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Full Idea
In his middle period, Frege became hostile to contextual definitions, and any definition other than an explicit one, ..but at the time of the 'Grundlagen' he conceived of his context principle as licensing contextual definitions.
Clarification
His middle period is 1891-1906
Gist of Idea
Originally Frege liked contextual definitions, but later preferred them fully explicit
Source
report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.11
Book Ref
Dummett,Michael: 'Frege: philosophy of mathematics' [Duckworth 1991], p.125
A Reaction
His context principle says words only have a meaning in a context. Intuitively, I would say that there is no correct answer to how something should be defined. Totally circularity is hopeless, but presuppositions just weaken a definition.
| 9845 | We can't define a word by defining an expression containing it, as the remaining parts are a problem [Frege] |
| 9844 | Originally Frege liked contextual definitions, but later preferred them fully explicit [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 9822 | Nothing should be defined in terms of that to which it is conceptually prior [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 21560 | Any linguistic expression may lack meaning when taken out of context [Russell] |
| 19047 | Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine] |
| 19048 | Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine] |
| 8995 | Definition by words is determinate but relative; fixing contexts could make it absolute [Quine] |
| 9847 | A contextual definition permits the elimination of the expression by a substitution [Dummett] |
| 10476 | The idea that groups of concepts could be 'implicitly defined' was abandoned [Hodges,W] |
| 10142 | The attempt to define numbers by contextual definition has been revived [Wright,C, by Fine,K] |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| 10204 | An 'implicit definition' gives a direct description of the relations of an entity [Shapiro] |
| 18776 | Contextual definitions eliminate descriptions from contexts [Linsky,B] |
| 9955 | Contextual definitions replace a complete sentence containing the expression [George/Velleman] |