Gottlob

Frege, Gottlob, 1848-1925, German philosopher and mathematician. He was professor of mathematics (1879-1918) at the Univ. of Jena. Frege was one of the founders of modern symbolic logic, and his work profoundly influenced Bertrand Russell. He claimed that all mathematics could be derived from purely logical principles and definitions. He considered verbal concepts to be expressible as symbolic functions with one or more variables. His books include Begriffsschrift (1879); Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884; tr. The Foundations of Arithmetic, 1950); Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (2 vol., 1893-1903).

(born Sept. 25, 1750, Wehrau, Saxony—died June 30, 1817, Freiberg) German geologist. In opposition to the Plutonists, or Vulcanists, who argued that granite and many other rocks were of igneous origin, he founded the Neptunist school, which proclaimed that all rocks resulted from precipitation from oceans that had, he theorized, once completely covered the Earth. He rejected uniformitarianism. His brilliant lecturing and personal charm won him many students, who, though many eventually discarded his theories, would not renounce them while Werner lived.

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(born Nov. 8, 1848, Wismar, Mecklenburg-Schwerin—died July 26, 1925, Bad Kleinen, Ger.) German mathematician and logician, inventor of modern mathematical logic and one of the founders of the analytic tradition in philosophy. He taught at the University of Jena from 1871 to 1917. His Begriffsschrift (1879, “Conceptscript”), was the first presentation of a system of mathematical logic in the modern sense. Using an original notation of quantifiers and variables, he was able to give formal expression to sentences containing multiple quantification, such as “Everybody loves someone”; this is impossible in the syllogistic derived from Aristotle, which had been considered complete until the time of Immanuel Kant (see predicate calculus). In the Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik he attempted to establish the doctrine later known as logicism. He also made significant contributions to the philosophy of language, including a highly influential theory of the distinction between sense and reference. Though Frege's work was admired by Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, it was unknown to or ignored by most other philosophers and mathematicians during Frege's lifetime; its significance was not generally appreciated until the mid-20th century.

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(born Sept. 25, 1750, Wehrau, Saxony—died June 30, 1817, Freiberg) German geologist. In opposition to the Plutonists, or Vulcanists, who argued that granite and many other rocks were of igneous origin, he founded the Neptunist school, which proclaimed that all rocks resulted from precipitation from oceans that had, he theorized, once completely covered the Earth. He rejected uniformitarianism. His brilliant lecturing and personal charm won him many students, who, though many eventually discarded his theories, would not renounce them while Werner lived.

Learn more about Werner, Abraham Gottlob with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Gottlob is a given name, which may refer to:

• Gottlob Berger
• Gottlob Burmann
• Gottlob Frege
• Gottlob Frick
• Christian August Gottlob Eberhard
• Christian Gottlob Heine
• Johann Gottlob Lehmann (classicist) (1782-1837) — Noted classicist and director of the Gymnasium at Luckau, Germany (1836-41).
• Johann Gottlob Lehmann(scientist) ((1719–1767) — one of the founders of modern geology and stratigraphy.
• Johann Gottlob Lehmann (others)—others of same name of lesser notability
• Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost
• Adam Gottlob Moltke
• Christoph Gottlob Müller
• Christian Gottlob Neefe
• Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlaeger
• Johann Gottlob Schneider
• Eugen Gottlob Winkler
• Karl Gottlob Zumpt

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