Dieser Band enthält die vier Arbeiten Freges: Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildeten Formelsprache, 1879; Anwendungen der Begriffsschrift, 1879; Über den Briefwechsel Leibnizens und Huggens mit Papin, 1881; Über den Zweck der Begriffsschrift, 1883; Über die wissenschaftliche Berechtigung einer Begriffsschrift, 1882. Frege's research work in the field of mathematical logic is of great importance for the present-day analytic philosophy. We actually owe to Frege a great amount of basical insight and exemplary research, which set up a new standard also in other (...) fields of knowledge. As the founder of mathematical logic he severely examindes the syllogisms on which arithmetic is built up. In doing so, Frege recognized that our colloquial language is inadequate to define logic structures. His notional language corresponded to the artaivicial logical language demandes by Leibniz. Frege's achievement in the field of logic were so important, that they radiated into the domain of philosophy and influenced the development of mathematical logic decisively. (shrink)

Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus first appeared in 1921 and was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme compression and brilliance, it immediately convinced many of its readers and captivated the imagination of all. Its chief influence, at first, was on the Logical Positivists of the 1920s and 30s, but many other philosophers were stimulated by its philosophy (...) of language, finding attractive, if ultimately unsatisfactory, its view that propositions were pictures of reality. Perhaps most of all, Wittgenstein himself, after his return to philosophy in the late 1920s, was fascinated by its vision of an inexpressible, crystalline world of logical relationships. The posthumous publication of other writings has, therefore, only served to reawaken interest in the Tractatus and to illuminate its more neglected aspects. David Pears and Brian McGuinness revised their translation in the light of Wittgenstein's own suggestions and comments in his correspondence with C.K. Ogden about the first translation. In addition, this edition contains the introduction by Bertrand Russell which appeared in the original English translation. (shrink)

The classic, influential essay in 'descriptive metaphysics' by the distinguished English philosopher.

This highly acclaimed book is a major contribution to the philosophy of language as well as a systematic interpretation of Frege, indisputably the father of ...

Divided into two parts, the first concentrates on the logical properties of propositions, their relation to facts and sentences, and the parallel objects of commands and questions. The second part examines theories of intentionality and discusses the relationship between different theories of naming and different accounts of belief.

Is the assumption of a fundamental distinction between particulars and universals another unsupported dogma of metaphysics? F. P. Ramsey famously rejected the particular – universal distinction but neglected to consider the many different conceptions of the distinction that have been advanced. As a contribution to the piecemeal investigation of this issue three interrelated conceptions of the particular – universal distinction are examined: universals, by contrast to particulars, are unigrade; particulars are related to universals by an asymmetric tie of exemplification; universals (...) are incomplete whereas particulars are complete. It is argued that these conceptions are wanting in several respects. Sometimes they fail to mark a significant division amongst entities. Sometimes they make substantial demands upon the shape of reality; once these demands are understood aright it is no longer obvious that the distinction merits our acceptance. The case is made via a discussion of the possibility of multigrade universals. (shrink)

This volume contains all of Frege's extant unpublished writings on philosophy and logic other than his correspondence, written at various stages of his career.

Ignorance and incompleteness -- The instrumental model of talking : how to talk about talk -- Open questions, confirmation questions, and how to choose -- Which sentence-type to use when asking them -- Quantifiers, wh-expressions, and manners of interpretation -- Syntactic structure -- On the questioning speech-acts and the kinds of ignorance they -- Address.

Part 1 sets out the logical/semantical background to ‘On Denoting’, including an exposition of Russell's views in Principles of Mathematics, the role and justification of Frege's notorious Axiom V, and speculation about how the search for a solution to the Contradiction might have motivated a new treatment of denoting. Part 2 consists primarily of an extended analysis of Russell's views on knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, in which I try to show that the discomfiture between Russell's semantical and (...) epistemological commitments begins as far back as 1903. I close with a non-Russellian critique of Russell's views on how we are able to make use of linguistic representations in thought and with the suggestion that a theory of comprehension is needed to supplement semantic theory. (shrink)

Questions are relevant to epistemology because they formulate cognitive goals, they are used to elicit information, they are used in Socratic reflection and knowledge sentences often have indirect question complements. The paper explores what capacities we must possess if we are to understand questions and identify and evaluate potential answers to them. The later sections explore different ways in which these matters depend upon pragmatic and other contextual considerations.

It is not immediately clear from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus how to connect his idea there of an object with the logical ontologies of Frege and Russell. Toward clarification on this matter, this paper compares Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s versions of the thesis of an atomic fact that it is a complex composition. The claim arrived at is that whilst Russell (at times at least) has one particular of the elements of a fact – the relation – responsible for the unity of the (...) whole, for Wittgenstein the unity of a fact is the product of copulative powers inherent in all its elements. All kinds of constituents of Tractarian facts – all kinds (forms) of object – are, to use Fregean terminology, unsaturated. (shrink)

The paper maintains (1) that Frege's quantification of sentence positions motivates his identification of sentences as proper names of truth-values; (2) that this identification is fully compatible with the 'context principle'; (3) that the relation of a thought to its truth-value is the primary case of the relation of sense to meaning. The paper offers a reconstruction of Frege's defense of (1) in pp. 33-35 of "On Sense and Meaning".