Contents
115 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 115
  1. The Epistemic Role of our Ontological Scheme - Arguments (draft).Julian Manuel Galvez Bunge - manuscript
    Arguments for a theory about the nature of the ontological categories, the relations that determine them and their epistemic role in the construction of different kinds of limited, but true knowledge of reality in itself.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Metaphysics: Study of Categories as Manners of Existence.Jani Hakkarainen - manuscript
    In this talk, I propose a new account of ontological form, formal ontological relations, modes of being and hence of specifying the subject matter of metaphysics.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Meinongian Merits and Maladies.Samuel Hoadley-Brill - manuscript
    According to what has long been the dominant school of thought in analytic meta-ontology––defended not only by W. V. O. Quine, but also by Bertrand Russell, Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, and many others––the meaning of ‘there is’ is identical to the meaning of ‘there exists.’ The most (in)famous aberration from this view is advanced by Alexius Meinong, whose ontological picture has endured extensive criticism (and borderline abuse) from several subscribers to the majority view. Meinong denies the identity of being (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. A Quantificational Analysis of the Liar Paradox.Matheus Silva - manuscript
    It seems that the most common strategy to solve the liar paradox is to argue that liar sentences are meaningless and, consequently, truth-valueless. The other main option that has grown in recent years is the dialetheist view that treats liar sentences as meaningful, truth-apt and true. In this paper I will offer a new approach that does not belong in either camp. I hope to show that liar sentences can be interpreted as meaningful, truth-apt and false, but without engendering any (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Easy Ontology Made Easier.Arvid Båve - forthcoming - In Xavier de Donato-Rodríguez, José Falguera & Concha Martínez-Vidal (eds.), Deflationist Conceptions of Abstract Objects. Springer.
    Easy Ontology (EO), defended in several recent works by Amie Thomasson, and based on Carnap’s famous deflationism about metaphysics, is the view that many ontological questions, like ‘Are there numbers?’, are at bottom easy, at least when taken in their “internal” sense. Both Carnap and Thomasson take for granted that serious metaphysicians therefore cannot plausibly be interpreted as asking internal questions. Thus, they think they are committed to finding some alternative, special interpretation of metaphysicians’ utterances. I argue that none of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. Temporal quantifier relativism.Peter Finocchiaro - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    In this paper, I introduce a quantifier-pluralist theory of time, temporal quantifier relativism. Temporal quantifier relativism includes a restricted quantifier for every instantaneous moment of time. Though it flies in the face of orthodoxy, it compares favorably to rival theories of time. To demonstrate this, I first develop the basic syntax and semantics of temporal quantifier relativism. I then compare the theory to its rivals on three issues: the passage of time, the analysis of change, and temporal ontology.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Intertranslatability and Ground-Equivalence.Chanwoo Lee - forthcoming - Erkenntnis.
    When are logical theories equivalent? I discuss the notion of ground-equivalence between logical theories, which can be useful for various theoretical reasons, e.g., we expect ground-equivalent theories to have the same ontological bearing. I consider whether intertranslatability is an adequate criterion for ground-equivalence. Jason Turner recently offered an argument that first-order logic and predicate functor logic are ground-equivalent in virtue of their intertranslatability. I examine his argument and show that this can be generalized to other intertranslatable logical theories, which supports (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Special Quantification: Substitutional, Higher-Order, and Nominalization Approaches.Friederike Moltmann - forthcoming - In Alex Grzankowski & Anthony Savile (eds.), Thought: its Origin and Reach. Essays in Honour of Mark Sainsbury. Routledge.
    Prior’s problem consists in the impossibility of replacing clausal complements of most attitude verbs by ‘ordinary’ NPs; only ‘special quantifiers’ that is, quantifiers like 'something' permit a replacement, preserving grammaticality or the same reading of the verb: (1) a. John claims that he won. b. ??? John claims a proposition / some thing. c. John claims something. In my 2013 book Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, I have shown how this generalizes to nonreferential complements of various other (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Engineering Existence?Lukas Skiba - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    This paper investigates the connection between two recent trends in philosophy: higher-orderism and conceptual engineering. Higher-orderists use higher-order quantifiers (in particular quantifiers binding variables that occupy the syntactic positions of predicates) to express certain key metaphysical doctrines, such as the claim that there are properties. I argue that, on a natural construal, the higher-orderist approach involves an engineering project concerning, among others, the concept of existence. I distinguish between a modest construal of this project, on which it aims at engineering (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  10. Language in the Ontology Room.Alessandro Torza - forthcoming - In Hilary Nesi & Petar Milin (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier.
    The way we answer questions about what there is crucially depends on the language and the logic in which they are framed. This entry introduces the orthodox view on how to carry out such debates, as was formulated by W. V. O. Quine, as well as a number of influential alternatives. A further issue that is explored is whether disagreement about what there is turns on mind-independent features of reality, or it is an artifact of language.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Avoiding Moral Commitment.Miles Tucker - forthcoming - Journal of the American Philosophical Association.
    I argue that relaxed moral realists are not ontologically committed to moral properties. Regardless of whether we tie ontological commitment to quantification, entailment, or truthmaking, if moral properties are not explanatory (as relaxed realists claim), then moral truths do not require moral properties. This permits a nominalist form of relaxed realism that is both simpler and more ecumenical than extant formulations. The possibility of such a position places pressure on the ontology of competing views—and helps focus attention on the critical (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Optimized Energy Numbers.Parker Emmerson - 2024 - Journal of Liberated Mathematics 1 (1):36.
    We recall, "a priori," numeric energy expression: -/- Energy Numbers -/- $\begin{gathered}\mathcal{V}=\left\{f \mid \exists\left\{e_1, e_2, \ldots, e_n\right\} \in E \cup R\right\} \\ \mathcal{V}=\left\{f \mid \exists\left\{e_1, e_2, \ldots, e_n\right\} \in E, \text { and }: E \mapsto r \in R\right\} \\ \mathcal{V}=\left\{E \mid \exists\left\{a_1, \ldots, a_n\right\} \in E, E \not \neg r \in R\right\}\end{gathered}$ -/- We now introduce the set of optimized energy numbers: -/- ($H_a \in \mathcal{H}$ or $P^n = NP$ or $(P,\mathcal{L},F) = NP$). -/- Based on our formulation of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. Symmetry and Hybrid Contingentism.Maegan Fairchild - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    This paper outlines a defense of hybrid contingentism: that it is contingent which individuals there are, but not contingent what properties there are. Critics pursue two main lines of complaint. First, that the hybrid contingentist’s treatment of haecceitistic properties is metaphysically mysterious, and second, that hybrid contingentism involves an unjustified asymmetry in the associated modal logic. I suggest that these complaints may be too quick, at least in the setting of higher-order metaphysics. It is not at all obvious whether and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  14. Higher-order logic as metaphysics.Jeremy Goodman - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    This chapter offers an opinionated introduction to higher-order formal languages with an eye towards their applications in metaphysics. A simply relationally typed higher-order language is introduced in four stages: starting with first-order logic, adding first-order predicate abstraction, generalizing to higher-order predicate abstraction, and finally adding higher-order quantification. It is argued that both β-conversion and Universal Instantiation are valid on the intended interpretation of this language. Given these two principles, it is then shown how we can use pure higher-order logic to (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  15. Fundamentality, Existence, Totality: On Three Notions of Reality and the Landscape of Metaphysics.Dustin Gooßens - 2024 - In Yannic Kappes, Asya Passinsky, Julio De Rizzo & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Facets of Reality — Contemporary Debates. Beiträge der Österreichischen Ludwig Wittgenstein Gesellschaft / Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Band / Vol. XXX. Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. pp. 292-300.
    Metaphysics is, historically as well as systematically, mostly taken to be the inquiry into reality, insofar it is considered to be: (1) the totality of everything there is; (2) of everything that exists; or (3) what is fundamental. This paper sets out to analyze the relation between all three metaphysical core notions and sketch the landscape of metaphysical theories that emerges from it. Taking The Fundamental, The Existent, and Totality to be the domains corresponding to each metaphysical object of inquiry, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Fictional domains.Dominic Gregory - 2024 - Noûs 58 (1):126-140.
    (Open Access.) Quantifiers frequently figure in works of fiction. But occurrences of quantificational expressions within fictions seem no more inevitably to be associated with real domains than uses of names within fictions seem inevitably to be associated with existing referents. The paper outlines some philosophical puzzles resulting from this apparent lack of associated domains, puzzles that are broadly analogous to more familiar ones raised by the apparently nonreferential nature of many fictional names. The paper argues, in the light of an (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. (1 other version)Quantification and ontological commitment.Nicholas K. Jones - 2024 - In Anna Sofia Maurin & Anthony Fisher (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Properties.
    This chapter discusses ontological commitment to properties, understood as ontological correlates of predicates. We examine the issue in four metaontological settings, beginning with an influential Quinean paradigm on which ontology concerns what there is. We argue that this naturally but not inevitably avoids ontological commitment to properties. Our remaining three settings correspond to the most prominent departures from the Quinean paradigm. Firstly, we enrich the Quinean paradigm with a primitive, non-quantificational notion of existence. Ontology then concerns what exists. We argue (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Why Care About What There Is?Daniel Z. Korman - 2024 - Mind 133 (530):428-451.
    There’s the question of what there is, and then there’s the question of what ultimately exists. Many contend that, once we have this distinction clearly in mind, we can see that there is no sensible debate to be had about whether there are such things as properties or tables or numbers, and that the only ontological question worth debating is whether such things are ultimate (in one or another sense). I argue that this is a mistake. Taking debates about ordinary (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  19. Against Second-Order Logic: Quine and Beyond.Fraser MacBride - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. pp. 378-401.
    Is second-order logic logic? Famously Quine argued second-order logic wasn't logic but his arguments have been the subject of influential criticisms. In the early sections of this paper, I develop a deeper perspective upon Quine's philosophy of logic by exploring his positive conception of what logic is for and hence what logic is. Seen from this perspective, I argue that many of the criticisms of his case against second-order logic miss their mark. Then, in the later sections, I go beyond (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Two conceptions of absolute generality.Salvatore Florio & Nicholas K. Jones - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (5-6):1601-1621.
    What is absolutely unrestricted quantification? We distinguish two theoretical roles and identify two conceptions of absolute generality: maximally strong generality and maximally inclusive generality. We also distinguish two corresponding kinds of absolute domain. A maximally strong domain contains every potential counterexample to a generalisation. A maximally inclusive domain is such that no domain extends it. We argue that both conceptions of absolute generality are legitimate and investigate the relations between them. Although these conceptions coincide in standard settings, we show how (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. The Truth about Social Entities.Tobias Hansson Wahlberg - 2023 - In Andrés Garcia, Mattias Gunnemyr & Jakob Werkmäster (eds.), Value, Morality & Social Reality: Essays dedicated to Dan Egonsson, Björn Petersson & Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. Department of Philosophy, Lund University. pp. 483-497.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. Ontological Pluralism and Ontological Category.Ataollah Hashemi & Davood Hosseini - 2023 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 19 (1):page A1-16.
    Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different ways of being. Historically, ways of being are aligned with the ontological categories. This paper is about to investigate why there is such a connection, and how it should be understood. Ontological pluralism suffers from an objection, according to which ontological pluralism collapses into ontological monism, i.e., there is only one way to be. Admitting to ontological categories can save ontological pluralism from this objection if ways of being ground ontological categories. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. Comprometido, mas não casado, com solteiros: Explodindo o critério de compromisso ontológico de Quine.Deiver Melo - 2023 - In Vinícius Felipe Posselt, Taís Regina Chiodelli, Claiton Costa, Eduardo Alves, Kelvin Amorim de Melo, Leonardo Teixeira Pereira & Messias Miguel Uaissone (eds.), XXIII Semana Acadêmica PPG Filosofia PUCRS. Fundação Fênix. pp. 197-212.
    W. V. Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment is commonly presented as the slogan: “to be is to be the value of a variable”. More specifically, to be is to be in the domain of values of a bound variable attached to a existential quantifier in the body of a theory. If a sentence of our best available theory quantifies over bachelors, so we conclude that, according to it, there are bachelors. Simplicity and the use of logical apparatus for determining this (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. Quantifier Variance, Vague Existence, and Metaphysical Vagueness.Rohan Sud - 2023 - Journal of Philosophy 120 (4):173-219.
    This paper asks: Is the quantifier variantist committed to metaphysical vagueness? My investigation of this question goes via a study of vague existence. I’ll argue that the quantifier variantist is committed to vague existence and that the vague existence posited by the variantist requires a puzzling sort of metaphysical vagueness. Specifically, I distinguish between (what I call) positive and negative metaphysical vagueness. Positive metaphysical vagueness is (roughly) the claim that there is vagueness in the world; negative metaphysical vagueness is (roughly) (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Ontological disagreements, reference, and charity: A challenge for Hirsch's deflationism.Delia Belleri - 2022 - Theoria 88 (5):982-996.
    Eli Hirsch argues that certain ontological disputes involve a conflict between “equivalent” languages, and that the principle of charity compels each disputant to interpret the other as speaking truly in their own language. For Hirsch, a language’s semantics maps sentences (in context) onto sets of possible worlds but assigns no role to reference. I argue that this method leads to an overly uncharitable portrayal of the disputes at issue – whereby ontologists who speak “equivalent” languages can only argue about syntax. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. Generality.Nils Kürbis - 2022 - In Nils Kürbis, Bahram Assadian & Jonathan Nassim (eds.), Knowledge, Number and Reality: Encounters with the Work of Keith Hossack. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 161-176.
    Hossack's 'The Metaphysics of Knowledge' develops a theory of facts, entities in which universals are combined with universals or particulars, as the foundation of his metaphysics. While Hossack argues at length that there must be negative facts, facts in which the universal 'negation' is combined with universals or particulars, his conclusion that there are also general facts, facts in which the universal 'generality' is combined with universals, is reached rather more swiftly. In this paper I present Hossack with three arguments (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. The structuralist approach to underdetermination.Chanwoo Lee - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-25.
    This paper provides an exposition of the structuralist approach to underdetermination, which aims to resolve the underdetermination of theories by identifying their common theoretical structure. Applications of the structuralist approach can be found in many areas of philosophy. I present a schema of the structuralist approach, which conceptually unifies such applications in different subject matters. It is argued that two classic arguments in the literature, Paul Benacerraf’s argument on natural numbers and W. V. O. Quine’s argument for the indeterminacy of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  28. Names, light nouns, and countability.Friederike Moltmann - 2022 - Linguistic Inquiry 54 (1):117 - 146.
    Proper names are generally taken to be count nouns. This paper argues that this is mistaken and that at least in some languages, for example German, names divide into mass and count. Making use of Kayne's (2005, 2010) theory of light nouns, this paper argues that light nouns are part of (simple) names and that a mass-count distinction among light nouns explains the behavior of certain types of names in German as mass rather than count. The paper elaborates the role (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  29. Thought and Talk in a Generous World.Alexander Sandgren - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9.
    The problem of the many seems to problematize the platitude that we can think about particular things in the world. How is it that, given how very many cat-like candidates there are, we often manage to think and talk about a particular cat? I argue that this challenge stems from an under-examined assumption about the relationship between metaphysics and intentionality. I explore and develop a way of characterizing what it is to think and talk about the world, according to which (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  30. How to minimize ontological commitments: a grounding-reductive approach.Reuben Sass - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-22.
    Some revisionary ontologies are highly parsimonious: they posit far fewer entities than what we quantify over in ordinary discourse. The most radical examples are minimal ontologies, on which physical simples are the only things that exist. Highly parsimonious ontologies, and especially minimal ones, face the challenge of either accounting for the truth of our ordinary quantificational discourse, or paraphrasing such discourse away. Common strategies for addressing this challenge include classical reduction, paraphrase nihilism, and a distinction between ontological and existence commitments. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. Should an Ontological Pluralist Be a Quantificational Pluralist?Byron Simmons - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (6):324-346.
    Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Recent defenders of this view—such as Kris McDaniel and Jason Turner—have taken these ways of being to be best captured by semantically primitive quantifier expressions ranging over different domains. They have thus endorsed, what I shall call, quantificational pluralism. I argue that this focus on quantification is a mistake. For, on this view, a quantificational structure—or a quantifier for short—will be whatever part or aspect of reality’s structure (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  32. In Defence of Hybrid Contingentism.Lukas Skiba - 2022 - Philosophers' Imprint 22 (4):1-30.
    Hybrid contingentism combines first-order contingentism, the view that it is contingent what individuals there are, with higher-order necessitism, the view that it is non-contingent what properties and propositions there are (where these are conceived as entities in the range of appropriate higher-order quantifiers). This combination of views avoids the most delicate problems afflicting alternative contingentist positions while preserving the central contingentist claim that ordinary, concrete entities exist contingently. Despite these attractive features, hybrid contingentism is usually faced with rejection. The main (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  33. Nothing, Everything, Something!Achille C. Varzi - 2022 - In Fosca Mariani-Zini (ed.), The Meaning of Something: Rethinking the Logic and the Unity of Metaphysics. Springer.
    Universalist and nihilist answers to philosophical questions may be extreme, but they are clear enough. Aliquidist answers, by contrast, are typically caught between the Scylla of vagueness and indeterminacy and the Charybdis of ungroundedness and arbitrariness, and steering a proper middle course—saying exactly where in the middle one is going to settle—demands exceptional navigating powers. I myself tend to favor extreme answers precisely for this reason. Here, however, I consider one sense in which Something may claim superiority over its polar (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Ramsification and the Ramifications of Prior's Puzzle.Justin D'Ambrosio - 2021 - Noûs 55 (4):935-961.
    Ramsification is a well-known method of defining theoretical terms that figures centrally in a wide range of debates in metaphysics. Prior's puzzle is the puzzle of why, given the assumption that that-clauses denote propositions, substitution of "the proposition that P" for "that P" within the complements of many propositional attitude verbs sometimes fails to preserve truth, and other times fails to preserve grammaticality. On the surface, Ramsification and Prior's puzzle appear to have little to do with each other. But Prior's (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  35. Collapse and the Varieties of Quantifier Variance.Matti Eklund - 2021 - In James Miller (ed.), The Language of Ontology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    The aim of the paper is to bring clarity regarding the doctrine of quantifier variance (due to Eli Hirsch), and two prominent arguments against this doctrine, the collapse argument and the Eklund-Hawthorne argument. Different versions of the doctrine of quantifier variance are distinguished, and it is shown that the effectiveness of the arguments against it depends on what version of the doctrine is at issue. The metaontological significance of the different versions of the doctrine are also assessed. Roughly, quantifier variance (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  36. A problem for easy ontology.Sybren Heyndels - 2021 - Disputatio 10 (16).
    Thomasson’s easy ontology approach (2015) aims at deflating existence questions through a revival of Carnap’s (1950) distinction between internal and external questions. Importantly, her account depends on an analysis of the ordinary meaning of ‘exist(s)’ as a second-order predicate. I do two things in this paper. First, I show that Thomasson’s analysis fails to do justice to the complexity of the English predicate ‘exist(s)’. Against Thomasson, I argue that there are cases in which ‘exist(s)’ functions as a first-order predicate. Because (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  37. Groundwork for a pragmatics for formalized languages.David Kashtan - 2021 - Semiotica 2021 (240):211-239.
    The use-mention distinction is elaborated into a four-way distinction between use, formal mention, material mention and pragmatic mention. The notion of pragmatic mention is motivated through the problem of monsters in Kaplanian indexical semantics. It is then formalized and applied in an account of schemata in formalized languages.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  38. What Counts as a ‘Good’ Metaphysical Language?J. T. M. Miller - 2021 - In James Miller (ed.), The Language of Ontology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 102-118.
    The objectively best language is intended to refer to some metaphysically privileged language that ‘carves reality at its joints’ perfectly. That is, it is the kind of language that various ‘metaphysical deflationists’ have argued is impossible. One common line of argument amongst deflationists is that we have no means to compare languages that all express true facts about the world in such a way to decide which is ‘better’. For example, the language is physics is not objectively better than the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. Higher‐order metaphysics.Lukas Skiba - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (10):1-11.
    Subverting a once widely held Quinean paradigm, there is a growing consensus among philosophers of logic that higher-order quantifiers (which bind variables in the syntactic position of predicates and sentences) are a perfectly legitimate and useful instrument in the logico-philosophical toolbox, while neither being reducible to nor fully explicable in terms of first-order quantifiers (which bind variables in singular term position). This article discusses the impact of this quantificational paradigm shift on metaphysics, focussing on theories of properties, propositions, and identity, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  40. Higher-order metaphysics and the tropes versus universals dispute.Lukas Skiba - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (9):2805-2827.
    Higher-order realists about properties express their view that there are properties with the help of higher-order rather than first-order quantifiers. They claim two types of advantages for this way of formulating property realism. First, certain gridlocked debates about the nature of properties, such as the immanentism versus transcendentalism dispute, are taken to be dissolved. Second, a further such debate, the tropes versus universals dispute, is taken to be resolved. In this paper I first argue that higher-order realism does not in (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  41. V—The Linguistic Approach to Ontology.Lee Walters - 2021 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 121 (2):127-152.
    What are the prospects for a linguistic approach to ontology? Given that it seems that there are true subject-predicate sentences containing empty names, traditional linguistic approaches to ontology appear to be flawed. I argue that in order to determine what there is, we need to determine which sentences ascribe properties (and relations) to objects, and that there does not appear to be any formal criterion for this. This view is then committed to giving an account of what predicates do in (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. A Puzzle About Parsimony.Peter Finocchiaro - 2020 - Dialectica 74 (4).
    In this paper, I argue for the instability of an increasingly popular position about how metaphysicians ought to regard parsimony. This instability is rooted in an unrecognized tension between two claims. First, we as metaphysicians ought to minimize the number of ontological kinds we posit. Second, it is not the case that we ought to minimize the number of ideological expressions we employ, especially when those expressions are of the same ideological kind (e.g. the compositional predicates "is a part of" (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  43. Expansionism and Mereological Universalism.Giorgio Lando - 2020 - Theoria 86 (2):187-219.
    Mereological universalists, according to whom every plurality of entities has a fusion, usually claim that most quantifications are restricted to ordinary entities. However, there is no evidence that our usual quantifications over ordinary objects are restricted. In this article I explore an alternative way of reconciling Mereological Universalism with our usual quantifications. I resort to a modest form of ontological expansionism and to the so-called interpretational modalities. Quantifications over ordinary objects are the initial stages of the expansion. From these initial (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  44. On What Exists.Nathan Salmón - 2020 - In Frederique Janssen-Lauret (ed.), Quine, Structure, and Ontology. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. pp. 200-229.
    Quine’s criterion of theoretical ontological commitment is subject to a variety of interpretations, all of which save one yield incorrect verdicts. Moreover, the interpretation that yields correct verdicts is not what Quine meant. Instead the intended criterion unfairly imputes ontological commitments to theories that lack those commitments and fails to impute commitments to theories that have them. Insofar as Quine’s criterion is interpreted so that it yields only correct verdicts, it is trivial and of questionable utility. Moreover, the correct criterion (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  45. The Fragmentation of Being. [REVIEW]Kelly Trogdon - 2020 - Philosophical Review 129 (1):149-153.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  46. No Metaphysical Disagreement Without Logical Incompatibility.Daniel Durante Pereira Alves - 2019 - Seminário Lógica No Avião - 2013-2018.
    The purpose of this article is to support the logical incompatibility of the opposing views as a criterion for characterizing disagreements as genuinely metaphysical. That is, I intend to argue that a specific dispute is a metaphysical disagreement only when the conflicting views are governed by different logics. If correct, this criterion would not only help to separate merely verbal from genuine metaphysical debates, but it also would ground an argument against deflationism, guaranteeing the substantiality and relevance of metaphysics. I (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. On Quine's Ontology: quantification, extensionality and naturalism (or from commitment to indifference).Daniel Durante Pereira Alves - 2019 - Proceedings of Ther 3rd Filomena Workshop.
    Much of the ontology made in the analytic tradition of philosophy nowadays is founded on some of Quine’s proposals. His naturalism and the binding between existence and quantification are respectively two of his very influential metaphilosophical and methodological theses. Nevertheless, many of his specific claims are quite controversial and contemporaneously have few followers. Some of them are: (a) his rejection of higher-order logic; (b) his resistance in accepting the intensionality of ontological commitments; (c) his rejection of first-order modal logic; and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. Quantifier Variance.Eli Hirsch & Jared Warren - 2019 - In Martin Kusch (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism. Routledge. pp. 349-357.
    Quantifier variance is a well-known view in contemporary metaontology, but it remains very widely misunderstood by critics. Here we briefly and clearly explain the metasemantics of quantifier variance and distinguish between modest and strong forms of variance (Section I), explain some key applications (Section II), clear up some misunderstandings and address objections (Section III), and point the way toward future directions of quantifier-variance-related research (Section IV).
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  49. Easy Ontology without Deflationary Metaontology.Daniel Z. Korman - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (1):236-243.
    This is a contribution to a symposium on Amie Thomasson’s Ontology Made Easy (2015). Thomasson defends two deflationary theses: that philosophical questions about the existence of numbers, tables, properties, and other disputed entities can all easily be answered, and that there is something wrong with prolonged debates about whether such objects exist. I argue that the first thesis (properly understood) does not by itself entail the second. Rather, the case for deflationary metaontology rests largely on a controversial doctrine about the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  50. Intensional Relative Clauses and the Semantics of Variable Objects.Friederike Moltmann - 2019 - In Manfred Krifka & Schenner Mathias (eds.), Reconstruction Effects in Relative Clauses. De Gruyter Akademie Forschung. pp. 427-453..
    NPs with intensional relative clauses such as 'the book John needs to write' pose a significant challenge for semantic theory. Such NPs act like referential terms, yet they do not stand for a particular actual object. This paper will develop a semantic analysis of such NPs on the basis of the notion of a variable object. The analysis avoids a range of difficulties that a more standard analysis based on the notion of an individual concept would face. Most importantly, unlike (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 115