On Fundamental Differences between Dependent and Independent Meanings

In “Function and Concept” and “On Concept and Object”, Frege argued that certain differences between dependent and independent meanings were inviolable and “founded deep in the nature of things” but, in those articles, he was not explicit about the actual consequences of violating such differences. However, since by creating a law that permitted one to pass from a concept to its extension, he himself mixed dependent and independent meanings, we are in a position to study some of the actual consequences of his having done so. To make certain of Frege’s ideas about the inviolability of logical form more tangible, I describe a string of very interrelated consequences that his attempt to transform dependent meanings into independent meanings actually brought in its wake.