Sense and reference are not on an e

Sense and reference are not on an equal footing in Frege’s theory of
meaning. For him, sense determines reference. It is the sense of an expression
which allows us to know what it refers to. For example, if I know what the
word amber can refer to, this is because I have a conception of its sense
which allows me to pick out real examples of amber when I am confronted
with them. If the sense of amber is ‘fossilized tree resin’, then whenever I
encounter a piece of fossilized tree resin, I can identify it as a referent of the
word amber and accordingly call it amber. Alternatively, if the sense of amber
is ‘golden-yellow semiprecious stone’, then every time I come across a
golden-yellow precious stone I can also identify it as amber. Thus, for Frege
it is not just an arbitrary fact that words have the denotations (classes of
referent) they do. A word only refers in virtue of its sense. Senses, not referents, form parts of our thoughts. The only access we have to actual referents
is via the senses of the words which refer to them, and these senses are the
forms (modes of presentation) in which they come before our understanding. Actual amber obviously cannot be embodied physically in our thoughts;
instead, in order for us to think about it, it must be presented to our minds
in some particular way, and this particular ‘mode of presentation’ is the
sense of the word amber. It is consistent with this picture of the relation
between sense and reference that some expressions (square circle, six-foot high
midget, etc.) clearly have sense, but lack reference: sense, not reference, is
the essential part of meaning (see Chapter 1 for discussion).