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Frege's Theory of Incomplete Entities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Michael David Resnik
Michael David Resnik*
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii
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Abstract

This paper examines four arguments in support of Frege's theory of incomplete entities, the heart of his semantics and ontology. Two of these arguments are based upon Frege's contributions to the foundations of mathematics. These are shown to be question-begging. Two are based upon Frege's solution to the problem of the relation of language to thought and reality. They are metaphysical in nature and they force Frege to maintain a theory of types. The latter puts his theory of incomplete entities in the paradoxical position of maintaining that it is no theory at all. Moreover, his metaphysics rules out well-known suggestions for avoiding this difficulty.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 1965 , pp. 329 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

**

I would like to thank Professor Burton Dreben for the suggestions which led to this article. Professors Chung-ying Cheng, Dagfinn F⊘lesdal, Richard P. Haynes, and Charles D. Parsons have commented on various manuscripts of this article and I am grateful to them. Much of the research reported here was done while I was employed by the U.S. Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, and I would like to acknowledge their support. This article is adapted from a dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy of Harvard University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph. D.

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