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In 1988, an old file in the storeroom of a Viennese real-estate dealer was found to contain a number of letters written to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Among them were some written to Wittgenstein by Gottlob Frege. The letters from Frege to Wittgenstein were published in German the following year, and since then, various extracts from them have been published here and there in English. In this issue of the Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly, new English translations of the four most philosophically interesting of these letters are published in full. They concern Frege's comments to Wittgenstein on Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Richard Schmitt, the translator, provides an introduction to the letters that includes detailed bibliographic information clearing up many murky references to them that have occurred in earlier standard works on Wittgenstein. The letters themselves are stunning in the acuteness and sheer mental power that Frege displays in them. It is a pleasure to have a translation that brings these characters back to life for us with such force and vividness. Letters of a different kind will be a regular feature in the Quarterly beginning with this issue, namely, Russell's urgent letters to the world in the form of his numerous and famous Letters to the Editor. In this issue, we see one of Russell's early letters on the subject of Israel's relations to the Arab world. Ray Perkins, the general editor of this series, provides an introduction to the letter, giving the general background to its creation. Did Russell have a modal logic? In a previous issue of the Quarterly (February 2003) Dan Kervick reviewed Jan Dejnozka's controversial book, Bertrand Russell on Modality and Logical Relevance, in which Dejnozka argues in the affirmative. In his review of the book, Kervick raised some questions about the thesis and expressed some doubts about it. The subject returns in this issue with Dejnozka's reply to Kervick's review. It is not clear that we have yet gotten to the bottom of the matter, so the issue may return to these pages in future issues.
Kevin Klement reviews an anthology of selections concerning Frege and Russell on Logicism and the Philosophy of Language, and along the way, provides us with some insight into the nature of logic itself. We hope the reader will take the time to look over his informative review.
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