Ignacio Angelelli

The author distinguishes a "term logic," where terms are the fundamental units, and a "sentential logic," where sentences are the fundamental units. Although this technical distinction is presented by Englebretsen as a war-like opposition throughout the entire history of logic, he reassures us that "no blood has been spilled". In recent times, the term-logic party has been eclipsed by the sentential-logic band; term logic is nowadays "almost mute". Only F. Sommers appears to proclaim the truth of term logic in the twentieth century. The author's main goal is to "recount the history" of term logic through an examination of its three champions: Aristotle, Leibniz, and Sommers. The chronological sequence of these three logicians is a sequence towards perfection as well. The shortcomings of Aristotle's achievement are partially corrected by Leibniz and then fully repaired by Sommers, who finally extends the Aristotelian syllogistic into a "universal logic". Englebretsen himself has added "certain emendations and extensions in a modest way".

After presenting the ordinary and the Fregean formulations of the ancestral, I raise the question of what is their relationship, the natural candidate being that the Fregean version is an analysans intended to improve upon, and replace, the common notion of ancestral (the analysandum). Next, two types of circles that arise in connection with the Fregean ancestral are presented, and it is claimed that one of the circles makes it impossible to maintain the just described (“replacement”) interpretation. A reference is made to Kerry, who was the first to point out a circularity in Frege’s ancestral. Some of Frege’s remarks are examined in order to tentatively sketch, an answer to the issue of the relationship between ordinary and Fregean ancestral; the latter, if not as an analysans replacing the common notion, can still be seen as a profound enrichment of the former.

En 1967, Ignacio Angelelli publie un ouvrage pionnier: la bibliographie fregeenne est encore assez mince quand l'etudiant du Professeur Bochenski soutient, a Fribourg en Suisse, sa dissertation doctorale. L'essentiel des ouvrages, articles et recensions du grand logicien est encore disperse et non reedite. Mais le principal interet de l'ouvrage dont nous donnons ici une premiere traduction francaise ne tient pas seulement au fait qu'il marque une date importante dans le champ des etudes fregeennes et qu'il peut constituer a sa maniere un classique; son importance est directement liee a son objet et a sa methode. L'objet est clairement assigne des la premiere phrase de l'introduction. Si l'Ideographie est bien le document fondateur de la logique contemporaine, digne de prendre rang aux cotes des Analytiques d'Aristote, comment determiner plus precisement la signification et la portee de cette rupture fregeenne par rapport a la tradition philosophique? Autrement dit, il ne s'agit pour l'auteur ni de presenter un expose general de la pensee de Frege, ni de discuter de questions techniques que son oeuvre aura laisse ouvertes dans une riche posterite (Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine...), mais bien de situer cette percee en vue de mieux la comprendre, quitte a critiquer certains de ses aspects ou de ses attendus.