Frege, contextuality and compositionality (Q1841521): Difference between revisions

The name ``Frege's principle'' denotes two different principles. The first one is the principle of compositionality of meaning according to which the meaning of a compound expression is a function of the meaning of its parts and the syntactic rules by which they are combined, the second one is the context principle or principle of contextuality according to which one should not ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a sentence. The author declares it the aim of this article ``to find out whether the name Frege's principle'' has a basis in G. Frege's writings, and for which interpretation (p. 118). His method is careful reading, using the English translations debated in literature (and cross checking them with the German original), but ignoring the present translation of choice where this could have been possible, ``The Frege reader'' [ed. \textit{M. Beaney}, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford (1997)]. The author considers several of Frege's writings in a chronological order, above all ``Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik'' (1884), but also the paper ``Über Sinn und Bedeutung'' (1892) and several letters and papers from the Nachlaß. He comes to the result that Frege changed from an extreme contextualism in the ``Grundlagen'' to a more moderate one in later writings. However, he never gave up contextualism as claimed by several commentators, and his later statements supporting the compositionality interpretation remain compatible with moderate contextualism. Reviewer's remark: The statement that J. St. Mill was in those days (the last quarter of the 19th century) the most discussed philosopher and politician, both in England and Germany, is rather dubious, at least for Germany. Although Mill's significance was clearly seen in Germany, especially in scientific circles, German philosophers and scientists had their own heroes. The first edition (but also later editions) of \textit{W. Wundt}'s ``Logik'' [Vol. 1, Enke, Stuttgart (\(^11880\))] is not a suitable witness. Page VII referred to by the author contains the first page of the table of contents, but no hint on Mill.