more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
A logically perfect language should satisfy the conditions that every expression grammatically well constructed as a proper name out of signs already introduced shall in fact designate an object.
Gist of Idea
In a logically perfect language every well-formed proper name designates an object
Source
Gottlob Frege (On Sense and Reference [1892], p.41)
Book Ref
Frege,Gottlob: 'Translations from the Writings of Gottlob Frege', ed/tr. Geach,P/Black,M [Blackwell 1980], p.70
A Reaction
This seems to cramp your powers of reasoning, if you must know the object to use the name ('Jack the Ripper'), and reasoning halts once you deny the object's existence ('Pegasus'), or you don't know if names co-refer ('Hesperus/Phosphorus').
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] |