Frege's Realism Revisited: A Critique of Recent Trends in Frege Scholarship

According to the historically dominant interpretation of Frege's philosophy---The Traditional Interpretation (TI), as I call it---Frege held a variety of metaphysical theses typically associated with the labels "realism" and "Platonism." According to a more recent trend in Frege scholarship, the traditional reading of Frege's metaphysics has got it wrong. Proponents of this brand of interpretation---what I call The Revisionist Interpretation (RI)---hold that Frege was fundamentally opposed to views of the realist/Platonist sort. Through critically evaluating and assessing the motivation for RI, one goal of my dissertation is to undermine this growing trend among Frege scholars. Another is to mount a defense of the traditional reading of Frege's metaphysical outlook. In so doing I aim to not only vindicate TI against RI, but also to dislodge a number of unwarranted assumptions which have a strong hold in contemporary Frege scholarship.;In the first chapter, I show that the debate between TI and RI converges on a single aspect of Frege's thinking: his conception of mind-independence or objectivity (Objectiviat). What is important about Frege's conception of objectivity---what I dub "gottlobjectivity"---is its metaphysical implications. If gottlobjectivity commits Frege to mind-independently existing items such as numbers and propositions, then he is a realist and Platonist. Proponents of RI are united in denying this, holding that gottlobjectivity is incompatible with metaphysical theses of either sort. The central claim that I aim to establish in my dissertation, then, is this: gottlobjectivity commits Frege to a variety of metaphysical theses falling under the rubrics "realism"/"Platonism." .;The second chapter outlines two widely endorsed arguments for RI. According to the first---"The Truth-Theoretic Challenge to TI"---Frege's conception of truth precludes him from being a realist. According to the second---"The Epistemological Challenge to TI"---certain of Frege's epistemological doctrines are only acceptable on an RI-friendly interpretive scheme. The third chapter then turns to a critical assessment of The Truth-Theoretic Challenge to TI. To this end, I first show that proponents of this challenge have failed to properly distinguish Frege's semantic theory from his metaphysical views. The reason for this, I argue, is that these interpreters have falsely assumed that realism is a semantic thesis. Once we drop this assumption, it is clear that the challenge altogether fails to undermine TI.;The fourth chapter examines a much neglected aspect of Frege's thinking, namely, his philosophy of aesthetics. Here, I first defend the claim that Frege endorsed a rather extreme version of aesthetic non-realism: subjectivism. Second, I demonstrate that Frege's claims about the subject matter of aesthetics, when conjoined with his claims about truth, entail that he was a Platonic realist about truth. Finally, in light of these results, I defend the view that gottlobjectivity commits Frege to a variety of metaphysical theses falling under the rubrics "realism"/"Platonism.";In the final chapter, I return the second widely endorsed argument for RI, The Epistemological Challenge to TI. There, I argue that the revisionist claims concerning Frege's epistemological doctrines are unfounded. The mistake here is that Frege simply did not have the epistemological concerns that contemporary philosophers associate with realist/Platonist doctrines. And once we take this into consideration, it is clear that Frege's epistemological outlook is well accounted for on TI.