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Truth as the Relation between Logic and Metaphysics in Frege and Heidegger
[DRAFT]
Joshua Harris
Gottlob Frege and Martin Heidegger are very different philosophers. Whereas the formers
project can be understood as a logicism which reduces many classic philosophical questions to the
law-governed machinery of formal logic, the latter philosopher seems to have dedicated his career to
revitalizing what he takes to be the perennial core of such questions. So although it might seem like a
hopelessly uphill struggle to find meaningful points of comparison between Frege and Heidegger, recent
literature (though sparse, admittedly) has made some unlikely progress in doing so.1 Perhaps ironically,
it is not despite these fundamental differences but rather because of them that instructive comparisons
This study is an attempt to draw one such instructive point of comparison between Frege and
Heidegger on the question of the meaning of truth. Drawing primarily from Freges Grundlagen der
Arithmetik and Der Gedanke, as well as Heideggers oft-neglected Metaphysische Anfangsgrnde der
Logik,2 I aim to show that their differences on the meaning of truth can be boiled down to their
respective positions on the relationship between logic and metaphysics. For Frege, logic is an unfounded
foundation for any and all objective sciencemetaphysics included. Heidegger, on the other hand,
argues that the science of logic as the laws of thinking is intelligible only in light of a metaphysics of
being qua being. If successful, this thesis could prove to be important for understanding the
1
See, for example, Greg Shirley, Heidegger and Logic: The Place of Logos in Being and Time (New York: Continuum,
2010); Barbara Fultner, Referentiality in Frege and Heidegger, Philosophy and Social Criticism 31.1 (2005), 37-52;
Wayne M. Martin, Theories of Judgment: Psychology, Logic, Phenomenology (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006); Edward Witherspoon, Logic and the Inexpressible in Heidegger and Frege, Journal of the History of
Philosophy 40.1 (2002), 89-113.
2
Edward Witherspoon has dealt with this text briefly in an article comparing Frege and Heidegger on the nature of
logic, but in my view he mistakenly argues that Heidegger concedes several Fregean points about logic without
dispute. I submit that Heidegger does no such thing. One implication of the following study, then, is that
Witherspoons concessive reading of Heideggers Anfangsgrnde is mistaken. See Edward Witherspoon, Logic
and the Inexpressible in Frege and Heidegger, 101-11.
2
fundamental trajectories of these two thinkers and their influence in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.
The argument proceeds in three major sections: first, with a reading of Freges Grundlagen and
Der Gedanke; second, with a reading of Heideggers Anfangsgrnde; finally, with an assessment of an
aporia that results from two philosophers positions on the question of truth construed as the
It is well-known that Freges Grundlagen der Arithmetik takes its cue from Kant. More
specifically, it is concerned first and foremost with Kants distinction between analytic and synthetic
a priori judgments in his Kritik der Reinen Vernunftespecially in the science of mathematics.3 This
distinction between analytic and synthetic a priori judgments is described by Kant in the following
manner: Analytical judgments (affirmative) are therefore those in which the connection of the
predicate with the subject is conceived through identity. Synthetic judgments, conversely, are
judgments in which that connection [between subject and predicate] is conceived without identity.4
The point here is simple enough: The predicates of analytic a priori judgments are pure deductions
from the subject considered in itself, whereas the predicates of synthetic a priori judgments are not
deducible from the subject considered in itself. A bachelor is unmarried is a classic example of an
analytic a priori judgment, since the predicate is unmarried is nothing more than an analysis of the
subject bachelor. An example of a synthetic a priori judgment can be adduced from the natural
sciences: (to use Kants own example) In all changes of the material world the quantity of matter
always remains unchanged.5 In this judgment, the predicate always remains unchanged requires
more than just an analysis of the subject quantity of matter in the material world, since it seems to be
3
See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, tr. Max Mller (New York: Anchor Books, 1966), 8-17.
4
Ibid., 7.
5
Ibid., 12.
3
accidental rather than essential to the quantity of matter that it always remain unchanged. To put it
another way, nothing prevents us from understanding the meaning of the quantity of matter in the
The question that arises in Freges Grundlagen is whether or not arithmetical truths (e.g. 7 + 5 =
12) are synthetic a priori judgments. For Kant, 7 + 5 = 12 is indeed an example of such a synthetic a
priori judgment:
[W]e find that the concept of the sum of 7 and 5 contains nothing more than the union
[Vereinigung] of the two numbers into one; but in thinking that union we are not thinking in any
way at all what that single number is that unites the two. In thinking merely that union of seven
Kants point here is that the judgment 7 + 5 = 12 contains the concept of a sumthat is, the union of
two numbers into one (in this case, the numbers 7 and 5) that cannot simply be analyzed into the
predicate. The predicate = 12 involves the concept of a single numberone that cannot be analytically
deduced from the concept of a sum of two numbers, 7 and 5. Kant maintains that the judgment is still a
priori, of course, but in order to arrive upon it, he says, We must go beyond these concepts and avail
ourselves of the intuitions corresponding to one of the two: e.g., our five fingers, . . . [i]n this way we
must gradually add, to the concept of seven, the units [Einheiten] of the five given in intuition.7 The
intuition (Anschauung) of which Kant speaks here seems to imply a modified version of the Aristotelian
position that numerical terms require the concept of the unit, which serves as a common measure of
any two [or more] numbers8a unity that is not itself subject to the category of quantity. Without this
6
Ibid., 11.
7
Ibid.
8
On this point, see Aristotle, Metaphysics in: The Basic Works of Aristotle, tr. Richard McKeon (New York: Random
House, 1941), 1021a.
4
intuition (captured nicely by Kants appeal to fingers, i.e. something to count), we could not arrive at
Freges project of philosophical logicism might be said to have begun with a rejection of this
Kantian position. For Frege, the idea that arithmetical propositions rely upon some sort of
transcendental or metaphysical intuition for their truth is simply untenable. He laments the tendency
of mathematicians and philosophers alike to lapse into psychology when attempting to answer similar
questions about the nature of number.9 This is simply an intolerably vague and shaky conclusion for
Frege, especially given the otherwise exceptional clarity and objective rigor that is characteristic of
mathematics. His alternative to the Kantian idea of arithmetical truths as synthetic a priori judgments
can be understood as a philosophical explanation of arithmetical truthsone that matches the clarity
and objective rigor that is characteristic of mathematics as a science. It is the task of his logicism, then,
to provide a suitable philosophical foundation for arithmetical truths by deriving them from primitive
logical laws.
namely, a logical formulation of the concept of zero, natural number and perhaps most importantly, the
successor relation (Beziehung ) that characterizes the infinite series proper to arithmetic.10 It is
beyond the scope of this paper to reproduce Freges formalizations of these principles, but for our
purposes it is important to recognize two fundamental moves that Frege makes with respect to Kant and
Aristotle:
1. Contra Kant, Freges logicism about arithmetic conceives of the analytic/synthetic distinction
as pertaining only to the ground of the judgmentnot to the content of the judgment itself.
9
Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, tr. J.L. Austin (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953), xx.
10
Ibid., 84-95.
5
Whereas Kants distinction between analytic and synthetic hinges upon the additional intuition (or lack
thereof) that constitute certain judgments qua judgments, Freges distinction concerns not the content
of the judgment [der Inhalt des Urtheils] but the justification [Berechtigung] for making the judgment. . .
. [i.e.] the ultimate ground on which the justification for holding it to be true rests.11 This removal of the
analytic/synthetic distinction from the structural features of judgment qua judgment allows Freges
logicism to maintain a strictly objective account of judgmentone that can successfully cut off any and
2. Contra Aristotle, Freges logicism recasts the structure of judgment in terms of function and
argument rather than subject and predicate. Whereas the fundamental structure of Aristotelian
judgment is marked by the division and composition of subject and predicate terms (e.g. Snow
[subject] is white [predicate]),12 Freges structure of judgment is marked by the input of arguments
into functions (e.g. If x is snow, then x is white [snow and white as arguments; If x is _, then x is
_ as function]). There is much to be said about the explanatory strengths of Fregean predicate
calculus over against Aristotelian subject-predicate logic,13 but for our purposes it is important to
note that all the possible formulations of the structure of the function represent the objective, precise
laws of truth. Whereas the Aristotelian subject-predicate form is built to accommodate concepts such as
exists and true as non-univocal,14 Freges logicism reduces them to the absolute univocity of the
functional calculus.
11
Ibid., 3.
12
On this point, see Aristotle, On Interpretation in: The Basic Works of Aristotle, tr. Richard McKeon (New York:
Random House, 1941), 17a.
13
This includes, perhaps most notably, the ability to represent judgments involving multiple generalities.
14
For reasons that are not unrelated to the difference between Frege and Heidegger on the meaning of truth and
its relationship to logic, the Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain famously argues in Formal Logic that the
Fregean calculus attempts to replace intelligence with logistics, as it implies an exile of analogical reasoning from
its natural home, i.e. the land of logical inference. See Jacques Maritain, Formal Logic (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1941), 221-4.
6
With these two points from the Grundlagen, we are now in a better position to understand
some of the key motivations behind Freges project. It is clear that such a logicism has its central
motivation in the prospect of providing clear, objective rules for thoughtthat is, rules that can provide
ready answers to questions about the foundations of the clearest and most pristine of sciences,
mathematics.15 These two points, then, are best understood as necessary consequences that follow
from carrying out such a project. (1) undercuts what Frege considers to be a shaky Kantian
transcendental philosophywhich is, ironically, conceived by Kant as a relatively sturdy foundation for
the even shakier science of metaphysicsby showing that the way in which a judgment is arrived upon
has nothing at all to do with the content of the judgment as such. (2) assigns clear and distinct rules for
thought which, together, form the absolutely objective, univocal laws of truth.
Yet if we are interested in Freges understanding of truth and its relationship to logic as he
conceives it, it is necessary to move beyond the Grundlagen to some later works. Before doing so,
however, it is worth visiting a final passage from the Grundlagenone that sets the trajectory of Freges
logicist reduction of truth. In a discussion reinforcing Freges steadfast criticism of any and all forms of
psychologism, he remarks,
and imagination, and of all construction of mental pictures out of memories of earlier
sensations, but not what is independent of reason [Vernunft]. For what are things independent
of reason? To answer that would be as much as to judge without judging, or to wash the fur
Now the first part of this quotation should be uncontroversial, assuming our discussion up until this
point has faithfully represented Freges views. Indeed, precisely to the extent that Kant and Aristotle
15
Or arithmetic, at least. There is disagreement about whether Frege agrees with Kant that geometrical truths are
synthetic, though it appears that he does in the Grundlagen, at least.
16
Frege, Foundations, 36.
7
understand the faculty of intuition to be at least partially constitutive of (certain kinds of) judgments,
they fail to offer a sure foundation for arithmetical truthsone that can only be derived from the
The second part of this passage, however, contains a concept that we have not yet explored:
namely, the concept of reason as a governing institution of any and all legitimate thought.17 Indeed, it
is even more than that; for Freges use of reason goes beyond a merely epistemic conception. On the
contrary, for Frege, it seems that things themselves are if and only if they are reasonable. To the extent
that we grasp what Frege means by the nonsensical notion of wash[ing] the fur without wetting it, I
suggest, we also grasp the essence of Freges reductionistic project with respect to truth. As we move on
to some of the later writings, it is important to understand what reason could mean if it is entirely
independent of sensations, intuitions, and imagination. This becomes clear as we turn our attention to
Frege calls a thought something for which the question of truth arises. . . . [it is] in itself
immaterial, clothes itself in the material garment of a sentence and thereby becomes comprehensible to
us. We say a sentence expresses a thought.18 This point is also clear in On Sense and Reference. What
he calls a thought here is a species of sense in a sentence. It is the objective or propositional content
of a sentenceone which can be expressed and repeated regardless of its material garment of natural
languages such as English or German.19 It is important that thought is a species of sensenot a synonym
for sense altogether. Whereas every thought is a sense of a sentence, not every sense of a sentence is a
thought.20 The question of truth arises only in thoughts, which is to say that the question of truth only
17
I am following Erich H. Reck in my understanding of this passage. See Erich H. Reck, Frege on Truth, Judgment
and Objectivity, in: Essays on Freges Conception of Truth, ed. Dirk Greimann (Amsterdam: Rodopoi, 2007), 160-1.
18
Gottlob Frege, The Thought: A Logical Inquiry, Mind 65.259 (1956), 292.
19
Ibid.
20
Imperative or interrogative sentences have sense but are not thoughts, for example.
8
arises in [indicative] sentences in which we communicate or state something.21 Thus, three qualities of
language.
I have already remarked that, in the Grundlagen, Frege is interested in objective laws of
thought. With this more precise account of what thought actually means, however, we are in a better
position to avoid some potential misunderstandings. As Frege remarks early on in Der Gedanke, perhaps
the most woeful of such potential misunderstandings is the idea that objective laws of thought might be
occurrence[s].22 If this were what Frege meant by objective laws of thought, of course, than his
aversion to psychologism would be hopelessly undermined; for what could be more psychologistic than
mental occurences?
Since we now know that thoughts are marked by the differentiae mentioned above, though, it is
clear that objective laws of thought could never take mental occurrences as their objects. Indeed, it may
even be a pleonasm to say objective laws of thought, since thoughts themselves are already objective in
the sense described above. So, if this is Freges understanding of what is meant by logic as laws of
thought, we are in a better position to understand what will be a more controversial claim in the
context of the present discussion: namely, Freges claim that it falls to logic to discern the laws of truth
21
Ibid., 293.
22
See Ibid., 289.
9
[die Gesetze des Wahrseins].23 This is what will become an issue for Heidegger in his Anfangsgrnde, so
Frege says early on in Der Gedanke that [t]he meaning of the word true is explained by the
laws of truth.24 Like the laws of thought we have just mentioned, these laws are also objective in the
sense that they are not constituted in any way by physical or mental occurrences. In order to
understand what Frege means by truth, then, it is instructive to take note of his critique of the more
conventional theory of truth as some sort of successful correspondence between some mental
picture and the mind-independent, non-linguistic reality it depicts. He offers two major objections to
this idea.
corresponding things coincide and are, therefore, not distinct things at all.25 This point is
straightforward. To the extent that a two objects are similar, they can be said to correspond to one
another in a relevant way. Yet insofar as the mental picture and the reality it depicts are differentand
indeed they must be different at least for the reason that one has the property of being in the mind
and one does nota perfect correspondence between the two is impossible, by definition. The crucial
point is this: namely, that if there can be no complete correspondence, no complete truth
[vollkommene Wahrheit]. . . [then] nothing at all would be true: for what is only half true is untrue.26
What we have, then, is another example of Freges relentless demand for clarity and precisioneven
and especially with regards to the question of the meaning of truth. Among the rather unwelcome
23
Ibid. A more literal translation might render die Gesetze des Wahrseins as the laws of being-true.
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid., 291.
26
Ibid.
10
Second, perhaps more famously, Frege raises a circularity objection against the correspondence
theory. Since a theory of truth must involve a definition within which certain characteristics would have
to be stated . . . the question would always arise whether it were true [emphasis mine] that the
characteristics were present. So one goes round in a circle.27 In other words, in any and all cases of
trying to offer a definition of truthas correspondence or something elseit turns out that we need a
But if correspondence jettisons the possibility of arriving at truth, and other definitions of truth
are hopeless circular, what can be said about truth qua truth, according to Frege? In On Sense and
Reference, of course, we receive what might be some preliminary thoughts about an answer to such a
question: namely, that truth values (i.e. the True and the False) serve as the objective references of
thoughts.28 Just as ordinary proper names such as Felix refer to a single feline object, so does the
thought expressed by the declarative sentence Some cats are black refer to the object of the True.
Thus, to return to Freges preferred language of function and argument, we might say that the truth
value of Some cats are black is the output of a combination of a function (i.e. there is at least one x
such that x is a _ and x is _) and its arguments (i.e. cat and black).
Yet while this Fregean schema is helpful for getting a sense of what ordinary language seems to
demand of certain kinds of declarative sentences (i.e. their truth values), it still does not give us a robust
account of what sort of object a truth value is. Put simply, though we might have an idea of why we
need truth, we are still in the dark about the nature or essence of truth. Yet this is precisely the question
that Frege cannot answer: it is probable that the content of the word true is unique and indefinable
[undefinierbar].29 Even with the assistance of his sense-reference relationshipa relationship that is
27
Ibid.
28
As Frege remarks, Every declarative sentence concerned with the reference of its words is therefore to be
regarded as a proper name, and its reference, if it has one, is either the True or the False. Gottlob Frege, On
Sense and Reference in: Meaning and Reference, ed. A.W. Moore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 28.
29
Frege, The Thought, 291.
11
lost on his early Begriffschrift and GrundlagenFrege is reduced to silence when it comes to offering a
definition of truth. This is the perhaps anti-climactic end to Freges majestic project of unearthing the
To come full circle, then, perhaps we are now in a position to understand the meaning of Freges
aforementioned curious passage from his Grundlagen: For what are things independent of reason? To
answer that would be as much as to judge without judging, or to wash the fur without wetting it.30
Freges anti-psychologism is consistent throughout his career, from Grundlagen to Der Gedanke. By
salvaging the purely analyticity of arithmetical truths from the threatening intuitive transcendentalism
of Kant, he banishes the analytic/synthetic distinction from the content of judgments altogether. This
leaves him with the task of coming up with a new schema for judgments, which is accomplished in his
function-argument conception of logic. Ultimately, as we have seen, it is the logical machinery of the
function that serves as the laws of truth. To think reasonably, then, for Frege, is to think in accordance
with such laws. The ever-looming specter of psychologism is warded off only by the absolute objectivity
of these laws.
Yet, as we have also just seen, the absolute necessity of thinking in accordance with these laws
precludes any attempt to ground or define them; for to embark on such a project would be to
arbitrarily exempt oneself from the laws for a moment, i.e. to wash the fur without wetting it. This
holds a fortiori for the concept of truth, since the laws of the function are governed by truth values.
They are the laws of truth, after all. To ground or define truth would be the ultimate exercise in
Thus, Frege leaves the question of the meaning of truth unanswered for reasons directly
associated with his conception of logic as nothing other than the objective laws of truth. If this is the
30
See note 17 above.
12
case, then we are now in a position to move to Heideggers alternative in his Anfangsgrndean
alternative that deals with precisely this sort of Fregean position on the meaning of truth.
Heidegger: Logic as
which feature a close consideration, appropriation and criticism of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on the
relationship between metaphysics and logic. Although the particulars of his interaction with Leibniz does
not concern our discussion directly, it is of interest here to the extent that it occasions an explicit point
of contact between Heidegger and Frege. The most important of these points of contact is a mutual
disdain for psychologism. Heidegger is clear: any psychologistic appeal to an empirically available
context as somehow explanatory for a genuine philosophical question circumvent[s] the real contents
of the problem itself (This is always the case when one believes he has solved a problem by figuring with
psychological probability what impulses might have been involved in posing and solving the problem).31
Later he appeals to his teacher Edmund Husserls critique of psychologism as a bastion against any such
shallow attempts to give empirical grounds for an a priori statement.32 Of course, as we will see,
Heideggers way out of psychologism is far different than Freges. Despite this divergence, it is important
for comparisons sake that they share a common opponent in the ever-lingering specter of psychologism
logic: logic is in fact a propaedeutic [Vorschule] to academic studies in general and is, at the same time,
quite correctly valued as an essential entry into philosophyassuming that logic itself is philosophical.
So this is the challenge: logic should change; logic should become philosophical!33 Heidegger seems to
31
Martin Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, tr. Michael Heim (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
Press, 1984), 115.
32
Ibid., 121.
33
Ibid., 5.
13
share this starting point with Frege insofar as he understands questions of logic to be part and parcel of
first philosophy. Unlike Frege, however, Heidegger is interested in unearthing the foundations of
logic as that which asks about the properties in general of , of statement, of that determining
where the essence of thinking as such resides.34 Again, it is striking how similar this sentence reads
when compared to Freges own development of logic as the laws of truth and the transcendental
condition of reason for any and all objective thought. Despite Heideggers project of fundamental
ontology that he had only recently published in Sein und Zeit (1927, just one year before the
Anfangsgrnde), the importance of texts such as the Anfangsgrnde show that the issue is not so much
about going beyond the confines of logic in order to develop a phenomenology of being qua being or
Sein; rather, it is about uncovering the essence of logic itself as the science of .
Heidegger embarks on this investigation into with characteristic respect for the history of
philosophy. Because his challenge is to reveal the philosophical roots of logic, he must first provide a
working definition of what he means by philosophical. Here he follows Aristotle in understanding the
subject matter of philosophy as being qua being. The striving for the possibility of a correct
understanding of the essential, or this understanding, has for its object being. . . . of what precedes
everything else.35 There cannot be a more fundamental philosophical subject matter than the meaning
of being, for Heidegger, since anything that might be posited as more fundamental would itself beg the
question of its own thing-hood or being. Thus, we have a clear statement of what is the central question
in his famous introduction to Sein und Zeit: namely, the question of the meaning of being (der Sinn von
Sein).36
34
Ibid., 2.
35
Ibid., 13.
36
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010), 6 [in the original German
pagination].
14
When Heidegger says that he means to inquire after the metaphysical foundations
(metaphysische Anfangsgrnde) of logic, then, what he means to inquire after is the special relation that
maintains with respect to being. On this question, he takes his cue from Parmenides curious
remark about the intimate relationship between thinking and being in fragments from On Nature, For
might lead one to conclude that this strange Parmenidean claim is trivially false. Stones, for example,
can be without knowing; for they are not the kind of thing that has the capacity for knowledge. But if
something can be and not know, then it seems to follow that being and knowing are distinct in at least
this respect. Therefore it seems that Parmenides way of truth is actually quite false.
Parmenides that turns out to be an occasion for the formers existential analytic of human Dasein as a
sort of transcendental condition of possibility for any science of being. But what could this mean?
Heideggers answer comes as an analysis of thinking. He first warns against understanding thinking as
an activity and comportment of humans. The investigation into thinking as a form of human activity
would then fall under the science of man [sic], under anthropology. The latter is, of course, not
philosophically central, but only reports how things look when man thinks.38 Again, to mistake this sort
of observable phenomenon for a philosophical issue (i.e. an issue with implications for the essence of
logic or truth) would be to lapse into psychologism. Heidegger is always clear about his stridently critical
The crucial difference between this psychologizing tendency to understand thinking as one
interpretation of Parmenides is the ontological difference, i.e. the difference between being qua being
37
Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations, 15
38
Ibid., 18-19.
15
(Sein) and particular beings (Seienden). Whereas the psychologist or the anthropologist is concerned
concerned with the fundamental unity that all beings share insofar as they are beings in the first place.
being is not one capacity among others, but the basic condition of possibility of Dasein as such.39 In
other words, for Heidegger (and for the medieval philosophical tradition that produced him), because
being qua being is the proper object of intelligence,40 being qua being is always already being-as-
understanding. The elusive unity of being qua being is co-extensive with the equally elusive unity of
understanding. Thus, and are equiprimordial, meaning that both are equally fundamental,
With this clarification of the Parmenidean affirmation of the equiprimordial status of and
, then, we have a context within which to grasp the essence of . Thinking implies beingand
vice versaand has to do with the laws of thought. Again, it cannot be stressed enough that
Frege and Heidegger share the conviction that the essence of logic, i.e. what it is most fundamentally
has to do with the purely objective laws governing reasonable thinking. Where Frege and Heidegger
differ, however, is on the question of the ground of these laws. As we have seen, for Frege, any
attempt to ground logical laws metaphysically is doomed from the outset, since any science of
metaphysics must presuppose the laws that it is trying to ground. It is an exercise in wash[ing] the fur
without wetting it. For Heidegger, however, the laws of logic themselves do not make sense without
such a ground. He asks, What are the fundamental laws belonging to thinking as such? What is, in
39
Ibid., 16.
40
Thomas Aquinas, for instance, consistently maintains, Primo autem in conceptione intellectus est ens . . . ens est
proprium objectum intellectus. That which is first conceptually in the intellect is being . . . being is the proper
object of the intellect [translation mine]. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 5, a. 2.
16
general, the character of this lawfulness and regulation? We can obtain an answer only by way of a
concrete interpretation of the basic laws of thinking which belong to its essence in general.41 Crucially,
for Heidegger, it is not enough to take the lawful character of logic as some sort of self-evident given; for
even the meaning of lawfulness itself is a rich and varied object of philosophical inquiry.
Heideggers answer to his own question regarding the lawful character of logic could be
the basis for their own possibility. Only what exists as a free being could be at all bound by an
obligatory lawfulness. Freedom alone can be the source of obligation. A basic problem of logic,
Here we have the essential trajectory of Heideggers project of unearthing a properly philosophical
logic.
If these three claims form the original contribution of the text, then Heideggers reading of Leibniz could
be considered a case study that either confirms or disconfirms the hypotheses. Although again it is
beyond the scope of the present work to offer a detailed account of his rather original interpretation of
Leibniz, it is worth offering a brief outline for the sake of illuminating the three theses.
41
Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations, 19.
42
Ibid., 19-20.
43
It is precisely this point that seems to be missing from the aforementioned thesis of Edward Witherspoon
regarding the position of Heideggers Anfangsgrnde with respect to his later work, especially Vom Wesen der
Wahrheit. See note 2 above.
17
Heidegger sketches Leibnizs logic as a science of judgments, i.e. sentences that are either true
or false. For Leibniz, the affirmative quality of a true proposition, i.e. All bachelors are unmarried is
its inclusio of the predicate within the subject. Indeed, affirmation means simply inclusion44even to
the counterintuitive extent that all true propositions are ultimately instances of a priori judgments (or
analytic, in Kantian terms).45 This analyticity of all true judgments is a necessary condition for Leibnizs
own rejection of psychologism. Now this may appear farfetched in that some propositions seem to
situate some sort of relation between subject and predicate that is not a purely analytic inclusio, e.g.
The cat is on the mat, Leibniz is not necessarily committed to the idea that human intellects are
capable of grasping the fullness of any one subject and all of its possible predicates. Indeed, for Leibniz,
so-called contingent truths [veritates contingentes] arise from the will of God, not simply, but from a
will directed by the intellect, through considerations of what is best or most fitting [optimi seu
convenientissimi].46 Truths that appear to us as a posteriori are of this contingent variety, which
explains their (only) apparent non-a priori character. Indeed, Leibniz takes this disparity between human
comprehension and the divine so far as to suggest that, as inclusio, truth is ultimately identitas. This
conclusion marks another striking similarity to Freges own argument against correspondence theory,47
since Leibniz is moved to this radical conclusion by way of logics intolerance of any more or less
with regards to truth and falsehood. If truth is inclusio, and truth cannot tolerate a more or less, then
there must be some concept of perfect inclusio. This perfect inclusio is exactly what is expressed by
identitas.48 Indeed, if there is anything like a divine perfection, it can be nothing other than the
perfection that is manifest in this relation of identitas between subject and predicate.
44
Ibid., 37.
45
See note 4 above.
46
Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations, 49.
47
See note 26 above
48
Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations, 39.
18
The strategy behind this interpretation of Leibniz, for Heidegger, is a setting up of a dialectical
opposition. The point is something like the following: if there were any paradigmatic case in the history
of philosophy of founding metaphysics in logic (i.e. the very reversal of Heideggers own stated project),
it would be here in Leibnizs grounding the truth of the divine intellect and will in the perfect inclusio of
the predicate in the subject as identitas. The strength of Heideggers argument against this apparent
move in Leibniz (and Frege, by implication), then, is his next interpretive step, which demonstrates that
even this attempt cannot ultimately resist doing exactly the opposite of what Leibniz himself sets out to
accomplish.
nature of identitas. While we do seem capable of comprehending the role of identitas as a logical
operator among others, identitas as a perfect inclusio of a predicate within a subject seems to beg the
question of the source of its own unity. In other words, what are the more original conditions of
possibility for a perfect inclusio of a predicate within a subject? What is it that confers the unity that is
implied in such an inclusio?49 For Leibniz, the meaning of identitas is conferred to the proposition by the
unity that is readily accessible for all as the unity of the self-sufficient ego in the act of perception.
Heidegger quotes Leibniz in the latters correspondence with Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia,
This thought of myself, who perceive [sic] sensible objects, and of my own action which results
from it, adds something to the objects of sense. . . . And since I conceive that there are other
beings who also have the right to say I, or for whom this can be said, it is by this that I
Remarkably, it seems that Heidegger has used Leibnizs own words to bring his study back to the
Parmenidean identification of and .51 Because substance is the metaphysical correlate for
49
Ibid., 77.
50
Ibid., 87.
51
Note 38 above.
19
the logical principle of identitas, we now have a metaphysical foundation for logic in the self-
perception of ego. Quite literally, then, Leibniz must agree with Parmenides: to think is, indeed, to be.
Far from some quirky speculation that can be extracted from a more levelheaded logic,
Leibnizs counterintuitive metaphysical doctrine of the single substance (or monad) as containing
the universe in itself turns out to be constitutive of his understanding of logical identitas. Indeed, Leibniz
is a far more radical metaphysician than Aristotle; for the latter only says that the soul is, in a sense, all
existing things,52 whereas the former implies that every substance is, in a sense, all existing things.
Thus, what Heidegger has shown is that even the most extreme attempt to give absolute
primacy to the logical principle of identitas (i.e. Leibnizs definition of truth) is ultimately intelligible only
by the light of a decidedly metaphysical source. In this case, the metaphysical source is the self-
sufficiency of the perceiving ego as the transcendental condition for the unity of anything at all. Even for
Leibniz, then, says Heidegger, logic must be conceived as a metaphysics of truth [Metaphysik der
To recap, we have seen that Heidegger shares Freges disdain for any and all psychologistic
accounts of logic. However, unlike Frege, Heidegger does not attempt to ground logic in some sort of
absolute objectivity considered as independence from human thinking. On the contrary, perhaps
between being qua being (Sein) and particular beings (Seienden). Whereas the psychologistic mistake is
to reduce the properly philosophical question of being to anthropological questions about a particular
activity of particular beings, i.e. human beings, for Heidegger logic as is the unity of a unity
that is co-extensive with . To the extent that concerns the ontological difference, then, it is
52
Aristotle, De Anima in: The Basic Works of Aristotle, tr. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), 431b.
53
Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations, 102.
20
Yet because concerns the laws of thought, there is after all a sense in which it is a
decidedly human concernthe crucial qualification here being that this human concern is a concern
which saturates all beings insofar as they are beings.54 Heideggers concrete case study of this properly
philosophical hypothesis is Leibnizs apparent attempt to ground the meaning of identitas in the
absolute unity of the perceiving ego. At days end, Leibnizs project is precisely the opposite of what it
initially appears to be. It is a grounding of logic in metaphysics, not vice versa. This move is exactly what
we should suspect, on Heideggers line of reasoning, if metaphysics is in fact the more fundamental
science.
I have attempted to demonstrate at least one striking similarity and one fundamental difference
between the respective philosophical projects of Frege and Heidegger. The similarity, of course, is that a
resolute critique of psychologism forms a mutual point of departure for each philosopher. The
fundamental difference between them has to do with their vastly different critical approaches with
respect to the problem of psychologism. Whereas Freges anti-psychologistic program salvages the
absolute independence of logic and mathematical judgments from the relatively unreliable phenomena
ontological difference between Sein and Seienden as it appears in the Parmenidean identification of
and . The result is two vastly different views about the essence of logic and its relationship to
metaphysics.
For Frege, logic as the laws of the functional calculuswhich amount to nothing less than the
laws of truthform the conditions of possibility for any science at all. Any science which aims to
demonstrate a given truth or truths presupposes truth, which is, in turn, exhausted by the laws of the
functional calculus. Thus, insofar as metaphysics is one such science, it too must presuppose logic as the
54
For further elucidation of this point, see Heidegger, Being and Time, 191-6.
21
purely objective conditions of its own possibility. Any attempt to do the reverse, i.e. to ground the laws
of logic in metaphysics la Heidegger or Heideggers Leibniz, is doomed from the start. It is to wash the
For Heidegger, metaphysics as the science of being qua being is, by definition, the most
fundamental of any and all inquiriesincluding the science of logic considered as the laws of thought. A
law is a certain kind of being, and as such it begs the question of its being. Logic as the science of
does maintain a privileged position with regards to other beings in that its essence arises directly out of
the Parmenidean , but this is only due to the fact that it is itself co-extensive with Sein or .
Thus, for Heidegger, Freges insistence upon a rather superficial notion of independence obscures the
question of the essence of logic, and, by extension, the question of the essence of truth.
Yet up until this point any specific philosophical engagement between Heidegger and Frege has
been left at a rather lofty level of speculation, since Heidegger does not address Frege by name in the
Anfangsgrnde.55 Nevertheless, we conclude the present discussion with what seems to be a more
immediate point of engagement on the part of Heidegger. Although again it is not an explicit reference
to Frege, Heidegger concludes his reading of Leibniz with a treatment of what amounts to the essential
argumentative strategy of Frege regarding the primacy of logic with respect to metaphysics. Although it
would certainly be irresponsible to say that Heidegger is engaging the philosophical movement of Frege,
Russell and the early Wittgenstein directly here, it is difficult to imagine the German philosophers words
55
The place of Fregean advances in logic in Heideggers work is a point of some contention in Heideggerian
scholarship. It is clear, however, that Heideggers training would have equipped him with a ready familiarity with
Frege, Russell and others. This is evident as early as Heideggers doctoral dissertation, The Theory of Judgement in
Psychologism: A Critical-Positive Contribution to Logic. On this topic, see Shirley, Heidegger and Logic, 19.
56
It is notable, for example, that Heidegger criticizes contemporary logic [as a] new distortion of the problem of
the relationship between logic and metaphysics, properly understood. Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations, 106.
22
Heidegger cites an argument that is frequently enlisted by those who wish to demonstrate the
primacy of logic over metaphysics. This argument, he goes on to say, is capable of deciding the
problem of their relationship on the basis of quite general notions of logic and metaphysics, without
having to go into the specific problems belonging to the content of either logic or metaphysics.57 But
what is this argument? Although Heidegger himself does not represent it formally in numbered
At this point it should be clear that, although Frege is never named as an advocate of the argument, it is
quite a Fregean line of reasoning. The conclusion, at the very least, supports Freges exact point
regarding the utter poverty of washing the fur without wetting it.
Now there is a sense in which Heidegger has no qualms with one interpretation of the
argument; for he happily concedes that [e]very science, including metaphysics, . . . uses, as thinking,
the formal rules of thought. The interesting question for Heidegger, however, is not whether or not one
or more premises of the argument is false, but rather, [W]hat is meant here by presupposition
content with its conclusion. He believes it to be trivially true that all metaphysical propositions use the
57
Ibid., 103.
58
This is a formalized version of an informal argument. See Ibid., 103-4.
59
Ibid., 104.
23
laws of logic. However, for Frege and for Heideggers imagined opponent, this interpretation of
presupposes does not go far enough. On the contrary, it seems that the point of this argument is to
logic, so this argument seems to state, insofar as logic forms the independent conditions of possibility for
metaphysics as a science. In other words, while it is possible to imagine logic without metaphysics, it is
impossible to imagine metaphysics without logic. Again, this independence criterion is quite Fregean.
Thinking and rule usage may be inevitable for the operation of all thinking, and thus also for
establishing metaphysics as well, but it does not follow from this that the foundation consists in
the use of rules. On the contrary, it merely follows that rule usage itself is in need of
justification. . . . [I]t is not even in a position to make this fact, in its intrinsic possibility [inneren
Heideggers response to the aforementioned argument is rather straightforward here. Although the
usage of logic is certainly unavoidable for any genuine metaphysics, the question of ground cannot
arise from this fact alone. The language of rule usage seems to demand further explanation, since any
ordinary meaning of rule usage seems to be derived from one observable activity among others. This
unavoidable regress of meaning can come to a halt only in metaphysics, since the subject of metaphysics
as Sein or being qua being cannot beg a question of meaning beyond itself. As we have already seen in
Heideggers proposed solution to the problem of psychologism, the only way to raise the problem of a
properly philosophical account of logic is by thinking through the implications of the ontological
difference between Sein and Seienden. Indeed, for Heidegger, the problem of psychologism is properly
60
Ibid., 105.
24
understood as a mere species of the more fundamental problem of a Vergessenheit des Seins, a
Heidegger concludes his rejoinder to the argument for the primacy of logic over metaphysics
1. Logic is not the operational condition for thinking, but a science of rules.
2. As a science of rules, logic cannot raise the question of why these rules obtain.
3. Logic is intelligible only via an analysis of thinking and its conditions of possibility.
4. Unless conceived as a metaphysics of truth,62 then the question of the primacy of logic over
metaphysics (or vice versa) is not a question that is answerable in terms of logic itself.63
Although Heidegger is quite clear about his position that logic is founded in metaphysics and not vice
versa, these four points are quite humble in scope. They do not take shape as a demonstrative proof,
and they are compelling only to the extent that his readers recognize the importance of the concept of
ground or foundation for fundamental sciences such as logic or metaphysics. If a philosopher such
as Frege is not interested in providing a philosophical explanation for logic as a science, then meaningful
Ultimately, then, the difference between Frege and Heidegger on the relationship between logic
and metaphysics is most evident in their respective accounts of truth, since the meaning of truth
evidences each philosophers conclusive position on this relationship. Frege declares that truth is
undefinable except in a qualified sense as one of two output values arising from a well-formed
proposition, a thought. Heidegger understands truth to be a name for the Parmenidean identity of
61
See Heidegger, Being and Time, 2.
62
See note 53 above.
63
Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations, 105.
25
and and the existential freedom precedes its own regulation by the laws of logic.64 For
Frege, truth is merely a name for the unity of the thought; for Heidegger, truth is another name for the
disclosure of Sein in the being for whom its own being is an issue, Dasein. We might say that Freges
However we are inclined to describe this fundamental difference between Frege and Heidegger
on the relationship between logic and metaphysics, perhaps what is most important for our purposes is
this aporias potential for serving as a powerful early expression of at least two divergent traditions of
theorizing about the relationship between logic, metaphysics and language itself in the twentieth
64
Ibid., 185.
65
For an extended treatment of the relationship between existential authenticity and truth in Heideggers
philosophy, i.e. Dasein as truth-bearer, see Lambert Zuidervaart, Truth and Authentication: Heidegger and Adorno
in Reverse in: Adorno and Heidegger: Philosophical Questions, eds. Iain Macdonald and Krzystztof Ziarek
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), 22-46.