The subject matter of this thesis is analytic ontology. Chapters II and III deal with two versions of trope theory, or moderate nominalism; these are defined as ontologies which recognise properties and relations but no (real) universals. The key notion of both theories, trope, is characterised as an abstract particular. What the abstractness amounts to differs between the two. Yet another difference is that simplicity is an essential trait of a trope according to one theory, but not according to the (...) other. Though exact similarity is said to play an important role in both theories, as it turns out, this does not seem to be the case. The ontology dealt with in chapter IV is a mixture of moderate nominalism concerning qualities and realism concerning relations. In it, quality instances (moments) and universal relations are the ultimate constituents of the universe. While relations and moments are considered to be constituents of states of affairs, which are characterised as objects of higher orders, complexes that are objects of the first order are made up of moments on their own. Among these complexes one finds the ordinary objects. Paradoxically, although relations are necessary for the existence of complex first order objects, relations are not thought to be among the contents of these objects. The main subject of chapter V is a particular version of moderate realism; it is an ontology which is realistic in its recognition of universals and moderate in its recognition of instances of these universals. Instances combine to form complex networks. A theoretically motivated claim is that although each instance has a predicational aspect as well as a universal one, it is simple in the sense of lacking internal predicative structure; though, this claim can be called into question. Keywords: analytic ontology, moderate nominalism, moderate realism, particular, universal, abstract, concrete, abstract particular, abstract universal, concrete particular, concrete universal, trope, moment, complex unity, collection, instance, unit attribute, intensional aspect, predicational aspect, continuous composite, articulated composite. (shrink)

This is the 1991 (2nd) edition of the 1986 book (MIT Press), considered to be the classic defense of Millianism. The nature of the information content of declarative sentences is a central topic in the philosophy of language. The natural view that a sentence like "John loves Mary" contains information in which two individuals occur as constituents is termed the naive theory, and is one that has been abandoned by most contemporary scholars. This theory was refuted originally by philosopher Gottlob (...) Frege. His argument that the naive theory did not work is termed Frege's puzzle, and his rival account of information content is termed the orthodox theory. In this detailed study, Nathan Salmon defends a version of the naive theory and presents a proposal for its extension that provides a better picture of information content than the orthodox theory gives. He argues that a great deal of what has generally been taken for granted in the philosophy of language over the past few decades is either mistaken or unsupported, and consequently, much current research is focused on the wrong set of questions. Salmon dissolves Frege's puzzle as it is usually formulated and demonstrates how it can be reconstructed and strengthened to yield a more powerful objection to the naive theory. He then defends the naive theory against the new Frege puzzle by presenting an idea that yields both a surprisingly rich and powerful extension of the naive theory and a better picture of information content than that of the original orthodox theory. Nathan Salmon is Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Santa Barbara. (shrink)

A transcript of three lectures, given at Princeton University in 1970, which deals with (inter alia) debates concerning proper names in the philosophy of language.

The tradition descending from Frege and Russell has typically treated theories of meaning either as theories of meanings, or as theories of truth conditions. However, propositions of the classical sort don't exist, and truth conditions can't provide all the information required by a theory of meaning. In this book, one of the world's leading philosophers of language offers a way out of this dilemma. Traditionally conceived, propositions are denizens of a "third realm" beyond mind and matter, "grasped" by mysterious Platonic (...) intuition. As conceived here, they are cognitive-event types in which agents predicate properties and relations of things--in using language, in perception, and in nonlinguistic thought. Because of this, one's acquaintance with, and knowledge of, propositions is acquaintance with, and knowledge of, events of one's cognitive life. This view also solves the problem of "the unity of the proposition" by explaining how propositions can be genuinely representational, and therefore bearers of truth. The problem, in the traditional conception, is that sentences, utterances, and mental states are representational because of the relations they bear to inherently representational Platonic complexes of universals and particulars. Since we have no way of understanding how such structures can be representational, independent of interpretations placed on them by agents, the problem is unsolvable when so conceived. However, when propositions are taken to be cognitive-event types, the order of explanation is reversed and a natural solution emerges. Propositions are representational because they are constitutively related to inherently representational cognitive acts. Strikingly original, What Is Meaning? is a major advance. (shrink)

The titile essay of this collection suggests that Bertrand Russell's lifelong preoccupation: the disentanglement, with ever-increasing precision, of what is subjective or intellectualy cloudy from what is objective or capable of logical demonstration. The first five essays he calls 'entirely popular': they include two on the revolutionary changes in mathematics in the last hundred years, and one on the value of science in human culture. The last five, 'somewhat more technical', are concerned with particular problems of philosophy: the ultimate nature (...) of matter, the connection between the sense-data and physics, the problem of casuality and different ways of knowing. In these one can see the Russell method in operation, intellectual analysis dissecting the problem to its bare bones. (shrink)

In this fascinating work, Scott Soames offers a new conception of the relationship between linguistic meaning and assertions made by utterances. He gives meanings of proper names and natural kind predicates and explains their use in attitude ascriptions. He also demonstrates the irrelevance of rigid designation in understanding why theoretical identities containing such predicates are necessary, if true.

The central intellectual fact of the present era is that knowledge grows. This growth of knowledge is quietly transforming philosophy, making it possible to do a new kind of philosophy. With the abandonment of the epistemic bias in the subject, such a philosophy can go far beyond anything imagined by the philosophy of a half century ago. It begins, not with skepticism, but with what we know about the real world. It begins with such facts as those stated by the (...) atomic theory of matter and the evolutionary theory of biology, as well as such “common sense” facts as that we are all conscious, that we all really do have intentional mental states, that we form social groups and create institutional facts. Such a philosophy is theoretical, comprehensive, systematic, and universal in subject matter. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra offers a fresh philosophical account of properties. How is it that two different things (such as two red roses) can share the same property (redness)? According to resemblance nominalism, things have their properties in virtue of resembling other things. This unfashionable view is championed with clarity and rigor.

Die Annahmen und die Sprache. Noch einmal das Verstehen. Vielleicht ist es nicht frei von aller Gewaltsamkeit, zur „psychischen Umgebung“ eines inneren Erlebnisses auch dessen sprachlichen Ausdruck zu zählen; jedenfalls aber ist es  ...

According to immanent realism, there are universals in the spatiotemporal world quite independently of language and the mind. The existence of these universals, furthermore, is not dependent upon there being Platonic universals existing outside the spatiotemporal world. In this paper I will try to show that immanent realism holds not only for many determinate universals, but for some determinable universals as well. In other words, there are ontological determinables as well as conceptual determinables.

Husserls »Logische Untersuchungen« sind eines der folgenreichsten Werke der neueren Philosophiegeschichte. Mit dem ersten Erscheinen in den Jahren 1900 und 1901 (Max Niemeyer Verlag, Halle/Saale) nimmt jene Schule ihren Anfang, deren Name im Untertitel des zweiten Bandes zum ersten Mal sinnfällig wird: die Phänomenologie. Husserl sah damals in diesem Werk »Versuche zur Neubegründung der reinen Logik und Erkenntnistheorie«, die den Grund zu einem größeren Gedankengebäude zu legen imstande waren. Sie wollten freilich kein bloßes Programm sein, sondern »Fundamentalarbeit an den unmittelbar (...) erschauten und ergriffenen Sachen« darstellen. Die weitere Arbeit an der Ausprägung der phänomenologischen Philosophie führte schon nach wenigen Jahren zu neuen Problemen, zu vertieften Erkenntnissen und zu schärferen Formulierungen. Ihnen trägt die zweite, zum Teil tiefgreifend umgearbeitete Auflage Rechnung, deren Text seither in unveränderter Form immer wieder nachgedruckt wurde. (shrink)

Richard Gaskin presents a work in the philosophy of language.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Applying the rules and systems of mathematics and logic to instance ontology, this work argues for the validity and problem-solving capacities of instance ontology, and associates it with a version of the realist position which is named by the author as moderate realism.

Gardeners, poets, lovers, and philosophers are all interested in the redness of roses; but only philosophers wonder how it is that two different roses can share the same property. Are red things red because they resemble each other? Or do they resemble each other because they are red? Since the 1970s philosophers have tended to favour the latter view, and held that a satisfactory account of properties must involve the postulation of either universals or tropes. But Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra revives the (...) dormant alternative theory of resemblance nominalism, showing first that it can withstand the attacks of such eminent opponents as Goodman and Armstrong, and then that there are reasons to prefer it to its rival theories. The clarity and rigour of his arguments will challenge metaphysicians to rethink their views on properties. (shrink)

John R. Searle has made profoundly influential contributions to three areas of philosophy: philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of society. This volume gathers together in accessible form a selection of his essays in these areas. They range widely across social ontology, where Searle presents concise and informative statements of positions developed in more detail elsewhere; artificial intelligence and cognitive science, where Searle assesses the current state of the debate and develops his most recent thoughts; and philosophy of (...) language, where Searle connects ideas from various strands of his work in order to develop original answers to fundamental questions. There are also explorations of the limitations of phenomenological inquiry, the mind-body problem, and the nature and future of philosophy. This rich collection from one of America's leading contemporary philosophers will be valuable for all who are interested in these central philosophical questions. (shrink)

First published in 1984 as part of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell , Theory of Knowledge represents an important addition to our knowledge of Russell's thought. In this work Russell attempts to flesh out the sketch implicit in The Problems of Philosophy . It was conceived by Russell as his next major project after Principia Mathematica and was intended to provide the epistemological foundations for his work. Russell's subsequent difficulties in presenting his theory of knowledge, brought on by what (...) he considered to be devastating criticisms of Wittgenstein, led to both his abandonment of this work and to a major transformation in his thought. Theory of Knowledge , now available for the first time in paperback, gives us a picture of one of the great minds of the twentieth century at work. It is possible to see the unsolved problems left without disguise or evasion. This second edition has retained the full scholarly introduction. The photographs of the manuscript, appendices, and notes on textual matters have been eliminated to provide a concise and accessible guide to understanding both Russell's own thought and his relationship with Wittgenstein. (shrink)

First published in 1984 as part of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Theory of Knowledge represents an important addition to our knowledge of Russell's thought. In this work Russell attempts to flesh out the sketch implicit in The Problems of Philosophy. It was conceived by Russell as his next major project after Principia Mathematica and was intended to provide the epistemological foundations for his work. Russell's subsequent difficulties in presenting his theory of knowledge, brought on by what he considered (...) to be devastating criticisms of Wittgenstein, led to both his abandonment of this work and to a major transformation in his thought. Theory of Knowledge, now available for the first time in paperback, gives us a picture of one of the great minds of the twentieth century at work. It is possible to see the unsolved problems left without disguise or evasion. This second edition has retained the full scholarly introduction. The photographs of the manuscript, appendices, and notes on textual matters have been eliminated to provide a concise and accessible guide to understanding both Russell's own thought and his relationship with Wittgenstein. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century an apparently obscure philosophical debate took place between F. H. Bradley and Bertrand Russell. The historical outcome was momentous: the demise of the movement known as British Idealism, and its eventual replacement by the various forms of analytic philosophy. Since then, a conception of this debate and its rights and wrongs has become entrenched in English-language philosophy. Stewart Candlish examines afresh the events of this formative period in twentieth-century thought and comes to some surprising conclusions.

Metaphysics is the thoroughly empirical science. Every item of experience must be evidence for or against any hypothesis of speculative cosmology, and every experienced object must be an exemplar and test case for the categories of analytic ontology. Technically, therefore, one example ought for our present theme to be as good as another. The more dignified examples, however, are darkened with a patina of tradition and partisanship, while some frivolous ones are peculiarly perspicuous. Let us therefore imagine three lollipops, made (...) by a candy man who buys sticks from a big supplier and molds candy knobs on them. Lollipop No. 1 has a red round peppermint head, No. 2 a brown round chocolate head, No. 3 a red square peppermint head. The circumstance here which mainly provokes theories of subsistence and inherence is similarity with difference: each lollipop is partially similar to each other and partially different from it. If we can give a good account of this circumstance in this affair we shall have the instrument to expose the anatomy of everything, from an electron or an apple to archangels and the World All. (shrink)