Truth And Metatheory In Frege

In this paper it is contended, against a challenging recent interpretation of Frege, that Frege should be credited with the first semi-rigorous formulation of semantic theory. It is argued that the considerations advanced against this contention suffer from two kinds of error. The first involves the attribution to Frege of a sceptical attitude towards the truth-predicate. The second involves the sort of justification which these arguments assume a classical semantic theory attempts to provide. Finally, it is shown that Frege was in fact mindful of the need for the relevant sort of justification. According to much recent work on him, Frege lacked a semantical metatheory. Appearances to the contrary, such as Frege's seeming attempts, in Part I of the Basic Laws of Arithmetic, to provide an interpretation of his formal language as well as metatheoretical justifications of his rules of inference, are explained away, usually on the basis that to take them as such would conflict with foundational tenets of his philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to subject several of the underlying arguments of this recent work in Frege interpretation to critical scrutiny. One of the most sophisticated examples of this line of thought is to be found in the work of Thomas Ricketts. Accordingly, the majority of this paper is devoted to countering his arguments. Contra Ricketts, I shall argue that Frege indeed crucially invokes a semantical metatheory in the Basic Laws, his central logical work, and that that there are no convincing reasons to believe that this conflicts with Frege's general philosophical programme.