The Abductivist Interpretation of Frege's Conception of Logic

ABSTRACT Frege is an abductivist about logic. For him, an acceptable logic must be sufficient—that is, it must be able to explain the relevant data, such as the fact that arithmetical laws are logical truths. Thus, Frege's logicism is an abductive project aimed at establishing the acceptability of his logic, Begriffsschrift. Though he regards logical truths as analytic and a priori, the way he defines analyticity and apriority is fully compatible with the abductive selection of a logic. Frege does admit logical intuition and takes it to play a role in logical investigation, such as in evidence‐gathering. However, given that other abductivists also partially recognize such traditional epistemologies for logic, we can legitimately consider Frege an abductivist.