 Kaplan intended to contrast directly referential expressions with expressions such as definite descriptions, which, though designating particular individuals, do so by means of descriptive conditions being expressed by the description and satisfied by the designated individual. Thus Kaplan wrote that directly referential expressions “refer directly without the mediation of Fregean Sinn as meaning”. (Kaplan [1977] p. 483) The designation of definite descriptions is mediated by something like a Fregean sense (i.e. their associated descriptive conditions).