24.201 Topics in History of Phil
Fall 2006
Instructor: Vann McGee
Lecture: MW1-2.30 (56-180)
Information:
Gottlob Frege was the father of modern logic, a man whose contributions to logic, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mathematics were invaluable. He was, however, not a philosopher. By training and vocation, he was a mathematician, who only got involved in philosophical issues when doing so was demanded by his mathematical work. If you think of him as a philosopher, he looks like a terribly narrow philosopher whose interests never reach beyond his highly restricted specialty; but you really shouldn’t think of him as a philosopher at all.
The plan for this course is as simple as can be. We’ll read a bunch of Frege’s writings and talk about what we read. We’ll start with his two early books, The Foundations of Arithmetic (1884) and Begriffschrift (1879), and then work our way through The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney. Begriffschrift (“Concept Writing”) is in a book called Frege and Gödel, edited by Jean van Heijenoort. On the shelf in the Coop it says it costs $45, but it’s really only $10. In addition, we’ll read a couple of short articles about Frege. I’ll post these (either the article itself or a url) here on the Stellar site. But mostly we’ll be reading Frege himself, not secondary sources.
Announcements
No announcements
