Frege: Thoughts

Spoken sentences have parts. Therefore they take time to speak. For instance, when you say, “Socrates is running”, you begin by uttering the subject term ("Socrates"), before carrying on to the predicate. But are the corresponding predications in thought also composite? And are such thoughts extended across time, like their spoken counterparts? Peter Abelard gave an affirmative response to both questions. Alberic of Paris denied the first and, as a corollary, denied the second. Here, I first set out Abelard’s account. (...) I then present a series of arguments against Abelard, reconstructed from (sometimes fragmentary) manuscripts associated with Alberic’s school. I conclude with an observation about present philosophy of language: this twelfth-century debate points to some undefended (and largely unstated) assumptions common to our latest thinking about propositions. I highlight this by presenting recent accounts of two philosophers with radically different outlooks: Jeffrey King and Peter Hanks. Both their accounts take many of the same things for granted, as the Alberican criticisms make plain. (shrink)

In the paper, I propose a novel approach to Frege’s view on the principle of compositionality, its relation to the propositional holism and the formation of concepts. The main idea is to distinguish three stages of constructing a logically perfect language. At the first stage, only a sentence as a whole expresses a Thought. It is impossible to assign meaning to less complex units. This is the stage of an ordinary language. The second phase concerns the proper level of construction (...) of a logically perfect language. We are forced to discriminate syntactic and semantic parts of sentences to account for the inference relations. We can distinguish senses and references of parts of sentences. Furthermore, it is possible here to choose between different ways of analysing the given Thought. Finally, at the third stage, every expression of the language has an unambiguous sense and this sense determines a unique reference. The logically perfect language is ready. We may view Thoughts as composed from primitive elements. Moreover, the senses of parts of a sentence correspond to the parts of a Thought, so that the structure of the sentence serves as the image of the structure of the Thought. The principle of compositionality is met and we can discern how understanding of the infinite numbers of Thoughts is possible and how languages are learnable. The main advantage of the presented view is that it allows accommodating some aspects of Frege’s philosophy that are often seen as mutually incompatible. Furthermore, I submit extensive textual data in favour of the discussed views and conceptions. (shrink)

The main question of this article is that what are the important differences or similarities between Aristotle's and Frege's analysis of the categorical proposition? Based on the famous view, Aristotle analyzes the categorical proposition into three components: Subject, Predicate and Relation; while Frege analyzes the categorical proposition into two components of Variable and Function, and therefore; these two analyses are completely different and there is no similarity between them. In the other article, I have argued that in the Aristotle's viewpoint, (...) in the logical analysis of the categorical proposition, against its linguistic analysis, it is divided into two main components of subject and predicate. At this article, I have shown that by accepting of this analysis and based on it, it becomes clear that: firstly, there are important similarities between these two analyses: 1) both are two-part analyses 2) Aristotle, like Frege, considers «to be attributed to something else» to be the essential feature of the predicate part; Secondly, there are important differences between them: 1) Aristotle considers «to be attributed to something else» to be merely the essential property of the Role of Predicate, but Frege considers it to be also the essential property of general concepts that replaces in this role, and therefore 2) Frege, against Aristotle, maintains that general concepts cannot be the subject of propositions. This viewpoint of Frege is based on the «Fundamental distinction between Object and Concept». Therefore the root of the differences between the two analyses should be sought in this assertion.. (shrink)

Commentators regularly attribute to Frege realist, idealist, and quietist responses to metaphysical questions concerning the abstract objects he calls ‘thoughts’. But despite decades of effort, the evidence offered on behalf of these attributions remains unconvincing. I argue that Frege deliberately avoids commitment to any of these positions, as part of a metaphysical separatist policy motivated by the fact that logic is epistemologically autonomous from metaphysics. Frege’s views and arguments prove relevant to current attempts to argue for epistemological autonomy, particularly that (...) of ethics. (shrink)

The distinction between content and force is ‘a corner-stone of 20-century philosophy of language’ (Recanati 2013, 622). Yet, in recent years it has been argued that (a) the motivation for drawing the content-force distinction is flawed and (b) that making it bars us from solving the problem of the unity of the proposition. In this paper I will go back to the source of the content-force distinction in Frege’s work. Frege argued that ‘the nature of a question’ requires a distinction (...) between force and content. I will reconstruct and defend Frege’s argument for the distinction and outline how the content-force distinction can be combined with a Fregean account of the unity of thought. (shrink)

One of the most pressing issues in contemporary semantics is whether propositions are structured entities that should be individuated in terms of their components or, contrarily, they lack structure and should be individuated in terms of their inferential relations. Another one is whether propositions should always contain all the information that is needed to deem them true or false—whether they should always be Fregean propositions. The latter debate might seem to presuppose a certain position in the former. However, it is (...) the first aim of this paper to argue that the two debates are orthogonal. Moreover, we will use Frege’s thoughts as an example of what we would contemporarily call ‘propositions’ that, though trivially Fregean, lack structure. Since it is not uncontroversial that Frege’s thoughts are unstructured, it is the second aim of this paper to show that it follows from Frege’s writings that they are. (shrink)

Peter Hanks defends a new theory about the nature of propositional content, according to which the basic bearers of representational properties are particular mental or spoken actions. He explains the unity of propositions and provides new solutions to a long list of puzzles and problems in philosophy of language.

In this paper, I address some puzzles about Frege’s conception of how we “grasp” thoughts. I focus on an enigmatic passage that appears near the end of Frege’s great essay “The Thought.” In this passage Frege refers to a “non-sensible something” without which “everyone would remain shut up in his inner world.” I consider and criticize Wolfgang Malzkorn’s interpretation of the passage. According to Malzkorn, Frege’s view is that ideas [Vorstellungen] are the means by which we grasp thoughts. My counter-proposal (...) is that language enables us to grasp thoughts (ideas are merely their baggage or “trappings,” as Frege puts it). One significant consequence of my interpretation is that it helps challenge the standard reading of Frege according to which he is a metaphysical platonist about thoughts. My interpretation thus provides support for the deflationary, anti-ontological reading spelled out by readers like Thomas Ricketts and Wolfgang Carl. As Ricketts puts it, Frege’s distinction between the objective and the subjective, rather than being an ontological doctrine, “lodges in the contrast between asserting something and giving vent to a feeling.”. (shrink)

Fregean thoughts (i.e. the senses of assertoric sentences) are structured entities because they are composed of simpler senses that are somehow ordered and interconnected. The constituent senses form a unity because some of them are ?saturated? and some ?unsaturated?. This paper shows that Frege's explanation of the structure of thoughts, which is based on the ?saturated/unsaturated? distinction, is by no means sufficient because it permits what I call ?wild analyses?, which have certain unwelcome consequences. Wild analyses are made possible because (...) any ?unsaturated? sense that is a mode of presentation of a concept together with any ?saturated? sense forms a thought. The reason is that any concept can be applied to any object (which is presented by a ?saturated? sense). This stems from the fact that Frege was willing to admit only total functions. It is also briefly suggested what should be done to block wild analyses. (shrink)

Frege famously endorsed a principle of Thought-Sentence Correspondence that can be spelt out as follows: (Corr1) For all sentences s, for all thoughts t, if r expresses t, then:if a sense is expressed by a part of s then it is part of t, &(Corr2) For all sentences s, for all thoughts t, if s expresses t, then:if a sense is part of t then it is expressed by at least one part of s. He clearly embraces Corr1 when he (...) writes in § 32 of Grundgesetze, vol. I: ‘If a name is part of the name of a trut... (shrink)

In this paper I argue indirectly for Frege's semantics, in particular for his conception of propositions, by reviewing some difficulties faced by one of the main contemporary alternative approaches, i.e., the direct reference theory. While Frege's semantics can yield an explanation of cognitive value and belief-preservation, the alternative approach seems to run into trouble here. I shall also briefly consider the question of whether epistemic issues should be of any concern for semantics, i.e., whether the feature mentioned above should really (...) be regarded as an advantage of Frege's theory. (shrink)

This paper continues a thread in Analysis begun by Adam Rieger and Nicholas Denyer. Rieger argued that Frege’s theory of thoughts violates Cantor’s theorem by postulating as many thoughts as concepts. Denyer countered that Rieger’s construction could not show that the thoughts generated are always distinct for distinct concepts. By focusing on universally quantified thoughts, rather than thoughts that attribute a concept to an individual, I give a different construction that avoids Denyer’s problem. I also note that this problem for (...) Frege’s philosophy was discovered by Bertrand Russell as early as 1902 and has been discussed intermittently since. (shrink)

In the initial part of the article Frege\'s texts are analyzed in order to present his position on the question of denotation of propositions and the fragment points to the motives that made Frege recognize logical value as the denotation of proposition. In its further part the article presents the position taken in this question by commentators of Frege\'s thought. In the final part of the article it is shown what shape two versions of Frege\'s axiom (semantic and ontological) formulated (...) by R. Suszko assume. (shrink)

The doctrine on predicative judgment sustained by Frege and Husserl reopens a discussion already present in the philosophical tradition: Does predicative judgment consist in a “composition” of concepts made by the understanding, or in an “assent” to a propositional content? For Frege, the “thought”, i. e., the sense of the proposition, as expresion of the judgment, presents such unity that it cannot be explained by a “composition” of previous elements; Husserl on the contrary, sustains that, although the propositional content of (...) judgments in composed judgments do present a unity, in the case of the simple predicative judgment this unity arises due to a “synthesis”. Thus, for Frege the act of judging consists in “recognizing the truth-value of a thought”, which agrees with the doctrine of an “assent” to a propositional content. For Husserl, on the contrary, the basic act of judging consists in a “synthesis” of basic representations, which is very close to Aristotle’s doctrine. (shrink)

The main objective of this paper is to examine how theories of truth and reference that are in a broad sense Fregean in character are threatened by antinomies; in particular by the Epimenides paradox and versions of the so-called Russell-Myhill antinomy, an intensional analogue of Russell’s more well-known paradox for extensions. Frege’s ontology of propositions and senses has recently received renewed interest in connection with minimalist theories that take propositions (thoughts) and senses (concepts) as the primary bearers of truth and (...) reference. In this paper, I will present a rigorous version of Frege’s theory of sense and denotation and show that it leads to antinomies. I am also going to discuss ways of modifying Frege’s semantical and ontological framework in order to avoid the paradoxes. In this connection, I explore the possibility of giving up the Fregean assumption of a universal domain of absolutely all objects, containing in addition to extensional objects also abstract intensional ones like propositions and singular concepts. I outline a cumulative hierarchy of Fregean propositions and senses, in analogy with Gödel’s hierarchy of constructible sets. In this hierarchy, there is no domain of all objects. Instead, every domain of objects is extendible with new objects that, on pain of contradiction, cannot belong to the given domain. According to this approach, there is no domain containing absolutely all propositions or absolutely all senses. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that Russell's problems with the unity of the proposition were recurring and insoluble within the framework of the logical theory of his Principles of Mathematics. By contrast, Frege's functional analysis of thoughts (grounded in a type-theoretic distinction between concepts and objects) is commonly assumed to provide a solution to the problem or, at least, a means of avoiding the difficulty altogether. The Fregean solution is unavailable to Russell because of his commitment to the thesis that there (...) is only one ultimate ontological category. This, combined with Russell's reification of propositions, ensures that he must hold concepts and objects to be of the same logical and ontological type. In this paper I argue that, while Frege's treatment of the unity of the proposition has immediate advantages over Russell's, a deeper consideration of the philosophical underpinnings and metaphysical consequences of the two approaches reveals that Frege's supposed solution is, in fact, far from satisfactory. Russell's repudiation of the Fregean position in the Principles is, I contend, convincing and Russell's own position, despite its problems, conforms to a greater extent than Frege's with common sense and, furthermore, with certain ideas which are central to our understanding of the origins of the analytical tradition. (shrink)

Given the harmony principle for logical operators, compositionality ought to ensure that harmony should obtain at the level of whole contents. That is, the role of a content qua premise ought to be balanced exactly by its role as a conclusion. Frege's contextual definition of propositional content happens to exploit this balance, and one appeals to the Cut rule to show that the definition is adequate. We show here that Frege's definition remains adequate even when one relevantizes logic by abandoning (...) an unrestricted Cut rule. The proof exploits the fact that in the relevantized logic, which abandons the unrestricted rule of Cut, any failure of the transitivity of deduction is offset by the epistemic gain involved in learning that a stronger-than-expected result holds. (shrink)

Gareth Evans and John McDowell have challenged the traditional reading of Frege according to which Frege accepted propositions that are not object dependent, i.e., propositions that can exist even though the proper names that occur in the sentences that express them do not refer. A consequence of the Evans‐McDowell interpretation of Frege is that if someone hallucinates that there is an oasis in front of her, then there is no thought of an oasis but only an illusion of a thought. (...) No reference entails no sense, and no sense entails no thought.This paper will focus on Frege's views on the issue and, in particular, whether there is any evidence that the mature Frege, i.e., after he introduced the sense/reference distinction, did not accept propositions that are not object dependent. It will also address one of the consequences of the Evans‐McDowell reading of Frege, arguing that they have ignored one of his important insights into natural languages. (shrink)

Michael Dummett has advanced, very influentially, the view that Frege means truth conditions by his notion of thought (Gedanke). My aim in this paper is to argue that Dummett and others are mistaken in this claim. First, Frege's aversion of the correspondence theory of truth does not square well with Dummett's claim. Secondly, and more importantly, Grundgesetze I, §32, is the only place where Frege even appears to be talking about truth conditions in connection with his notion of thought -- (...) and even there, I shall show, he does not really identify thoughts with truth conditions, but states only the triviality that a statement such as, say, 'Leibniz is a philosopher' expresses the thought that Leibniz is a philosopher. (shrink)

Both Russell and Frege were inclined to think that there is nothing essentially linguistic about thought: any actual reliance of ours upon language is a mere psychological contingency. If so then it should be possible to formulate logic in such a way that logical relationships are not represented or expressed as principles pertaining to linguistic forms. Russell and Frege take pains to achieve this, but fail. I explain this by looking at some features of Grundgesetz and Principia . Their failure, (...) I suggest, is due to the nature of the case. (shrink)

Bolzano's Sätze an sich and Frege's Gedanken are obviously close relatives. The paper underlines both similarities and dissimilarities between the psychological and semantical roles assigned to structured truth-evaluable contents in Bolzano's and Frege's theories. In particular, their different accounts of propositional identity are compared, and it is argued that Dummett's recent criticism of Frege's account is grist to Bolzano's mill.

This article first recounts the history of the truth‐conditional conception of meaning from Frege to the present day, emphasizing both points that are neglected in receidev accounts of this history and points of permanent philosophical interest. It then concludes with a review of certain current objections to the truth‐conditional conception and seeks to answer the difficulties pressed by Stephen Schiffer in Remnants of Meaning, offering certain fresh considerations upon the question what it is for two speech action to representent the (...) saying of the same thing. (shrink)

Contemporary semantical discussions make mention of the traditional approach to semantics represented by Frege and/or Russell--even sometimes by Frege-Russell. Is there a Frege-Russell view in the philosophy of language? How much of a common semantical perspective did Frege and Russell share? The matter bears exploration. I begin with Frege and Russell on propositions.

Wodurch wird der Sinn des Prädikats in einer Äußerung des indexikalischen Satzes 'Ich habe Blutgruppe A' zu dem propositionalen Gehalt vervollständigt, den der Sprecher ausdrückt? Durch einen Individualbegriff (unter den der Sprecher fällt)? Durch ein Individuum (den Sprecher in propria persona)! Keiner dieser Lösungsvorschläge für das (von Perry zuerst formulierte) Vervollständigungsproblem ist überzeugend. Für Frege ist der in einer solchen Äußerung verwendete Eigenname hybrid: er besteht aus einem Vorkommnis von 'ich' und den Umständen seiner Äußerung. Der Indikator 'ich' allein ist (...) kein Fregescher Eigenname, sondern ein namenbildender Funktor. Seine semantische Rolle ähnelt der von "token-quotes". (shrink)

I argue here that Frege’s eventual view on the relation between sentences and the thoughts they express is that, ideally, a sentence expresses exactly one thought, and a thought is expressed by exactly one (canonical) sentence. This may clash with some mainstream views of Frege, for it has the consequence of de-emphasizing the philosophical significance of the question of how it is possible for someone to regard one sentence as true yet regard another sentence that expresses the same thought as (...) false. This account of Frege was developed by taking a long-range look at his writings over the course of his life. (shrink)