Philosophy 791F – Seminar: Frege
Fall 2005,  Mondays 3:35 in 209 Bartlett Hall




Instructor:            Kevin C. Klement (Please call me “Kevin”.)
Office location:    353 Bartlett Hall
Office hours:        Mondays 1:30-2:30, and Wednesdays 2:30-3:30 and by appt.
Office phone:        (413) 545-5784
E-mail address:    klement@philos.umass.edu

Course description:
A close examination of the philosophy of Gottlob Frege, with emphasis on his philosophy of language and the theory of sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung). Related philosophical issues in philosophical logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind will also be discussed. We'll also be considering various systems for intensional logic inspired by Frege in some detail, and contrast them with other logical treatments of “intensional” entities such as senses, thoughts, propositions and universals.

Texts:
I have ordered The Frege Reader (Blackwell 1997), edited by Michael Beaney. It is available at Amherst Books (formerly Atticus Books) in downtown Amherst. Other readings will be made available for photocopy.

Requirements:
Your final grade will be based on the following requirements:
· in-class participation (15%)
· one class presentation (15%)
· weekly assignments (25%), and
· a final term paper or book reviews (45%).

Participation:  You are expected to attend seminar meetings regularly, and participate by raising points for discussion, commenting on points made by others, and/or raising questions.

Presentation: Early in the semester, each student will choose (or be assigned) one week in which he or she is expected to give a (roughly) 15 minute presentation on the readings for that week, to be presented at the beginning of the seminar meeting. The presentation should (1) summarize the main points of the readings, though at his or her discretion the presenter may focus on certain issues he or she finds most interesting, (2) identify any questions or concerns the presenter has with understanding or interpreting the material, which he or she would like to discuss in class, (3) critically discuss one or more philosophical or logical issues raised in the readings, as a starting point for seminar discussion.

Weekly Assignments: You are expected to carefully read the selected texts for each session before the seminar meeting and come prepared to discuss them. To facilitate this, each week you are expected to write a 1-3 page essay in which you (1) summarize the required reading, (2) identify any criticisms or points of discussion (including points in need of clarification). These essays are due at the start of class on the day we will be discussing the relevant readings. You will be graded on a 1-5 scale, with 1 representing a barely acceptable essay, 2 representing a deeply problematic essay that misrepresents the views of Frege or other philosopher or commits other abuses of philosophical method, 3 representing an essay that is slightly lacking in some area, but generally acceptable, 4 representing a good essay that performs the desired tasks as expected, and 5 representing an essay with substantial and original insight. (You should never expect to receive anything above 4. A student receiving a 4 on every assignment should still expect a good grade for this portion. I will only award a 5 to an essay that surpasses my expectations.) You need not complete a weekly assignment during the week you will be giving a presentation. In determining your grade, I will take into account only your 9 highest scores of 11 possible essays. This means you may either drop your two lowest scores, or simply not write two essays (or combine the two options).

You are also to choose between the following two options:
        1. Term paper (15-25 pages): The paper should constitute critical and original discussion either of the interpretation of Frege’s works or the philosophical issues they raise. The amount of outside research done for the paper is left to your discretion, but a careful search of the relevant secondary material is strongly recommended. -- OR --
        2. Book reviews:  Read TWO books written on or about Frege’s philosophy or related issues (--if you have doubts about what is acceptable, please ask!--), and for EACH, prepare a lengthy academic-style book review (6-10 pages each) in which you first summarize the book, and evaluate it in terms of the accuracy of its interpretation of Frege (if applicable), and/or its other philosophical merits or demerits.
        (This is due either on the last day of finals week, December 22nd, if you don’t take an incomplete, or the first day of Spring semester, January 31st, if you do.)
 
Tentative Reading Schedule, Fall 2005

Sept 12    Course Introduction

Sept 19    Frege, Begriffsschrift (excerpts) (in FR pp. 47-78)

Sept 26    Frege, Letter to Marty, 29 Aug. 1882 (in FR pp. 79-83)
           Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic [Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik] (excerpts) (in FR pp. 84-129)

Oct 3      Frege, “Function and Concept” (in FR pp. 130-148)
           Frege, “On Concept and Object” (in FR pp. 181-193)

Oct 10     Columbus Day Holiday. Class moved to Wednesday.

W Oct 12   Frege, Letter to Husserl, 24 May 1891 (in FR pp. 149-150)
           Frege, “On Sinn and Bedeutung” (in FR pp. 151-171)
           Frege, “Comments on Sinn and Bedeutung” (in FR pp. 172-180)

Oct 17     Frege, Basic Laws of Arithmetic [Grundgesetze der Arithmetik] vol. I (excerpts)
           (in FR pp. 194-223), and additional sections for photocopy
        
Oct 24     Russell, letter to Frege, 16 June 1902, and Frege, letter to Russell, 22 June 1902
           (in FR pp. 252-53)
           Frege, Basic Laws of Arithmetic [Grundgesetze der Arithmetik] vol. II, Appendix
           (in FR pp. 279-289)

Oct 31     Frege, “Logic” (in FR pp. 227-250)
           Frege, “Thought” (in FR pp. 325-345)

Nov 7      Frege, “Compound Thoughts” (on reserve), “Introduction to Logic” (excerpts) (in FR pp. 293-299),
             “A Brief Survey of my Logical Doctrines” (excerpt) (in FR pp. 299-300), letter to Jourdain, Jan 1914
             (in FR pp. 319-21), “Notes for Ludwig Darmstädter” (in FR pp. 362-367)

Nov 14     No class. (Friday class schedule followed.)

Nov 21     Church, “A Formulation of the Simple Theory of Types,” Journal of Symbolic
               Logic 5 (June 1940): 56-68. (on reserve, and on JSTOR)
           Church, “A Formulation of the Logic of Sense and Denotation,” pp. 3-24, in Structure,
               Method and Meaning, Essays in Honor of H. M. Sheffer (New York, 1951) (on reserve)
           Church, “A Formulation of the Logic of Sense and Denotation (Abstract),” in
               “Eighth Meeting of the Association for Symbolic Logic” (minutes),
               Journal of Symbolic Logic 11 (March 1946), p. 31. (on reserve and JSTOR)

Nov 28     Myhill, “Problems Arising in the Formalization of Intensional Logic,” Logique et Analyse 1  
              (1958): 78-83. (on reserve)
           Anderson, “Some New Axioms for the Logic of Sense and Denotation: Alternative (0),” Noûs 14
              (1980): 217-34. (on reserve and on JSTOR)

Dec 5      Topic Open

Dec 12     Topic Open

(Possible “Topic Open” readings: Russell’s “On Denoting” and related material, portions Carnap’s Meaning and Necessity, The Frege-Hilbert debate on axiomatics, more Frege on mathematics, more on the Logic of Sense and Denotation, more secondary literature on sense/reference, Dummett, Parsons and others on indirect senses, Quine, Kaplan and others on quantifying in and propositional attitudes, some neo-Fregean foundations of arithmetic from Boolos and others, etc.)