Arkadiusz Gut
Priority of Thought or Priority of Language

Abstract: It has been indicated that Frege’s view concerning the thought-language relationship contains inner tensions. They arise from the fact that in Frege’s writings we find two inconsistent statements, namely that the structure of sentence serves as the structure of thought and that two structurally different sentences can express one and the same thought. In the presented paper I start with Dummett’s three partial claims leading to the conclusion that Frege supports the hypothesis of the priority of language over thought. Next, I show that the three statements lead to a general rule which, according to Dummett, says that for Frege and all the later analytic philosophers the characteristics of a thought may be obtained through a philosophical characteristics of a sentence (or more broadly – of language). Next, I provide a set of arguments showing that that the view suggested by Dummett encountered, generally speaking, many lines of criticism. At same time,X I develop a suggestion that Frege’s project advocates rather the thesis that two sentences with different predicative structure can express one and the same thought.

Key words: Frege, thought, meaning, language, logical form, analytical philosophy

• Philosophy of Language and Linguistics. The Legacy of Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein. DE GRUYTER 2014, Pages: 71–98
• ISBN (Online): 9783110342758
• DOI (Chapter): 10.1515/9783110342758.71
• DOI (Book): 10.1515/9783110342758