Frege and the German Background to Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Accounts of analytic philosophy often give the impression that it arose in opposition to continental philosophy. This may be true of British philosophers such as Russell, Moore, and Ryle. But it is certainly not true of Frege, as this chapter seeks to show through detailed textual analysis. Although Frege makes little explicit reference to other authors in his writings, many parallels can be found in the work of those in the continental tradition—for example, in Herbart’s conception of number statements and his concept of existence and in Trendelenburg’s philosophy of language. In particular, Frege’s anti-psychologistic epistemology, with its strict distinction between the validity (Geltung) and genesis (Genese) of knowledge, is in substantial agreement with positions that had been anticipated by Herbart and developed, especially, in the value-theoretic tradition of neo-Kantianism (Windelband, Rickert, and Bauch) that goes back to Lotze. This agreement reaches into his logic, where Frege was even influenced by earlier psychologistic logicians such as Sigwart. In particular, Frege’s theory of judgement, with its emphasis on judgement as an act, proves to be a systematic transformation of views propounded in the post-Kantian debates about the forms of judgement in the nineteenth century.