Frege et le cogito

Abstract

AbstractMost of the readers of Frege's first Logical Investigation, “The Thought,” have been convinced that, according to Frege, the sense of ‘I’ was a private one, that an I-thought was a private thought. But it is not the case: the famous Fregean distinction between private representations and public thoughts seems an explanation and a generalization of the I-thought problem as much as an anti-Cartesian repetition of the Cartesian Second Meditation. Frege's position concerning indexical thoughts is that they are public thoughts, for the sense of an indexical expression is not related to private representations but to some semiotical aspects of the public context of its utterance.