Frege - English

On Frege.
This presentation is an abbreviation of a more extensive one that was the result of my
participation in a cartel on the 20th seminar; a cartel that was abruptly suspended by the
pandemic. I participated alongside Despoina Andropoulou, Haris Raptis and George
Mitropoulos, with Vlasis Skolidis being the plus - one. Our desire and decision was to delve
into a significant number of Lacan’s references (many of which, as is well known, concern
philosophers). Throughout Encore there is one explicit reference to Frege, who has been
discussed more extensively in the 19th seminar. It is found in the first chapter: " Si j’ ai
interrogé Frege au départ, c'est pour tenter de démontrer la béance qu’ il y a de cet Un à
quelque chose qui tient à l' être, et, derrière l'être, à la jouissance." Lacan speaks of a gap
between Being and the One. What is it about when it comes to the One? Apart from the
"becoming One", of love, which is thematized in terms of its meaning and possibility in the
20th (but also throughout the trajectory of psychoanalytic thought), the question of the One
(and the number) is one of the first and more persistent in the history of philosophy. What is
the One? And, accordingly: What is the relation of number to Being and the concept? For
Lacan, the One is a signifier.
I chose to undertake Frege because of my interest in philosophy. An additional challenge

was the fact that Frege belongs to, and partly establishes, a philosophical current that from
my theoretical point of view is considered as a symptom of the crisis of philosophy.
I relied on Frege's work "The Foundations of Arithmetic", of 1884, where he attempts to

answer in purely logical terms the pending question regarding the kind of objects that
numbers are. It summarizes his effort to prove and define the concepts of the number, zero,
One, and the succession of natural numbers without the mediation of
intuition/[Anschauung] (see Kant). The argument is too complex and sophisticated to be
satisfactorily presented in brief. Frege excludes from the outset any notion of subjectivity
from the purely logical foundation he attempts to introduce; at least any form of subjectivity
in the empirical or psychological sense of the term; we will return to this exclusion. His basic
conceptual triptych is the following: object, concept, number. Their articulation receives the
following form: The concept subsumes objects and a number is assigned to it. The number
assigned to the concept refers to the width of its objects. It is not a property of the objects
nor is it identified with the unit or the multitude of units. The unit is, in a way, a split middle
term between the immediate empirical thing on one hand and concept and number on the
other. More specifically, the units are both identical and distinct; their mediating position
rests in this contradiction. They are identical in terms of their form since they are the logical
way to conceive objects that are at first given empirically. They are distinct because in terms
of content each unit concerns a different object. The first logical move, then, is to transform
the manifold of intuition, as Kant would say, into single objects of the understanding: units.
The production of units by the understanding does not automatically render possible their
numeration. The unit is not the number (one). Something more is required in order to define
One.
The concept of identity is introduced here. It connects Frege’s project to the concept of
truth. For the aforementioned subsumption, the concept of identical to the concept is
presupposed. Simply put, an object must be identical to a concept in order to be subsumed
to it. Next to this concept of object / concept identity lies the concept of identical to oneself.
Frege draws from Leibniz according to whom "something is identical with something else,
when it can replace it without loss of truth". That is, the field of truth presupposes the
exclusion of non-identity to oneself, in other words of (self)contradiction. Frege continues his
argument: no object is subsumed under the concept non identical to oneself. That is, nothing
can be conceived that is not in identity to itself. Therefore, number zero is assigned to this
specific concept. Thus, Frege manages to make the non-being, the untrue, the negative
itself, a logical object of thought. Zero becomes conceivable and absence acquires the status
of an object of thought. Frege goes on as follows: zero is identical to itself (0 = 0), and is the
only object that corresponds to the concept of objects not identical to themselves. The
number corresponding to this concept is One. There is only one zero. This is another class of
objects, the class of logical objects, of numbers. With this second gesture, Frege manages to
logically articulate the lack, the One and truth by defining a field of truth that is completely
detached from experience and entirely belongs to the realm of reason. Once he proves and
defines the zero and the one, he proceeds to the definition of the succession of numbers,
dealing with purely logical objects that are placed in the field of the truth of pure reason.
In conclusion, briefly and, unfortunately, codified, I will refer to some aspects of the
relevance of Frege's project with Lacanian psychoanalysis, with the assistance of Miller, and
his intervention in the 12th seminar, entitled Suture. First, from the initial metaphor of zero
to One (1/0), the metonymic desire (signification) begins. Second, the impossible object that
is not to be found in reality (from which nothing is missing), but constitutes the logically
negative, is the subject itself - here Lacanian algebra is radically different from Frege’s which
excludes the subject (of the signifier). Third, the subject is the non-identical to itself, the
deleted S not located the place of the Other, that is, the place of truth. Fourth, the subject,
like zero, is not, but is represented by one signifier for another signifier. Fifth, this
representation formulates the chain of signifiers which corresponds to the succession of
numbers. Just as zero is assumed to appear and disappear in each transition from n to n + 1,
the subject is summoned and disappears each time another signifier is added to the chain.
Finally, in the form of a provocative formulation of a question for further research, I would
say that the subject of the unconscious is the symptom of the construction of a field of truth
within speech.
Orestis Goulas

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On Frege.

I chose to undertake Frege because of my interest in philosophy. An additional challenge

I relied on Frege's work "The Foundations of Arithmetic", of 1884, where he attempts to

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