Hossein Shaqaqi
Abstract
The idea of ideal language is one of the most important and central issues in analytic philosophy. The major philosophers of the first stream of analytic philosophy, which began with Frege and developed in Russell and early Wittgenstein and logical positivists, not only welcome this idea, but also ...
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The idea of ideal language is one of the most important and central issues in analytic philosophy. The major philosophers of the first stream of analytic philosophy, which began with Frege and developed in Russell and early Wittgenstein and logical positivists, not only welcome this idea, but also pursue its realization as a central goal. But the idea of the ideal language was declined by the second stream of analytic philosophy, which is also inspired by Frege's work and ideas and developed in Moore and later Wittgenstein. Here I will try, first, to show the influence of the classical modern philosophers (Descartes, Leibniz, and classical empiricists) on the philosophers of the first stream in development of the idea of the ideal language, and second, to explain how both streams -the first in supporting and the latter in rejecting the idea of the ideal language – were under the influence of aspects of Frege's thought about sense and its relation to reference, and finally to show the role of later Wittgenstein's view on the meaning and his concept of "family resemblance" in declining the idea of “ideal language”.