Philosophy of Mathematics seminar

Fabian Pregel (Oxford)

Is logical consequence a relation between Fregean thoughts?  

Frege holds logical consequence to be a relation between non-linguistic Fregean thoughts (Gedanken), not a relation between linguistic entities such as sentences—a stance contrasting with today’s model-theoretic and inferentialist approaches to logical consequence. Does it make any difference? And if so, was Frege right? To relate Fregean logical consequence to our modern notion, I use and build on Patricia Blanchette’s notion of a reading. I then assess the advantages and disadvantages of Frege’s account. In particular, I will argue that the Fregean view of logical consequence can withstand certain objections by Gillian Russell and Elia Zardini.