Metaphysics > Objects

Objects

Edited by Daniel Z. Korman (University of California at Santa Barbara)
Assistant editor: Andrew Higgins (Illinois State University)
About this topic
Summary

Objects are subjects of predication: anything of which something can be said is an object. So construed, the category of objects covers not only material beings like mountains, baseballs, and electrons, but also abstracta (numbers, properties, relations, set). and even non-existent entities if there be any. The papers contained herein concern the nature and existence of different varieties of objects. Some of the most prominent topics include the relation between an objects and the properties it bears; the relation between an object and its parts (mereology); the identity relation that holds between an object and itself; and the persistence of objects through time.  
Key works

For work on the nature and existence of abstract objects, see Quine 1961, Bealer 1982, Armstrong 1989, and Dorr 2008.

For work on persistence, see Hirsch 1982, Hawley 2001, and Sider 2001.

For work on identity, see Black 1952, Kripke 1971, and Adams 1979.
Introductions

For an introduction to the notion of a object, see Laycock 2010. For abstract objects, see Rosen 2008. For material objects, see van Inwagen 1990 and Korman 2011.
Related categories
Subcategories:
Abstract Objects (582 | 548)
Properties* (1,889 | 88)
Ontology of Music* (496 | 324)
Fictional Characters* (265)
Ontology of Mathematics* (2,185 | 297)
Words* (531)
The Nature of Sets* (227 | 95)
Numbers* (332)
Abstract Objects, Misc (34)
Identity (1,018 | 420)
Composition as Identity* (89)
Contingent Identity (58)
Identity of Indiscernibles (139)
Theories of Personal Identity* (1,792 | 835)
Relative Identity* (72)
Vague Identity (93)
The Necessity of Identity (41)
Criteria of Identity (61)
Identity, Misc (206)
Material Objects (1,496 | 401)
Artifacts (178)
Coincident Objects (134)
Composition as Identity* (89)
Contingent Identity (58)
Material Constitution (278)
Mereological Universalism* (110)
Mereological Nihilism* (135)
Monism* (88)
Problem of the Many (52)
Stuff (141)
Three- and Four-Dimensionalism* (406)
Vague Objects (101)
Eliminative Conceptions of Material Objects (64)
Permissive Conceptions of Material Objects (49)
Material Objects, Misc (98)
Mereology (1,080 | 456)
Composition as Identity* (89)
Mereological Universalism* (110)
Mereological Nihilism* (135)
Mereological Essentialism (41)
Simples and Gunk (84)
The Argument from Vagueness (40)
Mereology, Misc (126)
Ontology of Mathematics* (2,185 | 297)
Minor Entities (143 | 20)
Holes (29)
Reflections (48)
Shadows (24)
Minor Entities, Misc (22)
Nonexistent Objects (109)
Objects and Properties (350 | 81)
Bundle Theories (86)
Substratum Theories (53)
Objects and Properties, Misc (130)
Persistence (1,002 | 120)
Endurance (106)
Occasional Identity (7)
Perdurance (125)
Relative Identity* (72)
Stage Theory (55)
Three- and Four-Dimensionalism* (406)
Temporary Intrinsics (35)
Persistence, Misc (76)
Objects, Misc (43)
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5820 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 5820
Abstract Objects
See also: Properties, Ontology of Music, Fictional Characters, Ontology of Mathematics, Words, The Nature of Sets, Numbers
  1. Not Necessarily.Raziel Abelson - 1961 - Philosophical Review 70 (1):67-84.
  2. A Defense of Naturalism.Keith Augustine - 2001 - Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park
    The first part of this essay discusses what naturalism in the philosophy of religion should entail for one's ontology, considers various proposed criteria for categorizing something as natural, uses an analysis of these proposed criteria to develop theoretical criteria for both the natural and nonnatural, and develops a set of criteria for identifying a potentially supernatural event in practice. The second part of the essay presents a persuasive empirical case for naturalism based on the lack of uncontroversial evidence for any (...)
  3. Fisk on Capacities and Natures.Bruce Aune - 1970 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1970:83 - 87.
  4. Why Deflationary Nominalists Shouldn’T Be Agnostics.Jody Azzouni - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (5):1143-1161.
    A feature of agnostic views—views that officially express ignorance about the existence of something —is that they are widely perceived to be epistemically more cautious than views that are committed to the entities in question. This is often seen as giving agnostics a debating advantage: all things being equal, fence-sitters have smaller argumentative burdens. Otávio Bueno argues in this way for what he calls “agnostic nominalism,” the view that we don’t know whether ontologically-independent Platonic objects exist. I show that agnostic (...)
  5. II—Jody Azzouni: Singular Thoughts.Jody Azzouni - 2011 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 85 (1):45-61.
  6. Between the Concretist and Abstract Concepts of Being.Bogdan Bakies - 1982 - Roczniki Filozoficzne 30 (1):91.
  7. Collapse, Plurals and Sets.Eduardo Alejandro Barrio - 2014 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 18 (3):419.
  8. Realism and Nominalism Revisited.J. D. Bastable - 1955 - Philosophical Studies 5:164-165.
  9. Exemplification Postulates.Robert W. Beard - 1968 - Philosophical Studies 19 (3):33 - 37.
  10. The Epistemology of Abstract Objects.D. A. Bell & W. D. Hart - 1979 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 53 (1):135-166.
  11. Comments on Maddy and Tymoczko.Paul Benacerraf - 1984 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984:476 - 485.
  12. Mathematics and Poetry.Ermanno Bencivenga - 2006 - Inquiry : An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 49 (2):158 – 169.
    Since Descartes, mathematics has been dominated by a reductionist tendency, whose success would seem to promise greater certainty: the fewer basic objects mathematics can be understood as dealing with, and the fewer principles one is forced to assume about these objects, the easier it will be to establish a secure foundation for it. But this tendency has had the effect of sharply limiting the expressive power of mathematics, in a way that is made especially apparent by its disappointing applications to (...)
  13. Universals as Sortals in the Categories.Hugh H. Benson - 1988 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (4):282-306.
  14. Frege's Hidden Nominalism.Gustav Bergmann - 1958 - Philosophical Review 67 (4):437-459.
  15. The Notion of Structure.S. Bernard Lonergan - 1996 - Method 14 (2):117-132.
  16. Solution of a Mathematical Problem in the Theory of Heredity.S. N. Bernshtein - 1976 - Social Science Information 15 (4-5):797-821.
  17. Readymades, Monochromes, Etc.: Nominalism and the Paradox of Modernism.J. M. Bernstein - 2002 - Diacritics 32 (1):83-100.
  18. Abstract.Alexander U. Bertland - 1996 - New Vico Studies 14:96-99.
  19. Nominalism and Inner Experience.Peter Bieri - 1982 - The Monist 65 (January):68-87.
  20. The Reality of Numbers.John Bigelow - 1988 - Mind 100 (2):283-287.
  21. Semantic Nominalism.John Bigelow - 1981 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 59 (4):403 – 421.
  22. Resemblance Nominalism and Counterparts.A. Bird - 2003 - Analysis 63 (3):221-228.
  23. Otto Heyn Als Nominalist Dissertation.Katharina Biske - 1930 - Druckerei-Genossenschaft.
  24. The Theory of Semantic Categories and the Problem of the Typology of Universals.Bogdan Bjankov - 1983 - der 16. Weltkongress Für Philosophie 2:398-405.
    According to the basic idea of the theory of semantic categories the huge variety of expressions could be reduced to three basic classes, called basic semantic categories: names, statements, and functors. On this basis abstract objects or universale can be reduced also to three basic typest abstract objects-terms, abstract objects-statements, and abstract objects-operators. The so-called auxilliary signs, in particular brackets in formalized languages, fulfil a certain, structural function and, on this ground, can be numbered to the type of abstract objects-operators (...)
  25. 3 Mathematical Objects and Identity.Patricia Blanchette - 2007 - In Michael O'Rourke Corey Washington (ed.), Situating Semantics: Essays on the Philosophy of John Perry. pp. 73.
  26. Medieval Currencies : Nominalism and Art.C. D. Blanton - 2010 - In Andrew Cole & D. Vance Smith (eds.), The Legitimacy of the Middle Ages: On the Unwritten History of Theory. Duke University Press.
  27. The Nominalist Argument of the New Essays.Martha Brandt Bolton - 1996 - The Leibniz Review 6:1-24.
  28. Mathematics and Metalogic.Daniel Bonevac - 1984 - The Monist 67 (1):56-71.
    In this paper I shall attempt to outline a nominalistic theory of mathematical truth. I call my theory nominalistic because it avoids a real (see [4]) ontological commitment to abstract entities. Traditionally, nominalists have found it difficult to justify any reference to infinite collections in mathematics. Even those who have tried to do so have typically restricted themselves to predicative and, thus, denumerable realms. I Indeed, many have linked impredicative definitions to platonism; nominalists have tended to agree with Weyl that (...)
  29. Frege's Theorem and the Peano Postulates.George Boolos - 1995 - Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 1 (3):317-326.
  30. Whence the Contradiction?George Boolos - 1993 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 67:211--233.
  31. P. 54-72.(1985)'Nominalist Platonism'.Reprinted Boolos - 1998 - Philosophical Review 94:327-44.
  32. Generale E Particolare.Andrea Borghini - unknown
    Is it true that some entities are general, while others are particular? Ramsey famously challenged this distinction, and more recently Fraser McBride has revived the challenge. In this paper I argue that there are at least five substantial distinctions among entities, and that the distinction between general and particular entities should be made to correspond to one or more of those substantial distinctions.
  33. O Conceito de Descobrimento.Gerd A. Bornheim - 1998
  34. Against Angles and the Fregean-Cantorian Theory of Number.Andrew Boucher - unknown
    How-many numbers, such as 2 and 1000, relate or are capable of expressing the size of a group or set. Both Cantor and Frege analyzed how-many number in terms of one-to-one correspondence between two sets. That is to say, one arrived at numbers by either abstracting from the concept of correspondence, in the case of Cantor, or by using it to provide an out-and-out definition, in the case of Frege.
  35. Structural, Electronic, Optical and Elastic Properties of the Complex K2PtCl6-Structure hydridesARuH6: First-Principles Study. [REVIEW]O. Boudrifa, A. Bouhemadou, Ş Uğur, R. Khenata, S. Bin-Omran & Y. Al-Douri - forthcoming - Philosophical Magazine:1-34.
  36. On Zalta's Notion of Encoding in Conceivability Contexts.Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde - 2004 - Metaphysica.
    Zalta's notion of encoding which lies at the core of his theory of abstract objects is refined so that it can capture cognitive dynamic phenomena such as multiple object-tracking in particular intentional contexts; namely hypothetical stipulation concerning abstract objects and counter-essential conceivability about ordinary ones. Zalta's Modal Axiom of Encoding is weakened and the notion of 'quasi-encoding' is spelt out.
  37. Did Plato Believe in Immanent Universals?George Mcmillan Bowles - 1970 - Dissertation, Stanford University
  38. Wessel Gansfort Between Albertism and Nominalism.Hag Braakhuis - 1993 - In Fokke Akkerman, Gerda C. Huisman & Arie Johan Vanderjagt (eds.), Wessel Gansfort (1419-1489) and Northern Humanism. E.J. Brill. pp. 40--30.
  39. Nonlinearities in the Undercooled Properties of Ti39.5Zr39.5Ni21.R. C. Bradshaw, A. D. Arsenault, R. W. Hyers, J. R. Rogers, T. J. Rathz, G. W. Lee‖, A. K. Gangopadhyay & K. F. Kelton - 2006 - Philosophical Magazine 86 (3-5):341-347.
  40. The Languages of Realism and Nominalism.Richard B. Brandt - 1956 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17 (4):516-535.
  41. Exemplification of Predicates.Ann Ferguson Brentlinger - 1970 - Noûs 4 (3):285-293.
  42. The Stoic View on Universals.Ada Bronowski - 2007 - Documenti E Studi Sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale 18:71-87.
  43. Abstract Objects Bob Hale Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. Pp. 282. $75.00. [REVIEW]James Robert Brown - 1988 - Dialogue 27 (4):729-.
  44. Bob Hale, "Abstract Objects". [REVIEW]James Robert Brown - 1988 - Dialogue 27 (4):729.
  45. Frege on Knowing the Foundation.Tyler Burge - 1998 - Mind 107 (426):305-347.
    The paper scrutinizes Frege's Euclideanism - his view of arithmetic and geometry as resting on a small number of self-evident axioms from which non-self-evident theorems can be proved. Frege's notions of self-evidence and axiom are discussed in some detail. Elements in Frege's position that are in apparent tension with his Euclideanism are considered - his introduction of axioms in The Basic Laws of Arithmetic through argument, his fallibilism about mathematical understanding, and his view that understanding is closely associated with inferential (...)
  46. Abstract Objects.John P. Burgess & Bob Hale - 1992 - Philosophical Review 101 (2):414.
  47. Attaining to the Abstract.Edmund C. Burke - 1929 - Modern Schoolman 6 (1):8-9.
  48. The Adequacy of Resemblance Nominalism About Perfect Naturalness.Ralf Busse - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:443-469.
    Resemblance Nominalism About Perfect Naturalness is the view that perfect naturalness of classes is best defined by a conceptual primitive of resemblance between particulars. The adequacy of RNPN is defended by outlining nominalism as the strictly anti-constitutive view that the particulars’ being the fundamental ways they are is not constituted by anything further, supplying a doubly plural contrastive and graded resemblance predicate that allows for a definition of perfect naturalness on an actualist basis, and proving a representation and a uniqueness (...)
  49. Resemblance and Identity: An Examination of the Problem of Universals.Panayot Butchvarov - 1968 - Philosophical Review 77 (3):386-389.
  50. The Uses of Argument. [REVIEW]L. C. - 1958 - Review of Metaphysics 11 (4):697-697.
1 — 50 / 5820
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General Editors:
David Bourget (Western Ontario)
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