Gottlob Frege

German philosopher, logician, and mathematician (1848–1925)

AI overview

Gottlob Frege was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician who lived from 1848 to 1925 and fundamentally changed how we understand the relationships between language, logic, and mathematics. His work laid the groundwork for modern logic and philosophy of language, making him one of the most influential thinkers in these fields.

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Person · Open Library

Born: 1848
Died: 1925
Works: 93

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Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Female
Origin: France
Active from: 1982-02-15

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Discography

Official site Discogs Stream

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 20
Total plays: 36

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Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

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· 2001 · cited 799x
Growth retardation and increased apoptosis in mice with homozygous disruption of the <i>akt1</i> gene
· 2001 · cited 756x
The DLV system for knowledge representation and reasoning
· 2006 · cited 666x
The role of low-volatility organic compounds in initial particle growth in the atmosphere
· 2016 · cited 653x
Ion-induced nucleation of pure biogenic particles
· 2016 · cited 629x

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Quotes

“This ideography is a "formula language", that is, a lingua characterica, a language written with special symbols, "for pure thought", that is, free from rhetorical embellishments, "modeled upon that of arithmetic", that is, constructed from specific symbols that are manipulated according to definite rules.”
“I hope I may claim in the present work to have made it probable that the laws of arithmetic are analytic judgments and consequently a priori. Arithmetic thus becomes simply a development of logic, and every proposition of arithmetic a law of logic, albeit a derivative one. To apply arithmetic in the physical sciences is to bring logic to bear on observed facts; calculation becomes deduction.”
“Nur im Zusammenhange eines Satzes bedeuten die Wörter etwas. Es wird also darauf ankommen, den Sinn eines Satzes zu erklären, in dem ein Zahlwort vorkommt.”
“Your discovery of the contradiction caused me the greatest surprise and, I would almost say, consternation, since it has shaken the basis on which I intended to build arithmetic.”
“'Facts, facts, facts,' cries the scientist if he wants to emphasize the necessity of a firm foundation for science. What is a fact? A fact is a thought that is true. But the scientist will surely not recognize something which depends on men's varying states of mind to be the firm foundation of science.”
“It really is worth the trouble to invent a new symbol if we can thus remove not a few logical difficulties and ensure the rigour of the proofs. But many mathematicians seem to have so little feeling for logical purity and accuracy that they will use a word to mean three or four different things, sooner than make the frightful decision to invent a new word.”

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Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Friedrich
Gender: male
Citizenship: Germany
Place of birth: Wismar
Place of death: Bad Kleinen
Occupation: mathematician
Employer: Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Languages spoken: German
Doctoral advisor: Alfred Clebsch
Student of: Wilhelm Eduard Weber
Field of work: philosophy
Image: Young frege.jpg

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topic's main category: Category:Gottlob Frege
birth name: Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege
Commons category: Gottlob Frege
date of birth: 1848-11-08
date of death: 1925-07-26
member of: German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
influenced by: Bernard Bolzano
Commons gallery: Gottlob Frege
name in native language: Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege
writing language: German
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
maintained by WikiProject: WikiProject Mathematics
P8168: Boduognatus

Sources (5)

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~33 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (/ˈfreɪɡə/; German: [ˈɡɔtloːp ˈfreːɡə]; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philosophy, concentrating on the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics. Though he was largely ignored during his lifetime, Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), and, to some extent, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) introduced his work to later generations of philosophers. Frege is widely considered to be one of the greatest logicians since Aristotle, and one of the most profound philosophers of mathematics ever.

His contributions include the development of modern logic in the Begriffsschrift and work in the foundations of mathematics. His book the Foundations of Arithmetic is the seminal text of the logicist project, and is cited by Michael Dummett as where to pinpoint the linguistic turn. His philosophical papers "On Sense and Reference" and "The Thought" are also widely cited. The former argues for two different types of meaning and descriptivism. In Foundations and "The Thought", Frege argues for Platonism against psychologism or formalism, concerning numbers and propositions respectively.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Gottlob Frege” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.