Varlawend: Mysteries Among the Stars

Sense, Reference, and Demons This might serve as a helpful primer:   Gottlob Frege: Sense and Reference Since we drew an analogy to computer programming, we can run with that analogy to help explain this topic.  Signs are like the little bits and symbols you operate upon, senses are like programs or functions that operate, and references are like problems you're trying to solve.  You can imagine creating all manner of different application ensembles involving multifarious combinations of these things.  You'll notice that you could have different foci; you could create a more reference-centric application, or a more sense-centric application.  For example, a calculator program is a very reference-centric application.  The specific procedures you use in the calculator app don't matter intrinsically, as long as they deterministically and efficiently solve the mathematical problems that you want your calculator to be able to tackle.  You still ...

Gottlob Frege:  Sense and Reference Allow me to introduce the philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege, the man responsible for what is oft called in Analytic Philosophy "The Linguistic Turn".  This is akin to the way that Kant's distinction between noumenal and phenomenal realities was called "The Copernican Turn" wherein we thinkers we turned from a focus on knowing the structure of true reality and such lofty metaphysical ambitions to a focus on knowing the structure of our minds.  Just as Kant's Copernican Revolution did, Frege's Linguistic Turn prompted subsequent generations of philosophers into feverish action to respond to the problems and ideas raised by Frege's arguments and distinctions.  A possible objection is that Frege's system is disagreed with by most modern philosophers of language in the details, but it was profoundly influential and ground-breaking so you might say that its soul lives on in analytic philosophy.  Refl...