25 ideas
16877 | A 'constructive' (as opposed to 'analytic') definition creates a new sign [Frege] |
Full Idea: We construct a sense out of its constituents and introduce an entirely new sign to express this sense. This may be called a 'constructive definition', but we prefer to call it a 'definition' tout court. It contrasts with an 'analytic' definition. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.210) | |
A reaction: An analytic definition is evidently a deconstruction of a past constructive definition. Fregean definition is a creative activity. |
11219 | Frege suggested that mathematics should only accept stipulative definitions [Frege, by Gupta] |
Full Idea: Frege has defended the austere view that, in mathematics at least, only stipulative definitions should be countenanced. | |
From: report of Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914]) by Anil Gupta - Definitions 1.3 | |
A reaction: This sounds intriguingly at odds with Frege's well-known platonism about numbers (as sets of equinumerous sets). It makes sense for other mathematical concepts. |
16878 | We must be clear about every premise and every law used in a proof [Frege] |
Full Idea: It is so important, if we are to have a clear insight into what is going on, for us to be able to recognise the premises of every inference which occurs in a proof and the law of inference in accordance with which it takes place. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.212) | |
A reaction: Teachers of logic like natural deduction, because it reduces everything to a few clear laws, which can be stated at each step. |
16867 | Logic not only proves things, but also reveals logical relations between them [Frege] |
Full Idea: A proof does not only serve to convince us of the truth of what is proved: it also serves to reveal logical relations between truths. Hence we find in Euclid proofs of truths that appear to stand in no need of proof because they are obvious without one. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204) | |
A reaction: This is a key idea in Frege's philosophy, and a reason why he is the founder of modern analytic philosophy, with logic placed at the centre of the subject. I take the value of proofs to be raising questions, more than giving answers. |
16863 | Does some mathematical reasoning (such as mathematical induction) not belong to logic? [Frege] |
Full Idea: Are there perhaps modes of inference peculiar to mathematics which …do not belong to logic? Here one may point to inference by mathematical induction from n to n+1. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.203) | |
A reaction: He replies that it looks as if induction can be reduced to general laws, and those can be reduced to logic. |
16862 | The closest subject to logic is mathematics, which does little apart from drawing inferences [Frege] |
Full Idea: Mathematics has closer ties with logic than does almost any other discipline; for almost the entire activity of the mathematician consists in drawing inferences. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.203) | |
A reaction: The interesting question is who is in charge - the mathematician or the logician? |
16865 | 'Theorems' are both proved, and used in proofs [Frege] |
Full Idea: Usually a truth is only called a 'theorem' when it has not merely been obtained by inference, but is used in turn as a premise for a number of inferences in the science. ….Proofs use non-theorems, which only occur in that proof. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204) |
16866 | Tracing inference backwards closes in on a small set of axioms and postulates [Frege] |
Full Idea: We can trace the chains of inference backwards, …and the circle of theorems closes in more and more. ..We must eventually come to an end by arriving at truths can cannot be inferred, …which are the axioms and postulates. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204) | |
A reaction: The rival (more modern) view is that that all theorems are equal in status, and axioms are selected for convenience. |
16868 | The essence of mathematics is the kernel of primitive truths on which it rests [Frege] |
Full Idea: Science must endeavour to make the circle of unprovable primitive truths as small as possible, for the whole of mathematics is contained in this kernel. The essence of mathematics has to be defined by this kernel of truths. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.204-5) | |
A reaction: [compressed] I will make use of this thought, by arguing that mathematics may be 'explained' by this kernel. |
16870 | Axioms are truths which cannot be doubted, and for which no proof is needed [Frege] |
Full Idea: The axioms are theorems, but truths for which no proof can be given in our system, and no proof is needed. It follows from this that there are no false axioms, and we cannot accept a thought as an axiom if we are in doubt about its truth. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.205) | |
A reaction: He struggles to be as objective as possible, but has to concede that whether we can 'doubt' the axiom is one of the criteria. |
16871 | A truth can be an axiom in one system and not in another [Frege] |
Full Idea: It is possible for a truth to be an axiom in one system and not in another. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.205) | |
A reaction: Frege aspired to one huge single system, so this is a begrudging concession, one which modern thinkers would probably take for granted. |
16869 | To create order in mathematics we need a full system, guided by patterns of inference [Frege] |
Full Idea: We cannot long remain content with the present fragmentation [of mathematics]. Order can be created only by a system. But to construct a system it is necessary that in any step forward we take we should be aware of the logical inferences involved. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.205) |
16864 | If principles are provable, they are theorems; if not, they are axioms [Frege] |
Full Idea: If the law [of induction] can be proved, it will be included amongst the theorems of mathematics; if it cannot, it will be included amongst the axioms. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.203) | |
A reaction: This links Frege with the traditional Euclidean view of axioms. The question, then, is how do we know them, given that we can't prove them. |
9388 | Every concept must have a sharp boundary; we cannot allow an indeterminate third case [Frege] |
Full Idea: Of any concept, we must require that it have a sharp boundary. Of any object it must hold either that it falls under the concept or it does not. We may not allow a third case in which it is somehow indeterminate whether an object falls under a concept. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.229), quoted by Ian Rumfitt - The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts p.1 n1 | |
A reaction: This is the voice of the classical logician, which has echoed by Russell. I'm with them, I think, in the sense that logic can only work with precise concepts. The jury is still out. Maybe we can 'precisify', without achieving total precision. |
12900 | How could 'S knows he has hands' not have a fixed content? [Bach] |
Full Idea: How can it be that a sentence like 'George knows that he has hands', even with time and references fixed, does not have a fixed propositional content? | |
From: Kent Bach (The Emperor's New 'Knows' [2005], I) | |
A reaction: The appeal is to G.E. Moore's common sense view of immediate knowledge (Idea 6349). The reply is simply that the word 'knows' shifts its meaning, having high standards in sceptical philosophy classes, and low standards on the street. |
12901 | If contextualism is right, knowledge sentences are baffling out of their context [Bach] |
Full Idea: Contextualism seems to predict that if you encounter a knowledge attribution out of context you won't be in a position to grasp which proposition the sentence expresses. | |
From: Kent Bach (The Emperor's New 'Knows' [2005], I) | |
A reaction: It is only the word 'knows' which is at issue in the sentence. If someone is said to 'know' about the world of the fairies, we might well be puzzled as to what proposition was being expressed. Is the word 'flat' baffling out of context? |
12902 | Sceptics aren't changing the meaning of 'know', but claiming knowing is tougher than we think [Bach] |
Full Idea: When a sceptic brings up far-fetched possibilities and argues that we can't rule them out, he is not raising the standard for the word 'know'. He is showing it is tougher than we realise for a belief to qualify as normal knowledge at all. | |
From: Kent Bach (The Emperor's New 'Knows' [2005], III) | |
A reaction: [Bach cites Richard Feldman for this idea] I think that what happens in the contextual account is that 'true', 'belief' and 'know' retain their standard meaning, and it is 'justified' which shifts. 'I am fully justified' can have VERY different meanings! |
16876 | We need definitions to cram retrievable sense into a signed receptacle [Frege] |
Full Idea: If we need such signs, we also need definitions so that we can cram this sense into the receptacle and also take it out again. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.209) | |
A reaction: Has anyone noticed that Frege is the originator of the idea of the mental file? Has anyone noticed the role that definition plays in his account? |
16875 | We use signs to mark receptacles for complex senses [Frege] |
Full Idea: We often need to use a sign with which we associate a very complex sense. Such a sign seems a receptacle for the sense, so that we can carry it with us, while being always aware that we can open this receptacle should we need what it contains. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.209) | |
A reaction: This exactly the concept of a mental file, which I enthusiastically endorse. Frege even talks of 'opening the receptacle'. For Frege a definition (which he has been discussing) is the assigment of a label (the 'definiendum') to the file (the 'definiens'). |
16879 | A sign won't gain sense just from being used in sentences with familiar components [Frege] |
Full Idea: No sense accrues to a sign by the mere fact that it is used in one or more sentences, the other constituents of which are known. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic in Mathematics [1914], p.213) | |
A reaction: Music to my ears. I've never grasped how meaning could be grasped entirely through use. |
16873 | 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. |
16872 | 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. |
16874 | 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. |
13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |