La storia della nascita, utilizzo e declino delle notazioni scientifiche costituisce un’area di indagine importante che può aiutare le nostre analisi del pensiero scientifico e la sua evoluzione. […] this history constitutes a mirror of past and present conditions in mathematics which can be made to bear on the notational problems now confronting mathematics. The successes and failures of the past will contribute to a more speedy solutions of the notational problems of the present times.Questa storia, ovviamente, coinvolge anche le (...) notazioni della logica. Il presente contributo intende proporre un nuovo insieme di simboli per una particolare teoria logica: la Mereologia Formale, in considerazione del fatto che questa teoria, pur avendo avuto trattazioni sistematiche, non ha allo stato attuale ancora raggiunto un sistema di notazioni condiviso dagli studiosi. Tale stato dell’arte è espressione, da un lato, di un legame della teoria al suo nascere con la notazione polacca, e del suo confronto con la Teoria Assiomatica degli Insiemi; dall’altro, del fatto che essa ha ricevuto solo in tempi recenti sistematiche applicazioni alle scienze.94 In tale prospettiva ho ritenuto necessario definire in primo luogo dei criteri attraverso cui procedere alla costruzione del sistema di simboli. Criteri desunti in parte dalla storia delle notazioni scientifiche nella loro evoluzione, in parte dalla pratica personale nell’uso di strumenti formali. (shrink)

In this entry I present one of the most hotly debated issues in contemporary analytic philosophy regarding the nature of fictional entities and the motivations that might be adduced for and against positing them into our ontology. The entry is divided in two parts. In the first part I offer an overview of the main accounts of the metaphysics of fictional entities according to three standard realist views, fictional Meinongianism, fictional possibilism and fictional creationism. In the second part I describe (...) two main kinds of arguments for or against positing fictional entities into our ontology. The first kind is traditionally inspired by the linguistic data coming from our talk about fictional characters. The second kind is more recent and it builds on genuine ontological considerations. (shrink)

This essay describes computational semantic networks for a philosophical audience and surveys several approaches to semantic-network semantics. In particular, propositional semantic networks are discussed; it is argued that only a fully intensional, Meinongian semantics is appropriate for them; and several Meinongian systems are presented.

Intentionality may be dealt with in two different ways: either ontologically, as an ordinary relation to some extraordinary objects, or epistemologically, as an extraordinary relation to some ordinary objects. This paper endorses the epistemological view in order to provide a model of semiotic intentionality defined as the meaning-and-cognizing process that constitutes to power of the mind to be about something on the basis of a semiotic system. After a short introduction that presents the components of semiotic intentionality (viz. sign, act, (...) content, referent) along with their division into an intending and a fulfilling side (Sect. 1), the first main part of the paper analyzes semiotic intentionality at its primary level (a.k.a. 'concrete intentionality') as a real and subjective relation between meaning-intending and meaning-fulfilling acts grounded in the manipulation of some semiotic system (Sect. 2). Then, building on such concrete intentionality, the second main part of the paper analyzes semiotic intentionality at its secondary level (a.k.a. 'abstract intentionality') as an ideal and objective relation between intentional and fulfillment contents, which in turn: (i) proceed from an abstraction performed on the intending and fulfilling acts, respectively, and (ii) retroactively categorize the intending and fulfilling acts, respectively (Sect. 3). Finally, from this combination of an act-based conception of content with a presentationalist account of intentionality, the conclusion of this paper produces the intended model of semiotic intentionality in such a way that knowledge and truth are then respectively defined in it as the subjective correspondence between the two acts of concrete intentionality and as the objective correspondence between the two contents of abstract intentionality (Sect. 4). (shrink)

Fictional realism allows direct reference theorists to provide a straightfor- ward analysis of the semantics of fictional discourse by admitting into their ontology a set of objects (ficta) that serve as the referents of fictional names. Ficta may be modeled using an axiomatic object theory, but actualist interpretations of the formalism have been the subject of recent objections. In this paper, I provide an interpretation of object theory’s formalism that is consistent with actualism and avoids these objections. Drawing on insights (...) from an actualist semantics for quantified modal logic, a central point in my proposal is to interpret ficta as contingently nonconcrete objects. (shrink)

The possibilities are explored of considering nothing as the intended object of thoughts that are literally about the concept of nothing first, and thereby of nothing. Nothing, on the proposed analysis, turns out to be nothing other than the property of being an intendable object. There are propositions that look to be both true and to be about nothing in the sense of being about the concept and ultimate intended object of what is here formally defined and designated as N-nothing. (...) We have been thinking about it already in reading and understanding the meaning of this abstract. Nothing nothings, we shall assert in all seriousness and with a definite formally definable literal meaning. The concept of N-nothing in that sense is a concept with identity conditions like that of any entity, the difference being that the concept of N-nothing is a nonentity and nonexistent intended object. (shrink)

On the one hand, logic has (or ought to have) nothing to do with metaphysics; it ought to have nothing to do with questions concerning what there is, or whether there is anything at all. On the other hand, metaphysics can hardly get off the ground without the help of logical analysis; to be is to be a truth-maker, and the search for truth-makers requires that we lay open the logical structure of our language. So something’s gotta give: either logical (...) analysis is metaphysically biased, or metaphysicians must make up their mind before resorting to logical analysis. Or both. (shrink)

Castañeda’s guise theory is a peculiarly interesting Neo-Meinongian approach, in virtue of its bundle-theoretic and anti-representationalist features. But it also has some problematic aspects. It crucially relies on a series of sameness relations, such as consubstantiation or consociation, but this list is incomplete. Moreover, guise theory is hindered by its view of the sameness relations as forms of predication alternative to what may be called, following Plantinga, standard predication. This paper thus proposes a revised version of guise theory that acknowledges (...) two additional sameness relations and standard predication. (shrink)

Modal Meinongianism is the most recent neo-Meinongian theory. Its main innovation consists in a Comprehension Principle which, unlike other neo-Meinongian approaches, seemingly avoids limitations on the properties that can characterize objects. However, in a recent paper A. Sauchelli has raised an objection against modal Meinongianism, to the effect that properties and relations involving reference to worlds at which they are instantiated, and specifically to the actual world or parts thereof, force a limitation of its Comprehension Principle. The theory, thus, is (...) no better off than other neo-Meinongian views in this respect. This article shows that the notion part of actuality in Sauchelli’s paper is ambiguous from the modal Meinongian viewpoint. Accordingly, his objection splits into two, depending on its disambiguation. It is then explained how neither interpretation forces modal Meinongianism to limit its Comprehension Principle. A third problem connected to Sauchelli’s objection is addressed: how to account for our felicitously referring to nonexistent objects via descriptions that embed reference to properties not actually instantiated by the objects. Overall, the replies to these difficulties provide good insights into the workings of the new Meinongian theory. (shrink)

Quine claimed that to be is is to be a value of a bound variable. In the paper we assume that this claim contains an important philosophical insight and investigate its background. It is argued that there are two dimensions involved in Quine’s slogan: (i) the distinction between existing and non-existing objects and (ii) the question of the systematic ambiguity of being that can be traced back to Aristotle. At the first sight it is tempting to construe Quine’s criterion according (...) to the first dimension. In this light it appears as an anti-Meinongian device and the Russelian roots of Quine’s philosophy make this interpretation prima facie plausible. However, it is argued that it is the anti-Aristotelian line which is dominant in Quine’s philosophy, and which is ontologically much more interesting. (shrink)

The main chapters of this thesis develop and defend a version of two-dimensional semantics that provides an account of Kripkean a posteriori necessity.

The debate around “strong” paraconsistency or dialetheism (the view that there are true contradictions) has – apart from metaphysical concerns - centred on the questions whether dialetheism itself can be definitely asserted or has a unique truth value, and what it should mean, if it is possible at all, to believe a contradiction one knows to be contradictory (i.e. an explicit contradiction). And what should it mean, if it is possible at all, to assert a sentence one knows to be (...) contradictory? (shrink)

To leave matters in no doubt, we obligingly assert that the Russell class R, i.e. {x : x 6∈ x}, both belongs to itself and also does not belong to itself; in short, we assert R ∈ R & ∼ . To be quite explicit, we assert the contradiction r & ∼ r, where r abbreviates R ∈ R. Thus, in convenient symbols, `δ r & ∼ r, where δ is the group of dialethicians comprising Priest and Routley. Now Goldstein (...) asserts not, or not just, that we should not do what we have naughtily done, but that we cannot; it “is not that people should not assert contradictions, but that they cannot, even though they may purport to do so”. (shrink)