Mind Association

Frege on Definition
Author(s): V. H. Dudman
Source: Mind, New Series, Vol. 82, No. 328 (Oct., 1973), pp. 609-610
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2252221
Accessed: 06-05-2015 15:52 UTC

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 FREGE ON DEFINITION

LESNIEWSKI was recently' credited with the first formulation of the

demands (1) that defined symbols be everywhere eliminable and (2)
that no definition permit the proof of " previously unprovable
relationships among the old symbols ". In fact, however, pre-
cisely these sentiments had already been expressed very clearly by
Frege. In Begriffsschrift2, for example, he remarked of one of his
definitions:
We can do without the notation introduced by this sentence, and
hence without the sentence itself as its definition; nothing follows
from the sentence that could not also be inferred without it. Our
sole purpose in introducing such definitions is to bring about an
extrinsic simplificationby stipulating an abbreviation.
Under the rubric " Genuine Definition " in an unpublished paper3 of
spring 1914 he again affirmed that " definition really has only to do
with signs " and " can be waived if simplification of expression is not
a desideratum ". By this time he had come to regard the axioms
and theorems of a system as thoughts, and hence as subject to criteria
of identity milder than those for expressions-though how much
milder is of course a vexed question. At any rate he made no bones
about points (1) and (2) above:
A truth which for want of it was unprovable cannot in fact be proved
for the first time by means of a definition. Where something pre-
sented as a definitionreally does make the proof of a truth possible for
the first time, what we have is not a pure definition: something which
ought either to be proved as a theorem or acknowledgedas an axiom
must lie hidden in it. It can indeed seem as though a definitionis able
to make a proof possible for the first time. But here we must dis-
tinguish between sentence and thought expressed therein. If the
defining expression occurs in a sentence and we replace it by the
defined sign, nothing in the thought is altered. We obtain a different
sentence but not a differentthought. If we wish to prove this thought
in such a way that it appearsin the form of the second sentence, then of
course we need the definition. But if the thought can be proved at
all, it can be proved in such a way that it appears in the form of the
first sentence, and then the definition is not required.... In fact
from a logical point of view, definition is evidently quite inessential
and dispensable.
It was urged by E. Z. and E. A. Nemesszeghy that Principia's
contextual definition of ' z, ' is delinquent, rendering otherwise
unprovable formulas provable. In fact, however, its propriety is in
1 E. Z. and E. A. Nemesszeghy, " Is (p, q) = ('p V q) Df. a Proper
Definition in the System of Principia Mathematica?", Mind, lxxx (1971),
282-283.
2 Published 1879. English translation in J. van Heijenoort, (ed.), Source
Book in AMathematical Logic, Cambridge (Mass.), 1964. See ?24.
3 tTJberLogik in der Mathematik ". In G. Frege (ed. H. Hermes et al.),
Nachgelassene Schriften, Hamburg, 1969. See pp. 224-225.
20 609

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610 V. H. DUDMAN:

this respect unimpeachable: the argument to the contrary pro-

ceeded from the claim that ' p v p' is independent in Principia,
and the authors persuaded themselves of this fantastic result by
appealing to a system of quasi-valuations for ' v and
which, in defiance of the very definition whose credentials they were
scrutinizing, assign divergent values to 'p v q' and ' - p v q '. 1
There is an objection which can justly be brought against Principia's
contextual definitions of truth-functional connectives, viz. the
familiar one that, because their formulation is attempted down in
the object language, they are insufficiently general to licence all the
transitions for which they are needed. Thus in the demonstration of
*2-01 the recasting of ' p v p' as 'p v p' is claimed to be
authorized by definition *1-01 of ' v '-which however, taken
literally, permits the interchange only of ' p v q' and 'p Dq.'
Despite his comment in another connection that " rules for the use
of our signs . .. cannot be explained within the Begriffsschrift "7,2
Frege himself likewise withholds metalinguistic status from defini-
tions. The result is an unnecessary complication in his theory of
deduction. Each of his definitions takes the form of an identity
with definiens and definiendum flanking the identity infix. Initially
the whole is preceded by a " double stroke of definition ", but it
cannot be harnessed up to the rest of the deductive machinery in this
form (because a definition is not a judgment but a stipulation). To
permit its employment in " developments of pure Begriffsschrift"
the definition is accordingly transformed into a " proposition of
Begriffsschrift " by having its double stroke of definition replaced by
a single judgment-stroke. Frege is accustomed to justify this
syntactical move semantically by arguing3 that, since a definition
generates an identity of meaning, it is permissible for a judgment to
affirm that identity: " thus the definition goes over directly into a
proposition ". But the entire manoeuvre is uncalled for: the desired
" proposition of Begriffsschrift " is simply a definitional abbreviation
of a substitution instance of Grundgesetze's theorem IIIe (i.e. of
' F a =a '), and its central identity sign thus derives from that
theorem. (-Whereas according to Frege's treatment that identity
sign originated within the definition itself, and survived the defini-
tion's metamorphosis into a proposition.) On this construal, of
course, the employment of the object-language symbol of identity for
setting forth definitions is illegitimate: a definition is not an object-
language identity, but a metalinguistically formulable licence to
abbreviate one expression by means of another.
Macquarie University V. H. DUDMAN

1 For example when ' p ' and ' q ' are each assigned 0, the value of ' p D q ' is
2, although that of ' -p V q ' is 1. The authors seem not to appreciate that
when they concoct functions for 'K ' and ' V ', they ipso facto determine a
function for ' D ' as well, via its definition.
2 Begriffsschrift, ?13.
3 Begriffsschrift, ?24; Grundgesetze?27. Cf. NachgelasseneSchriften, pp. 224 f.

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