ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 we motivated and discussed the Begriffsschrift theory of content. Frege will work with this theory of content from 1879 onwards and use it in The Foundations of Arithmetic. In 1891 Frege outlines in his talk ‘Function and Concept’ ‘some supplementations and new conceptions, whose necessity has occurred to me since [writing Begriffschrift]’ (FC: 136, 1). In the introduction to the Basic Laws of Arithmetic he identifies the main changes:
The trilogy ‘Function and Concept’ (1891), ‘On Sense and Reference’ (1892) and ‘On Concept and Object’ (1893), aims to motivate, expound and explore these changes in the theory of conceptual content and its expression. The most important change is the split of conceptual content into sense and reference. In this chapter I will reconstruct Frege’s argument for the split.
