| FA-232797-16 | Research Programs: Fellowships for University Teachers | Joan Weiner | The Significance of Gottlob Frege's Language for Science | 1/1/2016 - 12/31/2016 | $50,400.00 | Joan | | Weiner | | | | Indiana University, Bloomington | Bloomington | IN | 47405-7000 | USA | 2015 | History of Philosophy | Fellowships for University Teachers | Research Programs | 50400 | 0 | 50400 | 0 | A book reinterpreting Gottlob Frege's philosophy for application to epistemology, logic, and the sciences.
It is difficult to overstate Frege’s importance for contemporary analytic philosophy. He is widely taken to be among the first to see the importance of giving a theory of the workings of language and his work is the source of fundamental contributions to this project. But, I have argued, something is amiss in this story: it attributes views to Frege that conflict with many of his actual statements. I have argued that Frege’s writings on language were meant as contributions to a different project: that of showing that the truths of arithmetic belong to logic. And, I have argued, it follows that his actual views about language are different from those typically attributed to him. But are these unfamiliar views of purely antiquarian interest? I think they are not. I propose to argue that these views cast new light on a number of contemporary issues, including puzzles about mathematical knowledge and numbers, puzzles about vagueness and problems with the notion of natural kinds. |