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Full Idea
Frege's theory of 'sense' showed how sentences with empty names can have meaning and be understood. One just has to grasp the sense of the sentence (the thought expressed), and this is available even in the absence of a referent for the name.
Gist of Idea
If sentences have a 'sense', empty name sentences can be understood that way
Source
report of Gottlob Frege (On Sense and Reference [1892]) by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 2
Book Ref
'Routledge Companion to Phil of Language', ed/tr. Russell/Graff Faria [Routledge 2015], p.154
A Reaction
My immediate reaction is that this provides a promising solution to the empty names problem, which certainly never bothered me before I started reading philosophy. Sawyer says co-reference and truth problems remain.
Related Ideas
Idea 13777 A name is a sort of tool [Plato]
Idea 18934 Sentences with empty names can be understood, be co-referential, and even be true [Sawyer]
Idea 18938 Frege's compositional account of truth-vaues makes 'Pegasus doesn't exist' neither true nor false [Sawyer]
Idea 18941 Names don't have a sense, but are disguised definite descriptions [Russell, by Sawyer]
18937 | If sentences have a 'sense', empty name sentences can be understood that way [Frege, by Sawyer] |
18940 | It is a weakness of natural languages to contain non-denoting names [Frege] |
18939 | In a logically perfect language every well-formed proper name designates an object [Frege] |
6439 | Names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate [Russell] |
18943 | Russell implies that all sentences containing empty names are false [Sawyer on Russell] |
10426 | A name has got to name something or it is not a name [Russell] |
13361 | An expression is only a name if it succeeds in referring to a real object [Bostock] |
10429 | It is best to say that a name designates iff there is something for it to designate [Sainsbury] |
19001 | 'Pegasus doesn't exist' is false without Pegasus, yet the absence of Pegasus is its truthmaker [Yablo] |
12446 | Names function the same way, even if there is no object [Azzouni] |
18946 | Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer] |
18934 | Sentences with empty names can be understood, be co-referential, and even be true [Sawyer] |
18938 | Frege's compositional account of truth-vaues makes 'Pegasus doesn't exist' neither true nor false [Sawyer] |