Living Ontologists - Bibliographical Guide: A - B
These pages will give some essential bibliographical information about some of the most important living ontologists; only a few titles will be cited for every author.
The Authors to which I devoted an entire page are marked with an asterisk (*)
Australian Philosopher
INDEX
Books
- 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).
Links
Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
INDEX
Books
- 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."
Links
George Bealer (Yale University)
Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine
INDEX
Books
- 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.
Links
Ermanno Bencivenga bibliography compiled by Eddie Yeghiayan
Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris I (Sorbonne)
INDEX
Books
- 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).
Links
Jocelyn Benoist (University of Chicago)
Professor of Semantics and Philosophy, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
INDEX
Books
- 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
Links
Mauricio Beuchot Puente (Proyecto Ensayo Hispánico)
British Philosopher
INDEX
Books
- 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.
Links
The Site for Critical Realism (WSCR)
EUROPEAN site.
There is an American Mirror Site: for best performance, visit the site close to your location.