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The purpose of this chapter is to sketch the metaphysical aspects of Frege's notion of a function. This enterprise will carry over into the next chapter, where I shall be concerned to delineate his metaphysics of objects. However, before beginning with the task at hand a word of explanation. Some of what I shall say in the present chapter will initially have a ring of familiarity about it. Indeed, at times it may even seem as though I was merely rehearsing distinctions and notions already introduced in the previous chapter. Such an evaluation, however, would be both wrong and dangerous. Wrong, because not only does this chapter present in detail what was merely indicated, touched upon or hinted at in the previous discussion, but also because the approach adopted here is an entirely different one. Whereas before I was concerned to sketch a certain fact about Frege's idea of a perfect language and thereby to justify a certain methodology, now that methodology is employed for the purposes intended; whereas before I was concerned to establish the fact of ontological perspicuousness of Frege's ideal language, I now avail myself of that characteristic to establish essentially metaphysical points. On the other hand, it is dangerous to misperceive this as a mere rephrasing of what has gone before because such a move would involve a confusion of two parameters of Frege's thought which although closely interrelated nevertheless are quite distinct: metaphysics and language. Therefore if Chapter I was a methodological propaedeutic, Chapter II may be seen as the start of the exposition proper.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-3387-8_3

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