Logicism and the Philosophy of Language
Selections from Frege and Russell
  • Publication Date: March 4, 2003
  • ISBN: 9781551114712 / 1551114712
  • 304 pages; 6" x 9"

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Logicism and the Philosophy of Language

Selections from Frege and Russell

  • Publication Date: March 4, 2003
  • ISBN: 9781551114712 / 1551114712
  • 304 pages; 6" x 9"

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

Preface
Notes on the Selections

Introduction

  1. Overview
  2. Philosophical Background
    1. Prevalent Ideas about Semantics in Modern Philosophy
    2. A Sketch of Kant’s Philosophy
    3. Three Strands in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy
  3. The Logicist Thesis
    1. The Foundations of Mathematics
    2. Frege’s Program
    3. Russell’s Rediscovery of Logicism
  4. Philosophical Logic
    1. Modern Logic
    2. Function and Argument
    3. Analysis of Language as Philosophical Method
  5. Some Disputed Issues in Early Analytic Philosophy
    1. Meaning: Semantic Monism and Semantic Dualism
    2. Logical Form: On Denoting
    3. Philosophy of Logic
  6. The Legacy of Logicism
    Works Cited

Works of Gottlob Frege

  1. Conceptual Notation (1879), Preface and Chapter 1
  2. On the Scientific Justification of a Conceptual Notation (1882)
  3. On the Aim of the “Conceptual Notation” (1882)
  4. The Foundations of Arithmetic (1884), Introduction
  5. Function and Concept (1891)
  6. On Concept and Object (1892)
  7. On Sense and Reference (1892)
  8. What is a Function? (1904)
  9. The Thought: A Logical Inquiry (1918)

Works of Bertrand Russell

  1. Mathematics and the Metaphysicians (1901)
  2. On Denoting (1905)
  3. Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description (1911)
  4. Logic as the Essence of Philosophy (1914)
  5. Descriptions (1919)
  6. Mathematics and Logic (1919)

Sources

Arthur Sullivan is presently a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Post-Doctoral Fellow, and a Visiting Scholar at New York University.