The Frege Reader (Blackwell Readers) (Paperback)

by Gottlob Frege (Author), Michael Beaney (Editor) "[Begriffsschrift was Frege's first book, published in 1879..." (more)
Key Phrases: judgement stroke, number that belongs, negation stroke, Morning Star, Evening Star, Leo Peter (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"The book aims to be the best single edition available for introductory Frege courses. It is a well organized, reasonably priced one-stop Frege shop. It is too convenient not to be used in introductory courses on Frege; in fact, as a single volume, it has no competition I can think of. The general conception is excellent. It is easily readable by graduates or advanced under graduates. The forty-six page introduction and notes to the translations make it useful also for Frege scholars. The book's virtues are strong. I recommend it for courses on Frege, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, and analytic philosophy." Jan Dejnozka, History and Philosophy of Logic

Product Description
This is the first single-volume edition and translation of Frege's philosophical writings to include all of his seminal papers as well as substantial selections from all three of his major works. It is intended to provide the essential primary texts for students of logic, philosophical logic, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mathematics. It contains in particular Frege's four papers "Function and Concept", "On Concept and Object", "On Sense and Reference", and "Thought", and new translations of key parts of the Begriffsschrift, The Foundations of Arithmetic, and the Basic Laws of Arithmetic. The editor's substantial introduction provides the reader with an overview of the significance and development of Frege's philosophy, while the footnotes, appendices and glossary facilitate understanding of some of the more difficult elements of Frege's thought.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (July 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631194452
• ISBN-13: 978-0631194453
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #358,119 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice collection of an important philosopher, February 20, 2001

By A Customer

This is a nice selection of excerpts and full essays written by Frege. The book is a pleasure to read, however, not only becaues of the selections and the fine introductory section, but because Frege is such a clear writer and thinker himself. I particularly enjoyed Frege's Begriffshrift - you can see modern quantificational logic being born.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All you need and more, June 12, 2000

By	A 14 year old David Ganssle (Hamden, CT) - See all my reviews

The Frege Reader is an excellent collection of Frege's works. The texts are edited carefully and the editor has supplied extremely helpful footnotes throughout. The introduction and appendices are clear resources that the reader will consult often as she works through the text.

The excerpts from many of Frege's letters are a great addition as these shed light on the development of his project. This work will remain for years the standard first place to turn for Frege.

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comment on The Frege Reader:, October 3, 2001

By	Steve Wilson (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews

What a great book this is! The Frege Reader is not for everybody, that's for sure. But when/if you get into the "right space" - then please read this book.

I can't remember when I first heard the name "Frege". But I do know how my reading and study began that eventually brought me to stumble across this mathematician, logician, and philosopher. You see I'm a software developer, more specifically a database guy. I have read much of Chris Date and Hugh Darwen's work. They say that programming languages and databases are considered to be "formal systems", that is to say, a formal system of logic. Date and Darwin go on to say that what we are really doing when we call the database to create an answer set is "instantiating the predicate". So, I started on a path to learn what a "predicate" is. It did not take long before the names: Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, and finally, Frege came up.

There are many fine authors who have written about Frege's logic and philosophy. But, until you read his words (and his words are really, really good!) you really don't get a sense for what this man was really trying to say. This book is not just talking about numbers. This book is about everything we can talk about. Using Frege's "perfect language" we learn to distinguish between "objects", and what we say about those "objects".

So, I learned from this book that when I "instantiate my predicate" I am (in Frege's words) finding the content of the concept, saturating the concept, finding its meaning, its "Bedeudung", returning thoughts to my user.

In his book, LOGIC, LOGIC, and LOGIC, George Boolos quotes one of his professors. The professor said that the way to seduce good students to philosophy is to teach them Russell's and Frege's concept of number. Programmers and DBAs can also be "seduced" by reading Frege. So, if you want to be "seduced" to philosophy, then read The Frege Reader.

Stephen A. Wilson
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