Gottlob Frege

The thesis is an investigation into the logical pluralism debate, aiming to understand how the philosophical commitments sustaining each side to the debate connects to more general issues connected to the foundations of logic. My investigation centers on the following three notions: (1) Epistemic justification, (2) The metaphysical "ground" for logical truth, and (3) Normativity. Chapter 1 traces the monistic and pluralistic conception of logic back to its philosophical/mathematical roots, which we find in the writings of Rudolf Carnap and Gottlob Frege. I argue that logical pluralism - in its more plausible, epistemic (rather than ontic) form - was enabled by the semantic shift which Carnap seems to have anticipated and that, from a conventionalist perspective, his 'Principle of Tolerance' follows as a consequence of that shift. Chapter 2 concerns the issues ensuing from Willard V. O Quine’s critique of Carnap's conventionalism, which had a devastating effect for his foundationalist project. The aim is in particular to address the issue of meaning-variance, a crucial assumption for the conventionalist approach to pluralism. In chapter 3, I present another framework for pluralism, due to Stewart Shapiro’s [2014] ‘modelling’ conception of logic, according which logic is conceived as a mathematical model of natural language. Shapiro argues that our concept of logical consequence is vague and in need of a sharpening to attain a fixed meaning. Pluralism follows from there being two or more equally "correct" such sharpenings; i.e., relative to our theoretical aims. I argue that the modelling-conception is the best way to approach a justification of basic logical laws. However, since that conception also grounds Timothy Williamson’s [2017] argument for monism, I argue that the conception ultimately fails to establish logical pluralism. Since both Williamson and Shapiro take a pragmatic approach to justification, I conclude that the question of pluralism does not turn on epistemological commitments (i.e., on (1)), and suggest instead that it is a matter of (2), i.e., of one's conception of the "ground" for logical truth.

Este texto é a tradução da introdução do livro Logical Forms feita por Guido Imaguire e revisada pelo próprio autor (que também fez algumas pequenas alterações no texto e é responsável por sua forma final). Muitas citações de textos originais nas notas de rodapé foram suprimidas na tradução.

Traducción del texto de Donald Gillies "“The Fregean Revolution in Logic”, en Revolutions in Mathematics , ed. Gillies, D.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Traducción de Marcela del Pilar Gómez y Ángel Rivera Novoa. En: "Saga", No. 20, 71-107, 2009.

O presente artigo visa mostrar que um dos argumentos de Frege contra o psicologismo, o argumento da comunicabilidade, pressupoe duas teses que implicam a possibilidade de uma linguagem privada, no sentido de Wittgenstein (uma linguagem que apenas uma pessoa pode entender), a saber, (1) que as representacoes mentais (Vorstellungen) sao epistemicamente privadas e inalienaveis e (2) que para saber o que um termo geral significa, deve-se conhecer aquilo ao qual ele se refere.

The aim of this paper, written in Finnish, is to provide a critical evaluation of Jean van Heijenoort's distinction between "logic as language" and "logic as calculus". The focus is on the interpretative claim, advanced by advocates of this distinction, that proponents of the conception of logic as language, such as Frege and Russell, subscribed a very distinctive set of theses regarding the nature of logic and deriving rationale. I reconstruct a number of interpretative arguments that are found in the secondary literature but which are hardly ever formulated as explicit arguments. I argue that the attribution of these arguments to Frege and Russell is not well supported. The principal critical tool that is used here is the distinction between logic as (universal) science and logic as calculus.

Norsk filosofisk tidsskrift03-04 / 2013
The starting point for my discussion is the passage from Augustine’s Confessions that forms the beginning of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Augustine’s recollection of how he learned to speak as a small child is juxtaposed with Frege’s answer to a question he poses in the midst of a discussion of problems that adhere to functions and signs that designate them: How does a child learn to understand grown-ups? I argue that the comparisons implied in Frege’s answer are meant to show that the passageway into a language cannot be theoretical in character. Frege argues that leading someone into a language requires «entgegenkommendes Verständnis». I point at difficulties that adhere to the translation of this expression to the English idiom «a meeting of minds», and go on to suggest a correspondence between our communication in language in everyday life, as Frege depicts it, and the means he uses for elucidatory purposes. The comparison shows, I argue, that when Frege uses the expression «entgegenkommendes Verständnis» as a presupposition for language acquisition, he speaks of understanding as it is found in our everyday communication in language. My paper ends with a discussion of a possible parallel between Wittgenstein’s conception of ‘agreement in judgments’ and Frege’s conception of ‘entgegenkommendes Verständnis’. A comparison between Frege’s approach to, and conception of philosophical difficulties and Wittgenstein’s investigations of such difficulties in Philosophical Investigations forms a background for my discussion as a whole.

El principio de contexto que Frege establece en Fundamentos de la Aritmética no reaparece
en sus escritos posteriores, hecho que podría sugerir que a consecuencia de la sustitución de la noción
de contenido juzgable por las de sentido y significado Frege lo rechazara después de 1890. Dummett
arguye en 1995 que el principio de contexto continúa formando una parte central de la filosofía de
lenguaje de Frege, pero que las teorías establecidas a partir del tomo I de Leyes fundamentales de la
aritmética ya no son compatibles con la noción de la perspectiva internalista atribuida a Frege por
van Heijenoort e Hintikka. El presente trabajo arguye que Frege no sólo jamás abandonó el principio
de contexto, sino que también mantuvo toda su vida la fe en el lenguaje como medio universal con
la consiguiente imposibilidad de establecer, vía una teoría semántica, externamente las referencias
de nuestros términos.
Frege´s context principle, as put forward in Foundations of Arithmetic, is not mentioned in
his later writings which might suggest that as a consequence of substituting the notion of judgeable
content by sense and meaning, Frege would have abandoned the context principle after 1890.
Dummett argues in 1993 that the context principle continues to form a central part of Frege’s
language philosophy; theories put forth from volume I of Fundamental Laws of Arithmetic, however,
are no longer compatible with the notion of an internalist perspective attributed to Frege by van
Heijenoort and Hintikka. I argue currently that Frege not only never abandoned the context principle
but all his life maintained his faith en language as universal medium making and therefore held it
impossible to establish reference for our terms externally by means of a theory of meaning.

Si Proust a su raconter les intermittences du coeur chez son Narrateur, Whitehead a observé sur Socrate les intermittences de l'intelligence. Les secondes ne parviennent à l'échelle des premières que dans la théorie de l'identité personnelle où devient pertinent chez Whitehead le concept d'ancestral d'un relation tel qu'il passe de Frege aux Principia Mathematica.

Dios y su extraña forma de hablar ¿Qué es el lenguaje en el génesis? La apuesta del siguiente texto es realizar un análisis semántico de los capítulos 1 y 2 del libro del Génesis. El análisis se realizará desde dos teorías: la teoría de la referencia mediada y la teoría de la referencia directa. La lectura fregiana y la russelliana se hará sobre dos fenómenos que considero centrales dentro del pasaje: lo que Dios enuncia antes de crear y la manera en que Adán nombra a los animales. -

Resumen: Gottlob Frege sostiene a lo largo de su obra lógica y semántica dos tesis aparentemente contradictorias acerca de la noción de pensamien-to como contenido objetivo de los juicios y portador de verdad: (1) dos oraciones estructuralmente distintas pueden expresar el mismo pensa-miento; (2) hay una estricta correspondencia entre los elementos de un pensamientos y la oración que lo expresa, de esta manera, la estructura de la oración es un modelo de la estructura del pensamiento. Esta tensión ha generado una discusión que inicia Michael Dummett en The Interpretation of Frege's philosophy. En este trabajo se discuten además los artículos de David Bell y Carlo Penco. Se propone, siguiendo a este último, que las tesis están relacionadas con dos nociones distintas de sentido que cumplen propósitos diferentes en la obra del filósofo alemán.

In addition to the Frege point, Frege also argued for the force-content distinction from the fact that an affirmative answer to a yes-no question constitutes an assertion. I argue that this fact more readily supports the view that questions operate on and present assertions and other forceful acts themselves. Force is neither added to propositions as on the traditional view, nor is it cancelled as has recently been proposed. Rather higher level acts such as questioning, but also e.g. conditionalizing, embed assertive or directive acts that are forceful and committal, while suspending commitment to them. The Frege point confounds different varieties of force and the question whether something is merely presented for consideration with the question what is so presented. Force is representational: through assertoric and directive force indicators subjects non-conceptually present positions of theoretical or practical knowledge, while interrogative acts indicate positions of wondering which strive for such knowledge.

According to (what I call) the Explanatory Problem with Frege's Platonism about Thoughts, the sharp separation between the psychological and the logical on which Frege famously insists is too sharp, leaving Frege no resources to show how it could be legitimate to invoke logical laws in an explanation of our activities of thinking. I argue that there is room in Frege's philosophy for such justificatory explanations. To see how, we need first to correctly understand the lesson of Frege's attack on psychologism as fundamentally marking a contrast between justification and explanation, and, second, we must take Frege to be committed to the idea that the laws of truth are normatively constitutive for the process of thinking.

The paper argues that philosophers commonly misidentify the substitutivity principle involved in Russell’s puzzle about substitutivity in “On Denoting” (the so-called "George IV puzzle"). This matters because when that principle is properly identified the puzzle becomes considerably sharper and more interesting than it is often taken to be. This article describes both the puzzle itself and Russell's solution to it, which involves resources beyond the theory of descriptions. It then explores the epistemological and metaphysical consequences of that solution. One such consequence, it argues, is that Russell must abandon his commitment to propositions.

How to say no less, no more about conditional than what is needed? From a logical analysis of necessary and sufficient conditions, we argue that a proper account of conditional can be obtained by extending the logical notation of Frege's ideography. From a dialogical redefinition of truth-values as moves in a game, it becomes possible to characterize the logical meaning of " If " , and only " If ". That is: by getting rid of the paradoxes of material implication, whilst showing the bivalent roots of conditional as a speech-act based on affirmations and rejections. Finally, the two main inference rules for conditional, viz. Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens, are reassessed in this algebraic and game-theoretical light.

In this talk, I address the issue of whether Cantor's conception of abstraction is fully adequate to motivate the acceptance of Hume's Principle (HP). I first address Cantor's two formulations of numerical abstractionism, and show that they are compatible with Frege's abstractionism. Then, I proceed to review Gödel's conception of abstraction (which I call GMAA, Gödel's Minimal Account of Abstraction), which represents a reprise and defence of Cantor's conception. I also show that alternative notions of cardinal number, such as those proposed by numerosity theorists, fail to satisfy both Cantor's conception and GMAA. In the talk, I also illustrate the relevance of the topic for the current debate about HP within the neo-logicist programme.

El tema del presente trabajo es la noción de contenido no conceptual.  Se toma partido en el debate entre  quienes postulan contenido no conceptual y quienes rechazan tal suposición. En el presente trabajo se elabora la idea de que, de hecho, necesitamos postular esta clase de contenido.

Abstracts for 20 papers to be discussed at a symposium on  Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930-1933, From the Notes of G. E Moore, edited by David Stern, Brian Rogers, and Gabriel Citron.  The symposium will be held at the University of Iowa, May 18-22, 2015.

This paper focuses on two enduring features of Gareth Evans’s work. The first is his rethinking of standard ways of understanding the Fregean notion of sense and the second his sustained attempt to undercut the standard opposition between Russellian and Fregean approaches to understanding thought and language. I explore the peculiar difficulties that ‘I’ poses for a Fregean theory and show how Evans’s account of the sense of the first person pronoun can be modified to meet those difficulties.

In this paper, I try to answer the following questions: what are objects in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus? What function does a name perform in a sentence according to Wittgenstein? What is the Bedeutung of a name? I argue that answers to these questions come from the Wittgensteinian vision of logic. The first part of the article concerns Frege and Russell’s universalist conception of logic, which is the main object of Wittgenstein’s attack. The second part of the article is about Wittgenstein’s conception of logic and some consequences of this conception for the interpretation of Tractatarian objects and names. My main result is that the meaning of a name should be understood as a truth-value potential of an expression. The last part concerns the connections between the so-called ontological parts of the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s views on an ideal formal language.

O tema da Linguagem ocupa um lugar central na Filosofia do século XX. Sob o influxo do giro linguís-tico, a Filosofia redefine não só a Ontologia como também a Epistemologia, a Ética, a Estética e a Lógica. Os estudos que compõem esta obra cons-tituem uma espécie de álbum de onde se pode vi-sualizar certas notas características do grande debate a respeito do tema. Reunindo pesquisadores de diferentes universidades o livro pretende ocupar um espaço que sirva de referência não somente para os que iniciam suas pesquisas como também para aqueles que pretendem ampliar o debate em Filosofia da Linguagem.

Uma expressão é considerada denotativa em razão de sua forma, como nos três
casos seguintes: a) aquela que não denota nada; b) aquela que denota um objeto
definido; e c) aquela que denota algo de forma ambígua. O problema que Russel se
propõe a resolver através de sua teoria é acerca da interpretação de tais expressões
denotativas.

Abstract
The article was provoked by a systematic difference between two reconstructed meanings of the same utterance at two different positions in a text that occured during its analysis. The terms ‚objektive Bedeutungsstruktur‘ (objective structure of meaning) and ‚latente Sinnstruktur‘ (latent structure of sense), used in Objective Hermeneutics, seem to yield a terminological solution to this problem. But due to the complexity of this pair of terms – it amalgamates three different oppositions – some irritation remains. The article gives an outline of the terms introduced by Ulrich Oevermann, then presents the remaining conceptual problem by analysing parts of a research conversation. Finally a conceptual and terminological solution, referring to Frege’s distinction between meaning and sense, is presented. Conceptually telling apart (a) manifest and latent meaning, (b) objective meaning constituted by rules and subjective, intentional meaning and (c) an utterance’s objective structure of sense and its comprehensive objective structure of meaning, allows to avoid the mingling to be found in the eponymous distinction.


Zusammenfassung
Ein systematischer Unterschied zwischen der Rekonstruktion der Bedeutung derselben Äußerung an zwei verschiedenen Sequenzstellen gab Anlass, seine begriffliche Fassung zu erarbeiten. In der Objektiven Hermeneutik scheint mit der Gegenüberstellung von ‚objektiver Bedeutungsstruktur‘ und ‚latenter Sinnstruktur‘ ein terminologischer Vorschlag hierfür vorzuliegen. Dieser ruft jedoch aufgrund seiner Komplexität – er amalgamiert drei verschiedene Oppositionen – Irritationen hervor. Der Beitrag skizziert zunächst die Verwendung der von Ulrich Oevermann eingeführten Termini, sodann wird anhand einer materialen Analyse das Klärungsproblem herausgestellt; schließlich wird mit Bezug auf Freges Unterscheidung von Bedeutung und Sinn ein Vorschlag zur begrifflichen und terminologischen Fassung des Unterschieds gemacht. Der begriffliche Unterschied von (a) manifester und latenter Bedeutung, (b) objektiv regelkonstitutierter und subjektiv gemeinter Bedeutung und schließlich (c) objektiver Sinnstruktur einer Äußerung und ihrer umfassenden objektiven Bedeutungsstruktur kann ohne die Konfundierung in der titelgebenden Unterscheidung terminologisch gefasst werden.

Presentado originalmente en el marco del Congreso Internacional de Filosofía XVII, Morelia 2014.

Gottlob Frege posiblemente era el primer filósofo analítico. La exégesis de su doctrina quedó durante varias décadas restringida casi naturalmente al ámbito de la filosofía analítica y angloparlante. El método que Frege heredó a la filosofía analítica se basa en el análisis abstracto y formal, y la aprehensión de su doctrina se desarrolló bajo el supuesto –tomado casi por autoevidente- que éste método es el único correcto para dar cuenta de los problemas filosóficos más fundamentales, muy particularmente el de desarrollar una teoría de significado. Igualmente se asumía y asume todavía con cierto automatismo que las preocupaciones filosóficas de Frege son fundamentalmente las mismas de la filosofía analítica y las que no caben en este supuesto se desechan fácilmente como anacrónicas o absurdas. Este acercamiento al pensamiento de Frege exclusivamente bajo los supuestos de la filosofía analítica, sus méritos no obstante, no toma en cuenta el ambiente anti-naturalista y neo-kantiano en el cual Frege formó sus convicciones fundamentales. Algunos aspectos contenciosos como, por ejemplo, el principio de contexto, una posible jerarquía de sentidos indirectos o la suposición, casi tácita, de que la doctrina de Frege es una teoría sobre expresiones referenciales, aparecen en una luz diferente si nos damos cuenta de que su intento de construir un sistema es, fundamentalmente, una respuesta a problemas que Frege encontró en el sistema de Kant.

Deneyimleyebileceği , anlamlı kılacağı bir  dünya inşa edebiliyor olması nedeniyle ayrıcalıklı biricik canlı varlık olarak insanı kabul ederiz. Bu dünyanın oluşumunu sağlarken, bir diyalog ve bu diyalog ile insaniliğinin yollarını açmasını mümkün kılan yer ise dilin kendisidir. Dil, aynı zamanda bu dünya ve diyalog imkanları neticesinde insani deneyime kendine özgü karakteristiği veren şeydir. Deneyimin özünde saklı olan şey ise ‘’anlam’’dır. Dil bunların dışında , kendisi nesne haline gelmeden, her şeyi nesnelleştiren bir yaşam sürecinin de kendisidir.
Felsefi düşünme söz konusu olduğunda dili değerlendirdiğimizde, bu düşünme etkinliği için gerekli olan etmen de, en temelde , insanın kendi dilidir. Yabancı ya da bilinmeyen bir değil. Zira felsefi düşünmenin ortaya çıktığı yer felsefi düşünmenin sürekli içinde dolaştığı gündelik dilin sözcükleridir.
Felsefe, düşünme, dil ve zihin etmenleri göz önünde bulundurulduktan sonra, dil felsefesi için ,dilin mahiyetini ele alan , dil ile dünya arasındaki ilişkiyi araştıran felsefe dalıdır, diyebiliriz.  Felsefenin kendisi de dilsel bir disiplindir. Dil felsefesi ise terim ve cümlelerin anlamlarını araştırıp düşüncenin temellendirilmesindeki yol gösterici ve ayrık bir disiplin alanı olarak görülebilir.

Sass, like R. D. Laing before him, wants to make sense of schizophrenic discourse.  In 'Paradoxes of delusion – Wittgenstein, Schreber and the schizophrenic mind' he uses Wittgenstein’s later work, particularly the Blue Book, to this end.  Read criticises Sass for not taking Wittgenstein’s nonsensicalism seriously enough and suggests that some schizophrenic utterances cannot be understood at all.  I argue that Sass’s position is more consistent than Read’s, though it is probably true that Sass is the less thoroughgoing Wittgensteinian.  Read’s way of arguing his case exhibits all the difficulties that those who employ the notion of philosophical nonsense are apt to get themselves into.  The denigratory vocabulary he uses to characterise schizophrenic discourse – ‘confused’, ‘inchoate’, ‘incoherent’, ‘empty’, ‘without content’ – is itself confused and confusing, but, more importantly, his talk of ‘transitional remarks’ and his admission that he is himself ‘trafficking in nonsense’ suggest that he is falling into the very error of which he accuses Sass.

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 published version of this paper is open access. See https://ics.sas.ac.uk/publications/themes-plato-aristotle-and-hellenistic-philosophy?fbclid=IwAR0FmeF913u6_OeYi4zIJ-fi5a3ZRRuLNn-FMk-vGzsgo2JPwfT9vHsoIzs

The analyasis of the  Frege’s ,  Peirce’s  and Saussure’s  semiotic conceptions of sign reveals the  such fundamental differences between them, which have led  to divergent theories of linguistic sign and versions of semiotics.  Saussure’s  approach became the basis for classical semiotics  which " examines the role of signs and sign systems in the society ". The  Peircean  approach to the semiotics  as a  the formal system was developed mainly in the logic.  In the Saussurian version of semiotic the basic semiotic processes is  a signification, in the  Peircean  it is an interpretation  ( replacing of an object standing as  a sign by some another object ). Neither signification nor interpretation do not presuppose  communication.    We suggest to expand  Frege’s approach by modal extension.  Frege's semantic theory became the basis of a set-theoretic semantics , including semantics of possible worlds. However, modern semiotics and its principal  component ( theory of sign) are out of this mainstream. The relationship between signifier and signified is considered as a non- modal and context- free. Meanwhile, the problems that were outlined by Frege himself  can be solved  due to  the  modal extension  of his theory. Frege's idea - that the sense is a relation (function) that correlates  linguistic expressions with non-linguistic objects - can be understood as a relation defined on the set of possible worlds. The definition of sense as a formal relation  can be complemented  on substantial way, as conditions of denotation:  how, by which texts and in respect of which context it can be performed. Thus sense can be described as a model of correspondence between signs and objects, as well as  a mode of existence within this model –  the existence of an object (in the case of a proper name ) or a class of objects ( in the case of a common  name ).  We consider it as a modal dimension of  sign.  Being actualiazed,  sign obtains  its modal characteristics  which relate  to context-world of  communication,  and as a result its  denotation is defined in respect to a certain worlds and contexts. This  provides a theoretical and descriptive tools to deal with such phenomena as the correlation between modalities , the manifestations of subjective and the so-called objective modes of language and speech , the contextual dependence of meaning and denotation  , expression and identification of possible and non-existent objects , the ability to describe the future and the past , including its alternatives, etc.  Based on the modal extension of Frege’s conception  of  Sinn und Bedeutung,  the modal semiotics can be considered also as a functional and context-dependent semiotics describing communicative and  context-dependent  processes ( construction and functioning of texts, their interpretation, intertextual relations, etc.).

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

[French below]
The concepts of "Färbung" (coloration) and "Beleuchtung" are introduced by Frege to refer to everything that is not the Sinn (Frege-sense). The terms have hithero been treated as synonyms and gotten little attention in their own right (Michael Dummett translates both as "tone"). I believe that they are not only negative concepts, but that Frege gives them positive and disctinct meanings, which can be understood based on the different definitions and, more importantly, examples he gives.

Frege traite la coloration et l’éclairage toujours en second lieu, à la
marge de ses grands textes. Mais il les traite dans tous ses grands textes sur le langage et on les retrouve aussi dans un grand nombre de textes secondaires. Leurs désignations se multiplient, mais si on sait les reconnaître, on peut dégager un noyau de propriétés que Frege leur accorde ou – très souvent – ne leur accorde pas. Dans ce travail, nous allons essayer d’y voir
plus claire sur la fonction et le fonctionnement de ces concepts pour aboutir à une présentation aussi systématique que leur traitement chez Frege et son intérêt décroissant pour ces concepts le permet.
Comme nous allons le comprendre, les deux expressions ne renvoient pas réellement au même concept, mais à deux concepts distincts, ce qui permet de contrer une objection que Dummett fait à Frege.