Frege Quotes & Sayings

I compare arithmetic with a tree that unfolds upwards in a multitude of techniques and theorems while the root drives into the depths. — Gottlob Frege

Frege has the merit of ... finding a third assertion by recognising the world of logic which is neither mental nor physical. — Bertrand Russell

The thought: A logical inquiry — Gottlob Frege

Having visual impressions is, of course, necessary for seeing things, but it is not sufficient. What must be added is not anything sensible. And it is precisely this that unlocks the outer world for us; for without this non-sensible something, each of us would remain locked up in his inner world. — Gottlob Frege

One can hardly deny that mankind has a common store of thoughts which is transmitted from one generation to another. — Gottlob Frege

Your discovery of the contradiction caused me the greatest surprise and, I would almost say, consternation, since it has shaken the basis on which I intended to build my arithmetic ... It is all the more serious since, with the loss of my rule V, not only the foundations of my arithmetic, but also the sole possible foundations of arithmetic seem to vanish. — Gottlob Frege

It really is worth the trouble to invent a new symbol if we can thus remove not a few logical difficulties and ensure the rigour of the proofs. But many mathematicians seem to have so little feeling for logical purity and accuracy that they will use a word to mean three or four different things, sooner than make the frightful decision to invent a new word. — Gottlob Frege

There is more danger of numerical sequences continued indefinitely than of trees growing up to heaven. Each will some time reach its greatest height. — Gottlob Frege

It is possible, of course, to operate with figures mechanically, just as it is possible to speak like a parrot: but that hardly deserves the names of thought. It only becomes possible at all after the mathematical notation has, as a result of genuine thought, been so developed that it does the thinking for us, so to speak. — Gottlob Frege

'Facts, facts, facts,' cries the scientist if he wants to emphasize the necessity of a firm foundation for science. What is a fact? A fact is a thought that is true. But the scientist will surely not recognize something which depends on men's varying states of mind to be the firm foundation of science. — Gottlob Frege

I went back into the house and had put on the kettle for another cup of tea when my attention was caught by a spider on the kitchen wall. As I drew nearer to look at it, the spider called out, "Hello!" It did not seem at all strange to me that a spider should say hello (any more than it seemed strange to Alice when the White Rabbit spoke). I said, "Hello, yourself," and with this we started a conversation, mostly on rather technical matters of analytic philosophy. Perhaps this direction was suggested by the spider's opening comment: did I think that Bertrand Russell had exploded Frege's paradox? Or perhaps it was its voice - pointed, incisive, and just like Russell's voice (which I had heard on the radio, but also - hilariously - as it had been parodied in Beyond the Fringe).9 D — Oliver Sacks

Central to Frege's philosophy was the assertion that truth is independent of human judgment. In his Basic Laws of Arithmetic he writes: "Being true is different from being taken to be true, whether by one or many or everybody, and in no case is it to be reduced to it. There is no contradiction in something's being true which everybody takes to be false. I understand by 'laws of logic' not psychological laws of takings-to-be-true, but laws of truth...they [the laws of truth] are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace. — Frege, Gottlob

Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician. — Gottlob Frege

What are numbers? What is the nature of arithmetical truth? — Gottlob Frege

A scientist can hardly meet with anything more undesirable than to have the foundations give way just as the work is finished. I was put in this position by a letter from Mr. Bertrand Russell when the work was nearly through the press. — Gottlob Frege

That's the rankest psychologism, and was conclusively revealed as hogwash by Gottlob Frege in the 1890s! — Sheldon Cooper

The aim of scientific work is truth. While we internally recognise something as true, we judge, and while we utter judgements, we assert. — Gottlob Frege

Arithmetic has began to totter. — Gottlob Frege

A scientist can hardly encounter anything more desirable than, just as a work is completed, to have its foundation give way. — Gottlob Frege