FREGE’S ANALYSIS OF THOUGHT

Gottlob Frege was a German logician, mathematician and philosopher who played a crucial role
in the emergence of modern logic and analytic philosophy. Frege is often called the founder of
modern logic and sometimes as the founder of analytic philosophy. In his ‘The Thought: A
Logical Inquiry’, talking about the thought, he writes that it is something for which the question
of truth arises. It is the sense of a sentence but the sense of every sentence is not a thought. The
thought is immaterial because it is our consciousness. Metaphorically, it just clothes itself into
the material garment of a sentence making itself comprehensible to us.

Everything that is material is excluded from the sphere of thought for which the question of truth
arises. Truth is not a quality that corresponds with a particular kind of sense-impression.
Sense-impression pertains to things in the material world. It is sharply distinguished from the
qualities we denote to quality-word. What is seen to be true in the material-phenomenal world is
based on this sense-impression. But being true itself is not material or a perceptible property.
True is indefinable and it does not add anything new to your thought.

He also talks about proper names and their use in expression of the thought. He says that not
everyone is presented to himself in a particular and primitive way, in which he is presented to
no-one else. So if one says, “I have been wounded” to the other, he must use it in the sense of
“he who is speaking to you (that other) at this moment”. The way he understands “I” for himself
will be different than that of the other. This raises the need for a distinction between an inner and
an outer world.

One might realise it after a very short observation, say of a tree, that the way he is perceiving it is
different from that of another being. The observation of the world using sense-impressions is
very different from his own imaginationation too. Classifying this under the word ‘idea’, can one
say that thought belongs to an inner world? Are they ideas?

Ideas cannot be seen or touched, cannot be smelled, nor tasted, nor heard. Material things are
tangible, ideas aren’t. One only retains the impression of tangible-outer worldly substance. Ideas
belong to the content of one’s consciousness. Ideas need a bearer whereas the things of outer
world are independent. Each one has his own idea of the same thing therefore, no other person
will have the idea which I have even though they can see the same thing as I. Every idea has only
one bearer and no two men have the same idea because if they did, the ideas would exist
independently of its bearer.

Elaborating on if ideas existed independently, Frege writes that then everything would have been
an idea. One pointing towards an object like “a lime-tree” would be just an idea of an individual
and since no two men can bear the same idea, no one except the one pointing towards “the
lime-tree” would be able to grasp it. Hence, everything would have been an idea including the
bearer of the idea. This would have taken us far from reality and one would have gone astray into
the sphere of fiction without knowing it or wanting to.

Clarifying on the question of if the thoughts are ideas, Frege gives the example of Pythagorean
theorem. He says that it is a thought expressed. It is not an idea because it is commonly
recognised by all. If it would have been an idea, it would have been referred to as “his
pythagorean theorem” or “my pythagorean theorem” instead of “the pythagorean theorem”
because no two people can bear the same idea. But since we all have a common understanding of
Pythagorean theorem, it is a thought as a content of one’s consciousness. This also indicates that
the words “true” and “false”, could also be applicable only to the sphere of an individual’s
consciousness if they were not concerned with something of which that individual was not the
bearer. This way, if it were to be an objective reality, the truth would be restricted to the content
of one’s consciousness only and there would not have been anything at all to compare to the
consciousness of others.

If every thought required a bearer, then there would have been no science on which humanity
could work together, neither would there have been any contradiction between two sciences and
everybody would have thought that what they know is real, genuine and best. Therefore,
thoughts are not ideas. They just correspond to ideas. If someone takes thoughts to be ideas, what
he then recognises to be true is, on his own, the content of his consciousness and does not
properly concern other people at all. Hence, thoughts are neither things of outer world nor ideas.

Whatever belongs to thoughts corresponds with ideas and it cannot be perceived by the sense but
with the things. It needs no bearer to the contents of whose consciousness to belong. Thus the
thoughts are timelessly true, independent of whether anyone takes them to be true or not. They
do not need a bearer. Thoughts just have a correspondence to ideas and things. Things exist
independently and do not require a bearer. In this way, thoughts correspond to things.

Ideas belong to the content of one’s consciousness. They are objects of awareness. They are not
perceptible and they are invisible. He further writes that if everything were an idea, then he
would know nothing of it or of nothing. Hence a man cannot be one’s idea nor the object of one’s
awareness. If something were an object for two persons, then none of them would know nothing
of it being object for two persons leading one to examine what were the ideas of which he is a
bearer making it an object of his thinking and hence an idea.

Giving an example, he writes, if a shell is not my ideathen, it cannot be an object of my

awareness, of my thinking. But if a shell were my idea, then it would have no weight. But I can
also have an idea of a heavy shell. So, either the thesis that only my idea can be the object of my
awareness is false, or all my knowledge and perception is limited to the range of my ideas, to the
stage of my consciousness. In this case, I should have only an inner world and know nothing of
other people. He indicates that his perception is limited to his inner world and that he only has an
inner world and no access to the knowledge of other people.

If we call what happens in our consciousness to be ideas then we will have access only to the
ideas and not their causes. We will only experience ideas and not their or the cause.

Later, changing his position, he talks about the consequence of calling everything an idea. He
says if everything were an idea, then who would be the bearer of them just like there can be no
ruler, if there are no subjects. The bearer will also become an idea but “I” is not an idea, “I” is a
bearer. We are aware of “myself” but “I” is the bearer of ideas and not “myself”. Ideas are the
content of one’s consciousness. There cannot be any pain if there is no one to experience it. You
undergoing an experience is an indication that you are aware. That is why, an experience is not
an idea and it constitutes “myself”. Experience is an object of one’s awareness. Idea is the
content of one’s consciousness.

He then talks about the relation of dependence, asking if everything is an idea then why do we
need a bearer of ideas at all? If there are no bearers, then there will be no ideas because ideas
essentially need a bearer.

It can also be the case that something might not be a content of one’s consciousness and yet, be
an object of one’s awareness. For example:- Pain. When you are undergoing an experience,
awareness is more dominant than content of one’s consciousness. Referring to the distinction
between I and myself, he adds that myself is not an idea because myself does not constitute the
content of my consciousness.

Talking about the outcome of his considerations that if everything is an idea, he lays down that
not everything that can be the object of my understanding is an idea. I, as a bearer of ideas, am
not myself an idea. Nothing now stands in the way of recognising other people to be bearers of
ideas as I am myself. And, once given the possibility, the probability is very great, so great that it
is no longer distinguishable from certainty.

He then talks about what if everything is not an idea. As soon as he considers it as a possibility,
he is now able to grasp the ideas of other people. He is open to accept that other people can grasp
as much as he can as independent of him. We are not the bearers of thoughts as we are the
bearers of our ideas. We do not have sense-impressions of thoughts and neither it is perceivable
like any physical object. So, choosing the term, “apprehend” serves the purpose. Thought stands
in the closest relation to truth. A fact is a thought that is true.
Talking about the consequence of calling everything an idea, he says that if it were true, then
psychology would contain all the sciences. Changing his position from object of awareness can
be a thought like any other idea, he now says that there is a difference between object of
awareness and ideas. The apprehension of a thought presupposes who apprehends it, who thinks.
He is the bearer of thinking but not of the thought. Although the thought does not belong to the
content of the thinker's consciousness yet something in his consciousness must be aimed at the
thought.

The thought belongs neither to the inner world as an idea nor yet to the other world of material,
perceptible things. There are, however, repercussions to saying that thought neither belongs to
the inner world nor to the outer world.

Talking about reality, he writes that ‘real' is what happens in time. The thought is not something
which we usually call real. In the world of ‘real’ something acts on other, changes and
experiences it or is changed or experienced by other. All of this happens as a process in time. The
pythagorean theorem might be timelessly eternal or unchangeable but there are thoughts which
change their truth value with time. Without the time-indication, we have no complete thoughts
which means no thoughts at all. Only a sentence supplemented by a time-indication and
complete in every respect expresses a thought.

He then talks about the value of thought. By apprehending a thought, one comes in a relation to it
and it with the individual. It is possible that what one thinks today wasn’t thought by him
yesterday and hence the strict timelessness is annulled. A property of a thought will be called
inessential which consists in, or follows from the fact that, it is apprehended by a thinker.

A thought acts by being apprehended and taken to be true. This happens in the inner world of a
thinker which can have further consequences in the same inner world and which, encroaching on
the sphere of the will, can also make itself noticeable in the world. Thus our actions are usually
prepared by thinking and judgement. This also means that thought can have an indirect influence
on the motion of masses. The influence of one person on another is brought about for the most
part by thoughts.

One communicates a thought by bringing about changes in the common outside world which,
perceived by another person, are supposed to induce him to apprehend a thought and take it to be
true. Initially, a thought apprehended brings change in inner world and yet remains untouched in
its true essence as the changes it undergoes only involves inessential properties. We also get to
observe reciprocal actions here. Thoughts are real but their reality is different from that of things.
Their effect is brought forth by the thinker without which they would be ineffective. Thinker
does not create thoughts but takes them as they are. They are true and delegated to the
metaphysical world because they bring change in the outer world pushing the masses to act and
the world changes.