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Full Idea
Frege felt that meanings are public property, and identified concepts (and hence 'intensions' or meanings) with abstract entities rather than mental entities.
Gist of Idea
Frege felt that meanings must be public, so they are abstractions rather than mental entities
Source
report of Gottlob Frege (On Concept and Object [1892]) by Hilary Putnam - Meaning and Reference p.150
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.150
A Reaction
This is the germ of Wittgenstein's private language argument. I am inclined to feel that Frege approached language strictly as a logician, and didn't really care that he got himself into implausible platonist ontological commitments.
9949 | There is the concept, the object falling under it, and the extension (a set, which is also an object) [Frege, by George/Velleman] |
18995 | Frege mistakenly takes existence to be a property of concepts, instead of being about things [Frege, by Yablo] |
10317 | It is unclear whether Frege included qualities among his abstract objects [Frege, by Hale] |
10535 | Frege's 'objects' are both the referents of proper names, and what predicates are true or false of [Frege, by Dummett] |
9167 | Frege felt that meanings must be public, so they are abstractions rather than mental entities [Frege, by Putnam] |
4973 | As I understand it, a concept is the meaning of a grammatical predicate [Frege] |
4974 | For all the multiplicity of languages, mankind has a common stock of thoughts [Frege] |
4975 | A thought can be split in many ways, so that different parts appear as subject or predicate [Frege] |
9839 | Frege equated the concepts under which an object falls with its properties [Frege, by Dummett] |