Frege and the Role of Historical

Elucidation: Methodology and the

Foundations of Mathematics
Michael Beaney

Without the concepts, methods and results found and developed by previous
generations right down to Greek antiquity one cannot understand either the aims
or achievements of mathematics in the last 50 years. (Hermann Weyl, 1951.)

1 Introduction

In their ‘Opinionated Introduction’ to the collection of papers published in 1988,

History and Philosophy of Modern Mathematics, the editors William Aspray
and Philip Kitcher suggested that there were two general programs in the
philosophy of mathematics as they saw it at the time. The first, originating in
Frege’s work, ‘conceives of the philosophy of mathematics as centered on the
problem of the foundations of mathematics’, while the second, newer and less
developed, ‘takes the central problem to be that of articulating the methodology
of mathemat- ics’, pursued through detailed historical investigation (1988, 19).
Fifteen years later, the same two general programs can be discerned – if
anything, in sharper forms. Recent work by neo-Fregeans such as Bob Hale and
Crispin Wright has restored logicism to the agenda; and there have been a
number of fine historical studies over the last few years. Aspray and Kitcher
also raised the question of whether the two programs were consistent. At first
sight they seem clearly incon- sistent. For if mathematics has foundations,
particularly if those foundations are knowable a priori, then historical
investigations appear ir relevant. This certainly seems true, if Fregean views lie
at the core of the program, for in arguing that arithmetic had logical
foundations, Frege himself repudiated all historical and empirical approaches.
However, one can take the problem of the foundations of mathematics as the
central issue in the philosophy of mathematics without necessarily believing
that there is a foundation; and one can argue that a proper understanding of the
problem itself requires historical investigation. Indeed, as I will argue in this
chapter, one can go further. It is not just that historical investigation can help in
understanding the problem, but that its solution requires an
historical approach. The obvious way to show this, and to bring together the two
programs that Aspray and Kitcher distinguished, is to consider Frege’s own
methodology in his work on the foundations of arithmetic. Frege may have
repudiated historical approaches himself, but as the history of any discipline
shows, the practitioner of a method is not necessarily the best person to reflect
upon it or explain its motivation and operation. Frege came to recogniz e the
need for what he called ‘elucidation’, but he failed to appreciate the historical
understanding that this presupposes. In clarifying the role of what I shall call
‘historical elucidation’ in Frege’s work on the foundations of mathematics, I
will compare his views with some of Dedekind’s, Russell’s and Hilbert’s views.
Before looking at Frege’s methodology, however, I will say something briefly
about Kant, whose philosophy of mathematics forms an essential part of the
background to Frege’s work and to the debate in which Frege staked out such a
clear position.