Gottlob Frege · Mathematics

Logic Is Not Psychology

Frege insisted that logic and arithmetic are objective, not descriptions of how anyone happens to think - and he armed this with the <em>context principle</em> (ask for a word&rsquo;s meaning only within a sentence) and a Platonism of objective <em>thoughts</em>, waging a lifelong war against the &lsquo;psychologism&rsquo; that would reduce logical laws to laws of the mind.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned Frege&rsquo;s three guiding principles - separate the logical sharply from the psychological, ask for a word&rsquo;s meaning only in the context of a sentence, and keep the concept-object distinction in view - and his argument that logic concerns objective &lsquo;thoughts&rsquo; in a third realm, not the w…

Leads to John Stuart Mill.

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