[FOM] FOM: FREGE ON SELF-EVIDENCE AND ON THE PROPERTY OF BEING SELF-EVIDENT

[John Corcoran]

FREGE ON SELF-EVIDENCE AND ON THE PROPERTY OF BEING SELF-EVIDENT For
research on Frege's 1903 reaction to the Russell paradox, I am trying to
find previous places where he mentions or discusses the topic of
self-evidence. Two of the five places I now know of are quoted below
along with comments by a colleague who gave me permission to quote as
long as I say that views are tentative and subject to modification. The
other three I now know of are: 'self-evident'1980, 36, 152, 168. 

1. FREGE 1902 ON SELF-EVIDENCE: I have set myself the goal of basing
arithmetic on logic. ... Thus nothing must be left to mere
self-evidence, for its nature and laws are unknown.  One could then
never be certain that this [SELF-] evidence was purely logical. - Frege
to Huntington (undated, c. 1902, 1980, 57).  Here Frege implies that
there is self-evidence other than that by which laws of logic are known
to be true.  He also implies that we can never know of a known
self-evident truth whether its self-evidence is logical or non-logical.
This may seem to imply that even if he reaches his goal he can never
know that he has reached it.  And he seems to think that Huntington
already accepts these points or will readily accept them without
argumentation or explanation. Or am I missing something? The broader
context does not seem to matter. - Frango Nabrasa.

2. FREGE 1903 ON SELF-EVIDENCE: It is a matter of my Axiom V.  I have
never disguised from myself its lack of the self-evidence that belongs
to the other axioms and that must properly be demanded of a logical law.
Frege 1903, 253.  If Frege did not disguise this from himself, why did
he disguise it from his readers by alleging that he had succeeded in
basing arithmetic on logic? Why did he not tell them that he had more
work to do on it? Why did he call it Axiom V and not Hypothesis V,
Postulate V, or Assumption V?  And if all logical laws are self-evident,
what is the role of proof in logic?  Do we prove that propositions are
self-evident? This passage struck me as carelessly written and as
insincere. - Frango Nabrasa.

Q1. Do Frege's translators use some other English expression in
rendering Frege's German on this topic? Is 'self-evident' just a bad
translation?

Q2. Does Frege anywhere indicate the kind of criterion, feeling or
perception that he took to warrant ascription of "self-evident" to a
belief?

Q3. Does Frege anywhere indicate the kind of criterion, feeling or
perception that he took to warrant ascription of "purely logical" to a
belief?

Q4. Does Frege anywhere indicate the kind of procedure he followed in
arriving at his judgement of the "validity" of his axioms or of the
"cogency" of his rules of inference?

Q5. Does Frege anywhere indicate the kind of procedure he followed in
arriving at his judgment of the "non-validity" of a "thought" or
"proposition" or of the "non-cogency" of a rule of progressing from 
proposition to proposition?

Q6. Aside from the above mentioned passages where does Frege discuss
self-evidence or the property of being self-evident?

Q7. Have you used the word 'self-evident' or its cognates in you own
publications in logic or foundations? If so, please give bibliographic
detail and add a short comment on what you had in mind.


- 





-