Two Concepts of Concepts in Early Analytic Philosophy

Two Concepts of Concepts in Early Analytic Philosophy

Mark Textor

Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848) and Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) are (very) early analytic philosophers. While Frege’s theory of concepts has received a lot of attention in the development of analytic philosophy, Bolzano’s didn’t. In this paper I will use Bolzano’s theory of concept to highlight how Frege changed how concepts are understood and set the agenda for philosophers after him. For Bolzano, concepts are the opposite of objective intuitions: every nonpropositional presentation which is neither an objective intuition nor contains one is a concept. For Frege, concepts are the opposite of objects: everything that is not an object is a concept. A concept is unsaturated or incomplete, an object is not. Frege’s view of concepts leads to reflection about the metaphysics of incompleteness. In my talk I will pursue the questions How did we get from one view to the other? And: Is this progress?