In this article, I first analyze and assess the epistemological and semantic status of canonical value-range equations in the formal language of Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik. I subsequently scrutinize the relation between (a) his informal, metalinguistic stipulation in Grundgesetze I, Section 3, and (b) its formal counterpart, which is Basic Law V. One point I argue for is that the stipulation in Section 3 was designed not only to fix the references of value-range names, but that it was probably also (...) intended to play a regulative role with an eye to Basic Law V. I further intend to shed new light on the status of Frege’s identification of the truth-values with their unit classes in Grundgesetze I, Section 10 and determine its place and importance in his overall logicist project. In a subsequent section, I first discuss the hypothetical extendability of the logical system of Grundgesetze. In what follows, I analyze the incompleteness of that system—were it not inconsistent and hence trivially complete—by focusing on the role of the definite description operator and the axiom governing it (= Basic Law VI) as well as on the role of the application operator. The latter is defined by means of the former. I further comment on the redundancy of an axiom that could be designed to supplement Basic Law VI by incorporating the second clause of Frege’s two-part elucidation of the description operator. I argue that although it seems likely that Basic Law VI could have been shown to be dispensable in Grundgesetze, Frege would probably have been reluctant to dispense with it, despite his commitment to axiomatic parsimony. In my view, the reason is that he considers it essential that every primitive function-name of his formal language be governed and grounded by a basic law that is tailored to the nature and the role of the primitive name occurring at a key point in the law. Toward the end of the article, I propose solutions to two problems with Frege’s use of “=” in the concept-script sentences that result from his definitions involving the replacement of the double stroke of definition with the judgment-stroke. I conclude the article with a summary of the main results that I have achieved. (shrink)

In this article, I try to shed new light on Frege’s envisaged definitional introduction of real and complex numbers in _Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik_ (1884) and the status of cross-sortal identity claims with side glances at _Grundgesetze der Arithmetik_ (vol. I 1893, vol. II 1903). As far as I can see, this topic has not yet been discussed in the context of _Grundlagen_. I show why Frege’s strategy in the case of the projected definitions of real and complex numbers in (...) _Grundlagen_ is modelled on his definitional introduction of cardinal numbers in two steps, tentatively via a contextual definition and finally and definitively via an explicit definition. I argue that the strategy leaves a few important questions open, in particular one relating to the status of the envisioned abstraction principles for the real and complex numbers and another concerning the proper handling of cross-sortal identity claims. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 988-1009, December 2021.

A detailed argument is provided for the thesis that Dedekind was a logicist about arithmetic. The rules of inference employed in Dedekind's construction of arithmetic are, by his lights, all purely logical in character, and the definitions are all explicit; even the definition of the natural numbers as the abstract type of simply infinite systems can be seen to be explicit. The primitive concepts of the construction are logical in their being intrinsically tied to the functioning of the understanding.

A detailed argument is provided for the thesis that Dedekind was a logicist about arithmetic. The rules of inference employed in Dedekind's construction of arithmetic are, by his lights, all purely logical in character, and the definitions are all explicit; even the definition of the natural numbers as the abstract type of simply infinite systems can be seen to be explicit. The primitive concepts of the construction are logical in their being intrinsically tied to the functioning of the understanding.

Dedekind’s methodology, in his classic booklet on the foundations of arithmetic, has been the topic of some debate. While some authors make it closely analogue to Hilbert’s early axiomatics, others emphasize its idiosyncratic features, most importantly the fact that no axioms are stated and its careful deductive structure apparently rests on definitions alone. In particular, the so-called Dedekind “axioms” of arithmetic are presented by him as “characteristic conditions” in the _definition_ of the complex concept of a _simply infinite_ system. Making (...) sense of Dedekind’s method may be dependent on an analysis of the classical model of deductive science, as presented by authors from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Studying the modern reconstructions of Euclidean geometry, we show that they did not presuppose deductive independence of the axioms from the definitions. Authors like Wolff elaborated a mathematics _based on definitions_, and the Wolffian model of deductive science shows significant coincidences with Dedekind’s method, despite the great differences in content and approach. Wolff had a conception of definitions as _genetic_, which bears some similarities with Kant’s idea of synthetic definitions: they are understood as positing the content of mathematical concepts and introducing thought objects (_Gedankendinge_) that are the objects of mathematics. The emphasis on the spontaneity of the understanding, which can be found in this philosophical tradition, can also be fruitfully related with Dedekind’s idea of the “free creation” of mathematical objects. (shrink)

Although the economic thought of Marshall and Pigou was united by ethical positions broadly considered utilitarian, differences in their intellectual milieu led to degrees of difference between their respective philosophical visions. This change in milieu includes the influence of the little understood period of transition from the early idealist period in Great Britain, which provided the context to Marshall’s intellectual formation, and the late British Idealist period, which provided the context to Pigou’s intellectual formation. During this latter period, the pervading (...) Hegelianism and influences of naturalism arising from the ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer were challenged by Hermann Lotze, a key transitional thinker influencing the Neo-Kantian movement, who recognised significant limits of naturalism, on the one hand, and the metaphysical tenor of absolute idealism, on the other, and attempted to provide a balance between the two. The goal of this paper is to make the provisional case for the argument that Pigou’s views on ethics were not only directly influenced by utilitarian thinkers like Mill and Sidgwick, but they were also indirectly influenced by Hermann Lotze, via the influence of the Neo- Kantian movement on late British idealism. To that end, Pigou’s essays in The Trouble with Theism (1908), including his sympathetic consideration of the ethics of Friedrich Nietzsche, reflect the influence of Lotze indirectly through the impact at Cambridge of: James Ward’s critique of associationist psychology, and consideration of the limits of naturalism including the critique of evolutionary ethics; Bertrand Russell’s rejection of neo-Hegelianism and, together with Alfred North Whitehead, the development of Logicism; and G.E. Moore’s critique of utilitarian ethics on the basis of the naturalistic fallacy and the development of his own intuitionist system of ethics. (shrink)