The Reason's Proper Study Essays towards a Neo-Fregean Philosophy of Mathematics

by Hale, Bob; Wright, Crispin

• ISBN13: 9780199266326
• ISBN10: 0199266328
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-15
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Here, Bob Hale and Crispin Wright assemble the key writings that lead to their distinctive neo-Fregean approach to the philosophy of mathematics. In addition to fourteen previously published papers, the volume features a new paper on the Julius Caesar problem; a substantial new introduction mapping out the program and the contributions made to it by the various papers; a section explaining which issues most require further attention; and bibliographies of references and further useful sources. It will be recognized as the most powerful presentation yet of a neo-Fregean program.

Author Biography

Bob Hale is Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Crispin Wright is Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and Wardlaw Professor, at the University of St Andrews.

Table of Contents

Origins of the Essays	xiii
Introduction 1
Part I. Ontology and Abstraction Principles
1. Bob Hale: Singular Terms (1)	31	(17)
2. Bob Hale: Singular Terms (2)	48	(24)
3. Crispin Wright: Why Frege Does Not Deserve His Grain of Salt: A Note on the Paradox of 'The Concept Horse' and the Ascription of Bedeutungen to Predicates	72	(19)
4. Bob Hale: Grundlagen §64	91	(26)
5. Bob Hale and Crispin Wright: Implicit Definition and the A Priori	117	(36)
Part II. Responses to Critics
6. Crispin Wright: Field and Fregean Platonism	153	(16)
7. Bob Hale: Is Platonism Epistemologically Bankrupt?	169	(20)
8. Bob Hale: Dummett's Critique of Wright's Attempt to Resuscitate Frege	189	(40)
9. Crispin Wright: Critical Notice of Michael Dummett's Frege; Philosophy of Mathematics 214
Part III. Hume's Principle
10. Crispin Wright: On the Harmless Impredicativity of N= (Hume's Principle)	229	(27)
11. Crispin Wright: Response to Dummett	256	(16)
12. Crispin Wright: On the Philosophical Significance of Frege's Theorem	272	(35)
13. Crispin Wright: Is Hume's Principle Analytic?	307	(28)
Part IV. On the Differentiation of Abstracts
14. Bob Hale and Crispin Wright: To Bury Caesar...	335	(64)
Part V. Beyond Number Theory
15. Bob Hale: Reals by Abstraction	399	(22)
Postscript: Eighteen Problems	421	(16)
Bibliography	437	(7)
Further Relevant Writings	444	(3)
Index	447