Gottlob Frege

Born in Wismar, Germany, in 1848, Gottlob Frege studied mathematics at Jena and Göttingen and spent most of his career teaching at the University of Jena. During his lifetime he was not widely celebrated, but his work would later be recognized as a turning point in logic, philosophy, and the study of language.

Frege is best known for developing a powerful new logical notation in Begriffsschrift (1879) and for arguing that arithmetic could be grounded in logic. He also introduced influential ideas about meaning, including the distinction between sense and reference, which became central to later philosophy of language.

Today, Frege is often described as a founder of modern logic and an important source of analytic philosophy. Even where later thinkers challenged his conclusions, they often did so using tools and questions that he helped bring into focus.