董氏文史哲青年学术沙龙、西溪逻辑论坛第74期

Speaker: Prof. Matthias Schirn (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, University of Munich)
Date & Time: 19 October 2017 (Thursday), 18:30 – 20:30
Place: Room 259, Main Teaching Building, Zhejiang University

Title: Second-Order Abstraction Before And After Russell’s Paradox

Abstract: In this talk, I analyze several aspects of Frege’s paradigms of second-order abstraction: Axiom V and Hume’s Principle. The issues dealt with include self-evidence and epistemic (non-)triviality with particular emphasis on Axiom V, Frege’s attitude towards Axiom V before and after Russell’s discovery of the contradiction, as well as the possible role and the status of Hume’s Principle in the face of Russell’s Paradox. In the central part, I pursue a threefold aim: (a) to shed new light on the connection between Frege’s way of introducing the primitive function-names of his logical system and the requisite self-evidence of his axioms in whose expression such a function-name occurs; (b) to analyze the semantic nature of the (formal) linguistic expression of Axiom V, and (c) to examine the conflict between the requirements of self-evidence and real epistemic value or genuine knowledge arising inevitably and invariably from Fregean abstraction principles, if they are singled out as axioms of a theory T.

Handout: Schirn abstract and handout

Reference 1: Frege RSL final version

Reference 2: Schirn-OUP-final-26.2.16