truth thought reason essays on frege apr 2005

[...]... content) For example, Frege drew a clear distinction between the logical operator negation and the speech act denial, and between a thought content and the judgment (or assertion or supposition) of the thought content These distinctions have been a basis for more detailed theoretical distinctions between semantics and pragmatics The focus on truth conditions helped Frege draw his famous distinction... operation that has firm and independent explanatory power Second, Frege associated predication with its use in judgment and assertion, consequently with their objective or aim truth The point of judgment and assertion is to arrive at or present the truth Frege associates those functional applications which for him constitute predications with the functional value, truth So the application of the function... denotation By reflecting clearly on what conditions in the world make sentences or statements true, he realized that the cognitive value associated with component expressions must differ from their denotations or references Frege associates his notion of sense essentially with determination of truth conditions No alternative conception of sense or meaning has been any stronger or more fruitful Frege s... linguistic structure Section I of ‘ Frege on Truth ’ (Chapter 3 below) traces considerations that went into Frege s treatment of truth as the denotation of sentences It also attempts to assess the relative weight and priority among these considerations I argue that pragmatic and structural considerations dominate his thinking This section, which is quite complex, tries to work out details in Frege s method of... structure by considering function He investigates logical and semantical structure by considering language use in relation to the function of judgment Frege takes the central function of judgment to be that of aiming at truth He takes the central function of inference to be that of aiming at preservation of truth Section I is thus an introduction to the background thinking that led to Frege s conceptions of... considerations—considerations about how best to account for the cognitively significant aspects of logic and language Frege s ontological view is also deeply motivated by his belief in logicism Section III of ‘ Frege on Truth ’ attempts to elicit considerations that led him to take the truth- value truth as the basic logical object With respect to these issues, ‘ Frege on Extensions of Concepts, From... associations with the sentence This distinction was taken up by most other subsequent theorists of language 10 For more on the extreme degree of Frege s idealization of cognitive value, see the last part of my discussion of sense in Part II of this Introduction, in the last section of my Postscript to ‘ Frege on Truth ’, and in ‘ Frege on Sense and Linguistic Meaning’’ (Ch 6 below) 18 Introduction Frege s... formulations occur in The Foundations of Arithmetic, Introduction, p x, sections 60, 62, 106 In some cases Frege states a necessary condition but uses it as a (qualified) sufficient condition 16 Introduction cations on the principle before accepting it But I think that it is deeply insightful inasmuch as it locates ontology in the evaluation of theories It implicitly rejects philosophical requirements on. .. function) I discuss philosophical grounds as to why Frege may have reasoned himself into his mistaken position in ‘ Frege on Extensions of Concepts, From 1884 to 1903’’ (1984) (Ch 7 below) For an illuminating analysis of Frege s mistake, which I largely accept—with qualifications deriving from the points made above—see Terence Parsons, ‘‘Why Frege Should Not Have Said ‘The Concept Horse is not a Concept’... the very conception of sense as idealized cognitive value is understood ultimately in terms of its role in aiding pursuit of truth Part II deals primarily with Frege s conception of sense as thought, or thought component, and as idealized cognitive value Part III centers on Frege s rationalist conception of knowledge Obviously, the three parts should not be regarded as compartmentalized In Frege s own . w0 h1" alt="" Truth, Thought, Reason Gottlob Frege, c. 1920. Photograph ß AKG London. Truth, Thought, Reason Essays on Frege TYLER BURGE CLARENDON PRESS Á OXFORD 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford. Dan. viii Preface Contents Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1. Frege (1991) 69 Part I Truth, Structure, and Method 75 2. The Concept of Truth in Frege s Program (1984) 77 3. Frege on Truth (1986) 83 Postscript. ‘‘Sinning Against Frege ’ (2003) 240 6. Frege on Sense and Linguistic Meaning (1990) 242 Part III Rationalism 271 7. Frege on Extensions of Concepts, From 1884 to 1903 (1984) 273 8. Frege on Knowing