Husserl and Frege on Meaning

Husserl and Frege on Meaning

Aquila, Richard E., 1944-

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 12, Number 3, July 1974,pp. 377-383 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/hph.2008.0519

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NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 377

present. But the negative criterion is all that is necessary in the present case, and not to accept it is the same as rejecting Descartes' terminology. But Professor Norton surely does not want to do this, at least not for the purposes of the paper under consideration, for then he would not have an argument against Descartes. Thus, his contention that the two claims about hidden faculties are inconsistent is incorrect because the one faculty would perform acts the substance itself can, while the other would have to accomplish something the substance cannot. To the best of my knowledge, Professor Norton has not discovered an essential inconsistency in the Meditations.

By way of conclusion, I want to make a suggestion concerning the identity of the hidden faculty to which Descartes alludes in the first hypothesis. Given his statements about faculties and their relations to substance, the very hypothesis that there migh t be a hidden one should strike one as odd. However, since the first hypothesis concerns the origin of adventitious ideas, the following seems plausible: Even by Meditation III Descartes has not committed himself to the view that he does not have a body. He just does not know that he does. This point is established by my discussion of the central passage from Meditation II. It could quite well be that the hidden faculty to which Des- cartes alludes is the aspect of the body, particularly the imagination, involved in furnish- ing men with their ideas of the extended world. This aspect of human nature would be cognitively hidden because Descartes lacks sufficient evidence to justify believing in the existence of bodies. This conjecture is supported, I believe, by Descartes' discussion in the opening paragraphs of Meditation VI of imagination's role in man's perception of the independently existing world. Especially important is Descartes' suggestion that mind is formally involved in the concept of the imagination, though the converse is not true. In alluding to imagination under the guise of a hidden faculty, Descartes might be looking backward to his conclusions concerning mind and body in Meditation II and forward to his full theory of perception in Meditation VI.

TED B. HUMPHREY Arizona State University

HUSSERL AND FREGE ON MEANING

Two recent articles have appeared which explore a paralleI between the views of Frege and Husserl.1 The point of comparison concerns Husserl's distinction between "noemata" and the intentional objects of mental acts and Frege's distinction between the Senses and the references of linguistic expressions. I do not want to raise any questions concerning the appropriateness of such comparisons. But I do want to question what appears to be their intended moral. Two recent commentators on Hussefl's theory of meaning conclude their discussion with the following observation: "To see phenomenology as a theory of intentionality via intensions is, in the final analysis, just to make sense of phenomenology. And that is just to give Frege the credit for lending Sense to Husserl. ''2 Husserl's views

1 Daglinn Fr "Husserl's Notion of Noema," The Journal o[ Philosophy, LXVI (Oct. 16, 1969), 680-687; David Woodruff Smith and Ronald MeIntyre, "Intentionality via Intensions," The Journal o[ Philosophy, LXVIII (Sept. 16, 1971), 541-561.

2 Smith and McIntyre, p. 561.

378 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

are ultimately intelligible, then, only if his theory of meaning is read in the light of the Fregean Sense/reference distinction. I should like to point out, first of all, that Husserl's view concerning such distinctions appears to have changed in a significant way between the period of the Logical Investigations and that of the ldeas; and, second, that while the change in Husserl's approach was in fact toward a more Fregean position, it was, just on that account, a change for the worse. Though from the point of view of semantic theory alone the development of Hussed's position may have been inconsequential, the ontological issues which it raises are considerable. Both the "earlier" and the "later" Husserl present a distinction which does indeed perform the function of Frege's distinction between Sense and reference. But no such distinctions can be finally accepted apart from some theory as to what sorts of entities, if they be entities at all, Senses or Meanings are. The later Husserl, I would claim, presented a Fregean ontology of Sense which was far less satisfactory than his own earlier ontology of Meanings.

In the Logical Investigations Hussed's concern with language was fundamentally a concern with linguistic activities. Though communicative dialogue ~Wechselrede) is one such activity, it involves elements which are not essential to the functioning of linguistic expression as such, since expressions may perform just the same meaningful function "im einsamen Seelenleben. ' 'a A phenomenological concern with language thus leads to a concern with mental acts, and any question about the sense or the reference of some expression is ultimately reducible to a question about the acts which that expression expresses. 4 Nevertheless, on the level of mental acts, Husserl does draw a distinction which parallels the distinction which Frege drew for linguistic expressions. For Husserl dis- tinguishes the "content" (lnhalt) from the "object" (Gegenstand) of any mental act, and he allows that several different acts may be directed toward just the same object, even though these acts might differ from one another in content? In this respect the content of an act is analogous to the sense of a linguistic expression, inasmuch as several different expressions might refer to the same object and yet vary in sense. Several different acts, furthermore, might possess the very same content. This, however, requires that we dis- finguish between "content" in an objective and logical sense and "content" in a merely subjective and psychological sense. For if several acts may share the same content, then their content could not be any real constituent of them. 6 Husserl's argument for this point is very similar to Frege's own argument for the distinction of Senses from "ideas" (Vor- stellungen) or mental images. Since particular images, and particular mental occurrences

a Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, 2nd. ed. (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1913; reprinted 1968); translated in two volumes by John N. Findlay (New York: Humanities Press, 1970). All references to this work are to the First Investigation. I shall merely cite two numbers in the references, the first for the numbered section in the Investigation, the second for the page in the German edition. The sections are short enough that this should easily permit comparison with Findlay's translation. The present reference is to section eight of the First In- vestigation, p. 35 of the German edition; hence, 8/35.

4 "So gliedert sich das konkrete Ph~nomen des sinnbelebten Ausdrucks einerseits in das physische Ph~nomen... und andererseits in die Akte, welche ihm die Bedeutung... geben, und in welchen sich die Beziehung auf eine ausgedriickte Gegenst~ndlichkeit konstituiert" (ibid., 9/37).

5 Ibid., 14/51. B "Das Wesen der Bedeutung sehen wir nicht im bedeutungsverleihenden Erlebnis, sondem in

seinem 'Inhalt', der eine identische intentionale Einheit darstellt, gegeniiber der verstreuten Mannigfaltigkeit wirldicher oder m/~glicher Erlebnisse , . . 'Inhalt' des beziiglichen Bedeutung- serlebnisses in diesem idealen Sinn ist nichts weniger als das, was die Psychologic unter Inhalt nennt, n~mlich irgendein realer Teil oder eine Seite eines Erlebnisses" (Ibid., 30/97).


generally, may vary from individual to individual, whereas the meaning of a word does not vary in this manner, meaning cannot depend upon "contents" in a merely psychological sense. 7

it would appear, then, that despite the differences between Frege's approach to language and Husserl's approach to linguistic usage "im einsamen Seelenleben" Husserl simply applies a version of the Fregean Sense/reference distinction to the description of mental acts. For Husserl simply identifies the element of Meaning (Bedeutung) in an act with the "objective content," as distinct from the object, of that act. And just as for Frege the Sense of an expression is the "mode of presentation" (Art des Gegebenseins) of the object to which that expression refers, 8 so for Husserl a Meaning is that through which reference to an object is "constituted. ''9 That Husserl was aware of Frege's distinction, furthermore, is clear from his own comment on Frege's use of the expressions Sinn and Bedelztung, which Frege had distinguished as Sense and reference, but which Husserl continues to use indifferently for the Meaning, as distinct from the object (Gegen- stand) of any linguistic act. TM There would appear to be ample justification, then, for Herbert Spiegelberg's terse observation: "Here Husserl utilized and developed some of Frege's ideas, ml Another commentator on Husserl's theory of meaning also suggests that Husserl's distinction between Bedeutung and Gegenstand differs only in a terminological way from Frege's: " I t is at once obvious that the distinction runs closely parallel to Frege's, though the terminological departure must be noted: Frege's Sinn = Husserl's Bedeutung, while Frege's Bedeutung = Husserl's Gegenstand (the named or the re- ferred). ''12

There is, however, an important difference between Husserl's Bedeutung and Frege's Sinn. 13 On Husserl's view, but not on Frege's, the self-identical Meaning which several acts may share stands to those acts, or at least to some component of those acts, in the relation of a universal to the particulars which instantiate that universal:

Meaning is related to varied acts of meaning--Logical Presentation to presentative acts, Logical Judgement to acts of judging, Logical Syllogism to acts of syllogism--just as Redness in specie is to the slips of paper which lie here, and which all "have" the same redness. Each slip has, in addition to other constitutive aspects (extension, form, etc.), its own individual redness, i.e., its instance of this colour species. 14

7 "~ber Sinn und Bedeutung," Zeitschrifl flit Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 100 0892); reprinted in Kleine Schriflen, ed. Ignaeio Angelelli (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967), pp. 143-162; translated by Peter Geach and Max Black in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960). "Von der Bedeutung und dem Sinne eines Zeichens ist die mit ihm verkniipfte Vorstellung zu unterscheiden . . . . Nicht immer ist, auch bei demselben Menschen, dieselbe Vorstellung mit demselben Sinne verbunden. Die Vorstelluug ist subjektiv..." (pp. 145-146; Geach and Black, p. 59. Cf. Husserl, 30/97-98).

a "t3ber Sinn und Bedeutung," p. 144; Geach and Black, p. 57. 9 "In der Bedeutung konstituiert sich die Beziehung auf den Gegenstand" (Logische Unter-

suehungen, 15/54). ao Ibid., 15/53. 11 Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,

1965), I, 105. 12 j. N. Mohanty, Edmund Husserrs Theory of Meaning (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,

1964), p. 17. 13 I do not of course intend to suggest that this difference is unknown to the commentators.

But the fact that it is not given mention indicates, I think, an insufficient attention to the ontological issues with which Husserl himself was clearly concerned.

14 Logische Untersuchungen, 31/100-101.


One way to put this point would be to say that Hussefl's ontology of Meaning commits us to no more than mental acts (and their constituents) and their universal properties. Accordingly, the difference between two thoughts which refer to the same object, and yet which differ in content, lies in the fact that each, or a part of each, instantiates a dilterent Meaning--which is just to say that the two thoughts are, at least in one respect, qualitatively different thoughts. And what two thoughts which share the same content have in common is simply the fact that those two thoughts are, at least in one respect, qualitatively the same. Since these would appear to be propositions which any theory of mental acts is bound to grant, we may thus say that Husserl's early ontology is, with respect to Meanings, an economical one. It commits us to no more than mental acts and their properties, and this is something to which we are committed anyway.

On Frege's view too the sense of an expression is something "objective," and not a merely subjective content of somebody's thinking: Sense "may be the common property of many, and therefore is not a part or mode (Tell oder Modus) of the individual mind. ''15 Sense thus provides an objective, and not a merely subjective, content (lnhalt) of awareness. 1~ But the relation between a Sense and the awarenesses which refer to objects "through" that Sense is not merely that of a universal to particular in.stances of that universal. It is rather that of an awareness to some ob/ect which is apprehended by that awareness. The Gedanke, or Thought, for example, which is the Sense of a whole sentence, or the objective content of the thinking which the sentence expresses, is some single thing which several thinkers are capable of apprehending: "A particular mental capacity, the power of thought, must correspond to the apprehension of thought. In thinking we do not produce thoughts but we apprehend them. 'u7 Now to say that we "apprehend a thought" is of course to say something ambiguous. For, while it might be only to say that we engage in some activity of thinking, it might also be to say something stronger, namely that through this thinking we are aware of some enti ty--a Thought--which is distinct from the thinking. The only "relation" required in order to account for the former is a relation that obtains between certain mental acts and various properties oJ those acts. In order to account for the latter, we must suppose an additional relation between the thinking mind and the Gedanken which it "apprehends." That it is the latter which Frege has in mind is evident from his footnote to the passage:

The expression 'apprehend' is as metaphorical as 'content of consciousness'. The nature of language does not permit anything else. What I hold in my hand can certainly be re- garded as the content o~ my hand but is all the same the content of my hand in quite a differem way from the booes and muscles of which it is made and their tensions, and is much more extraneous to it than they are. TM

That Frege could not possibly have construed the relation between a Sense and the thinking which "apprehends" it as the relation that obtains between a universal and an

t~ "Uber Sinn und Bedeutung," p. 146; Geach and Black, p. 59. te Ibid., p. 148, fn.; Geach and Black, p. 62, fn, x7 Gottlch Frege, "Der Gedanke, E~e logis~tae Untersuchung," Beitriige zur Philosophie des

deutschen ldealismus, vo]. I (1918); reprinted in Ange]elli, pp. 342-362; translated by A. M. and Marcelle Quinton, Mind, LX'V (July, 1956), 289-311. "Dem Fassen der Gedanken muss ein besonderes geistiges Vermdgen, die Denkkraft entsprechen. Beim Denken erzeugen wir nicht die Gedanken, sonder wir fas~n sie" (p. 359; Quinton, p. 307).

x8 Ibid.


instance of that universal is evident, furthermore, from the following consideration. The only universals for Frege are concepts, and all concepts are unsaturated. While, however, some of their garts may be unsaturated, all Gedanken are saturated entities. 19 Consequently, Senses could not be the sorts of things which are instantiated by mental acts, or by any parts of mental acts. Two acts, then, which refer to the same objects, and yet which differ in "objective content"----i.e., two acts which are expressed by sentences which differ in Sense--are more than two acts which happen to be qualitatively different. For they are also two acts which apprehend different "objects," i.e., different Senses. And two acts which share a common content i.e., two acts which are expressed by sentences with the same Sense--are not simply acts which happen to be qualitatively the same, since they are also two acts which apprehend a single Sense. Accordingly, we may say that Frege's ontology of Sense is a less economical one than Husserl's ontology of Meaning: though it grants the existence of acts and their properties, it introduces, in addition, Senses as objects which are apprehended by such acts. As Hussefl himself takes pains to argue, however, "Ira Akte des Bedeutens wird die Bedeutung nicht geganst~ind- lich bewusst. ''2~

From the point of view of semantics, the difference between the economical and the uneconomical theory is inconsequential: both account for the distinctions which we need to make. But it is clear, I think, that Hussefl's doctrine in the Logical Investigations is, at least from the ontological point of view, the more attractive of the two. Frege is in fact vulnerable to one objection which Husserl can easily avoid. Senses are introduced by Frege in order to account for the different ways in which we can refer to a single object. But if senses themselves are objects of awareness, then they do not solve our problem at all. You cannot explain how it is that we can apprehend some object X by pointing out that we can apprehend some other object Y. Husserl's earlier view avoids this diffi- culty. On that view, to speak of the Meanings through which we refer to some object X is just to speak of the universal characters which various acts, or parts of acts, may ex- emplify. It is thus not to speak of some other object besides X. It will not do, of course, to observe that the way in which we "apprehend" a Sense is very different from the way in which we apprehend some object to which we refer only "through" that Sense. For the problem remains just so long as the introduction of Senses consists in the introduction of entities which play a role in our mental activity only to the extent that they are apprehended by that activity.

Husserl's doctrine of the "noema" bears no trace of his earlier view concerning the relation between Meanings and acts. Noemata are not the universal species in which individual acts, or parts of acts, participate. Rather they are merely the "correlates" (Kor- relaten) of acts, which provide the acts of which they are correlates with a particular "sense" (Sinn). 2~ Like Frege's Sinn, furthermore, and like the Bedeutung of the Logical Investigations, we may say that reference to an object is constituted only through the noema which is correlated with some particular act (noesis): the intentionality of an

19 Gottleb Frege, "13ber Begriff und Gegenstand," Vierteljahrsschrift filr wissenscha]tliche Philosophie, 16 (1892); reprinted in Angelelli, pp. 192-205; translated in Geach and Black, pp. 42-55 (p. 178; Geach and Black, p, 54).

2o Logische Untersuchungen, 34/103. 21 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phenomenologischen Philos-

ophie, Erstes Buch; Gesammelte Worke, vol. III (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950); translated by W. R. Boyee Gibson (New York: Collier Books, 1962). The first number in each reference is to Husserl's numbered section, the second to the page in the German edition (88/129).


act "carries the former in itself as a correlate of consciousness, and its intentionality passes in a certain way through (geht in gewisser Weise durch) the noematic" intentionality. 22 The relationship, to be sure, between acts of consciousness themselves and the noemata through which reference to objects is constituted is not the same as that between consciousness and those very objects. 23 But the noema is nevertheless itself in some sense an object of apprehension, albeit one whose existence is dependent upon the apprehension of it: "Sein esse besteht ausschliesslich in seinem "percipi'. T M That the noema is some sort of apprehended object, though perhaps not an object which occupies our attention whenever we apprehend it, is evident from two considerations. First, Husserl describes the series of noemata through which a tree is perceived and recot~nized as the "perceived tree as such": "The tree plain and simple (der Baurn schlechthin), the thing in nature, is as different as it can be from this perceived tree as such (dieses Baumwahrgenommene als solches), which as perceptual meaning belongs to the perception, and that inseparably. ''25 The noema, then, is the tree as it is perceived, and hence in some sense an object of apprehension rather than a property of our apprehension. Secondly, Husserl grants that, in its own way, the noema is an entity which can itsel~ be said to refer to some object, namely that object to which an act refers which refers to something through the noema. 26 This admission simply recognizes, I think, that reference to some object X through a Y which is also an apprehended object just duplicates the original problem: an act is intentional in virtue of the noema which it grasps, but it can be so only if the noema itself is intentional.

I think that there is no question, then, that in two important respects Husserl's theory of meaning in the Ideas is like Frege's theory of Sense. First, reference to an object is accomplished for Husserl only through a noema, just as reference is accomplished for Frege only through a Sense. And second, but more important for our purposes, the noema is to be conceived not as some universal species of which acts, or parts of acts, may be instances, but rather as in some sense being itself an object apprehended in acts. I do not want, therefore, to criticize the attempts which have been made to compare Husserl's theory of meaning in the Ideas with the Fregean theory. But I do want to make the point that in shifting toward the Fregean account of meaning and reference Husserl's theory in fact became far less appealing than his own earlier account. For in the first place, it is a less economical account; and in the second place it introduces a sort of entity whose nature can hardly be dear. We do presumably know what acts of apprehension are, and that they have various sorts of universal features shareable by many. And we also know what ordinary objects are, such as the trees which we perceive in nature and about which we may have some thoughts. But it is no more dear, I think, what sort of entity a "perceived tree as such" might be than it is what sort of entity a Fregean Sense might be. It is important to be careful about this point. In one sense, the Fregean Sense/ reference distinction will be a perfectly satisfactory one just so long as it does the work which needs to be done in semantics. And in this same sense, Hussed's noema/object distinction may well benefit from a comparison with Frege's work in semantics. In another sense, however, the two doctrines are precisely on a par. For from the ontological

22 Ibid., 101/254. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., 98/246. 25 Ibid., 89/222. 26 Ibid., 101/254.


point of view it is equally unclear what sort of entity a Fregean Sense or a Husserlian noema might be. From this point of view, then, I do not see how it can be said that Frege's Sense helps to "make sense of phenomenology." If Husserl's theory of meaning has any real force or plausibility, then it has it only in its earlier form where Husserl succeeded in drawing just the same semantic distinctions as Frege, but without the need for Fregean Senses at all.

RICHARD E. AQUILA University of Tennessee

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Husserl and Frege on Meaning