Abstract
This is the first part of the essay devoted to the story of logicism, especially to its Fregean version. Reviewing the classical period of Fregean studies we firstly point out some critical moments of Frege‘s argumentation in Grundlagen, in order to be later able to differentiate between its salvable and defective features.
We are working on presumption that there are no easy, categorical answers to questions like “Is logicism dead?“ and such as like: Wittgenstein’s critique of the foundational programme as well as the remarkable neofregean discoveries of Boolos and Wright have to be confronted with the effects which the logicistic idea actually had on logico-matematical practice. But that is another story, a sequel to this essay, the purpose of which is rather systematic, not critical.