Frege A Philosophical Biography

Gottlob Frege (1848?1925) is one of the founding figures of analytic philosophy, whose contributions to logic, philosophical semantics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mathematics set the agenda for future generations of theorists in these and related areas. Dale Jacquette's lively and incisive biography charts Frege's life from its beginnings in small-town north Germany, through his student days in Jena, to his development as an enduringly influential thinker. Along the way Jacquette considers Frege's ground-breaking Begriffschrift (1879), in which he formulated his 'ideal logical language', his magisterial Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1893 and 1903), and his complex relation to thinkers including Husserl and especially Russell, whose Paradox had such drastic implications for Frege's logicism. Jacquette concludes with a thoughtful assessment of Frege's legacy. His rich and informative biography will appeal to all who are interested in Frege's philosophy.

1. Early life (1848–54); 2. Education through university days (1854–74); 3. Post-doctoral research and teaching (1874–9); 4. Frege's Begriffsschrift (1879) – ideal logical language; 5. The aftermath of Begriffsschrift to Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1880–4); 6. The logical foundations of number in Grundlagen (1884); 7. Professional advancement, marriage, and the quest for objectivity in a scientific theory of meaning (1885–92); 8. Sense, reference, and psychological epiphenomena in Frege's semantics (1892); 9. Frege's culminating masterwork - Grundgesetze der Arithmetik I, II (1893/1903); 10. Academic and personal life, the review of Husserl, mathematical and philosophical correspondence (1894–1902); 11. The crucible of logicism and the crisis of Russell's paradox (1902–4); 12. Personal tragedy and a philosophical hiatus (1904–17); 13. The late essays in philosophical logic – Logische Untersuchungen (1918–23); 14. The twilight years (1923–5) and Frege's enduring legacy in mathematical logic and philosophy.

Dale Jacquette was Senior Professorial Chair in Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bern. His many publications included The Cambridge Companion to Brentano (Cambridge, 2004), the Blackwell Companion to Philosophical Logic (2005), and The Philosophy of Mind: The Metaphysics of Consciousness (2009).