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I have a copy and like it much. However, i was always partial to Frege's Begriffschrift. His notation was really creative. It's a shame Russel's deflation of th

I have a copy and like it much. However, i was always partial to Frege's Begriffschrift. His notation was really creative. It's a shame Russel's deflation of that project has sentenced it to the rubbish heap of history.

igravious 1mo ago
The Begriffschrift has in no way been consigned to the rubbish heap of history. What gave you that impression? It is seminal. That it had one unresolved paradox in its set-theoretic foundations does not scupper the philosophical insights, nor the creative notation, nor the more-or-less novel approach of conjoining mathematical functions and logic to give us predicate logic (apologies for this brutally simplified sketch) i like to think of Frege and the Begriffschrift like this Boole: logic + algebra = algebraic logic Frege: logic + functions = predicate logic ergo, if Boole is rightly deified then so should Frege regardless of minor infelicities (which prompted type theory anyhow) -- again, apologies if this is totally misleading
- voidhorse 29d ago
  Hey man, I completely agree. I love the begriffschrift and recognize the very important role it played in the history of logic. The reason I say it's in the rubbish heap is because basically only experts and people with strange hobbies know about it. The set of people familiar with the Principia is vastly greater than those who know what the Begriffschrift is. That's what I meant, not that it wasn't important, but that it's importance is now under recognized and under appreciated.
cubefox 1mo ago
You are confusing his book Begriffsschrift ("concept notation"), where he invented what became modern predicate logic, and his later work "Grundgesetze der Arithmetik" (I/II) which (unsuccessfully) tried to derive arithmetic from purely logical notions, and which made heavy use of the Begriffsschrift.
- voidhorse 29d ago
  No I'm not. Russell spied the paradox in the Begriffscrift. One only needs to check the wikipedia page, even: > he announced the discovery to Gottlob Frege of the paradox in Frege's 1879 Begriffsschrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox

igravious 1mo ago

The Begriffschrift has in no way been consigned to the rubbish heap of history. What gave you that impression? It is seminal. That it had one unresolved paradox in its set-theoretic foundations does not scupper the philosophical insights, nor the creative notation, nor the more-or-less novel approach of conjoining mathematical functions and logic to give us predicate logic (apologies for this brutally simplified sketch) i like to think of Frege and the Begriffschrift like this Boole: logic + algebra = algebraic logic Frege: logic + functions = predicate logic ergo, if Boole is rightly deified then so should Frege regardless of minor infelicities (which prompted type theory anyhow) -- again, apologies if this is totally misleading

voidhorse 29d ago
Hey man, I completely agree. I love the begriffschrift and recognize the very important role it played in the history of logic. The reason I say it's in the rubbish heap is because basically only experts and people with strange hobbies know about it. The set of people familiar with the Principia is vastly greater than those who know what the Begriffschrift is. That's what I meant, not that it wasn't important, but that it's importance is now under recognized and under appreciated.

cubefox 1mo ago

You are confusing his book Begriffsschrift ("concept notation"), where he invented what became modern predicate logic, and his later work "Grundgesetze der Arithmetik" (I/II) which (unsuccessfully) tried to derive arithmetic from purely logical notions, and which made heavy use of the Begriffsschrift.

voidhorse 29d ago
No I'm not. Russell spied the paradox in the Begriffscrift. One only needs to check the wikipedia page, even: > he announced the discovery to Gottlob Frege of the paradox in Frege's 1879 Begriffsschrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox