Word and Object in Husserl, Frege, and Russell

In search of the origins of some of the most fundamental problems that have beset philosophers in English-speaking countries in the past century, Claire Ortiz Hill maintains that philosophers are treating symptoms of ills whose causes lie buried in history. Substantial linguistic hurdles have blocked access to Gottlob Freges thought and even to Bertrand Russells work to remedy the problems he found in it. Misleading translations of key concepts like intention, content, presentation, idea, meaning, concept, etc., severed analytic philosophy from its roots. Hill argues that once linguistic and historical barriers are removed, Edmund Husserls critical study of Freges logic in his 1891 Philosophy of Arithmetic provides important insights into issues in philosophy now. She supports her conclusions with analyses of Freges, Husserls, and Russells works, including Principia Mathematica, and with linguistic analyses of the principal concepts of analytic philosophy. She re-establishes links that existed between English and Continental thought to show Husserls expertise as a philosopher of mathematics and logic who had been Weierstrasss assistant and had long maintained ties with Cantor, Hilbert, and Zermelo.