Truth-Bearers in Frege and the Tractatus

Abstract

This paper argues that the Tractatus breaks deeply with Frege’s account of truth-bearers as mind-independent entities, and is closer to the act-theoretic approach recently defended, for example, by Scott Soames and Peter Hanks. For the Tractatus, the primary truth-bearers are facts-in-use, which essentially involve acts, as well as facts functioning as instruments of representation. The Tractarian account, it is further argued, can vindicate three platitudes that constitute the main motivation of Frege’s approach.

Keywords

• Frege
• Wittgenstein
• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
• truth-bearers
• propositions
• thoughts