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Semantic and Pragmatic Hints in Frege’s Logical Theory

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The Priority of Propositions. A Pragmatist Philosophy of Logic

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 475))

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Abstract

Frege is the acclaimed father of twentieth-century logic and at the same time the father of the discipline philosophy of language. Both of these paternities arise from a unique and general project grounded on a profound understanding of the many linguistic and conceptual subtleties that govern the use of language. His logical project, which set him apart from his contemporary fellows and on an underexplored path, participates in the richness of his approach to language and thought, which includes semantic and pragmatic hints that were only recognised much later in the twentieth century. I explain and develop these hints in support of an approach to logic that, far from psychological vagaries, benefits from the analytical depth of acknowledging the role of concepts in human communication.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The standard translations of Frege’s Bedeutung in English are reference and denotation. Both of these English terms are misleading. I will stick to the most natural translation of Bedeutung, i.e. meaning, which is also the option taken by Brian McGuinness in Frege’s Collected Papers (Frege, 1984).

  2. 2.

    Bell (1990), Dummett (1973), Hacker and Baker (1984), Kripke (1980), Linsky (1977), Russell and Whitehead (1927), Salmon (1986), and Wiggins (1965) all defend Frege’s evolution from a metalinguistic to an objectual view of identity.

  3. 3.

    Many authors have discussed Frege’s notion of truth (see, for instance, Burge, 1986; Greimann, 2007). Nevertheless, the challenge that the meaning of the truth predicate poses for the standard interpretation of Fregean semantics, with its exclusive categories of saturated and unsaturated terms, all contributing to the conceptual content, has hardly been spotted.

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  1. Department of Philosophy I, University of Granada, Campus Cartuja, Granada, Spain

    María José Frápolli

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Frápolli, M.J. (2023). Semantic and Pragmatic Hints in Frege’s Logical Theory. In: The Priority of Propositions. A Pragmatist Philosophy of Logic. Synthese Library, vol 475. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25229-7_3

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