Gottlob Frege

Gottlob Frege
Frege c. 1879
Born8 November 1848
Wismar, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Confederation
Died26 July 1925(1925-07-26) (aged 76)
Bad Kleinen, Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Reich
Education
EducationUniversity of Göttingen (PhD, 1873)
University of Jena (Dr. phil. hab., 1874)
Theses
Doctoral advisorErnst Christian Julius Schering (PhD advisor)
Other advisorsAlfred Clebsch
Wilhelm Eduard Weber
Eduard Riecke
Hermann Lotze
Philosophical work
Era19th-/20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolAnalytic philosophy
Linguistic turn
Logical realism
Modern Platonism[1]
Logicism
Transcendental idealism[2][3] (before 1891)
Metaphysical realism[3] (after 1891)
Foundationalism[4]
Indirect realism[5]
Redundancy theory of truth[6]
InstitutionsUniversity of Jena
Notable studentsRudolf Carnap
Main interestsPhilosophy of mathematics, mathematical logic, philosophy of language
Notable worksBegriffsschrift (1879)
The Foundations of Arithmetic (1884)
Basic Laws of Arithmetic (1893–1903)
Notable ideas
 
  • Analytic philosophy
  • Ancestral relation
  • Anti-psychologism
  • Basic law V
  • Concept and object
  • Context principle
  • Currying
  • Descriptivist theory of names
  • Frege's principle
  • Frege's puzzles
  • Frege's theorem
  • Fregean analysis
  • Frege–Church ontology
  • Frege–Geach problem
  • Frege–Russell logic
  • Function and Concept
  • Law of trichotomy
  • Logicism
  • Hume's principle
  • Mediated reference theory
  • Naive set theory
  • Named set theory
  • Predicate calculus
  • Propositional calculus
  • Principle of compositionality
  • Quantification theory
  • Redundancy theory of truth
  • Round square copula
  • Second-order logic
  • Sense and reference
  • Set-theoretic definition of natural numbers
  • Sortal
  • Third realm

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (/ˈfrɡə/;[7] German: [ˈɡɔtloːp ˈfreːɡə]; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philosophy, concentrating on the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics. Though he was largely ignored during his lifetime, Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), and, to some extent, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) introduced his work to later generations of philosophers. Frege is widely considered to be the greatest logician since Aristotle, and one of the most profound philosophers of mathematics ever.[8]

His contributions include the development of modern logic in the Begriffsschrift and work in the foundations of mathematics. His book the Foundations of Arithmetic is the seminal text of the logicist project, and is cited by Michael Dummett as where to pinpoint the linguistic turn. His philosophical papers "On Sense and Reference" and "The Thought" are also widely cited. The former argues for two different types of meaning and descriptivism. In Foundations and "The Thought", Frege argues for Platonism against psychologism or formalism, concerning numbers and propositions respectively.

  1. ^ Balaguer, Mark (25 July 2016). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Platonism in Metaphysics. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  2. ^ Hans Sluga, "Frege's alleged realism," Inquiry 20 (1–4):227–242 (1977).
  3. ^ a b Michael Resnik, II. Frege as Idealist and then Realist," Inquiry 22 (1–4):350–357 (1979).
  4. ^ Tom Rockmore, On Foundationalism: A Strategy for Metaphysical Realism, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, p. 111.
  5. ^ Frege criticized direct realism in his "Über Sinn und Bedeutung" (see Samuel Lebens, Bertrand Russell and the Nature of Propositions: A History and Defence of the Multiple Relation Theory of Judgement, Routledge, 2017, p. 34).
  6. ^ Truth – Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; The Deflationary Theory of Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
  7. ^ "Frege". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  8. ^ Wehmeier, Kai F. (2006). "Frege, Gottlob". In Borchert, Donald M. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 3 (2 ed.). Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 0-02-866072-2.