FREGE, Gottlob. Grundgesetze der Arithmetik. Begriffsschriftlich abgeleitet. Jena: Hermann Pohle. 1893/1903.

FREGE, Gottlob. Grundgesetze der Arithmetik. Begriffsschriftlich abgeleitet. Jena: Hermann Pohle. 1893/1903.

Two volumes, tall 8vo: xxxii, 253[1]; xv[i], 265[1] pp; some very minor spotting to margins in volume I, otherwise a clean set. The two volumes bound together in recent good-quality half calf, retaining original wrappers. First editions.

Frege's magnum opus, a rigorous demonstration of the identity of arithmetic and logic, in which he defines a cardinal number as the class of all classes similar to a given class, a procedure adopted independently by Russell afterwards. Russell seems to have been one of the rare readers of Frege to understand his work. The second volume is concerned especially with the theory of real numbers, but a good deal of the space is taken up by criticism of current views, and at the end Frege allows that there is more to be done before real numbers can be properly defined. In a 'Nachwort', or appendix, written after most of the work had been printed, he sadly admits the ruin of his work by Bertrand Russell's discovery of a contradiction implicit in his premisses; but he still maintains that his general conception of the relation between arithmetic and logic is correct, and considers methods by which the damage might be repaired. William and Martha Kneale, The Development of Logic. With the pencilled ownership inscription to half-title/upper wrapper of Konrad Marc-Wogau (1902-1989), analytical philosopher and historian of philosophy, professor of theoretical philosophy at the University of Uppsala. In his youth, Marc-Wogau was a disciple of Hägerström and Phalén. He made important and comprehensive contributions in two fields: the epistemological discussion of sense data and the study of Kant, and he published a number of works in these areas, as well as on the problems of historical explanation.