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Frege's Begriffsschrift is Indeed First-Order Complete

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Abstract

It is widely taken that the first-order part of Frege's Begriffsschrift (1879) is complete. However, there does not seem to have been a formal verification of this received claim. The general concern is that Frege's system is one axiom short in first-order predicate calculus comparing to, by now, the standard first-order theory. Yet Frege has one extra inference rule in his system. Then the question is whether Frege's first-order calculus is still deductively sufficient as far as the first-order completeness is concerned. In this short note we confirm that the missing axiom is derivable from his stated axioms and inference rules, and hence the logic system in the Begriffsschrift is indeed first-order complete

Description

Keywords

5003 Philosophy, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies

Journal Title

History and Philosophy of Logic

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0144-5340
1464-5149

Volume Title

38

Publisher

Informa UK Limited