Frege's philosophy of geometry

Schirn, Matthias (2019): Frege's philosophy of geometry. In: Synthese, Bd. 196, Nr. 3: S. 929-971

Abstract

In this paper, I critically discuss Frege's philosophy of geometry with special emphasis on his position in The Foundations of Arithmetic of 1884. In Sect.2, I argue that that what Frege calls facultyof intuition in his dissertation (1873) is probably meant to refer to a capacity of visualizing geometrical configurations structurally in a way which is essentially the same for most Western educated human beings. I further suggest that according to his Habilitationsschrift (1874) it is through spatial intuition that we come to know the axioms of Euclidean geometry. In Sect.3, I argue that Frege seems right in claiming in The Foundations, 14 that the synthetic nature of the Euclidean axioms follows from the fact that they are independent of one another and of the primitive laws of logic. If the former were dependent on (provable from) the latter, they would be analytic in Frege's sense of analyticity. But then they would not be independent of one another and due to their mutual provability would lose their status as axioms of Euclidean geometry, since according to Frege an axiom of a theory T is per definitionen unprovable in T. I further argue that only by invoking pure spatial intuition can Frege explain the (alleged) epistemological status of the axioms of Euclidean geometry completely: their synthetic a priori nature. Finally, I argue that his view about independence in The Foundations, 14 seems to clash with his conception of independence in his mature period. In Sect.4, I scrutinize Frege's somewhat vague, but unduly neglected remarks in The Foundations, 26 on space, spatial intuition and the axioms of Euclidean geometry. I argue that for the sake of coherence Frege should have said unambiguously that space is objective, that it is independedent not only of our spatial intuition, but of our mental life altogether including our judgements about space, instead of encouraging the possible conjecture that in his view it contains an objective and a subjective component. I further argue that for Frege the objectivity of both space and the axioms of Euclidean geometry manifests itself in our universal and compulsory acknowledgement of the Euclidean axioms as true. I conclude Sect.4 by arguing that there is a conflict between the subjectivity of our spatial intuitions as stressed in The Foundations, 26 and Frege's thesis in his dissertation that the axioms of Euclidean geometry derive their validity from the nature of our faculty of intuition. To resolve this conflict, I propose that in the light of his avowed realism in The Foundations Frege could have replaced his early thesis by saying that although we come to know the axioms of Euclidean geometry through spatial intuition and are justified in acknowledging them as true on the basis of geometrical intuition, their truth is independent not only of the nature of our faculty of intuition and singular acts of intuition, but of our mental processes and activities in general, including the inner mental act of judging. In Sect.5, I argue that Frege most likely did not adopt Kant's method of acquiring geometrical knowledge via the ostensive construction of concepts in spatial intuition. In contrast to Kant, Frege holds that the axioms of three-dimensional Euclidean geometry express state of affairs about space obtaining independently of our spatial intuition. In Sect.6, I conclude with a summarized assessment of Frege's philosophy of geometry.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 100 Philosophie
• ISSN: 0039-7857
• Sprache: Englisch