32

CHAPTER - THREE

Gottlob Frege On Existence and Predication

3.1 : INTRODUCTION

The explication of the notion of existence from the standpoint of

modem logic owes a lot to the development of quantification theory. Though

the philosophers, who make possible the development of quantificational theory,

are not unanimous in their interpretation of quantification theory, yet they all

adhere to the view that existence is not a logical predicate. To understand the

current thoughts on this particular issue, it is, therefore, important to consider

the views of some modem thinkers. And in this respect the obvious choice is

Gottlob Frege. He is one of the founders of modem logic and the most

extensive and fruitful discussions on existence in the 20th century have been

initiated by him.

For a clear understanding of Frege's view on existence and predi­

cation it is essential to understand his view regarding some key notions such

as 'Sense and Reference', 'Concept and Object', 'Number' etc.

3.2 : Frege's Distinction Between Sense and Reference

The two interacting ontological hierarchies upon which Frege's

 33

theory of semantics is based are the distinction between

a) Sense and Reference and b) Concept and Object. Whereas other philoso­

phers talked ambiguously of the mening of an expression, Frege distinguished

between the reference of an expression and the sense of an expression. This

theory of sense and reference was expounded for the first time in his famous

essay 'Ober Sinn Und Bedeutung' (translated as Sense and Reference ).’

Initially, Frege introduced this distinction between the sense and the

reference of a name in order to be able to deal with a well-known puzzle about

statements of identity (" = "): if it is true that 'a = b', how can there be any

difference between 'a = a' and 'a = b' ? Yet, whereas the first is merely analytic,

the second can be informative. In the very opening paragraph of the classic

essay 'Uber Sinn Und Bedeutung', Frege makes it clear that his initial motive

for introducting the distinction between sense and reference is that he might

use this distinction ‘ - -.. to solve the philosophical problem mentioned

above. He begins by examining the question of what analysis to give to certain

types of identity statements. An identity statement is of the general fo?m

'a = b', which can be read as 'a is the same as b', or, 'a and b coincide'.

Now the first question that may be asked is - what is the role of

the identity or equality sign, '=', which is translated as 'is the same as', or,

'coincides with'? The identity sign obviously expresses a relation of some sort,
 34

but the question arises - between what does the relation hold ? The question

Frege considers is this : If the identity sign' =' has to do with a special relation

of some sort, then we must ask about what, between what, or as holding for

what, does the identity relation have to do ? Thus, Frege opens his essay with

the following words,

" Identity gives rise to challenging questions which are not altogether easy

to answer. Is it a relation ? A relation between objects, or between names

or signs of objects ?"2

If we consider the different alternatives mentioned in the above

question, we get two different theories about what identity relation is all about.

These two theories are :

1. Identity is a relation between objects.

2. Identity is a relation between names of objects.

Frege, considering both these theories, discards them one by one.

If we take identity relation as a relation between objects, then one

g,
would interpret any true idntity statement as asserting that some object is the
A

same as itself.

As a general ontological principle there is nothing objectionable to this

theory. However, Frege rejects this theory on the ground that the interpretation
 35

provided by it fails to give a satisfactory analysis of identity statements. If one

understands identity as a relation between objects or, more precisely, of an

object to itself, a true identity judgement of the form 'a = b' will express the

same relation of identity as the judgement of the form 'a = a'. The two judge­

ments will not differ in cognitive value in direct contradiction to the occur­

rence of judgements of the form 'a is b' which can not be established a priori

like the analytic judgement 'a is a'.

In the Begriffsschrift, Frege holds the view that identity is a relation

between names or signs for objects. Given this interpretation 'a = b' would say

that the name 'a' and name V were names for the same thing. For example, an

identity sentence like 'The morning star is the evening star* can be regarded

as saying that the two names 'the morning star' and 'the evening star' refer to

the same thing.

Frege rejects this theory in his later article 'Uber Sinn Und

Bedeutung'. This theory is unacceptable to him. It would entail that in identity

statements we are not really talking about the world, but about language, and

so the view could not explain our ability to use such statements to express

proper knowledge of the world ('In that case the sentence 'a = b' would no

longer refer to the subject matter, but only to its mode of designation; we would

express no proper knowledge by its means')3. Moreover, the relevant facts

 36

about names are arbitrary; it is just a matter of convention that we use 'the

morning star' and the 'evening star* to refer to the same thing, but it is not a

matter of convention that 'the morning star is the evening star'.

This brings us to the third theory of identity relation which Frege

offers in 'Uber Sinn Und Bedeutung'. Here he points out that the signs 'a'

and 'b' do not differ simply as 'objects', but there is another factor involved

in the use of the signs 'a' and 'b' which has been overlooked in the above meta­

linguistic explanation of identity statements. It is this overlooked factor that

can yield knowledge about the object to which each sign refers. In his ■' '

theory Frege makes this missing element explicit and calls it the sense con­

nected with the use of the sign in an identity statement. It is the presence of

the sense component, however, that explains the fact that some identity state­

ments mark discoveries, and thereby add to our store of knowledge. If one

assumes ’a = b' to be true, then 'a = a' and 'a = b' can have different cognitive

values only if'a' is distinguished from h' not only in form but also in the way

in which it designates something, i.e., its sense. Frege writes,

" A difference can arise only if the difference between the signs corre­

sponds to a difference in the mode of presentation of that which is

designated."4

Thus he says that the signs 'the morning star' and 'the evening star' both denote
 37

the same referent, the planet Venus, but the two expressions differ in sense

and hence, it is possible for 'The evening star is identical with the morning star'

to convey information, even though both the expressions have the same ref­

erent. Thus we find that in Frege's mature account of meaning there are items

at three levels : signs, their senses and their references. Signs express their

sense, and stand for, or denote, their references. By using signs we express

a sense and denote a reference.

According to Frege, all meaningful linguistic expressions contain

these two intimately related semantic properties viz., sense and reference.

Now before explaining what Frege means by reference of a meaningful

expression, it is essential to know which expressions would be admitted as

meaningful expressions by Frege in a language. This is given in the table below:

Expressions

Complete Incomplete (Unsaturated)

[Such as singular term, [Functional expression]
Proper names etc.] 1
I---------------- --------
____ I Predicative Non-Predicative
Ordinary Definite Sentences
Proper name Description

Descriptive Trut ;h-functional

expression expression

Anything which falls under this broad division of expression is

 38

meaningful and therefore can be said to have both sense and reference. But

since the discussion of sense and reference of each and every class of expres­

sion in detail is not relevant to the Fregean view regarding existence and

predication, we shall confine our discussion to some of these expressions.

Let us start with proper names. Frege never troubled to give any

precise characterization of'proper name'. But from his writings it appears that

according to him a proper name is a name of an object. He divides entities

in this world into functions and objects and holds that every entity is either

a function or an object. Likewise, he regards every linguistic expression (with

some exception like a variable or a bracket) to be either the name of a function

or the name of an object. Names of objects are proper names, names of

functions are function names. Words which are ordinarily regarded as proper

name, e.g. 'Socrates', 'Caesar', etc., as well as descriptive phrases like, 'The

morning star', 'The author of the Iliad and the odyssey' etc. are included by

Frege, under the category of proper names. Thus, in his article 'On sense and

reference' Frege states :

"It is clear from the context that by "sign" and "name" I have here under­

stood any designation representing a proper name, whose referent is thus

a definite object but no concept and no relation, .... The designation of

a simple object can also consist of several words or other signs. For
 39

brevity, let every such designation he called a proper name."5

According to Frege, anything which is termed as a proper name can

only be used as the subject of a sentence. So when we speak of the reference

or the sense of a proper name we thereby really mean the reference and sense

of the subject in a sentence.

Since, as Dummett says, "The sense of a proper name cannot be

explained without invoking the notion of reference for proper names,"6 it is

necessary to deal with the question : what does Frege mean by the reference

of a subject or a proper name?

According to Frege what an expression names is the reference of

that expression. Since a proper name is the name of an object, the reference

of a proper name is the object named by it. Thus Frege says, "Proper names

are meant to designate objects, and we call the object designated by a proper

name its reference."7 Objects which constitute the reference of proper names,

may be of the most varied types — human beings, heavenly bodies, points in

space, proofs of a theorem, directions and even numbers. For example,... the

reference of 'Socrates' is that object which bears the name Socrates. Similar

consideration will also apply to the expression The morning star1 which, being

a proper name, has a particular object (planet) as its reference. That is to say,
 40

the planet designated by the expression 'the morning star' is the reference of

that expression.

The sense of a proper name, on the other hand, is the mode of

presentation of the object. It is the manner in which the object is designated.

The semse of a proper name is different from it's referent for it is possible

for two expressions to have the same referent but different sense. E.g., 'the

morning star', and 'the evening star' both refer to the planet venus, yet the two

expressions do not have the same meaning. Moreover, if the sense of a name

was merely comprised of it's having a certain reference, them anyone who

understood the name would also know the object it stood for. Besides, anyone

who understood two names which had the same reference would also know that

they stood for the same object, and hence would know the truth of the statement

of identity. Thus, a statement of identity would not be informative for him.

Dummett points out that the assumption behind this argument is the "compel­

ling principle" that,

"If someone knows the senses of two words, and the two words have the

same sense, he must know that they have the same sense : hence, if the

sense of a name consists merely in its reference, anyone who understands

two names having the same referent must know that they have the same

referent."8
 41

Therefore, the sense of a name is different from its reference. Thus grasping

the sense of a proper name not merely includes the awareness that the name

is associated with a particular object as its referent, but it also involves

connecting the name with a particular way of identifying the object as its

referent. The sense of a proper name provides us accordingly with what may

be called a criterion of identification for the object referred to by this means.9

Consequently the cases where we have different singular expressions having

the senses of their own, we have different criteria of identification for the same

object. Thus to exemplify the sense of a proper name like 'Socrates', we can

rr^nKwThe teacher of Plato', 'The husband of Xanthippe 'etc. which would serve

as the means of picking out its (the proper name's) referent.

It is to be remembered in this connection that though identifying

criteria help us to pick out a referent, yet they are not sufficient. There may

be a lot of other criteria as well. As Frege puts it,

"This sense of a proper name is grasped by everybody who is sufficiently

familiar with the language or totality of designations to which it belongs,

but this serves only to illuminate only a single aspect of the referent,

supposing it to exist. Comprehensive knowledge of the referent would

require us to be able to say immediately whether every given sense

&■

belongs to it which is quite impossible to achive."10

 42

Frege, speaks not only of the sense and reference of a subject term

or proper name, but also of sense and reference of a predicate term-the

in'.complete (or unsaturated) expression. So let us now explain briefly Frege's

thesis about the sense and reference of a predicate.

"A predicate is an expression that gives us an assertion about some­

thing, if we attach it to another expression that stands for what we are making

the assertion about'!" This statement implies that what is called a predicate

is an incomplete expression or, as Frege puts it, an 'unsaturated entity* which

requires an appropriate (complete) expression (like proper name, definite

description etc.) to yield a complete sentence. In the sentence 'Socrates' is

wise' - 'is wise' is attached to 'Socrates' about whom the assertion is made. And

'— is wise' is to be treated as a predicate which requires an appropriate

complete expression to make a complete sentence. And herein lies the simple

distinction between the subject which is a complete expression and the predi­

cate which is an incomplete expression.

We ordinarily suppose that a predicate has sense but has no

reference. But Frege holds tha{predicate being a meaningful linguistic ex­

pression - though incomplete in character - has both sense and reference.

The reference of a predicate; according to Frege, is 'concept1. Frege

 43

does not use the word ’concept' in the psychological sense but in the logical

sense. By 'concept' he does mean an unsaturated entity which is attributed to

or ascribed of an object or a saturated entity. Thus the reference of the

predicate 'is wise' in the sentence 'Socrates is wise' is the concept - being wise.

Though the concept is unsaturated, it can be joined with an appropriate name

to yield a complete sentence.

Let us now turn to Frege's assertion that a predicate has also sense

over and above its reference.

The sense of a predicate - an incomplete expression - unlike proper

name;is not the mode of presentation of its referent. It is, however, not to

be described in terms of the identification of something as the referent of that

expression. The sense of a predicate is that which provides us with the means

of determining the extension of its referent, i.e. a concept. To put it in

otherwords, the sense of an incomplete expression contributes to the deter­

mination of the truth-value of a sentence in which it occurs.

Next Frege proposes to enquire into the sense and reference of

declarative sentence. According to Frege, every well-formed sentence has a

clear and determinate sense. The sense of a sentence is, as Frege says, 'the

thought1. For Frege every declarative sentence contains a thought This thought,
 44

he emphasizes, is not mere conglomeration of some subjective ideas. It is

something objective, uniform and public. Frege's use of the expression 'the

thought' very much corresponds to what others intend by the word 'proposi­

tion'.12

In the essay 'On Sense and Reference'Frege has given an argument

to prove that thought cannot be the reference of a sentence. He begins with

the assumption that thought is the reference of a sentence and then rejects this

possibility on the ground that two sentences which have the same referent may

contain different thoughts. Suppose a sentence has a reference. Now, if a word

in the sentence is replaced by another word having the same referent but a

different sense, then the reference of the sentence remains unaffected, for, the

reference of the whole depends upon that of its parts. However, in such a case

the thought contained by the sentence changes completely. For example, if

in the sentence, 'The morning star1 is a body illuminated by the sun', we replace

the phrase 'the morning star1 by 'the evening star', the reference of the sentence

remains exactly the same for both the words have the same referent, viz., the

planet venus. But the two sentences :

1) The morning star is a body illuminated by the sun,

2) The evening star is a body illuminated by the sun,

contain different thoughts which is, according to Frege, proved by the

 45

followingfaet, "Anybody who did not know that the evening star is the

morning star might hold the one thought to he true, the other false." 13 If

thought had been the referent of a sentence then it should not vary in a

reference-preserving substitution. But since the thought varies, it cannot be

the referent

The quesion now is : Is there, in addition to sense, a reference of

the sentence? It is quite conceivable that sentences have only sense but no

reference. Sentences which contain non-referential names would be of this

type. Frege, illustrates this with a line from Homer's Odyssey: "Odysseus was

set ashore at Ithaca while sound asleep." Since it is doubtful whether an ordinary

proper name like Odysseus' has reference, it is, therefore, also doubtful whether

the sentence containing it has one. Similar consideration will also apply to

the sentence containing non-referential proper names like 'The celestial body

most distant from the Earth' or 'the least convergent series--' etc. But the fact

is that we are not always satisfied with the sense of the sentence; we are also

interested in knowing its truth-value. And "it is the striving for truth-value that

always drives us to advance from the sense to the reference of the sentence."14

Thus Frege concludes that we are driven into accepting the truth-value of a

sentence as consituting its reference.

Since a sentence can only be either true or false (Frege does not admit
 46

any third value), there are only two truth-values. Frege calls this the 'True' and

the 'False'. Every true sentence has the same reference called the true and

every false sentence has the same reference called the false. This seems odd

at the first glance, but this is exactly what modem logic seems specially

designed to bring about. If a truth functional component of a compound

sentence is replaced by another sentence having the same truth-value, the value

of the compound sentence that results is the same as the truth-value of the

original sentence.

3.3 : Frege’s Distinction Between Concept and Object

In Frege's philosophical logic the distinction between concept and

object - as expounded in one of his most celebrated paper 'On Concept and

object' is of supreme importance because the failure to recognise this dis­

tinction, Frege thinks, is responsible for many of our confusions and errors

that pervade the history of philosophy. Moreover, this classical distinction

helps us to understand the entire bent of Frege's philosophical logic and to this

distinction, therefore, we shall address now.

The word 'concept' is used by Frege in a logical sense rather than

in a psychological sense. By 'concept' Frege does not mean, as others do, to

designate some part of the content of our mind, an image or any other type
 47

of mental occurrence. The question, therefore, arises : what is a 'concept'

according to Frege?

Frege uses the term 'concept1 both in a narrower sense and a broader

sense. In its narrower sense, 'concept' is synonymous with one place predicate

as differentiated from relation, which is used by him to stand for a binary (a

two place) predicate. In a broader use of the term 'concept' we could say that

a concept is the predicate part (whether one-place, or many-place) of a sen­

tence, and as such corresponds to the unsaturated part of a complete sentence.

This needs some clarification.

eSHaJ*.(Concepts),for Frege, are those which we apply to an object. And

objects, as distinguished from concepts, are whatever we can talk about. Thus

in the sentence 'Socrates is wise' - Socrates 'shfiosdtb- ^ran object, while 'is wise'

’ £cmv£vp a concept. Here 'is wise' is a concept word which is used to describe

or talk about an object - Socrates that he has the property of 'being wise'.

Concepts are thus somehow incomplete. 'Socrates' can stand by itself as a name

in a way that 'is wise' can not. Frege expresses this by calling objects saturated

and concepts unsaturated.

A concept-word being the incomplete or unsaturated part of a

sentence by itself does not constitute an entire sentence. But when

 48

supplemented by the name or other designation of an object, it can yield a

complete sentence which is either true or false.

Due to the radical difference between them, concept and object can

not be substituted for one another. The nature of concepts -yi can be well

described by the fact that they are said to have essentially a predicative nature.

But an object can never be predicated of anything. To quote Frege,

"A concept is the reference of a predicate, an object is something that

can never be the whole reference of a predicate but can be the reference

of a subject. Consequently a concept-word can be replaced by another

concept but never by an object. Thus the assertion that is made about a

concept does not suit an object."15

So according to Frege, when we say that, 'The evening star is Venus',

then we are not predicating Venus, but coinciding with Venus. He says that

linguistically proper names correspond to objects, concept-words to concepts.

It may be noted here that by a proper name Frege means what is

more generally called a singular term. There is no implication, for Frege, that

a proper name should be logically simple and thus what Russell distinguished

as definite descriptions, Frege included in the general category of proper

names. Frege says in his 'Foundations of Arithmetic' that with a concept the
 49

question is always whether anything, and if so what falls under it. While with

a proper name such questions simply do not arise. Frege also maintains that

we should not be deceived by the fact that language makes use of proper names,

e.g. 'moon' as concept-word and vice-versa; but this does not affect the dis­

tinction between the two.Here Frege gives us a criterion of distinction between

the two. For him, "As soon as a word is used with the indefinite article or in

the plural without any article, it is a concept word."16 It, therefore, entails that

a word, accompanied by singular definite article, always indicates an object.

And this is regarded as one of the reasons behind Frege's view that The concept

horse' is not a concept but designates an object that falls under the concept

horse.

It would be worth mentioning in this connection Frege's view

regarding the relation between function and concept as elucidated in his another

celebrated writing 'Function and concept'. By the mathematical notion of

function, Frege means a pattern or form common to a set of mathematical

expression or simply an expression containing empty places. 7'**- Tor example,

2. I3 + 1

2. 23 + 2

2. 33 + 3

Here the first expression designates the number 3, the second the
 50

number 18 and the third designates the number 57. Though each of the expres­

sion designates a different number from the other, yet a close look will reveal

the fact that they have a common pattern or form viz. 2. (x)3 + (x) and it is

this common pattern which is called by Frege 'function' as distinguished from

'variable number', as commonly used by mathematicians.

However, according to Frege, the blank spaces that are adjoined in

a function should be filled by the same numerals. That is, the numeral that fills

the first blank space will also fill the second one. And the placement of a

particular numeral in each of the parentheses is known as providing a symbol

in an argument-place to stand for an argument (taken in a different sense from

that in which it is used in deductive and inductive logic). And the point to

remember is that arguments may vary from one example to another, the pattern

or, as Frege calls, function remains constant or unchanged. The essence of

function, for him, is that it itself is incomplete and in need of supplementation

(of an argument). In this regard function is essentially different from number,

which is definite and complete in itself. Moreover, the same function may

stand for different numbers (eg. '2. 23 + 2' and '2. 33 + 3' express the same

function but they designate the numbers 18 and 57 respectively) and different

functions may stand for the same number (eg. '2. 23 + 2' and TO + 8' express

different functions but designate the same number 18 ).

 51

The above discussion clearly shows that there is a similarity be­

tween the notion of function and that of concept. Frege now extends the notion

of concept by analogy with the way in which the mathematical notion of

function is used. Frege holds that in mathematics there are various examples

in which we see that functions are sometimes supplemented with numbers and

some time with other functions. In the former case, the function is called a

first-order function and in the latter it is called second-order function. Analo­

gously in logic, concepts can be divided into first-level (or order) and second-

level (or order). The first-level concepts are those which are directly applicable

to individual objects, while the second-level concepts are those which are

applicable to first-level concepts.

First-order concepts, we are told, are always applicable to individual

objects. Thus for example, in the sentence 'Arkle is a horse'- 'is a horse' is

considered as a first-level concept which is directly applied to an object called

'Arkle.' Or, to put it in other words, the object Arkle falls under the concept

'is a horse.' An object's falling under the concept is the essential character­

istic of a first-level concept. What is meant by the use of the phrase 'to fall

under a concept' is that it holds for the relation between an individual object

and a concept. We can not say that something or other falls under an object.

It is only of concepts (as for example 'is wise') that one can say (truly or falsely)
 52

that some individual object falls under that concept. It may be mentioned in

this connection that for Frege,

".... The falling of an individual under a concept is totally different from

the subordination of one concept to another. "16 Thus the concept

mammal is subordinate to the concept animal; animal is a component of

the concept mammal, but it is not a property of it. However both animal

and mammal are properties of, say,, Lord Emsworth's pig, the impress

of Blandingj; that is to say, the empress of Blandings falls under both

concepts.17

A second-level predicate, on the otherhand, is one which could

never be used to describe the properties of an individual object, but applies

only to the first-level concepts. In other words, a second-level concept is a

concept that takes as its argument first-level concepts. For example, let us

take the sentence "There are animals which are horses." The intended meaning

of this sentence is that the concept 'is horse' is one that has instances. And

here the concept 'has instances' is a second-level concept whifh takes as its

argument the first-level concept 'is a horse' to yield a complete sentence. We

should say that the second-level predicative statement is true for this argument.

According to Frege, the relation of an object to a first-level concept

is different from the relation of a first-level concept to a second-level concept.

 53

To make the distinction clear he says, "An object falls under a first-level

concept, a concept falls within a second-level concept."18

3.4 : The Concept of 'Number*

The notion of number is of primary importance in Frege's philo­

sophical logic because the light that he subsequently throws on the concept

of existence is originally reflected from this particular notion. And this is clear

from his assertion :

"Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number

nought,"19 (The detailed exposition of this will be given later).

By 'number1 Frege generally means positive numerical signs which

give answers to the question of the form "How m^y ...."? Or, as Frege puts

it, "What answe^the question, How many ? is number."20 Frege maintains that

any answer to the number question of the above form (e.g. 'there are twelve

signs of the zodiac' or 'there are seven wise apostles' etc.) may suggest that

the individual number is a property of an object and therefore it can be classed

with other properties like heavy or hard or red etc.

But a close look will reveal the fact that numbers are not actually

properties of objects. 'In fact the superficial grammatical appearance of

numerical adjectives side by side with others misleads us into treating numbers
 54

as properties of objects or of collection of objects.21 On analysis of the statement

"There are twelve signs of the zodietz" we see that each of the twelve signs

of the Zodiac is a sign, though each of them is not twelve. Similarly by

analysing the statement 'There are seven apostles' we can see that each of the

seven apostles is wise, though each of them is not seven. So it is a mistake

to conceive number as a property of an object or objects.

For Frege, number can not be assigned to an individual object or

heaps of objects because from it an absurd consequence would follow. To

substantiate his view he argues that if we consider (for the sake of argumen­

tation) the number 1 as a property ascribable to an individual object and

numbers greater than 1 as properties ascribable to more than one object i.e.

collection of objects, then on the same ground the number nought (i.e. 'O') will

also have to be regarded as a property that can be ascribed to nonexistent object

'But to ascribe something to non-existent object is to ascribe it to nothing at

all, and to ascribe something to nothing at all is not to ascribe it to anything.22

That is to say, in order to ascribe successfully number nought (as a property)

to a non-existent object, there must be a non-existent entity which is

impossible. This is termed as 'Plato's beard 123 after Quine.

Again, number cannot be considered as a property of external things

like the property of hard or heavy or white. Other predicates or properties

 55

which are regarded as properites of external things (like hard, heavy, white etc.)

cannot be altered in the slightest way at our will by mere thinking of that object.

But it is quite possible, Frege v says'-.to think of the Iliad either as

one poem or as 24 Books, or as some large number of verses."24 This goes

to show that number cannot enjoy the same status as other properties of the

external things. Number words often appear as adjectives; we speak of three

horses or four horses as we speak of black horses and white horses, and this

may suggest that number is a property of things in the way that colour is. Again,

when we speak of 'four thoroughbred horses' it looks as if 'four' modifies

thoroughbred horse' in the same way as 'thoroughbred' modifies Tiorse'. And

this, according to Frege, fosters the illusion that number is a property of

external object, which actually it is not.

The question now arises : when we make a statement of number,

what is that of which we assert something? Or, in short, what is the content

of a number-statement? Frege replies that number statement is always an

assertion about a concept. That is to say, numbers are always properties of

concepts, not of objectf-This is clear from the following remarks of Frege:

"If I say 'venus has O moons', there simply does not exist any moon or

agglomeration of moons for anything to be asserted of; but what happens

is that a property is assigned to the concept 'moon of venus', viz. that of

 56

including nothing under it."25 If I say 'the King's carriage is drawn by four

horses' then I assign the number four to the concept 'horse that draws the

King's carriage'.

Furthermore, the view that number is assigned to the concept can

be confirmed by the fact that it is to be found in idiom; just as in English we

can speak of'three barrel' so in German we speak generally often man", 'four

mark' and so on. The use of the singular here may indicate that the concept

is intended, not the thing. And the number here functions as the property of

concept, not of thing. ^Fouiic/w-Ho-v^ of- Ay> ; P'f^,

When Frege says that number is a property of a concept, or, more

correctly, that a statement of number assigns a property to a concept, it is

important to bear in mind that he makes a systematic distinction between a

property of a concept and a component of a concept. Right-angled is

component of the concept right-angled triangle, but it is not a property of

that concept ; it is a propetrty of that triangles that fall under it. But the

proposition that there are no equilateral right angled triangles does state a

property of the concept equilateral right angled triangle; it assigns to it the

number zero.
 57

3.5 : Frege's View On Existence

Having explained some key notions of Frege's philosophy we may

now proceed to give an exposition of Frege's view on existence.

\

In elucidating the different key concepts we have seen that Frege

lays much emphasis on the notion of number because the light he subsequently

throws on the notion of existence is especially reflected from his concept of

number. Showing a considerable affinity of existence with number, he comes

to the momentous conclusion that 'existence is analogous to number.'26

If'existence is analogous to number' then 'statements of existence

can surely be said to be statements of number. The possible answers to

questions of the form 'How many A's are there?' are 'a lot' which is equivalent

to saying that 'The number of A's is not small1, or 'A few', which is the same

as saying '|he number of A's is not large.' If we say there are some A's hhis

is tantamount to saying that *The number of A's is not O'. Instead of sayingfthere

are some A 's' one may say A’s exist/ All these statements are nothing but

statements of number.'27

If existence is analogous to number then as number is the property

of concepts, not of objects, existence also must be treated as a property of

concept, not of objects. By 'the properties of a concept' Frege does not mean
 58

'the characteristics which make up the concept. The latter are properties of

things or objects which fall under the concept, not of the concept.'28

Now what Frege means by calling existence a property of a concept

can be elucidated with the help of some examples

Let us consider the following examples as given by Frege :

a) There is at least one square root of 4.

b) The concept square root of 4 is realized.

In his view, the thought (in his terminology 'sense') expressed by

the sentence 'There is at least one square root 4' is the same as that of the

sentence 'The concept square root of 4 is realized.' Of these two sentences,

the former is, according to Frege, an assertion not about 2, nor about -2; but

about a concept 'the square root of 4.’ The Sentence assigns the property viz.

'that it is not empty* (expressed by the words 'There is at least one') to a concept

viz. 'The square root of 4'. On the other hand, in the latter sentence the

expression 'The concept s^qare root of 4' does not stand for concept (just as,

for Frege, 'The concept horse' is not a concept) because, for him, no concept

can be referred to or picked out by a form of words which begins with 'The
of-
concept...' It (the concept square root^.4) is to be regarded as a proper name

referring to an object. So in (b) we are saying something about the object

t

referred to by the proper name 'The concept square root of 4.' Again the
 59

expression 'is realized' does not also stand for the same concept as the expres­

sion 'There is at least one' stands for in (a). In the second sentence, the

expression 'is realized' stands for a concept under which falls an object
•f*
referred to by the proper name 'The concept square root4.' Concepts of such

type (like 'is realized') are called by Frege 'first-level concept' ; while the

expression 'There is at least one' in the first sentence, stands for a concept

within which falls another concept viz. that for which the expression the
of-
'square root 4' stands. Such concepts (like 'there is at least one') Frege calls

second level concept.'

So it is clear from the above discussion that there is a fundamental

difference between statement (a) and (b) mentioned above. The former is about

a concept assigning the property of non-emptiness or existence to that concept,

whereas the latter is about an object assigning the property of actuality to that

object.

That existence is a property of concepts can also be shown by

another example. In the sentence 'Satellites of Mars exist' we are not

ascribing the property of existence to a particular satellite (say Phobos) of

Mars, but we are saying about the concept 'Satellites of Mars'. that there are

objects falling under it, that it has instantiators.

 60

On what grounds does Frege reject the view that existence can

be a first-level predicate? The Fregean arguments are as follows :

In the first place, it we take existence as a property that can be

attributed to an object or agglomeration of objects (such as : 'There is one F'

or 'There are so many F's) then on the same ground 'existence' in the sentence

'There are no F' s' will have to be taken as a property of some non-existent

objects. But to ascribe something to non-existent object is to ascribe it to

nothing at all. And to ascribe something to nothing at all is not to ascribe it

to anything. To avoid this undersirable consequence we will have to take

existence (in all the above mentioned sentences) as a predication about what

the predicate '.......is an F' stands for. That is, we must treat existence as a

second-level predicate.

Secondly, suppose 'exist' in the sentence 'Satellitesof Mars exist'

is treated as a first-level predicate like 'mortal' in the sentence Men are mortal.'

Now we ordinarily take the former to mean that all satellites of Mam have the

property of existence. But its intended meaning is that if anything is a satellite

of Mar's then it will have the property' of existence -and this intended meaning
i tauYfVj
is quite compatible with T MarsAno satellite , at all. But the original

statement (satellites of Mars exist) is not compatible with this latter

possibility. Hence existence cannot be treated as a first-level predicate.

 61

Thirdly, even if it is taken for granted that Mars has some satellites,

the question arises as to whether existence, taken as a property of objects, is

a property of all of Mar's satellites or only of some of them ? This question

is quite non-sensical as we can not reasonably ask about objects of a kind

whether some of them have existence or not. This is not because no objects

can lack existence or because existence is a property of all individual objects,

but because existence is not a property of objects at all.

Finally, the concept of existence is not to be regarded as a

determination of an object. If it were a first-level predicate, it should make

difference between two different objects. But actually it does not help us to

distinguish between any two objects.

The above considerations lead us to say that Frege perhaps does not

regard existence as a property of object i.e. as a first-level predicate. The use

of 'is' in the sense of existence which is expressed in terms of existential

quantifier along with identity sign is called by Frege an empty first-level

concept; whereas, the use of'is' in the sense of the existence expressed in terms

of existential quantifier along with the sign of predication is called by him a

proper second-level concept. Frege holds that the use of existence as a first-

level concept in an existential statement is empty or uninformative.

 62

Let us consider an existential statement 'Scott exists' and see what

Frege would say about it.

In the first place, Frege remarks that a singular existential state­

ment is senseless or meaningless. Because existence is a property of a

concept, it can not be significantly affirmed or denied of an individual which

falls under a concept. In the sentence 'Scott exists' the subject 'Scott' refers

to an object, so 'exists' cannot be significantly affirmed of that object. Hence

the whole sentence expresses no thought at all. And thus it is senseless or

meaningless.

But it may be said that if the statement 'Scott exists' means the same

as The word 'Scott' is non-empty1 then the statement "Scott exists' can well

be meaningful and significant as its negation 'Scott does not exist' is.

Frege does not, however, deny that 'Scott exists' in the sense The

word 'Scott' is non-empty' is significant but be remarks that we do not use such

a sentence in our language because it does neither play the role of a premise

nor of a conclusion in any argument.

It can be said that to say about any kind of subject that 'it exists'

is not to characterize, describe, determine, define or give information of any

kind about the subject or its connection with any other entities of any kind.
 63

And consequently its use in that statement is uninformative.

In fact ascription of any predicate (property) to something means

that, to which the property is ascribed, must exist, otherwise the property can

not be ascribed to it. So to say 'A exists' and to (treat) 'exists' as a first-level

predicate is really uninformative, because its very form guarantees its truth.

By bringing out the uniformativeness of 'existence' and showing

it as an empty first-level concept Frege concludes the the informative aspect

of existence can be preserved when it is used as a second-level concept. And

to construe existence as a proper second-level concept is one of the important

innovations of Frege's logical theory.

Before we conclude our discussion of Frege's view on existence

it would not be out of place to give an exposition of the Fregean view regarding

the status of empty singular term. What does Frege say about the sense of a

term that lacks any reference ?

Apparently it seems ridiculous to admit a sense of a singulat term

that has no reference; how can there be a mode of presentation associated with

some term when there is no object to be presented ?

Accodring to Frege, sense is the mode of presentation for the

 64

referent. But Frege himself allows a sense to an empty singular term. He also

holds that even a sentence containing a name which lacks any bearer does not

fail to say anything in the sense of failing to express a thought, because it must

be admitted that sentences of this type express 'mock thoughts' or 'apparent

thoughts'.

Frege analyses existential statements involving non-denoting or empty

terms like The golden mountain does not exist' in the following way:

When we use such a statement, we do not really talk about anything,

but this does not make the sentence meaningless because the proper name29

(i.e. 'The golden mountain') that we use in the sentence has a sense and the

sentence itself has a perfectly good sense, though it does not have a reference.

Frege holds that a sentence can have reference only if its components have

reference. If any component fails to have it, then the whole sentence lacks

reference. On this interpretation 'the golden mountain does not exist' would

lack reference i.e. it would be neither true nor false since one of its compo­

nents i.e. 'the golden mountain' lacks a reference. But in natural language the

sentence 'the golden mountain does not exist' is not taken to be truth-valueless.

It is obviously true. Thus the oddity of the sentence is this : The sentence is

significant and true but on the Fregean principle it is truth-valueless.

 65

Leonard Linsky tries to rescue Frege from this paradox. In this

connection he refers to another Fregean principle according to which names

in oblique context have as their referents what in an ordinary context is their

sense. Let us consider the sentence: T)r Velikovsky believed that planet Venus

once collided with the planet Earth'. Here the entire sentence contains, as a

subordinate part, the sentence 'The planet Venus once collided with the planet

Earth.' This subordinate, constituent sentence might be evaluated seperately as

either true or false. But in the present case, it follows the words 'Dr Velikovsky

believes....'. Whether, in fact, the constituent sentence 'The planet venus once

collided with the planet Earth' is false rather than true, is irrelevent to estab­

lishing the truth of the entire sentence 'Dr Velikovsky believes that the planet

Venus once collided with the planet Earth.' To determine the truth of this entire

sentence we need to know that there is an individual named 'Dr Velikovsky1,

and that in fact he does believe the quoted constituent sentence. The quoted

sentence The planet Venus once collided with the planet Earth' occurs here

in indirect speech or in oblique context. Here the sense of the subordinate

quoted sentence (The planet Venus once collided with the planet Earth) is one

of the referents of the primary sentence of which it is a part.

Linsky30 argues that since negative singular existentials involving

proper name such as 'The golden mountain does not exist' do have truth values,
 66

it follows that 'exists' in these sentences induces an oblique context in which

the proper name denotes its customary sense rather than its customary referent.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Some commentators choose to translate Bedeutung' into 'meaning'. But,

as Dummett points out that one cannot simply render 'Bedeutung' by
'meaning' without a very special warning. Hence most commentators like
Dummett, Kenny, Mjjpitz, Thiel and some others have renderded 'Bedeutung'
by 'reference'. Thus it has become customary to translate 'Bedeutung' by
'reference' and the verb 'bedeuten' by 'to refer' or 'stand for'.
2. Frege, Gottlob., Uber Sinn Und Bedeutung, translated as On sense and
reference in Translations from the Philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege'
edited by P.T. Geach and M. Black, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1952, p. 65.
3. Ibid., pp. 65-66.
4. Ibid., p. 66.
5. Ibid., p. 66.
6. Dummett, M., Frege: Philosophy ofLanguage, Duckworth, 1981, p.93.
7. Frege, Gottlob., Posthumous Writings, translated by P. Long, R. White
and R. Hargrares, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1979, p. 191.
8. Dummett, M., Frege : Philosophy of Language, Second edition,
Duckworth, 1973, p.95
9. Munitz, M.K., 'Contemporary Analytic Philosophy', McMillan Publish­
ers. London. 1981, p. 114.
10. Frege, Gottlob., Sense and Reference, in Translations from the Philo­
sophical Writings of Gottlob Frege' edited by P.T. Geach and M. Black,
pp. 57-58.
11. Geach, P. T., Subject and Predicate, in Mind, New Series, Vol.-59, 1950,
p. 461.
12. Frege in his paper On Sense and Reference uses the German word
'Gedanke' which is translated as 'proposition' by H. Feigl and W. Sellars
in Readings in Philosophical Analysis and also by Alonzo Church in
Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Vol-I., Max Black translated
'Gedanke' as 'thought' which seems to be less appropriate because Frege
admits that by 'Gedanke' he undertands not the subjective performance
of thinking but its objective content.
 67

13. Frege, Gottlob., On Sense and Reference in "Translations from The

Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege", translated by P.T. Geach and
M. Black, P. 70.
14. Ibid., P.63.
15. Ibid., pp. 47-48.
16. Frege. Gottlob,The Foundation OfArithmatic, translated by J. L. Austin,
Second edition. Basil Blackwell Ltd. Oxford, 1953, p. 64.
17. Frege, Gottlob, Collected papers on Mathematics, Logic and
Philosophy, edited by Brian Mcguiness, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984,
p. 190.
18. Ibid., p. 190.
19. Ibid., p. 65.
20. Ibid., p. 57.
21. Chakraborty, Arindam., The Enigma of Existence : Hume, Kant and
Frege, in the 'Journal of the Department of Philosophy', Calcutta
University, Vol.-VI, 1984-85. p. 103.
22. Williams, C. J.F., What is Existence ?, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981, p. 44.
23. Quine, W.V.O., On What there is in From a Logical Point of View,
Harvard University Press, 1953. p. 2.
24. Frege, Gottlob., The Foundations ofArithmetic, translated by J. L. Austin,
p. 28.
25. Ibid., p. 59.
26. Frege, Gottlob., The Foundations ofArithmetic, translated by J. L. Austin,
Section - 53, p. 65.
27. Williams, C.J.F., What is Existence ?, pp. 54-55.
28. Frege, Gottlob, The Fondations of Arithmetic, p. 65.
29. Frege stretches the use of the term ’proper name' beyond its ordinary
limits. Thus what Russell calls definite descriptions such as 'the golden
mountain', 'the morning star' are called by Frege 'proper names'. About
these expressions he says, "For brevity, let every such designation be
called a proper name." (On Sense and Reference in Philosophical Writings
of Gottlob Frege, p. 57)
30. Linsky, Leonard., Names and Descriptions, University of Chicago and
London. 1977, p.6.