From the Begriffsschrift to Uber Sinn Und Bedeutung: Frege As Epistemologist and Ontologist (original) (raw)

Frege: Two Theses, Two Senses - 2003

History and Philosophy of Logic, 2003

One particular topic in the literature on Frege’s conception of sense relates to two apparently contradictory theses held by Frege: the isomorphism of thought and language on one hand and the expressibility of a thought by different sentences on the other. I will divide the paper into five sections. In (1) I introduce the problem of the tension in Frege’s thought. In (2) I discuss the main attempts to resolve the conflict between Frege’s two contradictory claims, showing what is wrong with some of them. In (3), I analyze where, in Frege’s writings and discussions on sense identity, one can find grounds for two different conceptions of sense. In (4) I show how the two contradictory theses held by Frege are connected with different concerns, compelling Frege to a constant oscillation in terminology. In (5) I summarize two further reasons that prevented Frege from making the distinction between two conceptions of sense clear: (i) the antipsychologism problem and (ii) the overlap of traditions in German literature contemporary to Frege about the concept of value. I conclude with a hint for a reconstruction of the Fregean notion of ‘thought’ which resolves the contradiction between his two theses

On reference of a sentence—An analysis of Frege's ‘On Sinn and Bedeutung’

In his seminal essay ‘On Sinn and Bedeutung’, Frege ascribes bedeutung to every expression that could be a genuine constituent of a sentence, including incomplete ones such as concept-expressions and sentences themselves. He does not argue that any such expression must have a Bedeutung; he takes it for granted. The only question he considers is what kind of thing the Bedeutung of an expression of any given type should be taken to be. In his treatment of the third puzzle About Propositional Attitude Reports, he considers the bedeutung of a sentence to be its truth value. This essay intends to analyze it and look for a possible analysis of as to why it should be if it should be the case. As a conclusion, the essay shall argue that the concept of reference should be kept limited to first order concept functions and its evaluation as ‘truth value’ in the case of sentences is not necessary.

A Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Gottlob Frege

History and Philosophy of Logic, 2008

Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock's critical introduction to the philosophy of Gottlob Frege is based on 25 years of teaching Frege's philosophy at the University of Puerto Rico. It developed from an earlier publication by Rosado Haddock on Frege's philosophy which was, however, only available in Spanish. This introduction to Frege is meant to steer a path between the two main approaches to Frege studies: on the one hand, we have interpretations of Frege which portray him as a Neo-Kantian and thus as some kind of Idealist, on the other, we have writings like those of Dummett in which Frege is portrayed as a type of "philosophical Adam", i.e. as completely separated from his philosophical tradition. Rosado Haddock succeeds in placing Frege's thinking into a (slightly) broader philosophical context-mainly by reference to his contemporary Edmund Husserl-while also avoiding a (Neo-) Kantian reading of Frege's work. The structure of the book (which contains less than 150 pages of prose) follows chronologically Frege's writing. In this way, Rosado Haddock leads the reader through the whole of Frege's philosophy while highlighting important changes and developments in Frege's thought from the Begriffsschrift to his Grundgesetze and other later writings. Chapter 1 introduces us to the core philosophical themes of Frege's Begriffsschrift with a special emphasis on Frege's notions of "conceptual content" and "judgeable content". Here, Rosado Haddock, anticipates further discussion and points towards changes and developments of Frege's core notion of "identity", "function" and "content". Chapter 2 and 3 focus on Frege's Grundlagen der Arithmetik. Chapter 2 discusses Frege's methodological principles as outlined in Frege's introduction and his criticisms of psychological, naturalistic and Kantian approaches to the philosophy of mathematics. Chapter 3 focuses exclusively on Frege's own Logicist account of arithmetic while emphasising differences between Frege's views and Kantian or Neo-Kantian views. Chapter 4 and 5 are concerned with Frege's highly influential papers published in 1891-2, "Funktion und Begriff", "Über Sinn und Bedeutung" and "Über Begriff und Gegenstand" while also drawing on other relevant material from Frege's Nachlass, his correspondence and his magnum opus Grundgesetze der Arith

The opening passage of Frege's ‘Über sinn und bedeutung’

Philosophia, 1974

The opening passage of Frege's best-known paper is hard to understand. On a straightforward reading what Frege does in the passage is this. He first details an argument which had once convinced him that 'a=b' does not express a relation between a and b: if it does, it says nothing more, if true, than 'a=a; ' but 'a=b' is often significant and 'a=a ' never is. This argument, he says, had led him in Begriffschrift to conclude that 'a=b ' expressed a relation between 'a' and 'b,' namely: they have the same reference. He next, however, presents against the latter view what looks like an argument that he now accepts: the relation between a name and what it refers to is arbitrary; but whether 'a=b' is true may be a significant question of fact. Finally, he offers his distinction between sense and reference. This distinction enables him to take up the view he had rejected in Begriffschrifl: 'a=b ' expresses a relation between a and b. But it says more than 'a=a.' For though 'a' and 'b' have the same reference if a=b, they differ in sense. So the sentence remains significant. This is a common reading of Frege's words) It is in many ways the most natural. It is not, however, if we can assume that Frege knew what he was doing, satisfactory. If we so read the passage we attribute to Frege a belief that directly contradicts the view that names have, besides reference, sense. I mean the belief that the relation between a name and its reference is arbitrary. The contradiction arises

Frege: Judgement, Truth and Facts última prova

Perrin, D.; Narboux, J-P., New Essays on Frege's Logical Investigations, 2020

At the beginning of the article “Der Gedanke”, Frege disposes of a long-standing philosophical doctrine in less than a paragraph. The discarded doctrine is nothing less than the so-called classical definition of truth, which makes it consist in the correspondence of a representation of reality with reality itself. Frege’s argument for this strong conclusion seems bizarre because it seems to be too simple. Nevertheless, I shall contend that Frege’s argument ceases to seem bizarre when it is viewed on the background of his whole logical semantics—something that Frege himself makes clear neither in “Der Gedanke” nor in any other work. On this background, the thesis of the indefinability of truth will appear to be not only plausible, but actually unavoidable.

Frege's Conception of Truth: Two Readings

Ergo: an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 2019

The object reading of Frege’s conception of truth holds that, for him, truth is an object—the truth-value the True. Greimann rebuts the object reading and suggests an alternative reading. According to his suggested reading, Frege is a proponent of the assertion theory of truth, the main thesis of which is that truth is what is expressed by the form of assertoric sentences, and truth as such is neither an object nor a property. I argue that Frege cannot accept the assertion theory. I also defend the object reading by elaborating it further and replying to Greimann’s criticisms.