Frege: Begriffsschrift-preface

Frege's Begriffsschrift :preface

excerpted from "The Frege Reader" edited by M Beaney, p.51.


1. I hope that logicians, if they are not put off by first impression of unfamiliarity, will not repudiate the innovations to which I was driven by a necessity inherent in the subject matter itself.

2. These deviations from what is traditional find their justification in the fact that logic hitherto has always followed ordinary language and grammer too closely.

3. In particular, I believed that the replacement of the concepts subject and predicate by argument and function will prove itself in the long run. It is easy to see how taking a content as a function of an argument gives to concept formation.

4. What also deserves notice is the demostraion of the connection between the meanings of the words: if, and, not, there is, some, all, etc.