Abstract
It has recently been claimed by M. Dummett1) and other that to be a realist implies the acceptance of Aristotle’s principle of the excluded middle that every proposition has one of two truth-values, either true or false. Hence, if there are propositions the truth-values of which are not decidable in principle, anti-realism perhaps in the form of intuitionism or verificationism is epistemologically a more reasonable position than unrestricted realism presupposing verification-transcendent truthconditions.
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Notes and Literature
M. Dummett (1980), “Common Sense and Physics” ind ‘Perception and Identity’ — Essays presented to A. Ayer, ed. G.F. Mac Donald, Oxford 1980.
G. Frege (1879), “Begriffsschrift” — ‘eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens’.
G. Frege (1884) “Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik” — ‘eine logisch-mathematische Untersuchung über den Begriff der Zahl’, Wiss. Buchg. — Darmstadt 1961.
G. Frege (1891) “Funktion und Begriff”.
G. Frege (1892) “Über Sinn und Bedeutung”.
G. Frege (1892) “Über Begriff und Gegenstand” reprinted in “Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung“ ed. G. Patzig, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1962.
G. Frege (1893) “Grundgesetze der Arithmetik” — ‘begriffsschriftlich abgeleitet’, Wiss. Buchg. — Darmstadt 1962.
G. Frege (1918) “Der Gedanke”, “Die Verneinung”, “Gedankengefüge” in ‘Logische Untersuchungen’, ed. G. Patzig, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1966.
G. Frege (1918) (posthum) “Nachgelassene Schriften und wiss. Briefwechsel”, ed. H. Hermes, F. Kambartel, F. Kaulbach, Vol. I/II Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1969.
H. Hertz (1894) “Die Prinzipien der Mechanik”, Wiss. Buchg. — Darmstadt, 1963.
E. Mach (1883) “Die Mechanik” — ‘historisch-kritisch dargestellt’ reprint of 9th edition, Leipzig 1933.
E. Mach (1905) “Erkenntnis und Irrtum”, 3th edition, Ambrosius Barth-Leipzig 1917.
G. Ludwig (1970) “Deutung des Begriffs ‘physikalische Theorie’ und axiomatische Grundlegung der Hilbert-Raumstruktur der Quantenmechanik durch Hauptsätze des Messens”, Springer-Lecture Notes in Physics 4, Berlin, Heidelberg, N.Y.
G. Ludwig (1978) “Die Grundstrukturen einer physikalischen Theorie”, Springer-Hochschultext.
G. Ludwig (1979) “Einführung in die Grundlagen der Theoretischen Physik”, Vol. I-IV, Vieweg-Braunschweig.
In this chapter, I give a short summary of “my” understanding of Frege’s conception of concepts. My presentation is insofar “dogmatic”, as I neither give an explicit philological documentation of my view by Frege’s writings, nor I try to defend my view against deviating interpretations. Both is the task of another paper, nevertheless, I hope, my view is correct. My understanding of Frege has most profited from the following three philosophers and their works.
Ch. Thiel (1965) “Sinn und Bedeutung in der Logik Gottlob Freges” Verlag A. Hain — Meisenheim.
M. Dummett (1973) “Frege — Philosophy of language” Duchworth — London.
H.D. Sluga (1980) “Gottlob Frege”, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
A. Trendelenburg (1840) “Logische Untersuchungen” S. Hirzel, Leipzig, 3. Edition (1870).
H. Lotze (1874) “Logik — drei Bücher vom Denken, vom Untersuchen und vom Erkennen” ed. G. Misch, Felix-Meiner-Hamburg (1912).
Moreover, we have here the rare but interesting case, that the formulation of a theory contains — beside mentioning of the universal ‘Kepler-constant’ — a proper name, that of the sun, and hence refers in its first law to a contingent object, called’ sun’. Insofar is the concept of Kepler’s theory not of the most general form, possible. For an interesting kinematic theory and Newton’s dynamic theory with gravitional forces, see.
E. Scheibe (1973) “Die Erklärung der Keplerschen Gesetze durch Newtons Gravitationsgesetz” in ‘Einheit und Vielheit’ Festschrift für C.F. von Weizsäcker, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen.
Evans & Mc Dowell (1976) “Truth and Meaning” Oxford-Univ. Press.
M. Hesse (1961) “Forces and Fields” — ‘The concept of action at a distance in the history of physics’, Nelson and Sons, London.
L. Boltzmann (1892) “On the methods of Theoretical Physics” in L. Boltzmann, ‘Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems’, ed. B. McGuiness, Vienna circle collection Vol. 5, Reidel, Dordrecht-Holland, (1974).
Here I depart from the editor’s recommendation to translate ‘Abbildungsaxiome’ by ‘observational report’ and ‘Bildmengen/relationen’ by ‘interpreted sets/relations’.
D. Gallin (1975) “Intensional and Higher-Order Modal-Logic”, North-Holland Publ. Comp., Amsterdam, Oxford, New York.
What the method of such learning is, how we proceed rationally in fitting our physical theories to experiments, ‘et vice versa’, I have already explained some years ago in: U. Majer (1975) “Paradigmatische Erklärungen und die Kontinuität der Wissenschaften” in ‘Logik, Ethik, Theorie der Geisteswissenschaften’, XI. Deutscher Kongreß für Philosophie, Felix Meiner Hamburg 1977.
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Majer, U. (1981). Abstraction, Idealization and Approximation. In: Hartkämper, A., Schmidt, HJ. (eds) Structure and Approximation in Physical Theories. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4109-3_8
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