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Jack Kaminsky - Essays in linguistic ontology

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Metaphysical questions relating to what exists do not seem to fade away notes Jack Kaminsky in this book, which takes as its starting point the Quinian view that we determine what exists by means of the formal systems we construct to explain the world. This starting point, Kaminsky points out, is not novel; philosophers have often tried to construct formal systems, and from these systems they have been able to deduce what can be said to exist. Contemporary formal systems are different from earlier ones, however, because they make more extensive use of the results of linguistics, logic, and mathematics studies. But these contemporary formal systems also must state eventually what their commitments to existence are, and they must be able to show their commitments to be free of paradox, ambiguity, and contradiction. Given these conditions, Kaminsky examines the difficulties inherent in the existence claims of contemporary formal language systems. To do this he uses only a minimum of the technical elements of propositional and first-order quantificational logic. He concludes: many existential commitments are relative to the formal systems of time; some commitments seem to be absolute; and some problemsthose relating to vacuous termsarise only because no distinction is made between humanly constructed objects and naturally constructed objects.

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title Essays in Linguistic Ontology author Kaminsky Jack - photo 1

title:Essays in Linguistic Ontology
author:Kaminsky, Jack.
publisher:Southern Illinois University Press
isbn10 | asin:0809310449
print isbn13:9780809310449
ebook isbn13:9780585308920
language:English
subjectAnalysis (Philosophy) , Ontology.
publication date:1982
lcc:B808.5.K35 1982eb
ddc:111
subject:Analysis (Philosophy) , Ontology.
Page iii
Essays in Linguistic Ontology
Jack Kaminsky
Page iv Copyright 1982 by the Board of Trustees Southern Illinois - photo 2
Page iv
Copyright 1982 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Edited by Karen S. Craig
Designed by Bob Nance, Design for Publishing
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kaminsky, Jack, 1922
Essays in linguistic ontology.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Analysis (Philosophy) 2. Ontology.
1. Title.
B808.5.K35 111 81-14411
ISBN 0-8093-1044-9 AACR2
Page v
In Memory of My Beloved Son Eric
Page vii
Contents
Preface
ix
1. Language, Form, and Ontology
1
2. Logical Form and Formal Languages
39
3. Construction and Interpretation
61
4. Individual and Predicate Terms
76
5. Linguistic and Traditional Ontology
92
6. The Linguistic Criterion of Ontology
114
7. Is the Number of Planets 9?
137
8. Individuals
148
Bibliography
183
Index
193

Page ix
Preface
The issues in this book are derived mainly from an analysis of certain kinds of terms that are very important in the construction of formal language systems but whose ontological implications are frequently either inadequately explained or simply ignored. Thus I am concerned with what an individual variable is, what a predicate is, and what it means to speak of the values of a variable. These issues lead directly into a critical analysis of Quine's definition of ontology as the study of the values of the quantified variable.
Except for the chapter on Quine's paradox, (chapter 7), the book deals primarily with various aspects of ontology as they relate to formal systems. In each chapter I have usually tried to examine one particular problem in some detail, although I have sought to avoid, as much as possible, any use of the standard logical symbolism that, I believe, very often serves to obfuscate rather than to clarify an issue. Since few ontological problems can ever really be divorced from one another, the chapters often overlap. Thus it is difficult to see how one can try to state what a predicate is without also immediately trying to state what a name is. And, if names are discussed, one must eventually be led into an examination of Russell's theory of descriptions and Kripke's attempt to refute it.
It has sometimes been argued that contemporary analytic views of ontology are different from traditional views. Traditionally, ontology was a separate, independent study divorced from any particular interest in logic, language, or the natural sciences, even though, of course, elements of these disciplines often contributed to ontological analyses. Many contemporary philosophers take ontology to be a resultant product of formal language systems. The inquiry into the nature of individuals, properties, and classes arises because they seem to be the designata that are required to define the substituends, that is, the linguistic terms that replace the individual and predicate variables. Thus there would seem to be a dis-
Page x
tinction made between the way ontology is studied by many contemporary philosophers and the way ontology was studied in the past. But in an important sense the problems are similar. The tradition is concerned with what an individuala substanceis and how its properties relate to it. The contemporary view is concerned with thing-wordsnames or constants or definite descriptionsand how predicates are associated with them. The tradition posits monads and simple substances and sense data, and then proceeds to ask how worlds are constructed out of them. The contemporary philosopher posits domains of individuals and then proceeds to ask how much of the world can be described with such domains. There is more language emphasis in contemporary approaches to ontology, but the underlying issues are not so dissimilar. Thing-words still seem to require explanation in terms of individuals, and predicates are still said to allude to properties and classes. The terminology of substance and essence is no longer in fashion, but whether names are replaceable by clusters of predicates or by lists. of definite descriptions is an important contemporary issue. In fact, with the advent of Kripke's rigid designatorsexpressions that refer to the same entity in every possible worlda new interest has arisen in the nature of essential properties, since these seem to be necessary for the identification of such entities from one possible world to the next. And, finally, "exists" has been replaced by the existential quantifier, and therefore it is no longer taken to be a predicate. But the quantifier has its own odd problems, and those expounding a "free" logic have refused to connect existence to quantification.
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