Bacon John. Universals and property instances: the alphabet of Being. Oxford: Blackwell 1995.
Contents: Preface VII; Glossary of Special Symbols IX; 1. Tropes,
universals, and individuals 1; 1A .Tropes and their uses 1; 1B. Other
tropes? 7; 1C. Metaphysical construction 10; 1D. Universals 13; 1E.
Individuals 19; 2. Relational tropes and individuals 26; 2A. Relations
of individuals in Trope theory 26; 2B. Bundles of polytropes 30; 2C.
Representatives instead of bundles 35; 3. Compound universals, wholes,
and states of affairs 38; 3A. Compound properties 38; 3B. Compound
universals 44; 3C. Compound individuals 48; 3D. Compound states of
affairs 50 4. Semantics, modality, and world-lines 57; 4A.
Trope-semantics without metarelations 57; 4B. Transferability and
individual-concepts 59; 4C. Combinatorialism 65; 4D. Existence,
persistence, and modalities 67; 5. Metarelations and metaphysics 72;
5A. Categories and the Trope cascade 72; 5B. The reality of relations
79; 5C. Five ways to carve reality 85; 6. Taking time 93; 6A. Tropes'
times 93; 6B. Continuants and temporal unity 99; 7. Belief 104; 7A.
Objects of belief 104; 7B. The structure of belief 110; 7C. Loose ends
118; 8. Furthering the cause 123; 8A. Causation defined 123; 9. Duty
and better worlds 129; 9A. Obligation defined 129; Notes 133;
References143; Index 149.
"General theory of structure.
With Williams, I take individual objects, properties, and relations to
be metaphysical constructions out of tropes. By this I mean that
objects and properties are made up of tropes, but not necessarily in
the same way that armies are made up of soldiers or atoms of quarks.
The quarks are physical components of the atom; the tropes are
metaphysical components of the property. Unlike Russell, I do not want
to deny that metaphysical constructions exist (Logic and knowledge: essays 1901-1950: 270ff).
Physical structures and metaphysical structures both fall under the general theory of structure, which is set theory.
Together with logic and mathematics, I consider set theory to be the
most fundamental part of philosophy. (*) It is prior to "first
philosophy" or metaphysics, which draws on the theory of structure in
positing the general kinds of structure that are best suited to explain
the world as we find it. The elements of metaphysical structures are
the concern of ontology, a comparatively trivial branch of metaphysics.
The ontology of a metaphysical system surveys what sorts of items there
are according to that metaphysic, and the conditions under which those
items exist. As this inquiry will frequently lead back to questions of
structure, ontology is parasitic upon metaphysics, even as a metaphysic
is in a certain sense based upon its ontology."
(*) Actually, my view is that mathematics and set theory are one, of
which logic is part. But I don't prejudge the question whether set
theory might ultimately be based on category theory or mereology.
(Interestingly, in the seventeenth century mathematics was sometimes
equated with metaphysics.) What I put forward here is my picture of the
disciplinary relationships. If the reader prefers a different picture,
it may be that not too much hangs on the disagreement. My main aim is
to secure the availability of set theory as a tool, against those who
find it metaphysically problematic.
Articles
Bacon John, "Syllogistic without existence," Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic: 195-219 (1967).
"Modern logic has been credited with exposing the so-called "existence"
assumptions implicit in Aristotelian logic and in many traditional
brands of syllogistic. There are, to be sure, dissenting voices.
Bochenski, for example, has claimed [Formale Logik (Freiburg, Verlag Karl Alber, 1956 p. 425]
that the "existence" assumptions are needed only for certain
interpretations of syllogistic, interpretations that are by no means
the most appropriate. However, the alternative which Bochenski has in
mind is Łukasiewicz's axiomatization, a variant of which Bochenski
himself has put forth [On the categorical syllogism, Dominican studies 1 (1948), 35-57; reprinted in Logico-philosophical studies,
ed. Albert Menne (Dordrecht, Reidel 1962)]. Now, to refer to
Łukasiewicz's system is to beg the question of "existential" import,
since that system itself has need of interpretation in terms of basic
logical notions. And in fact, one workable interpretation of
Łukasiewicz's system would analyze his second axiom, 'Iaa', as 'Ex (Ax & Ax)'. In
order, then, to make good the claim that Łukasiewicz's axiomatization
of syllogistic avoids "existence" assumptions, we must show that on
some alternative interpretation the assumptions are indeed avoided. But
to give such an interpretation of Łukasiewicz's system is to give an
"existence"-free interpretation of syllogistic itself. The latter is
what I shall do in this paper."
Bacon John, "Ontological commitment and free logic," Monist 53: 310-319 (1969).
"Both Bergmann's and Quine's semantic criteria of existence, as well as
systems of so-called free logic, beg the question of what it is to be.
For Bergmann's proffered explication gives us no help in deciding which
undefined descriptive constants to include in our language. Quine's
criterion does not tell us what sort of items are eligible for
membership in the range of our bindable variables. And free-logicians
tell us nothing about how to distinguish the range of their bound
variables from that of their free ones, except that the former is
limited to existents and the latter is possibly larger. Perhaps the
suggestive analogy between existents and facts could cast light on the
concept of existence."
Bacon John, "The semantics of generic 'the'," Journal of Philosophical Logic 2: 323-339 (1973).
"Far from being a quantifier or some novel kind of term-forming
operator, generic 'the' is simply our old friend definitely descriptive
'the' as it occurs within the scope of nonspecific modal operators,
provided that the description it forms is not a rigid designator in
Kripke's sense. A modal operator is used nonspecifically in a sentence
if it falls within the scope of the first-person belief presupposition
accompanying that use of the sentence. This account is to some extent
independent of one's choice of a theory of descriptions and a semantic
framework for modalities. My theory of descriptions is a variant of R.
H. Thomason's in which vacuous descriptions denote nonexistents in an
outer domain. Various three-valued semantic frameworks are sketched,
from a simple temporal one to a general one involving arbitrary
n-tuples as points of reference."
Bacon John, "The completeness of a predicate-functor logic," Journal of Symbolic Logic 50: 903-926 (1985).
"A version of Quine's variable-free predicate-functor logic is
axiomatized and proved semantically complete. A natural-deduction
formulation is also given. Six logical constants are used, though fewer
would do: inclusion, complement, identity, and Quine's padding, major
and minor inversion. The distinctive feature of the completeness proof
is the construction of the domain of the Henkin model in the absence of
individual symbols. The construction makes use of multiple maximal
consistent sets, as in modal logic."
Bacon John, "Armstrong's theory of properties," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64: 47-53 (1986).
Bacon John, "A model-theoretic criterion of ontology," Synthese 72: 1-18 (1987).
"Quine's well-known criterion of ontological commitment is restated
model-theoretically, and different versions are distinguished --
commitment of a theory, commitment by a statement, and commitment on
the part of a person. The model-theoretic criterion is then
generalized, first to items in the domains of intended models (whether
quantified over or not) and ultimately to basic nonlinguistic nonsets
posited in intended models. The generalized criterion is applied to
free logic and to modelings of modal logic involving possible worlds
and individual concepts."
Bacon John, "Four modal modelings," Journal of Philosophical Logic 17: 91-114 (1988).
"The monadic modal predicate calculus S5 , with all individual
designators rigid, is modeled in four different ways: (1) the standard
Kripke models; (2) models based on properties and similarity relations;
(3) models based on tropes (abstract particulars, property instances)
and equivalence relations; and (4) models based on both individuals and
properties. All four modelings are proved equivalent. The
trope-modeling is extended to polyadic S5 and completeness proved. It
is suggested that trope models are metaphysically preferable."
Bacon John, "The meaning of 'is'," Manuscrito.Revista Internacional de Filosofia 11: 99-104 (1988).
"First-order term logic (syllogistic with abstraction or predicate
functors) affords a novel perspective on the logical form of
'is'-contexts. The basic 'is' is taken to be the redundant copula of
traditional two-term predication. The account then extends naturally to
the 'is' of singular predication, of identity, of existence, of
quantification ('there is'), of implication and of obtainment ('is the
case')."
Bacon John, "A single primitive Trope relation," Journal of Philosophical Logic 18: 141-154 (1989).
Bealer George. Quality and concept. Oxford: Oxford
University Press 1982.
Articles
Bealer George, "Theories of properties, relations, and propositions," Journal of Philosophy 76: 634-648 (1979).
"This is the only complete logic for properties, relations, and
propositions (prps) that has been formulated to date. First, an
intensional abstraction operation is adjoined to first-order quantifier
logic. Then, a new algebraic semantic method is developed. The
heuristic used is not that of possible worlds but rather that of prps
taken at face value. Unlike the possible worlds approach to intensional
logic, this approach yields a logic for intentional (psychological)
matters, as well as modal matters. At the close of the paper, the
origin of incompleteness in logic is investigated. The culprit is found
to be the predication relation, a relation on properties and relations
that is expressed in natural language by the copula."
Bealer George, "Completeness in the theory of properties, relations, and propositions,"
Journal of Symbolic Logic 48: 415-426 (1983).
Bealer George, "The philosophical limits of scientific essentialism," Philosophical Perspectives 1: 289-365 (1987).
Bealer George and Mönnich Uwe. Property theory. In Handbook of philosophical logic. Vol. 4.
Edited by Gabbay Dov and Guenthner Franz. Kluwer: Dordrecht 1989. pp. 133-251
Bealer George, "A solution to Frege's Puzzle," Philosophical Perspectives 7: 17-60 (1993).
Bealer George, "Universals," Journal of Philosophy 90: 5-32 (1993).
"Presented here is an argument for the existence of universals. Like
Church's translation-test argument, the argument turns on
considerations from intensional logic. But whereas Church's argument
turns on the fine-grained informational content of intensional
sentences, this argument turns on the distinctive logical features of
'that'-clauses embedded within modal contexts. And unlike Church's
argument, this argument applies against truth-conditions nominalism and
also against conceptualism and in re
realism (the doctrine that universals are ontologically dependent upon
the existence of instances). So if the argument is successful, it
serves as a defense of full ante rem realism (the doctrine that
universals exist independently of the existence of instances). The
argument emphasizes the need for a unified treatment of intensional
statements - modal statements as well as statements of assertion and
belief. The larger philosophical moral will be that ante rem universals are uniquely suited to carry a certain kind of modal information.
Linguistic entities, mind-dependent universals, and instance-dependent universals are incapable of serving that function."
Bealer George, "Mental properties," Journal of Philosophy 91: 185-208 (1994).
Bealer George, "On the possibility of philosophical knowledge," Philosophical Perspectives 10: 1-34 (1996).
Bealer George, "Propositions," Mind 107: 1-32 (1998).
"Recent work in philosophy of language has raised significant problems
for the traditional theory of propositions, engendering serious
skepticism about its general workability. These problems are, I
believe, tied to fundamental misconceptions about how the theory should
be developed. The goal of this paper is to show how to develop the
traditional theory in a way which solves the problems and puts this
skepticism to rest. The problems fall into two groups. The first has to
do with reductionism, specifically, attempts to reduce propositions to
extensional entities—either extensional functions or sets. The second
group concerns problems of fine-grained content—both traditional
"Cicero"/"Tully" puzzles and recent variations on them which confront
scientific essentialism. After characterizing the problems, I outline a
non-reductionist approach—the algebraic approach—which avoids the
problems associated with reductionism. I then go on to show how the
theory can incorporate non-Platonic (as well as Platonic) modes of
presentation. When these are implemented nondescriptively, they yield
the sort of fine-grained distinctions which have been eluding us. The
paper closes by applying the theory to a cluster of remaining puzzles,
including a pair of new puzzles facing scientific essentialism."
Bealer George, "A theory of the a priori," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81: 1-30 (2000).
"Good evidence is clearly required for the sort of knowledge sought in
science, logic, mathematics, and philosophy. This suggests the idea of
approaching the a priori through the topic of "evidence" (or reasons).
The paper begins with a discussion of our use of "intuitions" as
evidence (reasons) in the a priori disciplines (logic, mathematics,
philosophy) and an argument showing that omitting intuitions from one's
body of evidence leads to epistemic self-defeat. This is followed by an
explanation of why intuitions are evidence."
Bencivenga Ermanno. Logic, bivalence and denotation.
Berkeley: University of California Press 1986.
With Karel Lambert and Bas C. van Fraassen
Bencivenga Ermanno. A theory of language and mind.
Berkeley: University of California Press 1997.
"In this book, Bencivenga offers a stylistically and
conceptually exciting investigation of the nature of
language, mind, and personhood and the many ways the three
connect. Bencivenga contests the basic assumptions of
analytic (and also, to an extent, postmodern) approaches to
these topics. His exploration leads through fascinating
discussions of education, courage, pain, time and history,
selfhood, subjectivity and objectivity, reality, facts, the
empirical, power and transgression, silence, privacy and
publicity, and play -- all themes that are shown to be
integral to our thinking about language."
Articles
Bencivenga Ermanno, "Again on existence as a predicate," Philosophical Studies 37: 125-138 (1980).
Bencivenga Ermanno, "Truth, correspondence, and non-denoting singular terms," Philosophia 9: 219-230 (1980).
"The correspondence theory of truth provides standard semantics with a
simple scheme for evaluating sentences. this scheme however depends on
the existence of basic correspondences between singular terms and
objects, and thus breaks down in the case of non-denoting singular
terms. an alternative to the correspondence theory is thus called for
in dealing with such terms. the author criticizes various positions
discussed in the literature in this regard, and then presents a
solution of his own."
Bencivenga Ermanno. Free logics. In Handbook of philosophical logic. Vol. 3: Alternatives to Classical logic. Edited by Gabbay Dov and Guenthner Franz. Dordrecht : Reidel 1983. pp. 373-426
Bencivenga Ermanno. Putting language first: the 'liberation' of logic from ontology. In A companion to philosophical logic. Edited by Jacquette Dale. Malden: Blackwell 2002. pp. 293-304
"There are two ways of conceiving the relation between language and the
world: they differ by making opposite choices about which of them is to
be assigned priority, and which is to be dependent on the other. The
priority and dependence in question here are conceptual, not causal: at
the causal level everyone agrees that certain portions of the
nonlinguistic world (intelligent entities, say) must be in place before
meaningful expressions come to pass, so what we are concerned with is
how the notion of meaningful is to be understood - whether 'meaningful' is defined as something that means some
portion of the world or rather as something that belongs to a
self-sufficient structure of analogies and oppositions. For example,
taking for granted that there would be no meaningful expression 'John'
unless some intelligent entity came up with it, is 'John' a meaningful
expression because there is a John that it means or rather because it
is a certified component of the English language, categorized as a name
and clearly distinct from 'Paul' - though somewhat analogous to 'Jack'?
If you go the first route, I will say that you are a realist at the conceptual (or transcendental) level; if you go the second one, I will call you a conceptual (or transcendental) idealist. 'Realist'
is a transparent term, since 'res' is 'thing,' 'object,' in Latin and
clearly this kind of realist puts things (conceptually) first,
considers them basic in her logical space; 'idealist' is more
controversial, since the 'idea' in it recalls a psychologistic jargon
that is not as popular today as it once was, so one might think that
some other root, more clearly expressive of the semantical,
logico/linguistic character of the current analysis, should be
preferred. And yet, once we are clear about its implications,
'idealist' remains a better choice because it lets us see the
connections of this contemporary debate with other, classical ones;
later I will explore some such connections. Before I do that, however,
I have to explain what the contemporary debate looks like.
My example of a meaningful expression above was not chosen at random:
in the case of names there is more agreement than with any other part
of speech concerning what they
mean. 'John' means a (male) human being, 'Lassie' means a dog, 'the
Queen Mary' means a ship, and in general a name that means anything
means an object - or, as People say, denotes it or refers to it
(the terminology is highly unstable: 'reference' and 'denotation' are
used as translations of the Fregean 'Bedeutung,' but 'meaning' is also
used for the same purpose, consistently with Frege's own suggestion,
and indeed it is the most natural English counterpart of this perfectly
ordinary German word). There are complications here, since names may be
ambiguous and the objects meant may be past or future as well as
present ones, but none of that touches the essence of names' favored
condition: what kind or category the meaning of a name
belongs to is hardly ever an issue, much less so than, say, with
predicates or connectives. Probably because of this (and of the great
importance that concrete, middle-sized objects like human beings. dogs.
and ships have in our form of life), it is around names that the
realism/ idealism controversy has surfaced in the clearest form within
contemporary logic. And free logics have been its most conspicuous outcome." pp. 293-294.
Benoist Jocelyn. Phénoménologie, sémantique, ontologie. Husserl et la tradition logique autrichienne. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1997.
Benoist Jocelyn. L' a priori conceptuel. Bolzano, Husserl, Schlick. Paris: Vrin 1999.
Benoist Jocelyn. Intentionalité et langage dans les Recherches logiques de Husserl. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 2001.
Benoist Jocelyn. Représentations sans objet: Aux origines de la phénoménologie et de la philosophie analytique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 2001.
Contents: Introduction. La question des objets inexistants et les
"origines communes" de la phénoménologie et de la philosophie
analytique 5; Chapitre I. Bolzano et le paradoxe des objets inexistants
17; Chapitre II. Un détour frégéen: la présuppostion de référence 43;
Chapitre III. Une première solution intentionnaliste: Twardowski (en
passant par Brentano) 67; Chapitre IV: L'objectivation de
l'inexistence: Meinong 99; Chapitre V. Le dispositif onto-logique et
les deux critiques possibles de Meinong 131; Appendice: Brentano sur
les "quelque chose" 169; Chapitre Vi. Husserl critique de Twardowski
173; Index nominum 217-219.
Benoist Jocelyn. Entre acte et sens. Recherches sur la théorie phénoménologique de la signification. Paris: Vrin 2002.
Benoist Jocelyn. Husserl. La représentation vide. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 2003.
Benoist Jocelyn. Les limites de l'intentionalité. Recherches phénoménologiques et analytiques. Paris: Vrin 2005.
Articles
Benoist Jocelyn, "Á l'origine de la phénoménologie: au delà de la représentation,"
Critique: 480-506 (1995). Á propos de: Husserl-Twardowski - Sur les objets intentionnels, 1893-1901 -
Traduction par Jacques English, Paris, Vrin, 1993.
Benoist Jocelyn. Non-objectifying acts. In One hundred years of phenomenology. Husserl's Logical investigations revisited. Edited by Zahavi Dan and Stjernfelt Frederik. Dordrecht: Kluwer 2002. pp. 41-50
Benoist Jocelyn, "Two (or three) conceptions of intentionality,"
Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 69: 79-103 (2007).
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. El problema de los universales. México: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM 1981. Second edition: Toluca, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, 1997
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. Lógica y ontología. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara 1986
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. Metafísica. La ontología aristotélico-tomista de Francisco de Araújo. Ciudad de México: Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas UNAM 1987.
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. Metafísica, lógica y lenguaje en la filosofía medieval. Barcelona: PPU 1994.
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. El núcleo ontológico de la interpretación (la substancia y el lenguaje). Guadalajara: Univa 1997.
Articles
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. Some examples of logic in New Spain
(Sixteenth-Eighteenth century). In Studies on the history
of logic.Proceedings of the Third Symposium on the history of
logic. Edited by Angelelli Ignacio and Cerezo Maria.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1996. pp. 215-228
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. Saint Thomas' Third Way:
possibility and necessity, essence and existence. Edited by García de
la Sienra Adolfo. Amsterdam : Rodopi 2000. pp. 93-108
Beuchot Mauricio Puente. The study of philosophy's history in Mexico as a foundation for doing Mexican philosophy. In
The role of history in Latin American philosophy: contemporary perspectives. Edited by Salles Arleen and Millán-Zaibert Elizabeth. Albany: State University of New York Press 2005. pp. 109-130
Bhaskar Roy. A realist theory of science. Leeds: Leeds Books 1975.
Bhaskar Roy. The possibility of naturalism. A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences. London: Routledge 1979. Second edition 1989; third edition 1998.
Bhaskar Roy. Reclaiming reality. A critical introduction to contemporary philosophy. London: Verso 1989.
Bhaskar Roy. Dialectic. The pulse of freedom. London: Verso 1993.
Articles
Bhaskar Roy, "Forms of realism," Philosophica (Belgium) 15: 99-127 (1975). "The article summarizes some of the main conclusions of the system of transcendental realism set forth in my book
A realist theory of science.
Three transcendental arguments are developed. The nature of
experimental activity shows the necessity for an ontological
distinction between causal laws and patterns of events. The nature of
scientific development shows the necessity for a concept of scientific
activity as work. Finally conditions of the possibility of the
empirical realism, to which transcendental realism is counterposed, are
shown to be an ontology of closed systems and a sociology defined by an
individualistic concept of man."
Bhaskar Roy, "On the possibility of social scientific knowledge and the limits of naturalism,"
Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 8: 1-28 (1978). "Recent developments in the philosophy of science and in particular those that I have systematized in my book
A realist theory of science,
permit a reconsideration of the problem of naturalism: that is, the
problem of the extent to which societies can be studied in the same way
as nature. It is argued that both the leading traditions in the
philosophy of social science, viz. positivism and hermeneutics, are
vitiated by their commitment to an empiricist ontology. In contrast to
the implicit conceptions of the society/person relationship in the
Durkheimian, Weberian and the 'dialectical' traditions, a conception
based on what is characterized as the 'transformational model of social
activity' is proposed. Certain emergent features of societies are
derived from this model; and it is shown how it is not in spite, but
just because, of these features that social science is possible. Three
kinds of limits on the possibility of naturalism -- epistemological,
ontological and relational -- are discussed, and a realist and
relational conception of social science is proposed, in which a
contingently critical hermeneutics plays a key, but not exhaustive,
role."
Bhaskar Roy, "On the ontological status of ideas," Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 27: 139-147 (1997). "Four recent turns (realist, processual, holistic and reflexive) in
social thought are discussed and related to the four dimensional schema
of dialectical realism the author has recently outlined. It is shown
how ontology matters and indeed is not only necessary but inevitable,
The nature of the reality of ideas (of different types) is demonstrated
and the most prevalent mistakes in the metatheory of ideas and ideation
analyzed. The significance of categorical realism and the character of
those specific types if ideas known as ideologies' are then discussed.
Finally some good and bad dialectical connections of ideas and related
phenomena are sketched."
Studies about his work
Collier Andrew. Critical realism. An introduction to Roy
Bhaskar's philosophy. London: Verso 1994.
Critical realism: essential readings. Edited by Archer
Margaret. New York: Routledge 1998.
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