Frege on Existence and Non‐existence

Despite its importance for early analytic philosophy, G ottlob F rege's account of existence statements, according to which they classify concepts, has been thought to succumb to a number of well‐worn criticisms. This article does two things. First, it argues that, by remaining faithful to the letter of F rege's claim that concepts are functions, the F regean account can be saved from many of the standard criticisms. Second, it examines the problem that F rege's account fails to generalize to cases which involve definite descriptions and proper names. To deal with this the proffered analysis deviates from the letter of F rege's views, while remaining within its spirit. It proposes, in opposition to F rege, that expressions which grammatically look like singular terms should not always be read as referring to objects, but are sometimes best analysed as indicating functions.