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Frege and Natural Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Andrew Rein
Andrew Rein
Affiliation:
University College, Oxford
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Extract

It is a commonplace that Frege thought ordinary language to be seriously defective. Yet his remarks about ordinary language are not always unflattering. Comparing the relation between his formal language and ordinary language to the relation between the microscope and the eye, Frege remarked: ‘[the eye], because of the range of its applicability and because of the ease with which it can adapt itself to the most varied circumstances, has a great superiority over the microscope’. The point, of course, is that, for Frege, the deficiencies of ordinary language arise in connection with the scientific endeavour: ordinary language is not an acceptable medium in which to pursue truth. As he goes on to observe: ‘… viewed as an optical instrument [the eye] reveals many imperfections … as soon as scientific purposes place strong requirements upon sharpness of resolution, the eye proves to be inadequate. On the other hand, the microscope is perfectly suited for just such purposes’.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 60 , Issue 234 , October 1985 , pp. 513 - 524
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1985

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References

1 Frege, Gottlob, Conceptual Notation, edited and translated by Bynum, T. W. (Oxford University Press, 1972), 105. Hereafter CN.Google Scholar

2 CN, 105.

3 CN, 104.

4 CN, 127.

5 See Frege, Gottlob, Posthumous Writings (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), 269–270. Hereafter PW.Google Scholar

6 CN, 106.

7 PW, 188.

8 PW, 270.

9 CN, 105–106.

10 see PW, 13.

11 CN, 89.

12 See PW, 186 and 198.

13 See Philosophical Writings ofGottlob Frege, Geach, P. and Black, M. (eds) (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), 62Google Scholar

14 Frege, Gottlob, Kleine Schriften (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967), 338.Google Scholar

15 See, e.g., Essays on Frege, Klemke, E. D. (ed.) (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1968), 539, and PW, 130.Google Scholar

15 Dummett, Michael, The Interpretation of Frege's Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 33. Hereafter IFP.Google Scholar

17 IFP, 32.

18 See Essays on Frege, 515.

19 PW, 269.

20 My thanks go to John Campbell, Adrian Moore and Michael Resnik for their valuable comments.