New Essays on Frege : Between Science and Literature

One of the aims of this volume is to explore Frege’s conception of philosophy by
looking at his way of characterizing and elaborating the relation between science
and Dichtung. To ask questions about this relation is also to ask about the distinction
between fact and fiction, and about what is found between them—such as philoso-
phy, the humanities, the language of life. It is further to ask about the relation
between thought and world, and between language and logic, according to Frege.
The possibility of translation between languages, and the notion of communicating
the same meaning in different languages, is hence a topic that becomes central to
more than one of the essays in the volume, regardless of whether the focus of is on
science or Dichtung. The diversity of focal points and interpretations brought out in
the essays of this volume will hopefully bring out a more nuanced picture of Frege
the philosopher who is often taken to subscribe to scientism. It also reflects the difficulties involved in placing Frege with regard to the distinction between a scientific
and a philosophical approach that von Wright made use of in his outline of the origins of analytic philosophy.