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DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Examination in Philosophy

HILARY TERM 2009

Frege
Essay Topics
Candidates should submit essays on TWO of the following topics. The two essays
together should not amount to more than 10,000 words.
1.

What exactly in Freges conception of logic might have prevented him from
adopting Humes principle as a logical axiom?

2.

What is the significance of the consistency of predicative second-order fragments

of Freges system in Grundgesetze?

3.

Definitions show their worth by proving fruitful. Those that could just as well be
omitted and leave no link missing in the chain of our proofs should be rejected as
completely worthless. (FREGE, Grundlagen, 70, p.81)
What exactly is Freges requirement that definitions be fruitful? Is there any
room for fruitfulness in Freges treatment of definitions in Grundgesetze?

4.

In Grundgesetze, Frege takes himself to have proved that every expression of his
formal logic has a unique reference. To what extent is Freges argument in 31
evidence for the claim that his conception of logic makes room for
metatheoretical considerations?

5.

What should we make of Freges claim that sense determines reference as it is

expressed in such remarks as: The regular connection between a sign, its sense,
and its reference is of such a kind that to the sign there corresponds a definite
sense and to that in turn a definite reference, while to a given reference (an object)
there does not belong only a single sign. (FREGE, On Sense and Reference,
p.153)?

6.

And any other attempt to define truth also breaks down. For in a definition
certain characteristics would have to be specified. And in application to any
particular case the question would always arise whether it were true that the
characteristics were present. So we would go round in a circle. (FREGE,
Thought, p.327).
What exactly is Freges argument supposed to establish? Does it rule out defining
truth by means of the predicate denotes the True?

7.

[] This would not be possible if we could not distinguish parts in the though
corresponding to the parts of a sentence so that the structure of the sentence can
serve as a picture of the structure of the thought. To be sure, we really talk
figuratively when we transfer the relation of whole to part to thoughts; yet the
analogy is so ready to hand and so generally valid that we are hardly ever
bothered by the hitches which occur from time to time. (FREGE, Compound
Thoughts, p.36).
Do these remarks leave Frege in a position to allow two sentences with a different
structure to express the same thought?

References
Frege, G. (1884) Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, Breslau: W. Koebner. Translated as The
Foundations of Arithmetic, by J. L. Austin. 2nd revised edition. Oxford: Blackwell, 1974.
Frege, G. (1892) On Sense and Reference Translated by M. Black in Geach, P. and
Black, M. (eds.) (1970) Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Reprinted as On Sinn and Bedeutung in Beaney,
M. (ed.) (1997) The Frege Reader, Oxford: Blackwell. (Page references are to the latter
reprint.)

Frege, G. (1918) The Thought. A Logical Enquiry Translated by M. Black in Geach, P.

and Black, M. (eds.) (1970) Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob
Frege. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Reprinted as Thought in Beaney, M. (ed.) (1997) The
Frege Reader, Oxford: Blackwell. (Page references are to the latter reprint.)
Frege, G. (1923) Compound Thoughts Translated by P. Geach and R. H. Stootho in
B. McGuiness (ed.) Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic and Philosophy. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.