Logicism and the Philosophy of Language brings together the core works by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell on logic and language. In their separate efforts to clarify mathematics through the use of logic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Frege and Russell both recognized the need for rigorous and systematic semantic analysis of language. It was their turn to this style of analysis that would establish the philosophy of language as an autonomous area of inquiry. This anthology gathers together these foundational writings, and frames them with an extensive historical introduction. This is a collection for anyone interested in questions about truth, meaning, reference, and logic, and in the application of formal analysis to these concepts.
Comments
“This is the only anthology devoted solely to classic writings of Frege and Russell. Sullivan’s book includes all the classic articles on philosophical logic by Frege and Russell that led from their project of logicism in the foundations of mathematics to our field of the philosophy of language. Everything one might want for a course on these two founders of early analytic philosophy is included, along with a seventy-five-page introduction that carefully lays out the contributions of each essay. No other collection has near so many papers from both Frege and Russell in one volume.” — Bernard Linsky, University of Alberta