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Single Idea 10319

[from 'Function and Concept' by Gottlob Frege, in 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / c. Fregean concepts ]

Full Idea

Frege had a notorious difficulty over the concept 'horse', when he suggests that if we wish to assert something about a concept, we are obliged to proceed indirectly by speaking of an object that represents it.

Gist of Idea

An assertion about the concept 'horse' must indirectly speak of an object

Source

report of Gottlob Frege (Function and Concept [1891], Ch.2.II) by Bob Hale - Abstract Objects

Book Reference

Hale,Bob: 'Abstract Objects' [Blackwell 1987], p.35


A Reaction

This sounds like the thin end of a wedge. The great champion of objects is forced to accept them here as a façon de parler, when elsewhere they have ontological status.