Dummett's Backward Road to Frege and to Intuitionism - Tripod

sense that a proper name is related to an object” (1979c: 124). Thus explications convey references
only via senses. Thus every explication is first and foremost an explication of a sense.
Frege says that the regimentation process in § 31 “also” fixes senses:
[N]ot only a denotation [i.e. reference], but also a sense appertains to all names correctly
formed from our signs. Every such name of a truth-value expresses a sense, a thought.
Namely, by our stipulations it is determined under what conditions the name denotes the
True. The sense of this name—the thought—is the thought that these conditions are
fulfilled. (Grundgesetze vol. 1, § 32)
This is the text Dummett bases his program on. But Frege says references and also senses, not
references and thereby senses. That fits his primary focus on proving references for the names. And we
cannot stipulate (regiment) any primitive names until we first explicate them, on pain of there being
nothing to regiment. And every explication is first and foremost a conveyance of a sense. Thus there is
no transcendental deduction of senses from references in the regimentation process. It is merely
unregimented senses in, regimented senses out. Not magical, but sensible. There is no reversal of
Frege’s thesis that references are conveyed only via senses. When compounded into thoughts, the
explicated senses present the truth-conditions, not the other way around. Regimentation merely ensures
their logical determinacy.
Thus the order of logical priority for Frege is: (1) explications of the senses and thereby the
references of the primitive names; then (2) regimentations of the senses and thereby the references of
the primitive names into logical determinacy, “proving” that they have references, and regimenting
thoughts and thereby truth-conditions in the process, thus satisfying the context principle for senses and
thereby for references; then (3) definitions of any defined names. § 32 implies no backward procedure
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