Arguments as Abstract Objects

Authors

  • Paul L. Simard Smith Department of Philosophy University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON Canada N2L 3G1 psimards@uwaterloo.ca
  • Andrei Moldovan ANDREI MOLDOVAN Department of Philosophy University of Salamanca Salamanca Spain 37007 mandreius@usal.es

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22329/il.v31i3.3401

Keywords:

abstract object, act/object ambiguity, argument, definition, realism, speech act.

Abstract

In recent discussions concerning the definition of argument, it has been maintained that the word ‘argument’ exhibits the process-product ambiguity, or an act/object ambigu-ity. Drawing on literature on lexical ambiguity we argue that ‘argument’ is not ambiguous. The term ‘argu-ment’ refers to an object, not to a speech act. We also examine some of the important implications of our argument by considering the question: what sort of abstract objects are arguments?

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Published

2011-09-13

Issue

Vol. 31 No. 3 (2011)

Section

Articles

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