Frege (Q2711912)

This chapter of the Routledge history of philosophy, devoted to 20th century philosophy of science, logic and mathematics, deals with a central figure of the development in this field, Gottlob Frege. The author surveys the work of Frege, distinguishing three important periods in Frege's writing, the early period (1879-1891), the mature period (1891-1904), and the late period (1906-1925).NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEUnder the heading ``Frege and the modern logic'' the author discusses the ``Begriffsschrift'' (1879) and the conceptual transitions which led to the system of the ``Grundgesetze der Arithmetik'' (1893/1903). Frege's early calculus is reconstructed as some sort of simulation, i.e., the claim `\(\vdash A\)' refers to some content `\(- A\)'. ``This means that the special matters in a natural language are simulated by some mapping or assignment `\(\vdash A \mapsto - A\)' within the given language'' (p. 128). NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEFurther major topics are Frege's ``Grundgesetze der Arithmetik'' (1884), the distinction of sense and reference, Frege's philosophy of language considering its role in modern analytical philosophy. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEReviewer's remark: A considerable amount of misprints, some of them due to using OCR technology for typesetting, does not match the standards Routledge connects with this series.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0960.00015].