial concept of Frege is the notion of significance, or reference, of an expression, which is the actual object, conception, or function that that expression aims to represent. Similarly, we may liken the notion of reference to the question 'what' does a sentence attempt to tell us. Now, with the help of those two approaches to the analysis of information contained in a particular sentence we can establish that for every meaningful expression there can be only one reference, while there can be different senses that may be used to express the same reference (Frege, 1892). In application to the dilemma between thought and language, the usage of the mentioned concepts is very helpful as we may actually equate Freges concept of sense that assumes different forms related to the same reference with our thoughts. In this case, the concept of reference may be associated with a truthfulness of a sentence that expresses something. Having established a methodology that can facilitate semantic analysis of linguistic expressions, Frege did not ignore complex cases in which, contrary to simple situations when in order to establish the general truthfulness of a claim each of its parts has to have its truthfulness confirmed, it happens that despite the fallacy of a part of a statement the whole sentence nevertheless remains true. Such an instance of the indifference of the whole expression to the validity or falsity of its constituent parts is called indirect speech, and the closer examination of how this semantic mechanism functions according to Frege may help us see the mentioned intricacy of the principles governing language. To exemplify this we may analyse a statement like this: Bill believes that the sun revolves around the Earth. If we were to adopt a straightforward approach to the analysis that requires that the truthfulness of a statement depends on the truthfulness of references of each of its parts, then we would erroneously conclude that this statement is false. But we surely can see that this statement as a whole can be perfectly true. So the task of Frege was to explain how can this fact of the preservation of the general truthfulness of such statements be formally reconciled with his conceptual analysis, based on the distinction between sense and reference, that we have described. The relevant reasoning of Frege is the following - as far the part of the sentence the sun revolves around the Earth relates to its own specific sense, i.e. to the thought of Bill that it represents, as to its main meaning, in such parts their original sense can be now viewed as their object, which Frege calls indirect reference. In this way, what would be considered to be a sense of a sentence in direct speech of the person directly expressing his or her ideas, in situation of representation of a certain thought of a person in indirect speech transforms into the reference of that expression. To distinguish between several types of references, Frege differentiates between expressions primary and secondary references, with the latter being what would normally be considered senses of expressions which in such situations of indirect speech adopt the function of references of expressions (Dummett 1993, pp.186-192). The interchanging function of indirect speech extends beyond its application only to belief statements, and is involved into the attempts of Frege to give an extensive judgement to the problem of definition of identity. Indeed, as for Frege the various thoughts and verbal manifestations may represent just a single reference, a question arises as to whether different senses (i.e. different thoughts) may be always considered interchangeable if they pertain to the same reference, like for example is the case with alternative expressions the morning star and the evening star, which both describe Venus. On ground of the mentioned peculiarities of the indirect speech Frege concludes that those alternative expressions may indeed substitute one another and remain perfectly truthful in direct speech, while due the possible mutation of different senses of those expressions into secondary references (which in they turn already describe not an original object, for instance Venus, but somebodys beliefs about that object), these expressions cannot replace each other in indirect speech because they represent different senses, i.e. different thoughts. In this way, what Frege adds to the distinction between direct and indirect speech is his connection of senses of expressions with human cognitive mechanisms, which, by ascription of epistemological qualities to senses, helps us better understand how language is fundamentally linked with our mental structures. Besides, as a side effect of Freges distinction between properties of direct and indirect speech he reformulates the principle of identity and notes that sentences have the same sense if they can be substituted in the indirect context. This method of determination of substitutability in indirect speech expands the methodological arsenal of Frege and helps him obtain a better understanding of sense, which was one of his most important tasks (Dummett 1991). However, it can be pointed out that the questions of substitutability of senses and our proper understanding of them are so closely related that one may view them as two sides of the same coin, because to be able to understand the sense we have to be able to know right substitutions for it, but in order to know such substitutions we have to correctly understand the sense. This somewhat circular logic present in Freges account of indirect speech can be better grasped from a larger point of view that suggests that the very basic concept of sense, on which Frege builds his theory and which forms the basis of his account of indirect speech, is not unproblematic. Indeed, as Frege assigns to senses, and thoughts for that matter, an objective but immaterial existence independent from both the human mind and language, it becomes difficult to explain how senses can be attached to objective and material references they describe (Klement, 2006). Moreover, in this light Freges account of our ability to turn with the help of language a sense of an expression into its reference in indirect speech becomes merely a superficial observation that hints at the presence of some important quality of human mind that enables us to interact with the material world through manipulation with abstract, and therefore not material in the traditional sense of the word, notions and conceptions, but which nevertheless fails to explain what exactly that quality might be. But I believe that such considerations should not be viewed as those that in any way reduce the scholarly merits of Frege. After all, the philosophy of language is a filed that faces many unresolved problems, and Frege has greatly contributed if not to their complete resolution, but at least to their greater clarification. With all this said, we have to acknowledge that from the methodological point of view Freges account of indirect speech is very insightful and academically accurate. Sources Dummett, Michael. Frege and Other Philosophers. Oxford University Press, 1991. Dummett, Michael. Frege: Philosophy of Language. Harvard University Press, 1993. Frege, Gottlob. On Sense and Nominatum, 1892. In Martinich, Aloysius. P. (Ed.). The Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press, 2000. Klement, Kevin C. Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006. 24 March 2006 Weiner, Joan. Frege Explained (Ideas Explained). Open Court, 2004. Read More