Theories of Semantics on theWeb - Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web - page 87

URIs on the Semantic Web can be thought of as analogous to natural language
names , as names in natural language can be used to refer as well. Therefore, what
needs to be done is to distinguish within analytic philosophy the various theories
on naming and reference in general, and then see how these various theories either
do or do not apply to the Semantic Web. What is remarkable is that the position of
Hayes, the logicist position, corresponds to a well-known theory of meaning and
reference, the 'descriptivist theory of reference' attributed to early Wittgenstein,
Carnap, Russell, and turned into its pure logical form by Tarski (Luntley 1999).
However, it is common currency in philosophical circles that the descriptivist theory
of reference was overthrown by the 'causal theory of reference' championed by
Kripke and extended by Putnam (Luntley 1999). It is precisely this causal theory
of reference that Berners-Lee justifies in his direct reference position. Thus, the
curious coincidence is that both opposing positions on the Semantic Web correspond
to equally opposing positions in philosophy. Understanding these positions belongs
primarily to the domain of philosophy, even if Hayes and especially Berners-Lee do
not articulate their positions with the relevant academic citations. In this manner, the
precise domain of philosophy that the Identity Crisis falls under is the philosophy
of language. The purpose of the rest of this chapter is then the full explication of
these two theories of reference in philosophy of language, and then to inspect their
practical success (or lack thereof) in the context of the Semantic Web, while at the
end offering a critique of both, paving the way for a third theory of meaning.

4.2 Sense and Reference

The original theory of meaning we shall return to is Frege's original controversial
theory of sense and reference as given in Sinn und Bedeutung (Frege 1892). 1
This theory is no longer particularly popular, although it has had some revival
with an odd dualist variation under the 'two-dimensionalism' of Chalmers (2006), 2
and this is likely because Frege himself was quite cryptic with regards to any
definition of 'sense.' The key idea lies in Frege's contention that the meaning of any
representational term in a language is determined by what Frege calls the “sense” of
the sentences that use the term, rather than any direct reference of the term (1892).
According to Frege, two sentences could be the same only if they shared the same

1 The ambiguous translation of this work from original German has been a source of great
philosophical confusion. While the word 'Sinn' has almost always been translated into 'sense,'
the word 'Bedeutung' has been translated into either 'reference' or 'meaning,' depending on the
translator. While 'Bedeutung' is most usually translated into the fuzzy English word 'meaning'
by most German speakers, the use to which Frege puts it is much more in line with how the word
'reference' is used in philosophy. So in the tradition of Michael Dummett, we will translate Frege's
'Bedeutung' into 'reference' rather than 'meaning' (Dummett 1973).
2 Likely Frege himself would not be considered a dualist, but a monist with objective meaning
given in the world.