Frege, the self-consciousness of judgement, and the indefinability of truth

Abstract

Frege characterizes judgement as the acknowledgement of the truth of a thought, appearing thereby to rule out false judgement. First in this paper I explain Frege's characterization so that it does not have this consequence. Frege is not saying that for a subject S to judge that p is for S to acknowledge the truth of the thought that p. Rather, he is articulating judgement's nature within self-consciousness. From within, to judge means to acknowledge a truth. Second, I suggest that this articulation is centrally operative in Frege's argument for the indefinability of truth. As Frege argues, it follows from judgement's self-consciousness that truth is indefinable.

Primitivist theories of truth: Their history and prospects

“…For discussion, see Asay (2013a, § 3–4, 2013c, chaps. 2, 5–6, 2021a, § 1, 3.3, 2021b, § 4.1.1), Baldwin (1997), Johnston (2021), Heck and May (2018, § 5), Kim (2020, 2021), Sluga (2002), and the references therein.…”