Frege on Identity and Co-Reference

Abstract

[EN] In "Uber Sinn und Bedeutung" (1892) Frege raises a problem concerning identity statements of the form a=b and he criticizes the view he holds in the Begriffsschrift (1879, & sect; 8). In building on a suggestion by Perry (2001/12, ch. 7) I will show how Frege's Begriffsschrift account can be rescued and how Frege's 1892 criticism of his Begriffsschrift's position somewhat miss the point. Furthermore, the Begriffsschrift's view can be developed to account in quite an elegant way to the so-called Frege's Puzzle without committing to the sense/reference (Sinn/Bedeutung) distinction Frege introduces in "Uber Sinn und Bedeutung". To do so we have, though, to give up the idea that all the relevant information conveyed by the utterance of a simple sentence is encapsulated into a single content. I will show of this can be done in adopting a Perry-style pluri-propositionalist model of communication.Research for this paper has been partly sponsored by the Spanish ministry of economyand competitivity (FFI2015-63719-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE) ) ; the Spanish ministry of science and innovation (PID2019-106078GB-I00 (MCI/AEI/FEDER, UE) ) and the Basque Government (IT1032-16