Questions tagged [frege]
Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) was an important German mathematician, logician and philosopher who is generally considered the father of modern logic and analytic philosophy.
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Where do presuppositions fit into Grice's theory of meaning?
To clarify, by "Grice's theory of meaning" I am referring to the view that the informational content or meaning of an utterance is made up of three components:
what is said - the actual ...
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If the modern understanding of the categorical/hypothetical distinction is better than Kant's, does this undermine the categorical imperative?
In first-order logic (FOL), we have dedicated connectives for conditionals and disjunctions. Again in FOL, we can turn a conditional into a disjunction, though. Frege's logic has a judgment stroke, or ...
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Would Frege's version of the empty set contain "parafinitesimal elements," at least from the multiversal standpoint?
Frege's definition of the empty set was not a raw extensional one: he did not simply write the partial string {} and say, "That's it: that's the empty set." His account was more intensional: ...
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Does being a platonist about mathematics like Frege imply anything about being a direct realist?
I tried to read and understand Frege's "The Thought" and came away with this question.
Frege argues mathematical theorems are thoughts which occupy a third realm independent from the ...
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For what theories of meaning are ambiguous referents problematic?
Suppose I am talking to an English friend of mine and I say, "Boston is in Massachusetts." Since I am referring to the American city, I consider this sentence to be true. My friend evaluates ...
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Is the logicist definition of "analytic" consistent with Kant?
Kant famously distinguished between analytic and synthetic a priori knowledge as two kinds of knowledge that can be acquired a priori, that is, without relying on experience. The distinction is that ...
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Why did it take 3000 years for theories of mathematical foundations to emerge? [closed]
Humans have been doing mathematics for at least 3000 years. In ancient Egypt they did some advanced trigonometry and number theory. Mathematics is thousands of years old, but for some reason it was ...
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What does it mean to say, "Philosophy really started in 1884"?
I am looking into my old notes from a lecture I attended on Frege's Grundlagen, where the professor at some point jokingly said that philosophy started in 1884, with the publication of Grundlagen. I ...
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Can a phrase refer to two things (Sense and Reference)?
I was reading about Frege's sense and reference, and I have a question about it, for example let's say we have 'Charles is the king of England'.
One one hand, 'the king of England' denotes Charles in ...
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Does Wittgenstein's picture theory contradict Frege's theory of Sinn and Bedeutung?
The picture theory of meaning states that statements are meaningful if, and only if, they can be defined or pictured in the real world.
The very notion of meaning as used here is argued against by ...
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In the context of Frege, what is the idea behind conceptual analysis in simple words?
I am reading this Stanford entry behind the Hilbert-Frege debate. I get confused everytime the phrase "Conceptual Analysis mentioned". Here are some extracts:
The idea that Frege takes ...
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Are formal languages/systems as general as bounded, clear axioms and finding consequences?
I’ve tried searching PhilPapers for holistic accounts of formal/languages/systems and I’m not very successful, the best I’ve found being https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jafpos1956/12/1/12_1_15/...
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Universals, object-concept and sense
I am confused about "concept", "sense" and "properties" which may have some similarity but fundamentally are different.
I explain my understanding as follows :
Object-...
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Who first used the phrase "Deflationary Theory of Truth"?
SEP's history of the deflationary theory of truth does not explain the origins of the term Deflationary, but does point to the first people who "explicitly defended it".
The deflationary ...
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Why is 'god' a concept in Frege's objection on the ontological argument?
As Frege states on "Function and Concept", a concept is a function which value is always a truth value, while an object is all that is not a function and therefore has no empty place (...
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Can Fregean sense of proper names be described in terms of intension?
If I am not wrong, the old Fregean distinction between sense and reference can be read in terms of a distinction between intension and extension:
The star of the night and the star of the morning are ...
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The glass-half-full/glass-half-empty distinction beyond Fregean semantics?
What's a useful framework within which to make sense of the glass-half-full/glass-half-empty distinction? In particular, one which admits both descriptions as not only valid but also useful, that is, ...
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What, if anything, has post-positivism left standing as the legacy of Frege’s Begriffsschriftis, Russel’s Principia, and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus
The goal of both Russel’s Principia (1910) and Frege’s Begriffsschriftis (1879) ["a formula language, modeled on that of arithmetic, for pure thought."] was essentially to defend the ...
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How can you make sense of "equinumerosity" in Hume's Principle in a logicist approach to math, without first having functions defined?
I'm pretty sure that I am misunderstanding something here, but I'm not sure what.
How can you make sense of "equinumerosity" in Hume's Principle in a logicist approach to math, without first ...
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What role does Hume's principle (HP) play in neo-logicism?
What role does Hume's principle (HP) play in neo-logicism?
From what I understand Frege used Hume's principle in Freges theorem to create Peano axioms from HP by using second-order logic and that ...
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What is this snippet from Frege's Begriffsschrift saying?
I have no background knowledge in logic so I am a little lost about where to begin.
This is the photo I am trying to learn about and it is from Frege’s Begriffsschrift.
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Why Frege thinks geometry is synthetic?
Frege believes that arithmetic is analytical. Why not Frege thinks geometry can be reduced to arithmetic by coordinate system or something else?
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For Frege, how do we grasp the sense of a sign?
I was wondering...since Frege stablishes a difference between the sense of a sign (the mode of presentation of a reference), it's reference (the actual object in the world) and the representation of ...
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Classical Semantics, Truth, and Frege's Argument
I'm trying to understand Frege's argument for the existence of mathematical objects. Specifically, I'm trying to understand the premises of classical semantics and truth.
Classical Semantics. The ...
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Difference between Frege and Russell on Definite Descriptions?
I'm relatively new to philosophy and I'm starting out with the 'staple' philosophers - namely Frege and Russell. I've read Frege's "Sense and Reference" and Russell's "On Denoting."
One thing I have ...
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Truth values of sentences
Frege proposed that the meaning of a sentence is its truth value in "Über Sinn und Bedeutung" (close to "On Sense and Meaning"). This is not correct because some (many) English sentences do not have ...
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What to read in-depth on Frege's Julius Ceasar problem?
I am planning to get a good grip on Frege's Julius Caesar Problem. I know that classic papers on the topic are Heck and Wright&Hale, but I would be grateful if someone gave me a little piece of ...
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Did logicists use mathematical entities (in their attempt) to reduce mathematics to logic?
Two concepts F,G are equinumerous if there exists a one-to-one
correspondence between the objects that fall under F and G.
Equinumerosity is one the most fundamental building blocks of Gottlob ...
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What is the difference between Frege's and Descartes' theory of ideas?
Frege discusses the ideas (Vorstellungen) in Logical Investigations part I: Thoughts. Descartes discusses the ideas (the imagination) in Meditation VI. We have to find a similarity and a difference ...
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Why should a system of set theory represent the following property of x: ((x = h) or (x = k))) using the set that Frege used?
I have been considering the possibility of an approach to set theory that represents the following property of the free variable x, in the terms of parameters h and k: ((x = h) or (x = k))) by means ...
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Epistemology: What role does " intensionality" play in the knowledge relation? Is " intension" a third term in the knowledge relation?
How to analyse the fact that , at the same time, my 7 y. old nephew
(1) knows that : 1+1 =2
(2) does not know that : sqrt (1) + 1² = the absolute value of the cube root of -8. ?
Certainly, "...
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Frege: Truth as an expression of assertoric force
I am writing an essay on Frege's redundancy theory of truth. As far as I have read, his theory is that the word 'true' does not add anything to the thought of a sentence in which it appears, however, ...
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Can Frege overcome Russell's critique in "On denoting"?
I would like to know what would be the best way to overcome the criticism of Frege laid out by Russell in "On denoting", especially in regard to the third "paradox" presented. This paradox states ...
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Superiority of the concept as opposed to synthetic apperception
In The Foundations of Arithmetic (§ 48, p. 61), after maintaining that statements of numbers are indeed statements of fact, Frege asserts that:
The concept has a power of collecting together far ...
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When we talk about a general concept, we imagine a particular instance
I'm looking to find some resources to read about the following:
When we talk about a general concept (the word pencil in "a pencil is made of wood"), we actually have a mental image of a particular ...
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What is the difference between an ampliative and explanatory reasoning?
I'm reading "Reason's nearest kin" of michael potter and he says:
Now the distinctive feature of reasoning that is ampliative rather than
merely explicative is that it depends on objects as its ...
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How important are Frege works to an analytic philosopher?
Don't kill me. I know he is a big deal.
But I am starting out in analytic philosophy and I am not quite sure how deep I should go in a first approach. Should I read all the context and other ...
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Any great commentary of "On Sense and Nominatum" by Frege?
I'm reading it and I feel that I sometimes I need some level of context. Thanks.
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Why are imperatives not propositions according to Frege?
I'm reading Frege's "On Sense and Nominatum" and I am confused with:
"Imperatives have no nominata; they have only sense. It is true, commands or requests are not propositions, but they are of the ...
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What does Frege mean by "Cognitive Significance" in "On Sense and Nominatum"?
I'm reading Frege's "On Sense and Nominatum" and he uses "Cognitive significance", "Genuine Cognition"...
I kind of infer from the context of each paragraph what he means with those kinds of phrases ...
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Quantificational vs Referential vs Predicational descriptions
Reading Peter Ludlow's article on descriptions, it's clear to me that descriptions can be interpreted, found or considered in 3 different ways. They can be seen as quantificational, referential or ...
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Kripke's Puzzle Confusion
I'm not convinced that the Fregean rebuttal has been successfully repelled by Kripke in Kripke's puzzle. Don't Londres and London have two different senses in that Pierre associates Londres with being ...
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What is the difference between judgment and concept in Frege?
In his critique of Boole and the other algebraic logicians, Frege made a strong use of what is known as "the Priority Principle".
The Priority Principle expresses Frege's belief that our ...
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What is the difference between concepts of number and natural number?
When reading an article about Frege on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frege/#AnaStaNum), in section 2.5 I encountered the following sentence:
But though ...
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Frege and Value-Range
I have been reading Kevin C. Klement's article on Gottlob Frege in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I am confused by the term "value-range", which is used numerous times throughout the article....
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Frege's Argument About the Sense and Reference of a Sentence
Here is the text I am working with: http://brianrabern.net/sensereference.pdf
As the title of this thread indicates, I am having trouble understanding Frege's argument that the thought of sentence (i....
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What's the difference between Aristotle's logic and Frege's logic especially with regard to predicates?
I'm reading a book and the author introduced Aristotelian logic and then he provided an overview of Frege's development of logic, but I don't understand what the difference is between Aristotle's ...
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How does Frege's definition of number solve the Julius Caesar problem?
How does Frege's definition of number solve the Julius Caesar problem?
Frege's definition of number in the end of Foundation is such: the number belonging to the concept F is the extension of the ...
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What is the Fregeian meaning of "grasping"?
Frege holds in Der Gedanke that the Thought is the unity of existence because he considers Thought and proposition to be the very same thing, and our cognition of non-propositional objects is ...
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Did Frege criticize the style of the Tractatus?
Wittgenstein's Tractatus appears to have a singular style (526 sections numbered and organized in decimal under headings 1 to 7). It's also very concise. And the stylistic side is not envisaged by ...
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