Category: Quine
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Untangling Plato’s Beard
I was asked by a commenter what motivates the thin theory of existence. One motivation is . . . the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the…
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Ortcutt and Paderewski: Against the Millian Theory of Proper Names
Saul Kripke's Paderewski puzzle put me in mind of a rather similar puzzle — call it the Ortcutt puzzle — from W.V. Quine's seminal 1956 J. Phil. paper, "Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes" (in The Ways of Paradox, Harvard UP, 1976, pp. 185-196). Back to Ortcutt! The ordinary language 'Ralph believes that someone is a spy' …
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: From a Logical Point of View
W. V. O. Quine's famous collection of essays is named after this song. "From a logical point of view always marry a woman uglier than you." Jimmy Soul extends the thought, ripping off some of the lyrics of the calypso tune.
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Pre-Print: Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology
The following review article is scheduled to appear later this year in Studia Neoscholastica. The editor grants me permission to reproduce it here should anyone have comments that might lead to its improvement. REVIEW ARTICLE William F. Vallicella Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology, Cambridge University Press, 2014, viii + 261 pp. This volume…
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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…
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Van Inwagen on Quine on Existence
From Peter van Inwagen, "McGinn on Existence" in Modes of Existence: Papers in Ontology and Philosophical Logic, eds. Bottani et al., Ontos Verlag, 2006, p. 106: There is the theory of Quine, according to which the two oppositions [that between being and non-being and that between existence and non-existence] are not two but one. Existence…