Dummett's Backward Road to Frege and to Intuitionism - Tripod

objects....” (1981a: 132, my emphasis)
He does not mention that “the sense of the incomplete name ‘ξ is a card deck’” functions exactly as
much as a proper name as do his examples. This proper name is complete; the “‘ξ’” is not used but only
mentioned as part of the indirectly quoted incomplete name.
Montgomery Furth makes complete senses objects and incomplete senses functions (1968: 9).
Perhaps the 1993 Dummett agrees, since he says a concept is “a component of a thought” (1993: 61,
105, 129; see my 2003: 65); but perhaps this is his “non-Fregean use” of “concept” again. If Dummett
is no longer insisting that all senses are objects, this rescues him from the dilemma of admitting
incomplete senses either as complete objects or as incomplete objects. But he still faces the deeper
dilemma. If he still insists that for Frege all entities are either objects or functions, his only other
options are that incomplete senses are either functions—pace his rejection of Geach—or not entities.
The 1993 Dummett also says, “All things are Bedeutungen” in the sense of being “a possible object of
reference” (1995: 8), facing the deeper dilemma, at least if he means customary references.
Dummett criticizes Geach for saying incomplete senses are functions because they map other
senses onto thoughts. I agree with Dummett that they are functions only functionally speaking. They do
not belong to Frege’s category of functions. But in virtue of their being indirect references, incomplete
senses might be called indirect functions. I think we may accept Geach’s innocuous mapping
observation, which is not the same as the harmful conclusion he draws from it that incomplete senses
are customary functions. If his mapping observation sheds no light on the ultimate nature of senses,
pace Dummett (1981a: 268), so what? We might also harmlessly note that assertoric force in effect
maps thoughts onto assertions. Would anyone conclude that forces are functions, or that this sheds any
light on the nature of forces? In this innocuous sense, we can even use objects to map functions onto
truth-values! But on Frege’s view that sentence, thought, and truth-condition are structural models of
43