Category: Predication
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The Hatfields and the McCoys: A Challenge to Reists and Extreme Nominalists
Top of the Substack pile.
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Trope Troubles: An Exercise in Aporetics
Elliot C. asked me about tropes. What follows is a re-post from 30 March 2016, slightly emended, which stands up well under current scrutiny. Perhaps Elliot will find the time to tell me whether he finds it clear and convincing and whether it answers his questions. ………………………….. A reader has been much exercised of late…
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The Hatfields and the McCoys
Whether or not it is true, the following has a clear sense: 1. The Hatfields outnumber the McCoys. (1) says that the number of Hatfields is strictly greater than the number of McCoys. It obviously does not say, of each Hatfield, that he outnumbers some McCoy. If Gomer is a Hatfield and Goober a McCoy, it…
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The Ramsey Problem and the Problem of the Intrinsically Unpropertied Particular
Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical
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Frege’s Horse Paradox, Bradley’s Regress, and the Problem of Predication
The concept horse is not a concept. Thus spoke Frege, paradoxically. Why does he say such a thing? Because the subject expression 'the concept horse' refers to an object. It names an object. Concepts and objects on his scheme are mutually exclusive. No concept is an object and conversely. Only objects can be named.…
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Against Ostrich Nominalism
As magnificent a subject as philosophy is, grappling as it does with the ultimate concerns of human existence, and thus surpassing in nobility any other human pursuit, it is also miserable in that nothing goes uncontested, and nothing ever gets established to the satisfaction of all competent practitioners. (This is true of other disciplines as well,…
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Predication as Identity: Another Round
The Opponent is a patient man: Trying again. (1) Sam is poor at t1 iff Sam is identical with some poor person at t1(2) Sam is poor at t1 iff Sam is self-identical at t1 (1) is self-evidently true. For it cannot be true that Sam is poor, but not identical with some poor person.…
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An Identity Theory of Predication
I will sketch a two-name, quasi-Scholastic, nominalistic/reistic theory of predication that I believe is quite hopeless. But it may serve as a foil against which and in comparison to which a more plausible theory may be developed. Suppose it is true that Sam is poor. What are the truth-conditions of 'Sam is poor'? Rewrite the…
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Two Good Articles on Predication Theory
Ignacio Angelelli, Predication Theory: Classical versus Modern Gyula Klima, The Essentialist Nominalism of John Buridan
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The ‘Is’ of Identity and the ‘Is’ of Predication: Contra Sommers
Dedication: To Bill Clinton who taught us that much can ride on what the meaning of 'is' is. ……………… The Opponent has a very good post in which he raises the question whether the standard analytic distinction between the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication is but fallout from an antecedent decision to…
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Nominalism and an Identity Theory of Predication
The Worthy Opponent comments, We nominalists hold that 'God is good' is true when what is signified by 'God' and what is signified by 'good' are numerically one and the same thing. I stumble over this. Apparently, it is The Opponent's view that a sentence such 'Socrates is good' is true when what is signified…
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Half-Way Fregeanism About Existence
Another subtle existence entry to flummox and fascinate the Londonistas. Hell, this Phoenician is flummoxed by it himself. Ain't philosophy grand? ……………….. In section 53 of The Foundations of Arithmetic, Gottlob Frege famously maintains that . . . existence is analogous to number. Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number…
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Modality, Possible Worlds, and the Accidental-Essential Distinction
This from a reader: The Stanford Encyclopedia notes in its article on Essential vs. Accidental Properties, "A modal characterization of the distinction between essential and accidental properties is taken for granted in nearly all work in analytic metaphysics since the 1950s.” Personally, I find modal definitions of this type very hand wavy. Ed Feser states my objection…
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Van Inwagen, Properties, and Bare Particulars
In this entry I expand on my claim that Peter van Inwagen's theory of properties commits him to bare particulars, not in some straw-man sense of the phrase, but in a sense of the phrase that comports with what proponents of bare particulars actually have claimed. I begin by distinguishing among four possible senses of…
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Peter van Inwagen, “A Theory of Properties,” Exposition and Critique
This entry is a summary and critique of Peter van Inwagen's "A Theory of Properties," an article which first appeared in 2004 and now appears as Chapter 8 of his Existence: Essays in Ontology (Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 153-182.) Andrew Bailey has made it available on-line. (Thanks Andrew!) I will be quoting from the…