Sense and reference

The distinction between sense and reference was an innovation of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege in 1892, reflecting the two ways he believed a singular term may have meaning. The reference (or "referent", German: bedeutung)) of a proper name is the object it means or indicates (bedeuten), its sense is what the name expresses. The reference of a sentence is its truth value, its sense is the thought that it expresses. Frege justified the distinction in a number of ways.