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    Fixing Frege
    Fixing Frege
    Fixing Frege
    Ebook259 pages5 hours

    Fixing Frege

    By John P. Burgess

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    About this ebook

    The great logician Gottlob Frege attempted to provide a purely logical foundation for mathematics. His system collapsed when Bertrand Russell discovered a contradiction in it. Thereafter, mathematicians and logicians, beginning with Russell himself, turned in other directions to look for a framework for modern abstract mathematics. Over the past couple of decades, however, logicians and philosophers have discovered that much more is salvageable from the rubble of Frege's system than had previously been assumed. A variety of repaired systems have been proposed, each a consistent theory permitting the development of a significant portion of mathematics.


    This book surveys the assortment of methods put forth for fixing Frege's system, in an attempt to determine just how much of mathematics can be reconstructed in each. John Burgess considers every proposed fix, each with its distinctive philosophical advantages and drawbacks. These systems range from those barely able to reconstruct the rudiments of arithmetic to those that go well beyond the generally accepted axioms of set theory into the speculative realm of large cardinals. For the most part, Burgess finds that attempts to fix Frege do less than advertised to revive his system. This book will be the benchmark against which future analyses of the revival of Frege will be measured.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateJun 5, 2018
    ISBN9780691187068
    Fixing Frege
    Author

    John P. Burgess

    John P. Burgess is James Henry Snowden Professor of Systematic Theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), he was previously Associate for Theology in the Office of Theology and Worship. Among his books is After Baptism: Shaping the Christian Life, published by Westminster John Knox Press.

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