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Full Idea
Only what is logically complex can be defined; what is simple can only be pointed to.
Gist of Idea
Only what is logically complex can be defined; what is simple must be pointed to
Source
Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §180), quoted by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic p.137
Book Ref
-: 'Journal of Philosophy' [-], p.137
A Reaction
Frege presumably has in mind his treasured abstract objects, such as cardinal numbers. It is hard to see how you could 'point to' anything in the phenomenal world that had atomic simplicity. Hodes calls this a 'desperate Kantian move'.
| 13886 | Later Frege held that definitions must fix a function's value for every possible argument [Frege, by Wright,C] |
| 9889 | Real numbers are ratios of quantities [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 10553 | A number is a class of classes of the same cardinality [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 10020 | Frege's biggest error is in not accounting for the senses of number terms [Hodes on Frege] |
| 9886 | Cardinals say how many, and reals give measurements compared to a unit quantity [Frege] |
| 9890 | The modern account of real numbers detaches a ratio from its geometrical origins [Frege] |
| 9891 | The first demand of logic is of a sharp boundary [Frege] |
| 10019 | Only what is logically complex can be defined; what is simple must be pointed to [Frege] |
| 9845 | We can't define a word by defining an expression containing it, as the remaining parts are a problem [Frege] |
| 9887 | Formalism misunderstands applications, metatheory, and infinity [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 8751 | Only applicability raises arithmetic from a game to a science [Frege] |
| 11846 | If we abstract the difference between two houses, they don't become the same house [Frege] |