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

e parts of thoughts, due to the context principle in its application to senses; even thoughts are parts of
compound thoughts. Indeed, that is a second way the text says or very plainly implies that no senses are
objects. Namely, it says a truth-value cannot be a part of a thought because it is an object. And what is
a sense but a part of a thought? The context principle demands this. Even a thought must be a part of
indefinitely many compound thoughts. Frege is saying here that an object cannot be a part of a thought,
and is thus saying or very plainly implying that an object cannot be a sense. For only a sense can be a
part of a thought. (Since thoughts and other senses are timeless and unchanging, a sense can be a part
of a thought if and only if it must be a part of a thought.) I think the text so plainly implies that an
object cannot be a sense, that it takes only the slightest charity (if it takes any charity at all) to say that
Frege is expressly asserting this. For the only thing the implication assumes is that only a sense can be
a part of a thought; and the whole of “On Sense and Reference” up to this point makes that clear.
Frege wrote “On Sense and Reference,” in which he says that a truth-value is not a sense
because it is an object, and therefore that in general an object is not a sense because it is an object,
almost at the same time as “Function and Concept” and Grundgesetze vol. 1, in which Dummett
believes Frege says that every entity is either an object or a function, and “On Concept and Object,” in
which Dummett believes Frege says that the singular definite article always indicates an object in every
possible context, including even contexts which shift reference to indirect reference. Frege never
suggests that these four works contradict each other in the least on whether senses are objects or
functions. To the contrary, Frege presents the works as being all of one piece. This is easily explained
on my interpretation. Looking to the context of each text Dummett cites, Frege is saying only that all
customary references are either objects or functions, and only that in contexts of customary reference,
the singular definite article always indicates an object. But how can Dummett reconcile the texts?
The problem of the sense of expression “A,” which Frege never mentions, is subtler than the
problem of the concept horse. For there is a tension here between the fact that the singular definite
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