This volume contains English translations of Frege's early writings in logic and philosophy and of relevant reviews by other leading logicians. Professor Bynum has contributed a biographical essay, introduction, and extensive bibliography. ong Copy
This collection brings together recent scholarship on Frege, including new translations of German material which is made available to Anglophone scholars for the first time.
Realizing Reason pursues three interrelated themes. First, it traces the essential moments in the historical unfolding—from the ancient Greeks, through Descartes, Kant, and developments in the nineteenth century, to the present—that culminates in the realization of pure reason as a power of knowing. Second, it provides a cogent account of mathematical practice as a mode of inquiry into objective truth. And finally, it develops and defends a new conception of our being in the world, one that builds on and transforms the now standard conception according to which our experience of reality arises out of brain activity due, in part, to merely causal impacts on our sense organs. Danielle Macbeth shows that to achieve an adequate understanding of the striving for truth in the exact sciences we must overcome this standard conception and that the way to do that is through a more adequate understanding of the nature of mathematical practice and the profound transformations it has undergone over the course of its history, the history through which reason is first realized as a power of knowing. Because we can understand mathematical practice only if we attend to the systems of written signs within which to do mathematics, Macbeth provides an account of the nature and role of written notations, specifically, of the principal systems that have been developed within which to reason in mathematics: Euclidean diagrams, the symbolic language of arithmetic and algebra, and Frege's concept-script, Begriffsschrift.
This volume collects nine essays that investigate the work of Gottlob Frege. The contributors address Frege’s work in relation to literature and fiction (Dichtung), the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften), and science (Wissenschaft). Overall, the essays consider internal connections between different aspects of Frege’s work while acknowledging the importance of its philosophical context. There are also further common strands between the papers, such as the relation between Frege’s and Wittgenstein’s approaches to philosophical investigations, the relation between Frege and Kant, and the place of Frege’s work in the philosophical landscape more generally. The volume is therefore of direct relevance to several current debates in philosophy in general, in addition to Frege and Wittgenstein research in particular. Even though Frege’s great significance for contemporary philosophy is not disputed, the question of how we are to understand the character and aims of his project is debated. The debate has a starting point in Frege’s specific conception of logic. The volume elucidates this conception as well as the relation between natural language and the Begriffsschrift. It will help philosophers, researchers, and students better understand the nuances of this great thinker. By extension, it will also help readers seeking to understand Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophical difficulties and his struggle to find an apt form of presentation for his philosophical investigations.
First published in 1989, this book considers Bertrand Russell’s philosophy through his correspondence with others. Indeed, his exchanges with his elders in philosophy, with his contemporaries, and with one of his most outstanding pupils are brought to life in this judicious exposition: meticulously documented before being judged with insight and sympathy, as well as impartiality. Elizabeth Ramsden Eames here explores the issues that emerged from Russell’s exchanges with certain other philosophers, and interprets the resulting reciprocal influences and reactions. The conversations presented cover subjects such as: the nature of relations; pluralism versus monism; the relation of the subject and object in knowledge; the analysis of experience; the definition of truth; the analysis of belief; and the theory of meaning. These have been in the forefront of philosophical discussion in our time, and Russell’s dialogue with his contemporaries promises to illumine them.
Lois Lane knows that Superman can fly, but she does not know that Clark Kent can fly. How can that be, given that Superman and Clark are one and the same? To answer this question, Frege famously distinguished the reference of a name (the thing it is a name of) from what he called its 'sense' or 'mode of presentation'. The sense was meant to capture our (necessarily limited) perspective on reference and to explain the difference in 'cognitive value' between "Superman can fly" and "Clark can fly". Frege's distinction has been widely discussed in the last century, but much about it remains unclear. In this collection, Richard Kimberly Heck, one of the world's foremost experts on Frege's philosophy, distinguishes three aspects of Frege's famous 'puzzle' and explores the connections between them. Their wide-ranging discussion touches on issues in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, the history of analytic philosophy, and meta-philosophy. Heck argues that, while many of the details of Frege's position cannot be defended, his famous puzzle still has much to teach us both about the foundations of cognition and about the nature of linguistic communication. Modes of Presentation presents eight previously published papers, two of which are significantly expanded. There are also three new chapters, three new postscripts responding to criticisms, and a substantial overview that introduces the issues and traces connections between the chapters.
Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, or Basic Laws of Arithmetic, was intended to be his magnum opus, the book in which he would finally establish his logicist philosophy of arithmetic. But because of the disaster of Russell's Paradox, which undermined Frege's proofs, the more mathematical parts of the book have rarely been read. Richard G. Heck, Jr., aims to change that, and establish it as a neglected masterpiece that must be placed at the center of Frege's philosophy. Part I of Reading Frege's Grundgesetze develops an interpretation of the philosophy of logic that informs Grundgesetze, paying especially close attention to the difficult sections of Frege's book in which he discusses his notorious 'Basic Law V' and attempts to secure its status as a law of logic. Part II examines the mathematical basis of Frege's logicism, explaining and exploring Frege's formal arguments. Heck argues that Frege himself knew that his proofs could be reconstructed so as to avoid Russell's Paradox, and presents Frege's arguments in a way that makes them available to a wide audience. He shows, by example, that careful attention to the structure of Frege's arguments, to what he proved, to how he proved it, and even to what he tried to prove but could not, has much to teach us about Frege's philosophy.