Gottlob Frege (Arguments of the Philosophers)

216 Pages·1999·14.15 MB·English

by  Hans D. Sluga

GOTTLOB FREGE
The Arguments of
the Philosophers
EDITOR: TED HONDERICH
The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessmenta nd
history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book
constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher
of major influence and significance.
Plato J. C. B. Gosling
Augustine Christopher Kinvan
The PtwocvaticP bilosopks Jonathan Barnes
Plotinus Lloyd P Gerson
TbeS~-@ics R. J. Hankinson
Socratu Gerasimos Xenophon Santas
Be&&y George Pitcher
DesEartes Margaret Dauler Wilson
Hobbs Tom Sore11
Lxx&e Michael Ayers
Spinoza R. J, Delahunty
Btntbatn Ross Harrison
Hme Barry Stroud
Butler Terence Penelhum
John Smart Mill John Skorupski
TbornasR eid Keith Lehrer
Kant Ralph C. S. Walker
Htgd M. J. Inwood
Scbopenbauer D. W. Hamlyn
Kierkegaard Alastair Hannay
Nicmrchc Richard Schacht
Karl Marx Allen W. Wood
Got& Prcgc Hans D. Sluga
Meinong Reinhardt Grossmann
Hl/sscrl David Bell
G. E. Mm Thomas Baldwin
Wttgenttcin Robert J. Fogelin
Russdl Mark Sainsbury
W&m Jatm Graham Bird
P&m Christopher Hookway
Santayana Timothy L. S. Sprigge
Dewy J. E. Tiles
Bergson A. R. Lacey
J. L.. At&n G. J. Warnock
Karl Popper Anthony O’Hear
Ayer John Foster
Sarttv Peter Caws
GOTTLOB FREGE
The Argzlments of the Philosophers
Hans D. Sluga
London and New York
First published 1980 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
This edition reprinted in hardback 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Rotrtlea’gei s an imprint of the Tayior G Francis Gro44p
0 1980 Hans D. Sluga
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd.
Chippenham, Wiltshire
All rights reserved. No part of rhis book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, ot in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library CataIogtdng in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Cong*eJsC ataloguing in Ptlbliration Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-415-20374-O
ISBN O-41 5-20392-9 (set)
Publisher’s note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original book may be apparent.
To ask historically means this: to release the happening resting and
bound in the question and to set it in motion.
Martin Heideggw

Contents
Preface page ix
Introduction I
I Analytic philosophy: a f&miIy tree I
2 The non-historical character of analytic pbihsopby 2
3 How analytic philosophy misinterprsts its own history 4
4 Two pbilosopbid conceptionso f kznguage 6
I Philosophy in Question 8
I Tbe the phases of ninetcwtth-century pbilosopby 8
2 Logic in Getvnan pbilosopby 10
3 Tbe trinmpb of iakdism 12
4 Pbihsopby in transition 15
5’ Tbe emergenceo f naturalism I7
6 Grnppe3 hgmistic naturalism I9
7 Czolbe3 pbysiologiurl psycbologism 26
8 Tbe ahline of naturahm 32
II Philosophical Reconstruction 35
I New mownents of he-nineteenth-century pbihsopby 35
2 Ftvge’s jkndational intcmrts 41
3 Ptvge’s pwBegrit5schrifi writings 44
4 Tmna%lenbuq and tbe iaha of a Iogid kanguage 48
5 Lotze’s coweption of a ptwv logic 52
6 Tbe in+nce of Leibnix and Kknt on Prege’s tbongbt 58
7 bgicd f-/km as tbe root of tbe analytic tradition 61
III A Lmnguage of Pure Thought 65
I Frcgc’s iaha of a Begrifkhrift 65
2 c,Ogical symboh2m and ksngwge 71
3 Frege’s Proparitiona~ logic 76
4 Tbe ejection of subject and prediute 82
vii
CONTENTS
5 Frege’s logid notion of a function 85
6 Tbe anaIy.ris of general sentences 87
7 The priority of judgments over concepts 90
IV In Search of Logical Objects 96
I Frege’s metbodologikal critique of mathematics 96
2 The strategy of Frege’s anti-empiricism 100
i Logical laws as univcrJal 108
4 &g&al laws as laws of truth 112
5 Prcge’s Lotzcan notion of objtztiuity 117
6 Frege’s mncept of an objtrt 121
7 The logical anaIysis of natural numbers 123
V The Analysis of Meaning 129
I The akvelopment of Frcgc’s views in the 1890s 129
2 The t&ion between a thy and its conttitutizrc concepts 130
3 The assignment of loghal structure I34
4 Concepts as functions I37
5 Functions and value-ranges 144
6 Value-rangcJ and set theory 146
7 The logiurl jnst#ication of w&e-range I49
8 Truth as the rcftmn of sentences I57
VI The End of Logicism 162
I Russell’s contradiction 162
2 Fmge’s way out 165
3 The stitrb fw new fkzdations 170
4 Russell 176
5 CarnaP 178
6 Wittgenstein 181
Notes 187
Index I99
. . :
VIII
Preface
This boc#t is the result of a long development. For almost twenty years
my interest in Frege has been part of a journey fmm Munich through
Oxford and London to Berkeley. At each stage my thoughts about Frege
were influenced by teachers, colleagues, and students. When it comes to
acknowledging their help, I feel at a loss to describe it adequately.
My interest in Prege was aroused by one of my htst philosophy
teachers, Wilhelm Britzlmayr of the University of Munich. A close friend
of Heinrich Scholz-the collector of Frege’s writings when they were
hugely ignored- Britzhnayr had gathered a circle of students to work on
Frege’s logic and philosophy of mathematics. In this circle I first learnt to
admire Frege’s clarity of thought and precision of style.
At Oxford, in Michael Dummett’s seminar, I became acquainted with
a more probing, critical examination of Frege’s thought. The continuing
philosophical debate drew my attention for the first time to Frege’s theory
of meaning. For some time my reading of Frege was strongly colored by
Dummett’s tastes and outlook. If I find myself now in disagmment with
some of his churns, I must still acknowledge that he has taught me an
independence of mind that i value.
When I went to University College London, my friends Hide
Ishiguro, Jerry Cohen, and Richard Wollheim provided new stimuli by
making me think about Frege in relation to Leibnizian rationalism,
nineteenth-century materialism, and late-nineteenth-century idealism.
As editor of the series in which this book is now appearing, Ted
Hot&rich first encourPgcd me to undertake the project of writing it and
then nursed it along with infinite patience. Of particuhu importance for
me was the contact with Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend. Their critical
assessment of the prevailing philosophy of science and their insistence
that science could be understood only as a historical phenomenon raised in
my mind the question whether a similar criticism could not be made of
the account analytic philosophers had given of philosophical theorizing.
ix
PREFACE
These teflections were of the greatest importance in the formation of the
outlook adopted in this book.
In Berkeley this direction of thought was reinforced by Barry Stroud,
who encouraged me in the study of Wittgenstein and helped me to
understand his ideas more deeply. He and other colleagues and friends, in
particular Hubert Dreyfus and John Searle, prodded me on with
encouragement and critical questions. Berkeley in the early 1970s was a
place of intellectual turmoil. I believe that being there forced me to think
more radically about Frege and the analytic tradition that has come out of
his work. The demands of my students fix clarification and elaboration
proved immensely helpful in the process. Among those students Peter
Eggenberger perhaps most deserves notice fix his unfailing interest and
his many helpful suggestions.
As I look over the final result it seems to me that I can recognize in it
also the subtle influence of Oskar Becker, my very first teacher in
philosophy. I remember with admiration his profound scholarship in
logic and mathematics, combined with a deep appreciation of
Heidegger’s historical understanding of the human world.
By recording these various influences I am trying to make clear that my
book has a wider focus than is usual in the literature on Frege. Given the
role Fregean considerations have played and continue to play in logic, the
philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of language, it is difficult
to write comprehensively about Frege’s thought. In the pursuit of such a
comprehensive picture I have tried to take into account as much of the
existing literature as possible, but I have not tried to detail and discuss all
the important issues raised in it. Throughout the book I have bund it
necessary to refer back to Michael Dummett’s writings on Frege, both
because they reflect an important stage in the current discussion of the
topic and also because I consider the shortcomings of his account sympto-
matic. However, my discussion does not presuppose detailed knowledge
of his extensive and difficult writings.
One chief difIixence in my treatment of Frege as compared with
Dummett’s and that of most of the literature is its greater historical
orientation. I hope to show that this approach generates a sharper and
more coherent picture of Frege’s thought, a picture that di&rs from the
predominant one in substance and not only in minor additions and
revisions. I also hope that this reassessment will be of more than historical
interest. It seems to me plausible to assume that we always understand
ourselves only historically, i.e., as creatures who have reached the present
moment via a certain route. If one could show that we have reached that
moment along a path different from the one we believe we have traveled,
that would deeply change our understanding of who we are. My purpose
in trying to reassess the roots of the analytic tradition is to change the
current self-interpretation of that tradition.
X