No one has figured more prominently in the study of the German philosopher Gottlob Frege than Michael Dummett. His magisterial Frege: Philosophy of Language is a sustained, systematic analysis of Frege's thought, omitting only the issues in philosophy of mathematics. In this work Dummett discusses, section by section, Frege's masterpiece The Foundations of Arithmetic and Frege's treatment of real numbers in the second volume of Basic Laws of Arithmetic, establishing what parts of the philosopher's views can be salvaged and employed in new theorizing, and what must be abandoned, either as incorrectly argued or as untenable in the light of technical developments. Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher whose work had enormous impact on Bertrand Russell and later on the young Ludwig Wittgenstein, making Frege one of the central influences on twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy; he is considered the founder of analytic philosophy. His philosophy of mathematics contains deep insights and remains a useful and necessary point of departure for anyone seriously studying or working in the field.

Readership: Scholars and advanced students of philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, and history of analytic philosophy

The Foundations of Arithmetic is undoubtedly the best introduction to Frege's thought; it is here that Frege expounds the central notions of his philosophy, subjecting the views of his predecessors and contemporaries to devastating analysis. The book represents the first philosophically sound discussion of the concept of number in Western civilization. It profoundly influenced developments in the philosophy of mathematics and in general ontology.

This is the first complete English translation of Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1893 and 1903), with introduction and annotation. As the culmination of his ground-breaking work in the philosophy of logic and mathematics, Frege here tried to show how the fundamental laws of arithmetic could be derived from purely logical principles.

This book examines three connected aspects of Frege’s logicism: the differences between Dedekind’s and Frege’s interpretation of the term ‘logic’ and related terms and reflects on Frege’s notion of function, comparing its understanding and the role it played in Frege’s and Lagrange’s foundational programs. It concludes with an examination of the notion of arbitrary function, taking into account Frege’s, Ramsey’s and Russell’s view on the subject. Composed of three chapters, this book sheds light on important aspects of Dedekind’s and Frege’s logicisms. The first chapter explains how, although he shares Frege’s aim at substituting logical standards of rigor to intuitive imports from spatio-temporal experience into the deductive presentation of arithmetic, Dedekind had a different goal and used or invented different tools. The chapter highlights basic dissimilarities between Dedekind’s and Frege’s actual ways of doing and thinking. The second chapter reflects on Frege’s notion of a function, in comparison with the notions endorsed by Lagrange and the followers of the program of arithmetization of analysis. It remarks that the foundational programs pursued by Lagrange and Frege are crucially different and based on a different idea of what the foundations of mathematics should be like. However, despite this contrast, the notion of function plays similar roles in the two programs, and this chapter emphasizes the similarities. The third chapter traces the development of thinking about Frege’s program in the foundations of mathematics, and includes comparisons of Frege’s, Russell’s and Ramsey’s views. The chapter discusses earlier papers written by Hintikka, Sandu, Demopoulos and Trueman. Although the chapter’s main focus is on the notion of arbitrary correlation, it starts out by discussing some aspects of the connection between this notion and Dedekind Theorem.

What is the number one? How can we be sure that 2+2=4? These apparently ssimple questions have perplexed philosophers for thousands of years, but discussion of them was transformed by the German philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). Frege (pronounced Fray-guh)believed that arithmetic and all mathematics are derived from logic, and to prove this he developed a completely new approach to logic and numbers. Joan Weiner presents a very clear outline of Frege's life and ideas, showing how his thinking evolved through successive books and articles.

This volume contains English translations of Frege's early writings in logic and philosophy and of relevant reviews by other leading logicians. Professor Bynum has contributed a biographical essay, introduction, and extensive bibliography. ong Copy

Bob Hale presents a broadly Fregean approach to metaphysics, according to which ontology and modality are mutually dependent upon one another. He argues that facts about what kinds of things exist depend on facts about what is possible. Modal facts are fundamental, and have their basis in the essences of things—not in meanings or concepts.