The Ideal of Logical Perfection

Abstract

The rise of modern logic had a deep impact on the philosophical reflection on logical form. This chapter explains how logical form became a primary topic of interest between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In particular, we will focus on Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein. Their works contributed in different ways to shape a thought that moulded the beginning the analytic tradition, the thought that the logical form of the sentences of natural language can at least in principle be displayed by sentences of a logically perfect language.