Philosophy and Personal Development

Those who have not taken the time to explore the wonderful world of philosophy may consider it as having very little practical value or benefit in the real world.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The word philosophy is derived from the Greek words "philo" meaning love and "sophia" meaning wisdom. Therefore it is the love of wisdom and the seeking of knowledge in understanding the nature of the universe, man, and the human condition. What could be more relevant?

How does philosophy contribute to personal development?

Studying philosophy and the works of some of the greatest thinkers in the history of the world is invaluable in helping us determine who we are and what we are doing here. Contemplating what the great philosophers have found to be meaningful and worthy assists us in establishing our own views on life, our purpose, and our values.

William Ralph Inge said: "The object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other people's".

 More than just a pursuit of knowledge, philosophy is also an activity; one that teaches us to analyze, assess and reason. It is an instrument for acquiring and honing critical thinking and problem solving skills. Anyone pursuing a career in law is required to take courses in philosophy for the purposes of cultivating logical and methodical thinking.

If it were not for philosophy and logic, knowledge about ourselves and the world we live in would be very limited.

Each month this section will feature a philosopher from a different period in history and his contributions to Western thought. Enjoy the information and allow it to expand your thinking and viewpoint.

Gottlob Frege (1848 -1925)

 
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German logician, mathematician and philosopher born on November 8, 1848 in Wismar, Germany to Karl Alexander Frege, and Auguste (Bialloblotzsky) Frege. Little is known about his early life other than he studied at a gymnasium in Wismar, graduating in 1869, after which he attended the University of Jena for four years of study. In 1873 he attained his doctorate at University of Göttingen, later returning to the University of Jena as a professor where he remained for the rest of his intellectual life.

Frege's work went largely unnoticed during his own lifetime; however he has since become one of the greatest influences on twentieth century philosophy for his work in logic and analytic philosophy. His logical works were revolutionary and his invention of 'quantificational' logic was the greatest development in that subject since Aristotle. It has replaced Aristotelian 'syllogistic' logic in most university courses.

Frege regarded logic as the foundation for philosophy. In doing so he initiated a radical change from the position of the majority of Western philosophers who were mainly preoccupied with the nature of knowledge rather than with logic. Frege's work Foundations of Arithmetic, published in 1884, was a starting point for this foundation. In it he asks two major questions: What are numbers? What is arithmetical truth? In dealing with these questions he dismantles most of his predecessors' answers to them. 

Frege argues that numbers are neither Platonic perfections existing in a separate realm, nor are they abstractions from observation as J. S. Mill held. Like Leibniz he was convinced that the truths of arithmetic are logical and analytic. He further suggests that numbers belong to concepts and are only ascertained by being attributed to those concepts. He writes:

Numbers are likewise objects, and just as in the statement 'Socrates is wise'; 'is' is an assertion about the characteristic of Socrates, so should the 'four' in the 'number of Jupiter's moons is four' be seen as identical with 'the number of Jupiter's moons'. Frege defines the concept of 'having the same number as' by means of logical rather than arithmetical terms.

Similarly Frege analyzed sentences in arithmetical terms of function and argument. The sentence 'Socrates is wise' contains a function '( ) is wise'. Socrates takes the place of argument for that function. This corresponds to the numerical example of '3 + 4' which can be analyzed as '( ) + ( )' being completed as the arguments '3' and '4'. Since neither the functional expression nor the argument assert anything individually and only when combined, it follows that the meaning of a term can only be given in the context of the sentence as a whole.

Frege's philosophy of language ensues largely from his philosophy of mathematics. He argued that since meaning is primarily a property of sentences and derivative terms, we can then apply a distinction in meaning between the sense and reference of an expression. This sense/reference distinction has become the center of many current theories of meaning that try to show how language is connected to reality. Since the sense of an expression, according to Frege, determines what it refers to, there must be a fundamental connection between what we say and what there is.

Frege's theory of meaning, especially his distinction between the sense and reference of linguistic expressions, was groundbreaking in semantics and the philosophy of language. His works set the stage for and had a profound influence on such thinkers as Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. 

Frege is often called the founder of modern logic, and he is sometimes even heralded as the founder of analytic philosophy.