The active/passive distinction, once a hallmark of classical metaphysics, has largely been discarded from contemporary thought. The revival of powers theory has not seen an equally vigorous rehabilitation of the real distinction between active and passive powers. I begin an analysis and vindication with a critique of E.J. Lowe's discussion. I then argue that the active/passive problem is a metaphysical one, not a logical or logico‐linguistic one, and so logic is impotent to solve it. Following this is a discussion of (...) the rights and wrongs of Aristotle's and Aquinas's (identical) defence of the distinction. We will see that one main part of their analysis is a bright red herring while the other part contains the solution to the problem. I then state and clarify the key Scholastic principle concerning action and passion, which I call the Fundamental Thesis – one that will appear scandalous to contemporary ears, yet from which we can derive the tools needed to understand action and passion in the right way. I end with a definition of what I call the Minimal Metaphysical Agent, where the formulation is to be understood as an epistemic criterion for identifying agent and patient in a given causal interaction. (shrink)

According to Bird’s Naïve Dispositional Monism, all properties are powers, and are individuated by their manifestations. Lowe has famously challenged the position with an individuation regress or circularity argument. Bird has then offered a structuralist side-step in the form of Structuralist Dispositional Monism, according to which powers are individuated through the unique position they occupy in an asymmetric power-structure. However, Structuralist Dispositional Monism has been argued to be just as problematic as Naïve Dispositional Monism, if not more so.I argue that (...) the debate is severely flawed to the extent that it relies on Lowe’s standard characterization of metaphysical individuation as a binary relation between objects. I will argue against this characterization in favor of a different one, either as a standard or sui generis explanatory relation of individuality facts. In the former case, Naïve Dispositional Monism is clear of all charges previously raised against it; whereas in the latter case, Structuralist Dispositional Monism works just fine; Structuralist Dispositional Monism may ultimately be argued to the be the superior option. Either way, the status of Dispositional Monism, vis à vis individuation circularities, is not as compromised as some have claimed—and Lowe’s intended way out (viz., allow for some non-power to eventually break the circularity) loses much of its appeal. (shrink)

The space of possible worlds is vast. Some of these possible worlds are materialist worlds, some may be worlds bottoming out in 0s and 1s, or other strange things we cannot even dream of… and some are idealist worlds. From among all of the worlds subjectively indistinguishable from our own, the idealist ones have uniquely compelling virtues. Idealism gives us a world that is just as it appears; a world that’s fit to literally enter our minds when we perceive it. (...) If the world is an idealist world, we live in a perceptual Eden. We did not fall from Eden. Rather, we deluded ourselves into believing that we couldn’t possibly live in Eden when we committed to materialism. Reflecting on these big-picture issues gives us reason to question this commitment and embrace a radically new account of reality and our relation to it. (shrink)

Naïve realism (also called ‘relationalism’ or ‘object view’) is becoming increasingly popular, but the specific outline of its commitments remains often underspecified by proponents and misunderstood by critics. Naïve realism is associated with two claims, both concerning genuine, veridical perceptual experience (where this excludes hallucinations). Constitutive Claim (CC): The phenomenal character of perception is (partly) constituted by the mind-independent objects in one’s surrounding and their properties. Relational Claim (RC): Perception is a relation to mind-independent objects in the environment and their (...) properties. Some philosophers use the two claims interchangeably while talking about naïve realism, while others use only one or the other, although they do not explicitly discuss if the other claim is also a core commitment of naïve realism, or if naïve realism can be held without the other claim. This raises the question of how RC and CC relate to one another, together with the most pressing question of what each claim ultimately commits one to. After discussing the shortcomings of alternative interpretations, I argue that naïve realism should be understood as committed to, first and foremost, RC. This should be understood as a claim about the phenomenal character of perception, rather than about its nature, structure or essence (whatever that means). CC, on the other hand, should be understood as a corollary of RC. This doesn’t only offer a better characterisation of how naïve realists understand phenomenal character: it also helps us understand how we can simultaneously claim that the object of perception is a constitutive element of perception, while also allowing for it to play a causal role in determining perception. (shrink)

The unification of grounding and causation has been proposed in the literature. Also, it has encountered many objections. In this paper, I argue that there is a strategy that enables us to reply to many of the objections to the unification. That is the ‘blame the relata strategy’ which claims that all the differences between grounding and causation come from relata rather than relation. I clarify this strategy by appealing to positionalism about relations, and present three arguments for this strategy. (...) Also, I argue that the difference between causal relata and grounding relata is that the former are distinct entities, while the latter are non-distinct. I suggest the ‘essential connections criterion’ to define ‘distinct’ and ‘non-distinct’, showing that grounding is partly grounded in essence in an indirect manner. Given the above strategy and criterion, we can see that there is no real objection to the unification of grounding and causation. (shrink)

It is a metaphysical orthodoxy that interesting non-symmetric relations cannot be reduced to symmetric ones. This orthodoxy is wrong. I show this by exploring the expressive power of symmetric theories, i.e. theories which use only symmetric predicates. Such theories are powerful enough to raise the possibility of Pythagrapheanism, i.e. the possibility that the world is just a vast, unlabelled, undirected graph.

This paper develops a novel theory of abstraction—what we call collective abstraction. The theory solves a notorious problem for noneliminative structuralism. The noneliminative structuralist holds that in addition to various isomorphic systems there is a pure structure that can be abstracted from each of these systems; but existing accounts of abstraction fail for nonrigid systems like the complex numbers. The problem with the existing accounts is that they attempt to define a unique abstraction operation. The theory of collective abstraction instead (...) simultaneously defines a collection of distinct abstraction operations, each of which maps a system to its corresponding pure structure. The theory is precisely formulated in an essentialist language. This allows us to throw new light on the question to what extent structuralists are committed to symmetric dependence. Finally, we apply the theory of collective abstraction to solve a problem about converse relations. (shrink)

I systematically defend a novel account of the grounds for identity and distinctness facts: they are all uniquely zero‐grounded. First, this Null Account is shown to avoid a range of problems facing other accounts: a relation satisfying the Null Account would be an excellent candidate for being the identity relation. Second, a plenitudinist view of relations suggests that there is such a relation. To flesh out this plenitudinist view I sketch a novel framework for expressing real definitions, use this framework (...) to give a definition of identity, and show how the central features of the identity relation can be deduced from this definition. (shrink)

I give shape to a neglected debate in metaphysics, the debate over the ontological priority between individuality and collectivity. I distinguish the debate from more familiar ones in the recent literature and articulate what I call ontological collectivism, the view that collectivity is prior to individuality. I defend the in-principle intelligibility of the view from forceful general objections and argue that not only is it coherent but also of significant interest to the literature: it allows for overlooked alternatives on a (...) variety of central discussions. (shrink)

I argue against the claim -- advocated by Albert Einstein, Bernard Williams, and Ted Sider, among others -- that a description is objective only if it says how the world is in itself. Instead, I argue for the claim -- inspired by comments of Niels Bohr -- that a family of descriptions is objective only if they co-vary with their respective descriptive contexts. Moreover, I claim that "there is a shared objective reality" simply means that it is possible to satisfy (...) this kind of covariance requirement. (shrink)

Maureen Donnelly has recently argued that directionalism, the view that relations have a direction, applying to their relata in an order, is unable to properly treat certain symmetric relations. She alleges that it must count the application of such a relation to an appropriate number of objects in a given order as distinct from its application to those objects in any other ordering of them. I reply by showing how the directionalist can link the application conditions of any fixed arity (...) relation, no matter its arity or symmetry, and its converse(s) in such a way that directionalism will yield the correct ways in which it can apply. I thus establish that directionalism possesses the same advantage Donnelly's own account of relations, relative positionalism, has over traditional positionalist accounts of relations, which do not properly treat symmetric relations. I then note some advantages that directionalism has over its closest competitors. This includes Donnelly's relative positionalism, since directionalism is not, like relative positionalism, committed to the involvement of relative properties in every irreducibly relational claim. I close by conceding that, as Donnelly notes, directionalism is committed to the primitive relation of order-sensitive relational application. But I don't find this notion as mysterious as Donnelly does. I conclude that, even if one construes this feature of directionalism as a drawback, the two views are at worst at a draw, other things being equal, since this drawback is mitigated by the advantage directionalism has over relative positionalism. (shrink)

This is a commentary on the article by Augusto (2022; this issue) on categories and foundation ontology (FO). We agree that the notion of categories of kinds of elements to devise a FO deserves more attention than it has received to date. From a practical point of view sensu developing domain ontologies, however, it probably does not matter much as long as a FO is used and that that one was understood.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a metaphysic for moral realism and moral perception. This thesis is in two parts. The first is concerned with basic ontology. I begin in chapter 1 with an analysis of causation, demonstrating that substance theory is superior to Humeanism at accounting for our observations; thus I defend a substance ontology. In chapter 2, I address human agency, demonstrating that reasons internalism does not allow for incompatibilist freedom; hence, I affirm reasons are states (...) of affairs. I move on to qualia in chapter 3, demonstrating that arguments both for and against qualia realism involve question begging. In response, I argue that qualia realism is just as reasonable as anti-realism, and affirm realism. Given this, I address the mind-body problem in chapter 4, demonstrating the failure of physicalists to account for mental causation. I conclude that panpsychism, idealism, and substance dualism are equal reasonable alternatives: each allows for intrinsic properties, which are integral to substance ontology. The second part builds a moral ontology, along with an account of moral perceptual knowledge, compatible with the above basic ontology. In chapter 5, I reject moral properties as monadic since this would bar mapping moral concepts onto mind-independent reality. Instead, I argue that moral properties are relations. More specifically, in chapter 6, I make the case that they are features of relations, relations themselves being the total complex states of affairs between one or more substances. This allows moral properties to have their own nonreducible phenomenal quality. To account for moral normativity, I argue that moral features are actually a class of causal features, and briefly argue that final causes determine the normative causal trajectory of all substances. In chapter 7, I conclude this thesis with addressing possible objections to my theory of perception and perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

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, (...) as well as on the metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

Non-symmetric relations like loves or between can apply to the same relata in non-equivalent ways. For example, loves may apply to Abelard and Eloise either by Abelard’s loving Eloise or by Eloise’s loving Abelard. On the standard account of relations, different applications of a relation to fixed relata are distinguished by the direction in which the relation applies to the relata. But neither Directionalism nor its most popular rival, Positionalism, offer accounts of differential application that generalize to relations of arbitrary (...) symmetry structure. Here, I develop an alternative account, Relative Positionalism, which distinguishes different applications of a relation to fixed relata in terms of the ways in which the relata are characterized relative to one another. In presenting and defending Relative Positionalism, this paper covers some of the same ground as my [2016], but avoids the latter’s algebraic approach and focuses on interpretative issues—in particular, how to make sense of relative property instantiation—that were not addressed in the earlier paper. (shrink)

I apply the theory of embodiment to various questions concerning the identity of social groups.

This paper argues that the theory of structured propositions is not undermined by the Russell-Myhill paradox. I develop a theory of structured propositions in which the Russell-Myhill paradox doesn't arise: the theory does not involve ramification or compromises to the underlying logic, but rather rejects common assumptions, encoded in the notation of the $\lambda$-calculus, about what properties and relations can be built. I argue that the structuralist had independent reasons to reject these underlying assumptions. The theory is given both a (...) diagrammatic representation, and a logical representation in a novel language. In the latter half of the paper I turn to some technical questions concerning the treatment of quantification, and demonstrate various equivalences between the diagrammatic and logical representations, and a fragment of the $\lambda$-calculus. (shrink)

‘Instantiation-directed slot theorists’ believe that properties/relations have slots which are filled by their instances/relata e.g., where Abigail is taller than Bronia, there are two slots in the relation Taller Than such that Abigail fills the first slot and Bronia fills the second. This crude statement of the theory runs into ‘The Problem of Filling’, whereby a natural understanding of the relation between slots, filling, and instantiation leads to absurd results. This paper examines a variety of solutions to that problem, one (...) of which is an extension of slot theory that adds an additional category of entities, ‘slotites’. (shrink)

Maureen Donnelly’s (2016) relative positionalism correctly handles any fixed arity relation with any symmetry such a relation can have, yielding the intuitively correct way(s) in which that relation can apply. And it supplies an explanation of what is going on in the world that makes this the case. But it has at least one potential shortcoming — one that its opponents are likely to seize upon: it can only handle relations with fixed arities. It is unable to handle relations with (...) variable arities. I argue that, all else being equal, relative positionalism ought nonetheless to be preferred to its closest competitors — at least to the extent that the explanation it supplies of relational application is plausible — even though those competitors can handle variable arity relations in addition to fixed arity relations. (shrink)

An argument going back to Russell shows that the view that propositions are structured is inconsistent in standard type theories. Here, it is shown that such type theories may nevertheless provide entities which can serve as proxies for structured propositions. As an illustration, such proxies are applied to the case of grounding, as standard views of grounding require a degree of propositional structure which suffices for a version of Russell’s argument. While this application solves some of the problems grounding faces, (...) it introduces problematic limitations: it becomes impossible to quantify unrestrictedly over the relata of ground. The proposed proxies may thus not save grounding, but they shed light on what exactly Russell’s argument does and does not show. (shrink)

In explaining the notion of a fundamental property or relation, metaphysicians will often draw an analogy with languages. The fundamental properties and relations stand to reality as the primitive predicates and relations stand to a language: the smallest set of vocabulary God would need in order to write the “book of the world.” This paper attempts to make good on this metaphor. To that end, a modality is introduced that, put informally, stands to propositions as logical truth stands to sentences. (...) The resulting theory, formulated in higher-order logic, also vindicates the Humean idea that fundamental properties and relations are freely recombinable and a variant of the structural idea that propositions can be decomposed into their fundamental constituents via logical operations. Indeed, it is seen that, although these ideas are seemingly distinct, they are not independent, and fall out of a natural and general theory about the granularity of reality. (shrink)

Kit Fine (2000) breaks with tradition, arguing that, pace Russell (e.g., 1903: 228), relations have neither directions nor converses. He considers two ways to conceive of these new "neutral" relations, positionalism and anti-positionalism, and argues that the latter should be preferred to the former. Cody Gilmore (2013) argues for a generalization of positionalism, slot theory, the view that a property or relation is n-adic if and only if there are exactly n slots in it, and (very roughly) that each slot (...) may be occupied by at most one entity. Slot theory (and with it, positionalism) bears the full brunt of Fine's (2000) symmetric completions and conflicting adicities problems. I fully develop an alternative, plural slot theory (or pocket theory), which avoids these problems, key elements of which are first considered by Yi (1999: 168 ff.). Like the slot theorist, the pocket theorist posits entities (pockets) in properties and relations that can be occupied. But unlike the slot theorist, the pocket theorist denies that at most one entity can occupy any one of them. As a result, she must also deny that the adicity of a property or relation is equal to the number of occupiable entities in it. By abandoning these theses, however, the pocket theorist is able to avoid Fine's problems, resulting in a stronger theory about the internal structure of properties and relations. Pocket theory also avoids a serious drawback of anti-positionalism. (shrink)

Este texto tem como objetivo apresentar a principal motivação filosófica para se defender uma teoria causal da memória, que é explicar como pode um evento que se deu no passado estar relacionado a uma experiência mnêmica que se dá no presente. Para tanto, iniciaremos apresentando a noção de memória de maneira informal e geral, para depois apresentar elementos mais detalhados. Finalizamos apresentando uma teoria causal da memória que se beneficia da noção de veritação (truthmaking).

The trope bundle theories of objects are capable of analyzing monadic inherence (objects having tropes), which is one of their main advantage. However, the best current trope theoretical account of relational tropes, namely, the relata specific view leaves relational inherence (a relational trope relating two or more entities) primitive. This article presents the first trope theoretical analysis of relational inherence by generalizing the trope theoretical analysis of inherence to relational tropes. The analysis reduces the holding of relational inherence to the (...) obtaining of certain other facts about entities of the trope theoretical category system. Moreover, I show that the analysis can deal with asymmetric and non-symmetric relations by assuming that all relation-like tropes are quantities. Finally, I provide an account of the spatial location of tropes in the difficult case in which tropes contribute to determining of the location of other entities. (shrink)

Plural Logic is an extension of First-Order Logic with plural terms and quantifiers. When its plural terms are interpreted as denoting more than one object at once, Plural Logic is usually taken to be ontologically innocent: plural quantifiers do not require a domain of their own, but range plurally over the first-order domain of quantification. Given that Plural Logic is equi-interpretable with Monadic Second-Order Logic, it gives us its expressive power at the low ontological cost of a first-order language. This (...) makes it a valuable tool in various areas of philosophy. Some authors believe that Plural Logic can be extended into an even more expressive logic, Higher-Level Plural Logic, by adding higher-level plural terms and quantifiers to it. The basic idea is that second-level plurals stand to plurals like plurals stand to singulars. Allegedly, Higher-Level Plural Logic enjoys the expressive power of type theory while, again, committing us only to the austere ontology of a first-order language. Were this really the case, Higher-Level Plural Logic would be a very useful tool, extending and strengthening some of the applications of Plural Logic. However, while the notions of plural reference and quantification enjoy widespread acceptance today, their higher-level counterparts have been received with scepticism. The main objection raised against them is that higher-level plural reference is unintelligible. This has been argued, among others, on the grounds that there are no higher-level plurals in natural language and that, if there were any, they could be eliminated. In this thesis, after introducing the debate on plurals in Chapters 1 and 2, I turn to defending the legitimacy of the notion of higher-level plural reference. To this end, in Chapter 3, I present and elucidate the notion. Next, in Chapter 4, I show that some natural languages clearly contain these expressions and that they do so in an ineliminable manner. Finally, in Chapters 5 and 6, I develop a semantics for higher-level plurals that employs only devices previously well-understood by English speakers. To finish, in Chapter 7, I describe an application of Higher-level Plural Logic: a strengthening of the neo-Fregean programme. After describing my proposal, I turn to the issue of the logical status of this formalism and defend an optimistic take on the matter. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Logical realism is the view that there is logical structure in the world. I argue that, if logical realism is true, then we are deeply ignorant of that logical structure: either we can’t know which of our logical concepts accurately capture it, or none of our logical concepts accurately capture it at all. I don’t suggest abandoning logical realism, but instead discuss how realists should adjust their methodology in the face of this ignorance.

Jeffrey King, Scott Soames, and others have recently challenged the familiar identification of a Russellian proposition, such as the proposition that Brutus stabbed Caesar, with an ordered sequence constructed out of objects, properties, and relations. There is, as they point out, a surplus of candidate sequences available that are each equally serviceable. If so, any choice among these candidates will be arbitrary. In this paper, I show that, unless a controversial assumption is made regarding the nature of nonsymmetrical relations, none (...) of the proffered candidate sequences are in fact adequate to the play the role. Moreover, as I argue, the most promising alternative theory of relations—one that avoids the problematic assumption and, in addition, fits most naturally into the sequentialist’s framework—fails to meet a basic requirement: it cannot distinguish between the proposition that Brutus stabbed Caesar and the proposition that Caesar stabbed Brutus. The upshot is that the conspicuously structured entities that are widely assumed to be up to the task of “playing the proposition role” shed no light on the very structure they are invoked to represent. (shrink)

This paper explores the impact of quantification into predicate position on the metaphysics of properties, arguing that two familiar debates about properties are fundamentally altered by recasting them in a second-order setting. Two theories of properties are outlined, differing over whether the existence of properties is expressed using first-order or second-order quantifiers. It is argued that the second-order theory: provides good reason to regard debate about the locations of properties as contentless; resolves debate about whether properties are particulars or universals (...) in favour of universals. (shrink)

One of the hottest philosophical debates in recent years concerns the nature of the semantics/pragmatics divide. Some writers have expressed the reserve that this might be merely terminological, but in my view it ultimately concerns a substantive issue with empirical implications: the scope and limits of a serious scientific undertaking, formal semantics. In this critical note I discuss two arguments by Recanati: his main methodological argument --viz. that the contents posited by what he calls 'literalists' play no relevant role in (...) communication--, and some phenomenological considerations regarding the "Availability Principle" that he appeals to in order to buttress that main argument. /// Uno de los más encarnizados debates filosóficos recientes atañe a la naturaleza de la distinción entre semántica y pragmática. Aunque algunos autores han expresado reservas en el sentido de que èste pudiera ser sólo terminológico, en mi opinión tiene que ver con una cuestión sustantiva con implicaciones empíricas: el alcance y los límites de una empresa científica seria, la semántica formal. En este texto discuto dos argumentos de Recanati: su principal argumento metodológico, que los contenidos postulados por los autores que él denomina "literalistas" no desempeñan ningùn papel relevante en la comunicación, y, en segundo lugar, ciertas consideraciones fenomenológicas en torno a su "Principio de Accesibilidad", a las cuales apela para apoyar el argumento metodológico. (shrink)

The ante rem structuralist holds that places in ante rem structures are objects with determinate identity conditions, but he cannot justify this view by providing places with criteria of identity. The latest response to this problem holds that no criteria of identity are required because mathematical practice presupposes a primitive identity relation. This paper criticizes this appeal to mathematical practice. Ante rem structuralism interprets mathematics within the theory of universals, holding that mathematical objects are places in universals. The identity problem (...) should be read as challenging this claim about universals. However, what mathematical practice presupposes is only relevant to what is true according to the theory of universals, if one takes it for granted such a theory offers the best interpretation of mathematics. In the current context, taking this for granted begs the question. Therefore, the appeal to mathematical practice in response to the identity problem is illegitimate. (shrink)

Realists about universals face a question about grounding. Are things how they are because they instantiate the universals they do? Or do they instantiate those universals because they are how they are? Take Ebenezer Scrooge. You can say that Scrooge is greedy because he instantiates greediness, or you can say that Scrooge instantiates greediness because he is greedy. I argue that there is reason to prefer the latter to the former. I develop two arguments for the view. I also respond (...) to some concerns one might have about the view defended. I close by showing that analogous views regarding the truth of propositions and the existence of facts are supported by analogs of one of these arguments. (shrink)

I defend a one category ontology: an ontology that denies that we need more than one fundamental category to support the ontological structure of the world. Categorical fundamentality is understood in terms of the metaphysically prior, as that in which everything else in the world consists. One category ontologies are deeply appealing, because their ontological simplicity gives them an unmatched elegance and spareness. I’m a fan of a one category ontology that collapses the distinction between particular and property, replacing it (...) with a single fundamental category of intrinsic characters or qualities. We may describe the qualities as qualitative charactersor as modes, perhaps on the model of Aristotelian qualitative (nonsubstantial) kinds, and I will use the term “properties” interchangeably with “qualities”. The qualities are repeatable and reasonably sparse, although, as I discuss in section 2.6, there are empirical reasons that may suggest, depending on one’s preferred fundamental physical theory, that they include irreducibly intensive qualities. There are no uninstantiated qualities. I also assume that the fundamental qualitative natures are intrinsic, although physics may ultimately suggest that some of them are extrinsic. On my view, matter, concrete objects, abstract objects, and perhaps even spacetime are constructed from mereological fusions of qualities, so the world is simply a vast mixture of qualities, including polyadic properties (i.e., relations). This means that everything there is, including concrete objects like persons or stars, is a quality, a qualitative fusion, or a portion of the extended qualitative fusion that is the worldwhole. I call my view mereological bundle theory. (shrink)

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in metaphysical explanation, and philosophers have fixed on the notion of ground as the conceptual tool with which such explanation should be investigated. I will argue that this focus on ground is myopic and that some metaphysical explanations that involve the essences of things cannot be understood in terms of ground. Such ‘essentialist’ explanation is of interest, not only for its ubiquity in philosophy, but for its being in a sense an ultimate (...) form of explanation. I give an account of the sense in which such explanation is ultimate and support it by defending what I call the inessentiality of essence. I close by suggesting that this principle is the key to understanding why essentialist explanations can seem so satisfying. (shrink)

The identity predicate can be defined using second-order quantification: a=b =df ∀F(Fa↔Fb). Less familiarly, a dyadic sentential operator analogous to the identity predicate can be defined using third-order quantification: ϕ≡ψ =df ∀X(Xϕ↔Xψ), where X is a variable of the same syntactic type as a monadic sentential operator. With this notion in view, it is natural to ask after general principles governing its application. More grandiosely, how fine-grained is reality? -/- I will argue that reality is not structured in anything like (...) the way that the sentences we use to talk about it are structured. I do so by formulating a higher-order analogue of Russell’s paradox of structured propositions. I then relate this argument to the Frege-Russell correspondence. When confronted with the alleged paradox, Frege agreed that reality was not structured, but maintained that propositions (i.e. thoughts) were structured all the same. Russell replied that his paradox showed Frege’s theory of structured thoughts to be inconsistent, to which Frege replied that Russell’s argument failed to heed the distinction between sense and reference. Most recent commentators have sided with Russell. In defense of Frege, I establish the consistency of one version of his rejoinder. I then consider and reject some ways of resisting the argument against a structured conception of reality. I conclude that, if propositions are structured, this is because they correspond not to distinctions in reality, but rather to ways in which those distinctions can be represented. (shrink)

The problem, or cluster of problems, of the unity of the proposition, along with the cluster of problems that tend to go under the name of Bradley’s regress, has recently again become a going concern for philosophers, after having for some time been regarded as primarily of historical interest. In this paper, I distinguish between the different problems that tend to be brought up under the heading of the unity of the proposition, and between different related regress arguments. I present (...) my favored solutions to these problems. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of what it is for a property or relation (or ‘attribute’ for short) to be logically simple. Based on this account, it is shown, among other things, that the logically simple attributes are in at least one important way sparse. This in turn lends support to the view that the concept of a logically simple attribute can be regarded as a promising substitute for Lewis’s concept of a perfectly natural attribute. At least in part, the (...) advantage of using the former concept lies in the fact that it is amenable to analysis, where that analysis—i.e., the account put forward in this paper—requires the adoption neither of an Armstrongian theory of universals nor of a primitive notion of naturalness, fundamentality, or grounding. (shrink)

I articulate and defend a necessary and sufficient condition for predication. The condition is that a term or term-occurrence stands in the relation of ascription to its designatum, ascription being a fundamental semantic relation that differs from reference. This view has dramatically different semantic consequences from its alternatives. After outlining the alternatives, I draw out these consequences and show how they favour the ascription view. I then develop the view and elicit a number of its virtues.

This paper first discusses how Russell and Hochberg have addressed some phenomena of relatedness, notably relational order, in a similarly ‘positionalist’ way, yet by appealing to different sorts of formal relations: “positions” in Russell's case and “ordering relations” in Hochberg's. After pointing out some shortcomings of both approaches, the paper then proposes an alternative view based on ‘o-roles’, which are, roughly speaking, ontological counterparts of the thematic roles postulated in linguistics. It is argued that o-roles are sort of middle-of-the-road entities (...) in the sense that they have the virtues of positions and those of ordering relations, without having their respective vices. Some tentative ideas on which o-roles should be acknowledged are also put forward. (shrink)

In spite of its significance for everyday and philosophical discourse, the explanatory connective has not received much treatment in the philosophy of logic. The present paper develops a logic for based on systematic connections between and the truth-functional connectives.

Argument-places play an important role in our dealing with relations. However, that does not mean that argument-places should be taken as primitive entities. It is possible to give an account of relations in which argument-places play no role. But if argument-places are not basic, then what can we say about their identity? Can they, for example, be reconstructed in set theory with appropriate urelements? In this article, we show that for some relations, argument-places cannot be modeled in a neutral way (...) in V[A], the cumulative hierarchy with basic ingredients of the relation as urelements. We argue that a natural way to conceive of argument-places is to identify them with abstract, structureless points of a derivative structure exemplified by positional frames. In case the relation has symmetry, these points may be indiscernible. (shrink)

We study the logical structure of relations, and in particular the notion of occurrences of objects in a state. We start with formulating a number of principles for occurrences and defining corresponding mathematical models. These models are analyzed to get more insight in the formal properties of occurrences. In particular, we prove uniqueness results that tell us more about the possible logical structures relations might have.

There are three different degrees to which we may allow a systematic theory of the world to embrace the idea of relatedness—supposing realism about non-symmetric relations as a background requirement. (First Degree) There are multiple ways in which a non-symmetric relation may apply to the things it relates—for the binary case, aRb ≠ bRa. (Second Degree) Every such relation has a distinct converse—for every R such that aRb there is another relation R* such that bR*a. (Third Degree) Each one of (...) them applies in an order to the things it relates—with regard to the state that results from R's applying to a and b, either R applies to a first and b second, or it applies to b first and a second. Whereas the first degree is near-indubitable, embracing the second or third generates unwholesome consequences. The second degree embodies a commitment to the existence of a superfluity of distinct converses and states to which such relations give rise. The third degree embodies commitment to recherché facts of the matter about how the states that arise from the application of one non-symmetric relation compare to any other. It is argued that accounts that purport to offer an analysis of the first degree generate unwelcome second or third degree consequences. This speaks in favour of our adopting an account of the application of relations that's not an analysis at all, an account that takes the first degree as primitive. (shrink)

Slot theory is the view that (i) there exist such entities as argument places, or ‘slots’, in universals, and that (ii) a universal u is n-adic if and only if there are n slots in u. I argue that those who take properties and relations to be abundant, fine-grained, non-set-theoretical entities face pressure to be slot theorists. I note that slots permit a natural account of the notion of adicy. I then consider a series of ‘slot-free’ accounts of that notion (...) and argue that each of them has significant drawbacks. (shrink)

This paper provides a new solution to the concept horse paradox. Frege argued no name co-refers with a predicate because no name can be inter-substituted with a predicate. This led Frege to embrace the paradox of the concept horse. But Frege got it wrong because predicates are impurely referring expressions and we shouldn’t expect impurely referring expressions to be intersubstitutable even if they co-refer, because the contexts in which they occur are sensitive to the extra information they carry about their (...) referents. (shrink)

Identity, we're told, is the binary relation that every object bears to itself, and to itself only. But how can a relation be binary if it never relates two objects? This puzzled Russell and led Wittgenstein to declare that identity is not a relation between objects. The now standard view is that Wittgenstein's position is untenable, and that worries regarding the relational status of identity are the result of confusion. I argue that the rejection of identity as a binary relation (...) is perfectly tenable. To this end, I outline and defend a logical framework that is not committed to an objectual identity relation but is nevertheless expressively equivalent to first-order logic with identity. After it has thus been shown that there is no indispensability argument for objectual identity, I argue that we have good reasons for doubting the existence of such a relation, and rebut a number of attempts at discrediting these reasons. (shrink)

States of affairs involving a non-symmetric relation such as loving are said to have a relational order, something that distinguishes, for instance, Romeo’s loving Juliet from Juliet’s loving Romeo. Relational order can be properly understood by appealing to o-roles, i.e., ontological counterparts of what linguists call thematic roles, e.g., agent, patient, instrument, and the like. This move allows us to meet the appropriate desiderata for a theory of relational order. In contrast, the main theories that try to do without o-roles, (...) proposed by philosophers such as Russell, Hochberg, and Fine, are in trouble with one or another of these desiderata. After discussing some alternatives, it is proposed that o-roles are best viewed as very generic properties characterizable as ways in which objects jointly exemplify a relation. This makes for exemplification relations understood as complex entities having o-roles as building blocks. (shrink)

This accessible essay treats knowledge and belief in a usable and applicable way. Many of its basic ideas have been developed recently in Corcoran-Hamid 2014: Investigating knowledge and opinion. The Road to Universal Logic. Vol. I. Arthur Buchsbaum and Arnold Koslow, Editors. Springer. Pp. 95-126. http://www.springer.com/birkhauser/mathematics/book/978-3-319-10192-7 .