The Fregean revolution in Logic

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter I argue that Frege’s work in logic initiated a revolution in the subject. Indeed, the phrase ‘the Fregean revolution in logic’ can be used in much the same sense as ‘the Copernican revolution in astronomy’, the point being that Copernicus began the revolution, but did not complete it The Copernican revolution begins with the publication of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus in 1543. This work initiated a series of fundamental changes in the subject, but the revolutionary period did not really end until the publication of the Principia in 1687 and the establishment of the Newtonian synthesis. In an exactly parallel fashion, the Fregean revolution begins with the publication in 1879 of the Begriffsschrift. Opinions may differ as lo when the revolutionary period in logic ended, but I would see the publication of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems in 1931 as forming a natural terminus. Jean van Heijenoort, in editing his justly famous collection From Frege to Giidel. A source book in mathematical logic, 1879-1931, recognized that we have here a natural period in the history of logic. This he describes, not indeed as a revolution, but as ‘a great epoch in the history of logic’ (Heijenoort 1967, p. vi).