Abstract

This paper has three goals: (i) to show that the foundational program begun in the Begriffsschroft, and carried forward in the Grundlagen, represented Frege's attempt to establish the autonomy of arithmetic from geometry and kinematics; the cogency and coherence of 'intuitive' reasoning were not in question. (ii) To place Frege's logicism in the context of the nineteenth century tradition in mathematical analysis, and, in particular, to show how the modern concept of a function made it possible for Frege to pursue the goal of autonomy within the framework of the system of second-order logic of the Begriffsschrift. (iii) To address certain criticisms of Frege by Parsons and Boolos, and thereby to clarify what was and was not achieved by the development, in Part III of the Begriffsschrift, of a fragment of the theory of relations