Frege or Dedekind?
towards a reevaluation of their legacies
pp. 139-170
in: Erich Reck (ed), The historical turn in analytic philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
The philosophy of mathematics has long been an important part of philosophy in the analytic tradition, ever since the pioneering works of Frege and Russell. Richard Dedekind was roughly Frege's contemporary and his contributions to the foundations of mathematics are widely acknowledged as well. The philosophical aspects of those contributions have been received more critically however. In the present chapter, Dedekind's philosophical reception is reconsidered. At the chapter's core lies a comparison of Frege's and Dedekind's legacies, within and outside of analytic philosophy. While the comparison proceeds historically, it is shaped by current philosophical concerns, especially by debates about neo-logicist and neo-structuralist views. In fact, philosophical and historical considerations are intertwined thoroughly, to the benefit of both. The underlying motivation is to rehabilitate Dedekind as a major philosopher of mathematics, in relation, but not necessarily in opposition, to Frege.
