Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.14.2.3

Is Incompatibilism Compatible with Fregeanism?

Nils Kürbis orcid.org/0000-0002-3651-5458 ; King's College London

Abstract

This paper considers whether incompatibilism, the view that negation is to be explained in terms of a primitive notion of incompatibility, and Fregeanism, the view that arithmetical truths are analytic according to Frege’s definition of that term in §3 of Foundations of Arithmetic, can both be upheld simultaneously. Both views are attractive on their own right, in particular for a certain empiricist mind-set. They promise to account for two philosophical puzzling phenomena: the problem of negative truth and the problem of epistemic access to numbers. For an incompatibilist, proofs of numerical non-identities must appeal to primitive incompatibilities. I argue that no analytic primitive incompatibilities are forthcoming. Hence incompatibilists cannot be Fregeans.

Keywords

analyticity; arithmetic; falsity; incompatibility; negation

Hrčak ID:

217327

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/217327

Publication date:

7.11.2018.

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