The Logical Framework

Abstract

How are we to characterise a philosopher who merits the title of ‘realist’ (as opposed to ‘nominalist’)? A natural way of characterising him would be to say that he believed in the truth of a particular existential proposition, or group of such propositions. For example, the realist about properties would be said to believe in the truth of ‘There are properties’, of ‘Some properties are incompatible’, and so on. However, it is not clear that one cannot subscribe to the truth of such propositions simply because one subscribes to that of certain simpler, and entirely uncontroversial, propositions: thus, if one believes in the truth of ‘Fido is a dog and Rover is a dog’, should one not also believe that Fido and Rover have something in common, and if one believes the latter, should one not also believe that there is at least one property, shared (as it happens) by Fido and Rover? If the links between such beliefs are as close as they seem to be, then a sentence like ‘There is a property’ must surely be no more controversial than one like ‘Fido is a dog and Rover is a dog’; but if acceptance of property-realism depends solely on our acceptance of sentences like the last, there would appear to be very little room for philosophical disagreement.KeywordsLogical FormGrammatical CategoryLogical FrameworkTrue SentenceAtomic SentenceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.