Single Idea 13733

[catalogued under 5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / b. Definite descriptions]

Full Idea

Frege (1893) considered a definite description to be a genuine singular term (as we do), so that a sentence like 'The present King of France is bald' would have the same logical form as 'Harry Truman is bald'.

Gist of Idea

Frege considered definite descriptions to be genuine singular terms

Source

report of Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 1 (Basic Laws) [1893]) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic

Book Reference

Fitting,M/Mendelsohn,R: 'First-Order Modal Logic' [Synthese 1998], p.250


A Reaction

The difficulty is what the term refers to, and they embrace a degree of Meinongianism - that is that non-existent objects can still have properties attributed to them, and so can be allowed some sort of 'existence'.