Ideas, indexicals, and the private language in Frege's philosophy

Authors

MATAIL Pavel

Year of publication 2024
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Studia philosophica
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
web https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/handle/11222.digilib/digilib.81188
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/sPh2024-2-2
Keywords private language; indexicals; Frege; late Wittgenstein; Sinn; thoughts; ideas
Description The study concerns a possible private language in the philosophy of Gottlob Frege, particularly in his scarce investigation of indexicals such as 'I' and 'now'. The indexicals may be seen as private from the late-Wittgensteinian perspective because their sense (Sinn) cannot be repeated outside of a specific linguistic context of the expression. The study examines whether these indexicals presuppose a private language. If Frege's philosophy contains such privateness (for which only insufficient evidence can be found), it would be peculiar since a major part of his work implies that all thoughts are objective and publicly communicable. However, the privateness in Frege's remarks rather differs from Wittgenstein's, for the indexical's sense should be principally expressible at any time.
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