sense and reference

Sense and reference are concepts from philosophy and linguistics that explain how language connects to the world. "Sense" refers to the meaning or the concept behind a word or phrase—how we understand it internally. "Reference" is about the actual object or entity in the real world that the word points to or denotes. For example, the sense of "the morning star" is the concept of a bright object seen in the sky at dawn, while its reference is the actual planet Venus. Together, sense helps us understand meaning, and reference links that meaning to real-world things.