Nominalism, Platonism and "Being True of"

Abstract

One attempt to avoid platonistic ontology involves using the notion true of.' Using this notion, one claims that predicate, say white, is true of particular object whereas sign such as proper name to the object. This is done to avoid holding (1)' that predicate to universal property while the proper name to an individual and (2) that sentence used to predicate the one sign of the other indicates the fact that the individual exemplifies the property. -Thus, an attempt is made to offer coherent ontology recognizing only individuals. If cogent, this gambit provides more parsimonious ontology than platonistic alternatives. Here I shall argue that the gambit fails. A key point will be that an ontology is reflected in our use of language not only by the signs we explicitly hold to be connected with objects but also by the ways we connect signs to things. Let a and W be proper name and predicate respectively. Let stand for refers to. On what I shall call the platonistic account the signs a and W both stand or are put in the relation R, to an individual and color respectively. They are, as some say, interpreted or paired with such objects. On the alternative account the name a is also thought of as referring to the particular but the predicate is not taken to refer to anything. To take the predicate as mere label of several objects just as the name is label of one is to propose different version of nominalism, one that is sometimes referred to as the doctrine of common names. On the present nominalistic gambit the predicate is taken to stand in different relation to the particular than the name stands in, the