Frege as Clickbait (original) (raw)
Related papers
Themes in Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic Philosophy, Keeling Lectures 2011-2018., 2021
ABSTRACT: In this essay, I argue that Frege plagiarized the Stoics --and I mean exactly that-- on a large scale in his work on the philosophy of logic and language as written mainly between 1890 and his death in 1925 (much of which published posthumously) and possibly earlier. I use ‘plagiarize' (or 'plagiarise’) merely as a descriptive term. The essay is not concerned with finger pointing or casting moral judgement. The point is rather to demonstrate carefully by means of detailed evidence that there are numerous (over a hundred) and extensive parallels in both formulation and content between the Stoics and Frege, so plentiful that one would be hard pressed to brush them off as a coincidence. These parallels include several that appear to occur in no other modern works that were published before Frege’s own and were accessible to him. Additionally, a cluster of corroborating historical data is adduced to support the suggestion, showing how easy it would have to been for Frege to plagiarize the Stoics. This (first) part of the essay is easy to read and vaguely entertaining, or so I hope. (The whole volume in which the paper is published is open access. Google the title and choose the link from ics-dot-sas-dot-ac-dot-uk for download.)
2016
Whistler, the painter who saw it fit paint his elderly ‘mother’, was well known also for his wit. Once, appreciative of his particularly witty remark, (Lord) Byron remarked, “I wish I said that”. Whistler sardonically replied, “ You will, you will”. So much was written about plagiarism, honesty, values etc. in these columns that smacks of the “ol’ time religion…”. Self-appointed societies rushing at the windmills of scientific compulsions quixotically, committees after committees implicating and exonerating individuals in an endless pursuit of the zero sum game, leaving the public at a totally confused state amidst a welter of accusations and counteraccusations….all this to what end? Is all this self hypnosis based on presumptive action? Actually, is plagiarism all that bad? Who or what is hurt? Let he who has not sinned be the first to throw a stone!
Opinion article: Plagiarism in three acts
2012
Three brief studies are conducted regarding plagiarism in the age of the internet. The first identifies the disparity between cited and un-cited examples of brief media catchphrases used on the internet. The second uses a thesaurus to generate alternative wordings of established definitions and tests them for legibility. The third asks respondents to spontaneously generate definitions for common concepts and uses Google to test those spontaneous definitions for plagiarism. In all three cases, results are such that they call into question current views on the nature of plagiarism itself.
Lying, Cheating or Stealing: Plagiarism, the essay as game and the myth of intellectual property
Plagiarism is a particularly pertinent topic for Freshman English teachers for two reasons. The first is obviously that we encounter a considerable amount of plagiarism (possibly more than other departments because of the emphasis on essay-writing); the second is that we are often expected to play a major role in initiating students into academic culture. In other words, we are expected to detect, discourage and punish plagiarism, but also to teach students what it is, why they shouldn't do it, and how they can avoid it. I intend to examine the latter role by questioning how as institutions and individuals we present plagiarism to our students. I shall argue that some of our thinking here is confused, and that this can sabotage our attempts to educate students about plagiarism. University Policies To get an idea of the official view of plagiarism, I simply typed 'plagiarism policy' into a user-neutral search engine (Startpage). From the results, I kept those documents which were written by universities or departments and excluded those by individual instructors or people outside universities, such as essay mills and purveyors of plagiarism detection software. This left 89 documents. I analysed language in four categories: 1. commit,unprofessional, unfair, abusive, and their various word forms. I discounted terms that referred merely to breaking rules, such as misconduct, 4. Terms indicative of stealing and other property violation: stealing, borrowing, wrongfully taking material that is not our own, kidnapping, property, theft, appropriating. All but five of the documents included words in at least one of these categories and around half contained general moral terms. Indications of a belief that plagiarism was lying came in 15 of them, and the view that it is cheating had the same number. 19 documents contained language indicating a view of plagiarism as having something to do with property rights.
The studies conducted over the last few decades by authors such as Speyer, Grafton (his Forgers and Critics published in 1990 in particular), and more recently, Ruthven, have created an extremely favourable academic setting for the study of textual and literary — as opposed to traditional — forgery. The new era of postmodernism has also encouraged a difference of feeling towards the work of the forger. Until relatively recently, this “creative activity” was condemned, criticised and even criminalised when the deceit was uncovered. However, many of these ignored and discarded works have captured the curiosity of academics interested in recovering their hidden values for some time now. It is not only their literary value that intrigues researchers; these texts can also provide information on the particular political, social and cultural circumstances that led to their creation. Forged texts can, and in many cases should, become fully-fledged members of a literary tradition and be studied with sensitivity in keeping with modern times and the new approaches of philology and literary criticism.
Towards a Fregean Understanding of Fiction
Frege's numerous remarks on fiction have been widely discussed and have the potential to contribute to a better understanding of both fictional and non-fictional speech. However, a Fregean account of fiction should not, as is often assumed, be exclusively concerned with his distinction between sense and reference and the problem of empty names. Rather, fiction, in Fregean terms, is also a matter of force. A speech act theoretical understanding of force can help us locate the differences between fiction and assertion on different levels of speech showing that they are two distinct illocutionary forces with different requirements on syntax, sense, and reference.