On Frege’s Legacy in the Later Wittgenstein and Brandom

Kurt Wischin
Universidad de Granada, Spain | kurt.wischin@gmail.com

Received: 15-June-2019 | Accepted: 30-June-2019 | Published: 30-June-2019
Disputatio [Jun. 2019], Vol. 8, No. 9, pp. 00-00 | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3479784
Article | [EN] | Full Text | Statistics | Copyright Notice [es] | Vol. 8 No. 9

How to cite this article:
Wischin, Kurt (2019). «On Frege’s Legacy in the Later Wittgenstein and Brandom». Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin 8, no. 9: pp. 00–00.


Abstract | It is generally accepted that Frege is a powerful logician who created completely original tools for analysis which have become the firm ground on which 20th Century logic and analytical philosophy is built, however indirect his influence might be. His specific attempts to construct the foundations of arithmetic, however, are frequently judged to be ill–conceived and no more nowadays than a curiosity of 19th Century philosophy. In the light of scepticism that there is anything left to share after Wittgenstein’s criticism of Frege both in the Tractatus and in Philosophical Investigations, as expressed in particular by P.M.S. Hacker, it is the aim of this paper, first, to show that there is a strand of philosophical thinking that runs from Kant to Frege to Wittgenstein which is worth exploring and developing: Robert B. Brandom’s enterprise of rational pragmatism and inferential semantics is one outstanding example for developing original philosophical thought based on the conviction that Frege’s inheritance is very much alive and worthwhile exploring, along with Kant’s, Hegel’s and Wittgenstein’s, among others. The aim of this paper is, secondly, to explore the seemingly divergent routs some aspects of Frege’s legacy take when reworked by Wittgenstein and Brandom, and further if and how, respectively, these divergences might be seen, after all, as nothing more than local ramifications of one continuous stream of philosophy.
Keywords |
Augustinian Picture · Representing · Inferentialism · Singular Terms · P.M.S. Hacker.

Sobre el legado de Frege en el Wittgenstein tardío y en Brandom

Resumen | Se acepta generalmente que Frege es un potente lógico que creó herramientas totalmente originales para el análisis que se han convertido en la base sólida sobre la cual se erigieron la lógica y la filosofía analítica del siglo XX, por más indirecta que su influencia puede haber sido. Se considera hoy en día, sin embargo, que sus intentos específicos de construir los fundamentos de la aritmética no estaban bien encaminados y que no son más que una curiosidad histórica de la filosofía del siglo XIX. A la luz del escepticismo de que haya quedado algo que compartir después del examen crítico que Wittgenstein hizo de la doctrina de Frege tanto en el Tractatus como en Investigaciones filosóficas, según lo expresa en particular P.M.S. Hacker, el objetivo del presente trabajo es, primero, mostrar que hay una veta de pensamiento filosófico que corre de Kant a Frege y a Wittgenstein que vale la pena explorar y desarrollar: el proyecto de Robert B. Brandom de pragmatismo racional y semántica inferencial es un ejemplo sobresaliente de que se puede generar un pensamiento filosófico original basado en la convicción de que el legado de Frege es muy activo y merecedor de exploración, junto con el de Kant, Hegel y Wittgenstein, entre otros. El objeto del presente trabajo es, en segundo lugar, explorar las vías aparentemente divergentes que algunos aspectos del legado de Frege toman en su adaptación al pensamiento, respectivamente, de Wittgenstein y Brandom y, además, si y cómo estas divergencias podrían ser tomadas, después de todo, como ramificaciones meramente locales de un continuo caudal filosófico.
Palabras Clave | Imagen Agustiniana · Representar · Inferencialismo · Términos singulares · P.M.S. Hacker.


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