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Identity in Frege's Begriffsschrift: Where Both Thau-Caplan and Heck Are Wrong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Gilead Bar-Elli*
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem91905, Israel

Extract

Frege's views on identity continue to provoke scholars, and rightly so. In particular his view in Begriffsschrift (Bs) of 1879, and its relation to his view in ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’ (SB) of 1892 deserve careful attention. The issues involved have a wider significance than Frege's specific views on identity in different periods, though these are important enough. They concern also the move from what I call below ‘thin’ semantics, which is exhausted in signs being assigned content, to a ‘thick’ semantics, in which ‘modes of determining their content’ (Bs), or Sinne (SB) are also concerned.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2006

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References

References

Frege's Writings:

Bs — Begriffsschrift, Halle, 1879. Reprinted (I. Angelelli, ed.) 1964,1998. English translation (S. Bauer-Mengelberg) in: From Frege to Godel, Heijenoort, J. Van ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1967.Google Scholar
FB — ‘Funktion und Begriff’ (1891), reprinted in Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung (G. Patzig, Heraus.), Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1975. English translation, ‘Function and Concept’ (P. Geach) in Translations From the Philosophical Writings of Frege, Geach, and Black, eds. Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1952: 2141.Google Scholar
SB — ‘Sinn und Bedeutung,’ (1892) reprinted in Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung, English translation ‘On Sense and Reference’ (M. Black) in Geach, and Black: 56-78.Google Scholar
BL, Basic Laws of Arithmetic (Furth, M., trans.). Berkley: California University Press 196Google Scholar

Other Writers:

Baker, G. and Hacker, P.. 1984. Frege: Logical Excavations. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Baker, G. and Hacker, P.. 2003. ‘Function in Begriffsschrift.Synthese 135/3: 273-97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Elli, G. 1981. ‘Frege and the Determination of Reference.Erkenntnis 16:137-60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Elli, G. 1996. The Sense of Reference — Intentionality in Frege. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Elli, G. 2001. ‘Sense and Objectivity in Frege's Logic,’ in Building on Frege: New Essays About Sense, Content, and Concepts, A. Newen, , et al., eds. Stanford: CSLI. 91112.Google Scholar
Carl, W. 1994. Frege's Theory of Sense and Reference: Its Origin and Scope. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demopoulos, W. 1995. ‘Frege and the Rigorization of Analysis,’ in Frege's Philosophy of Mathematics, Demopoulos, W., ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Heck, R. 2003. ‘Frege on Identity and Identity Statements.Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33: 83102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taschek, W. 1992. ‘Frege's Puzzle, Sense, and Information Content,Mind 101: 267-91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thau, M. and Caplan, B. 2001. ‘What's Puzzling Gottlob Frege?Canadian Journal of Philosophy 31:159200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar