The Worst Sentence in the World
Friday, 12 January 2007 - 19:44
"In view of what I already said, that, in regarding sense as determining reference, we are supposing that the contribution of extra-linguistic reality is thereby taken into account, what Frege regarded as one of his fundamental discoveries, that there is a distinction between sense and reference, that is, that the sense of an expression cannot consist just in its having whatever reference it has, should be perfectly obvious: it is therefore at first sight surprising that it remains one of those of his these which is most persistently controverted." Michael Dummett (1978) "Truth and Other Enigmas", London: Duckworth, p. 122.
This is just ridiculous: there are ten clauses in a single sentence. If a student handed this in, it wouldn't even be read, but somehow he managed to get this published. Given that he's meant to be an expert on the clear expression of ideas, how can this possibly be so awful? Why didn't the publisher get a copy editor? This might be the worst example, but the whole chapter is full of unclear, overly complicated statements and doesn't help you to understand Frege in the least bit.
Thom commented:
Actually, he's spot on and is making a very, very clever and important point. You'd just never know it.
rogan commented:
you're not wrong! I thought Frege's point was fairly clear until Dummett tried to help out.
Monday, 26 February 2007 - 22:19