7307
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A thought is not psychological, but a condition of the world that makes a sentence true [Frege, by Miller,A]
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Full Idea:
For Frege, a thought is not something psychological or subjective; rather, it is objective in the sense that it specifies some condition in the world the obtaining of which is necessary and sufficient for the truth of the sentence that expresses it.
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From:
report of Gottlob Frege (works [1890]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 2.2
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A reaction:
It is worth emphasising Russell's anti-Berkeley point about 'ideas', that the idea is in the mind, but its contents are in the world. Since the contents are what matter, this endorses Frege, and also points towards modern externalism.
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7309
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Frege's 'sense' is the strict and literal meaning, stripped of tone [Frege, by Miller,A]
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Full Idea:
Frege held that "and" and "but" have the same 'sense' but different 'tones' (note: they have the same truth tables); the sense of an expression is what a sentence strictly and literally means, stripped of its tone.
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From:
report of Gottlob Frege (works [1890]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 2.6
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A reaction:
It seems important when studying Frege to remember what has been stripped out. In "he is a genius and he plays football", if you substitute 'but' for 'and', the new version says (literally?) something very distinctive about football.
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7725
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'P or not-p' seems to be analytic, but does not fit Kant's account, lacking clear subject or predicate [Frege, by Weiner]
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Full Idea:
'It is raining or it is not raining' appears to true because of the general principle 'p or not-p', so it is analytic; but this does not fit Kant's idea of an analytic truth, because it is not obvious that it has a subject concept or a predicate concept.
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From:
report of Gottlob Frege (works [1890]) by Joan Weiner - Frege Ch.2
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A reaction:
The general progress of logic seems to be a widening out to embrace problem sentences. However, see Idea 7315 for the next problem that arises with analyticity. All this culminates in Quine's attack (e.g. Idea 1624).
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