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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Logic in Mathematics' and 'Treatise 2: Virtue or Moral Good'

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3 ideas

19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense
Thoughts are not subjective or psychological, because some thoughts are the same for us all [Frege]
     Full Idea: A thought is not something subjective, is not the product of any form of mental activity; for the thought that we have in Pythagoras's theorem is the same for everybody.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.206)
     A reaction: When such thoughts are treated as if the have objective (platonic) existence, I become bewildered. I take a thought (or proposition) to be entirely psychological, but that doesn't stop two people from having the same thought.
A thought is the sense expressed by a sentence, and is what we prove [Frege]
     Full Idea: The sentence is of value to us because of the sense that we grasp in it, which is recognisably the same in a translation. I call this sense the thought. What we prove is not a sentence, but a thought.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.206)
     A reaction: The 'sense' is presumably the German 'sinn', and a 'thought' in Frege is what we normally call a 'proposition'. So the sense of a sentence is a proposition, and logic proves propositions. I'm happy with that.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 5. Unity of Propositions
The parts of a thought map onto the parts of a sentence [Frege]
     Full Idea: A sentence is generally a complex sign, so the thought expressed by it is complex too: in fact it is put together in such a way that parts of a thought correspond to parts of the sentence.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.207)
     A reaction: This is the compositional view of propositions, as opposed to the holistic view.