Abstract
This chapter provides a survey of ontology in the analytic tradition with a special focus on the reasons for the reemergence of ontology in the 1970s. Beginning with the ontological views of Frege and Russell, the chapter discusses the origin of some central methodological tendencies in the tradition. The interplay between logical considerations and intuitive or common sense reasoning are discussed in detail. Some discussion of the anti-metaphysical views which figure prominently in the tradition are discussed. The chapter concludes by examining some recent developments.
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Notes
- 1.
The development of analytic ontology over the past three decades deserves extended discussion. There are a number of introductory anthologies which cast a broad net, including Barry Smith and Hans Burkhardt (1991) and Roberto Poli, and Peter Simons (1996). Two examples of recent work in analytic ontology which provide a solid introduction to the contemporary debates are Trenton Merricks (2007) and Theodore Sider, (2003). Dale Jacquette makes a case for the importance of logic in ontology in his (2002).
- 2.
Scott Soames (2005) has argued persuasively for the centrality of Kripke’s work in the revival of metaphysics.
- 3.
While this essay will not discuss Bergmann’s ideas, his struggle to reconcile positivism and ontology is a fascinating example of the more general problem, in analytic ontology of reconciling common sense presuppositions with formal and scientific insights. Herbert Hochberg provides a very informative discussion of Bergmann’s views in his (1994).
- 4.
- 5.
Most recently, in his Ethics Without Ontology Hilary Putnam argues that ontology has had disastrous consequences for philosophy of mathematics and moral philosophy. Like Carnap, he argues that moral and mathematical reasoning can be conducted apart from debates concerning the foundations of these endeavors, arguing in effect, that ontology factors out of our moral and mathematical reasoning. Given his earlier criticisms of logical positivism, it is striking that Putnam comes so close to the anti-ontological arguments which we find in the Aufbau and in Pseudoproblems of Philosophy.
- 6.
By way of examples, the see the papers collected in Szabo Gendler and Hawthorne (2002) and Vincent Hendricks’ Mainstream and Formal Epistemology.
- 7.
Scott Soames makes a compelling case for the centrality of Moore’s thought in the development of analytic philosophy in the twentieth century in his (2005)
- 8.
For a more expansive and detailed account of the advantages of Frege’s logic over syllogistic logic, see Anthony Kenny (1995, 12–26).
- 9.
He writes that “the mere invention of this ideography has, it seems to me, advanced logic” (1967, 7)
- 10.
Although Gideon Makin (2000) makes a strong case for the seeing both Frege and Russell’s work as fundamentally oriented towards metaphysical questions rather than attempting to replace metaphysics with philosophy of language.
- 11.
See Anthony Kenny’s discussion of the ‘unbridgeable gulf between concepts and objects’ and Frege’s reliance on common sense acquaintance with the distinction between predicates and names in his (1995, 121). Joan Weiner has an extended reading of the distinction between definition and elucidation for Frege in her (1990), especially pp. 99–104 and 227–280.
- 12.
David Pears’ Bertrand Russell and the British Tradition in Philosophy (1972) is a prominent example of the empiricist reading of Russell’s turn away from British Idealism. Peter Hylton’s Russell, Idealism and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy (1990) presents a more accurate and detailed analysis of the early philosophy of Russell and Moore which notes the centrality of abstract entities in Russell’s thought. In his early work, Russell often had recourse to abstract entities in ways which do not comport with the kind of empiricism that Pear and others have in mind.
- 13.
See John Findlay’s (1963) for a very clear presentation of some of the subtleties of Meinong’s ontology.
- 14.
One could argue that because the theory of descriptions makes all claims about fictional or unreal objects false, it is thereby too restrictive and potentially self-undermining. This objection forces Russell to introduce the distinction between primary and secondary occurrence of a term which fails to denote. The secondary occurrence of the term ‘Hamlet’ in a sentence like ‘Hamlet was a prince’ allows us to claim that what is really intended here is the true sentence ‘The play tells us that Hamlet was a prince’. Names for unreal or fictional objects can still play a role in true sentences in this sense.
- 15.
One of the most explicit general criticisms of analytic philosophy as a movement is Stanley Rosen (1985). While Rosen’s discussion of the history of analytic philosophy is not reliable, his criticisms exemplify widely held complaints against mainstream philosophical practice.
- 16.
Richard von Mises (1951) provides an introduction to positivism which emphasizes its cultural implications and contrasts prior philosophical orientations with the liberal model of inquiry and social progress to which the positivists aspired.
- 17.
In his criticism of analytic philosophy Avrum Stroll emphasizes what he sees as the scientistic mainstream of analytic philosophy. He contrasts the vices of scientism with the virtues of the those philosophers who would draw a sharp distinction between science and philosophy (in his view this was Wittgenstein and Austin) One problem with this view is, among other things, the centrality of the distinction between science and philosophy in the work of the Vienna circle and specifically in Carnap’s distinction between scientific and non-scientific propositions. Stroll, like Rosen and other critics often seem more concerned with philosophical style or tone, than with any specific philosophical point.
- 18.
See Michael Friedman’s A Parting of the Ways (2000) for a detailed discussion of the political and cultural background to Carnap’s criticism of Heidegger. The resolute opposition to metaphysics is more easily understood in historical context.
- 19.
As Friedman (2000, 11–13) and others have noted, Carnap’s well known criticism of Heidegger’s account of nothingness; Heidegger’s notorious claim that “Nothing itself nothings [Das Nichts selbst nichtet]” is not a crude application of verificationism. Instead, Carnap sees Heidegger’s usage as violating the logical form of the concept of nothing. Heidegger’s vice is less a matter of metaphysics than of misology
- 20.
The best discussion of Carnap’s constructional system is Alan Richardson’s Carnap’s Construction of the World. In general terms, my presentation owes a great deal to Michael Friedman’s reading of the Aufbau in, for example, “Carnap’s Aufbau Reconsidered” and his “Epis- temology in the Aufbau”
- 21.
Thanks to Stephen Elliot for pointing me towards “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology”.
- 22.
‘On what there is’, in From a logical point of view, second edition. Cambridge: Harvard university press, 1961 1–19
- 23.
See her classic paper ‘Modalities and Intensional Languages’ in Modalities: Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press, 1993. pp.3–39
- 24.
Moore’s break with Idealism is defended in his article ‘The Nature of Judgment’, (1898)
- 25.
See for example his The Ontology of Physical Objects (1990),
- 26.
See Amie Thomasson’s ‘Artifacts and Human Concepts’ (forthcoming). And Crawford Elder’s Real Natures and Familiar Objects (2004)
- 27.
Wittgenstein described the project this way: ”When philosophers use a word – “knowledge”, “being”, “object”, “I”, “sentence”, “name” – and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.” Philosophical Investigations § 116
- 28.
He writes:
“Suppose we interviewed some spokesman for common sense. I think we would find that he adheres firmly to three theses:
(1) Everything is actual
(2) Actuality consists of everything that is spatiotemporally related to us, and nothing more (give or take some ‘abstract entities’). It is not vastly bigger, or less unified than we are accustomed to think.
(3) Possibilities are not parts of actuality, they are alternatives to it.
[…] I speak as party to the conventions of the community in question. […] I am within my rights in standing with common opinion about the unification and the extent of actuality, at the expense of common opinion that everything is actual, I do of course disagree with common opinion. I acknowledge that as a fair objection.” (1986, 99–100)
- 29.
- 30.
For a more complete discussion of the role of intuition in contemporary philosophy, see Symons (2008)
- 31.
Among the first paper to make an experimental case against the assumed consensus with respect to some philosophical intuition is Jonathon Weinberg, Shaun Nichols, Steven Stich (2001) on normative intuitions. In a recent paper Swain, et al, (forthcoming) conduct experiments on epistemic intuitions to similar effect. See their blog at http://experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com
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Acknowledgments
This essay was made possible in part thanks to support from the John Templeton Foundation’s individual research awards program. I am also very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. In addition I would like to thank Pablo Zavala, Stephen Elliott, and Roberto Poli for reading a draft of this manuscript and for offering some useful corrections
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Symons, J. (2010). Ontology and Methodology in Analytic Philosophy. In: Poli, R., Seibt, J. (eds) Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8845-1_16
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