Frege on the reference of sentences

TL;DR

This paper reconstructs Frege's argument that the reference of a sentence is its truth-value, considering his notions of conceptual content and rejecting the hybrid notion, and argues that the reconstructed argument is sound.

Contribution

It offers a detailed reconstruction of Frege's argument linking sentence reference to truth-values, clarifying his stance on conceptual content.

Findings

Reconstructed Frege's argument considering his writings and correspondence.

Showed the rejection of the hybrid notion of conceptual content.

Confirmed the soundness of the reconstructed argument.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that Frege's argument which concluded that the reference of a sentence is its truth-value, presented in 'On Sense and Reference' (1892), can be reconstructed taking into account the problems of the notion of conceptual content presented in the 'Begriffsschrift' (1879) and also other passages from a letter to Russell (1902) and the posthumous 'Logic in Mathematics' (1914). Once the `hybrid' notion of conceptual content was rejected as the semantic value of the expressions of the formal language designed to carry out the logicist project, there was no alternative between truth-values and thoughts. I claim that the reconstructed argument is perfectly sound and convincing.