Frege: Philosophy of Language Book

An immense project, with substantive discussion of an enormous range of philosophical topics. It took me about a month to get through, and I think I went through it far too fast. For all his argumentative rigor, Dummett is not very clear in the way he presents his conclusions, nor does he do a good job of "signposting" his arguments in order to give a sense of how things fit together. Given my relative unfamiliarity with many of the topics he delves into, this left me feeling confused and unsure at many points along the way here. The fault is mostly mine and I'm sure I would think differently if I had greater background in the issues, but I still think Dummett could've done a better job articulating what his actual positions are. That being said, I still feel like I learned loads from this book. It did a great job of presenting what a Fregean model of language consists in, understanding Frege's place in the history of analytic philosophy, and seeing how various issues in philosophical logic can be discussed within the context of Frege's theories. Frege's sense/reference distinctions and concept/object distinctions can seem "simple" at first, but really pounding them into your head, understanding what they consist in, and trying to get a sense of their merits versus other conceptions of language is really difficult, at least for me, so this was very helpful for my thinking on the topic. There were many points along the way where I found myself entangled in usual skeptical concerns -- whether or not the questions analytic philosophy asks are actually meaningful or answerable and how to think about pluralism when it comes to "theories of meaning." This book didn't resolve those questions for me. I leave it with the sense that Frege's conception of language is one of the best and most systematic attempts at a theory of meaning, but I am still not convinced that operating strictly within his playing field, as Dummett would, is better than grasping some of his insights but still maintaining more of a deflationary and social perspective a la Wittgenstein or Brandom. Lots more could be said here about every individual chapter and topic Dummett raises -- many-valued logics, mathematical intuitionism, quantification over everything, the status of numbers/colors, how force and sense can be seen as semantic rather than psychological, and the sense of analytic statements were some of my favorites -- but doing so would take far too much time. Going through all of these issues back to back gave me a good sense of how things relate and the implications of Frege's work, while leaving me very unsure about all the specific issues. I am mostly left unsure how much I want to continue exploring these topics, because I recognize how much time and work is needed for me to make progress on understanding them, and how that takes away from my ability to learn other things!