Gottlob Frege: Biography of This German Philosopher

Do you know who Gottlob Frege was? G. Frege (1848-1925) was a German philosopher, logician and mathematician, considered the father of analytical philosophy and mathematical logic.

Analytical philosophy is a branch of knowledge that deals with logically analyzing scientific language and also common language. For its part, mathematical logic (or symbolic logic) studies logic and its application in mathematics.

In this article we will learn about the most important milestones in the life of this philosopher through a biography of Gottlob Frege in addition to his most relevant contributions and works in his different fields of study.

Gottlob Frege: who was he?

Gottlob Frege, full name Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) was a German philosopher, logician and mathematician He was born in Wismar (Germany), on November 8, 1848, and died in Bad Kleinen (Germany), on July 26, 1925.

For many, Frege is considered the father of two very specific currents in the field of philosophy: mathematical logic and analytical philosophy. Regarding the latter, analytical philosophy, Frege established, together with the renowned philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, the bases and foundations of this type of thinking.

Gottlob Frege’s most relevant contributions were in the field of mathematics and the philosophy of language Frege became a professor of mathematics at the University of Jena (Germany).

For a long time (practically until the end of his life), Gottlob Frege went unnoticed in these fields of knowledge and, in a certain way, “in the shadows.” However, thanks to two outstanding figures, the philosopher, mathematician and logician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), and the philosopher and mathematician Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932), Gottlob’s work became widely known.

Thought and relevant contributions

Gottlob Frege believed that mathematics and language could be reduced to logic; With this idea, he developed a logical program that had the mission of analyzing the foundations, both logical and philosophical, of mathematics and language.

As a result of this whole process, he developed modern logic, which was a kind of antithesis to the predominant classical logic of the time, since the time of Aristotle. His contributions, greatly influenced by Russell, Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, gave rise to the so-called analytical philosophy

Thus, we can say that Frege was the first to address the foundations of mathematics; What he did was establish the relationship (according to him, quite close) between the definition of the essence of mathematical knowledge, and the rigorous description of the demonstrative processes.

What Frege wanted was to demonstrate that arithmetic was a branch of logic and that, as such, it did not need experience or intuition to demonstrate its principles.

On the other hand, Gottlob Frege also He was one of the first to analyze language through a logical method In this way, as we see, Frege intended, for much of his career, to combine logic, mathematics, philosophy and language.

Origin

Going into this biography of Gottlob Frege, we know that born in Wismar (Germany), on November 8, 1848 Her father was Carl Alexander Frege (1809-1866), co-founder and director of a girls’ school. Her mother was Auguste Wilhelmine Sophie Frege (1815-1898), from a Polish noble family.

It is worth mentioning that when Carl died (in 1866), it was Auguste who took charge of directing this girls’ school.

Childhood

Regarding Gottlob Frege’s childhood, we can say that some milestones at that time would mark, in a certain way, his academic and professional career, especially as far as philosophy is concerned.

One of these events was the publication of a book, by his father, entitled Hülfsbuch zum Unterrichte in der deutschen Sprache für Kinder von 9 bis 13 Jahren. This book dealt with a topic that would greatly influence Frege’s ideas and interests, and that was the logical structure of language.

Academic and professional career

Once childhood was over, Gottlob Frege set out to pursue his studies. He first studied compulsory education at the “gymnasium” (Secondary School) in Wismar. There he graduated in 1869, at the age of twenty-one.

A little later that same year, in 1869, Frege began studying mathematics at the University of Jena. He spent two years at said university, taking mathematics and physics subjects. Although his major was mathematics, Frege also attended some classes in Kantian philosophy in which he learned about the work of Immanuel Kant.

Far from focusing solely on mathematics, Frege also studied philosophy and physics at the universities of Jena and Göttingen (Germany). Furthermore, at the latter (University of Göttingen) He received his doctorate in philosophy in 1873

Regarding his professional career, Frege began working as a mathematics professor at one of the universities where he had studied: the University of Jena. From there, he worked practically his entire life as a mathematics teacher in different entities.

Influences

Some of Frege’s most notable teachers were: the philosopher Kuno Fischer (1824-1907) and the physicists Hermann Schaeffer (1824-1900), Christian Philipp Karl Snell (1806-1886) and Traugott Schaeffer (1824-1900).

It is worth highlighting the influence that another teacher had on Frege: the physicist Ernst Karl Abbe (1840–1905), known for laying the foundations of modern optics, along with other colleagues. We can say that Abbe was Gottlob Frege’s mentor throughout his entire academic career.

Relevant works

We can highlight three essential works by Gottlob Frege, which intermingle his three fundamental pillars of knowledge: logic, philosophy and mathematics.

1. Begriffsschrift (1879)

Frege’s first relevant work was Begriffsschrift, which was translated as “Ideography, a formal language of pure thought in imitation of arithmetic”; through it, Frege lays the foundations of modern logic, and establishes, for the first time, a system of mathematical logic, through a symbolic language

It is curious that this work, which today is one of his most important works (also for philosophy in general), was ignored at first, especially by his colleagues.

2. Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884)

Translated as “Fundamentals of Arithmetic”, here Frege specifies what the philosophical foundations of mathematics are

3. Uber Sinn und Bedeutung (1892)

Translated as: “On Meaning and Reference”, this work is currently considered Gottlob Frege’s most read work. Specifically, It is a seminal article in which he expresses his fundamental ideas about the philosophy of language