
Frege is widely regarded as having set much of the agenda of contemporary analytic philosophy. As standardly read, he meant to introduce--and make crucial contributions to--the project of giving an account of the workings of (an improved version of) natural language. Yet, despite the great admiration most contemporary philosophers feel for Frege, it is widely believed that he committed a large number of serious, and inexplicable, blunders. For, if Frege really meant to be constructing a theory of the workings of (some version of) natural language, then a significant number of his stated views--including views that he claimed to be central to his philosophical picture--are straightforwardly wrong. But did Frege mean to be giving an account of the workings of language? He himself never actually claimed to be doing this, and, indeed, never even described such a project. Taking Frege at his Word offers an interpretation that is based on a different approach to his writings. Rather than using the contributions he is taken to have made to contemporary work in the philosophy of language to infer what his projects were, Joan Weiner gives priority to Frege's own accounts of what he means to be doing. She provides a very different view of Frege's project. One might suspect that, on such a reading, Frege's writings would have purely antiquarian interest, but this would be a mistake. The final two chapters show that Frege offers us new ways of addressing some of the philosophical problems that worry us today.
Does Gottlob Frege’s philosophical project actually center on the analysis of natural language, or has he been fundamentally misread by contemporary analytic philosophers? Joan Weiner, a scholar of Frege’s work, argues that the standard interpretation of Frege as a philosopher of language is an anachronistic projection. By prioritizing Frege’s own stated objectives over modern assumptions, she reconstructs his work to reveal a coherent philosophical framework that avoids the alleged blunders attributed to him by later thinkers.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars frequently cite this work as a significant challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy in Frege studies. Readers often note the rigorous, text-focused methodology that distinguishes Weiner’s interpretation from more traditional readings.
Page Count:
345
Publication Date:
2020-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0192634852
ISBN-13:
9780192634856
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