In the last chapter of
Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics Michael Dummett suggests
that Frege's major mistake – the key to the collapse of the project of
Grundgesetze
– consisted in "his supposing there to be a totality containing the extension of every
concept defined over it; more generally [the mistake] lay in his not having the glimmering
of a suspicion of the existence of indefinitely extensible concepts" (page 317).
I will try to say what I think is right about this particular diagnostic suggestion
of Dummett's: to propose a characterization of indefinite extensibility, and to explain
the connection of the notion so characterized with paradox.
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