While Continental philosophers have had much to say about the nature of politics and about modern political institutions, they do not consider their task to provide the basis for evaluating policies or justifying institutions. Even if analytic philosophers no longer think of themselves as giving conceptual analyses of key political terms, they generally do what Continental philosophers do not: by elaborating systematic principles, their goal is precisely to provide the basis for “evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of political arguments”. If (...) this is not what Continental philosophers do, what is their goal? Continental political theory has usually not been concerned with providing arguments which directly justify or criticize institutions or policies, so much as to expose and criticize the very presuppositions that characterize all peculiarly “modern” politics and social arrangements. The differences here are not so much in methodology, but in substantive, normative concerns. (shrink)

In this article, I show how two modes of predication and quantification in a modal context allow one to (a) define what it is for an individual or relation to exist, (b) define identity conditions for properties and relations conceived hyperintensionally, (c) define identity conditions for individuals and prove the necessity of identity for both individuals and relations, (d) derive the central definition of free logic as a theorem, (e) define the essential properties of abstract objects and provide a (...) framework for defining the essential properties of ordinary objects, and (f) derive a theory of truth. I also describe my indebtedness to the work of Terence Parsons and take the opportunity to advance the discussion in connection with an objection raised to the theory of essential properties. (shrink)

Meeting successfully the modalist challenge needs the reconsideration of certain issues. In particular, the purposeful slip of tongue from essence or sortal form to essential properties made by the modalists creates the illusion that essentialism is a sort of de re necessity. To dispel the illusion one has to show why coming about under a kind and also being of that kind is not a property of the instances of that kind. The distinction between constitution under a form and the (...) predication of properties to substances constituted by their form is explored as pertinent to the essentialist reply. Propria as ‘necessary accidents’ are connected to essences. The suggestion is that one can draw, with this connection, on the intensional notion of metaphysical necessity. Lastly, the role of particularized immanent sortal forms is considered by suggesting that they can fill out a gap in the universalist account of sortal essences. (shrink)

Identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are fundamental philosophical concerns. Colin McGinn treats them both philosophically and logically, aiming for maximum clarity and minimum pointless formalism. He contends that there are real logical properties that challenge naturalistic metaphysical outlooks. These concepts are not definable, though we can say a good deal about how they work. The aim of Logical Properties is to bring philosophy back to philosophical logic.

This chapter considers in parallel some main argumentative strategies of Nāgārjuna’s Root Verses and the “dialectical exercise” of Plato’s Parmenides. It argues that both can be seen as critically targeting the unity that is attributed to entities as coherent and individual subjects of predication. In particular, both show that it is incoherent to suppose any such subject either has the relevant kind of unity or (lacking such a unity) does not exist at all. This suggests that we may reject (...) familiar analyses of the contradictory or paradoxical conclusions of both arguments as pointing either toward a superior and consistent structure of logical categories or toward a transcendent insight into the ineffable. Instead, we may see both as pointing, rather, to a possible overcoming of the “habit” of reifying conceptualization that is deep-seated in ordinary language and practice, and thereby to the potential soteriological benefits of such an overcoming. (shrink)

Identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are fundamental philosophical concerns. Colin McGinn treats them both philosophically and logically, aiming for maximum clarity and minimum pointless formalism. He contends that there are real logical properties that challenge naturalistic metaphysical outlooks. These concepts are not definable, though we can say a good deal about how they work. The aim of Logical Properties is to bring philosophy back to philosophical logic.

Combines analytic epistemology and German idealism indispensable to today's Schelling revival.

The Phaedo, despite the central role which the theory of Forms occupies there, gives us little explicit information. We meet with stock examples and with generalizations like "everything which belongs to being", "everything to which we give the mark of ‘that which is’ in our discussions", "all this sort of being". Socrates postulates the existence of the beautiful itself, the good itself, the large itself, and "all the rest", and he explains the beauty of beautiful things by appealing to their (...) participation in beauty, stressing that he means that for "everything". (shrink)

Problems about the accidental properties of properties motivate us--force us, I think--not to identify properties with the sets of their instances. If we identify them instead with functions from worlds to extensions, we get a theory of properties that is neutral with respect to disputes over counterpart theory, and we avoid a problem for Lewis's theory of events. Similar problems about the temporary properties of properties motivate us--though this time they probably don't force us--to give up this theory as well, (...) and to identify properties with functions from world, time pairs to extensions. Again, the replacement theory is neutral with respect to a metaphysical dispute that the old theory (arguably) forces us to take a stand on--the dispute over whether objects have temporal parts. It also allows us to give a smoother semantics for predication, to better accommodate our intuitions about which objects temporary properties are properties of, and to make temporally self-locating beliefs genuinely self -locating. (shrink)

The aim is to uncover the foundations of quine's distinction between definite singular terms and general terms in predicative position, And hence of the general schema of predication, 'fx'. While each term in such a predication specifies its own item, The items so specified exhibit a typical difference exemplified in the basic case by the difference between spatio-Temporal particulars and properties of such particulars. A generally consequential difference of role is that while both terms are applied to the (...) item of lower type, Only the definite singular term has the function of identifying it. (shrink)

Predicates such as 'are extinct' or 'are widespread' have long been assumed to apply only to kinds. I present evidence that the predicates typically described as kind-level are numerous-type collective predicates, based on their interaction with all and their failure to exhibit homogeneity effects. This undermines the principal semantic motivation for analysing their bare plural arguments as kind-denoting. Instead, I argue that their arguments are type e expressions and that plural kind predication is just plural predication. I give (...) a compositional semantics for bare plurals and explain differences between bare and definite plurals in terms of the situation argument that can restrict their domain. -/- To appear in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 30. (shrink)

The standard rule of single privative modification replaces privative modifiers by Boolean negation. This rule is valid, for sure, but also simplistic. If an individual a instantiates the privatively modified property (MF) then it is true that a instantiates the property of not being an F, but the rule fails to express the fact that the properties (MF) and F have something in common. We replace Boolean negation by property negation, enabling us to operate on contrary rather than contradictory properties. (...) To this end, we apply our theory of intensional essentialism, which operates on properties (intensions) rather than their extensions. We argue that each property F is necessarily associated with an essence, which is the set of the so-called requisites of F that jointly define F. Privation deprives F of some but not all of its requisites, replacing them by their contradictories. We show that properties formed from iterated privatives, such as being an imaginary fake banknote, give rise to a trifurcation of cases between returning to the original root property or to a property contrary to it or being semantically undecidable for want of further information. In order to determine which of the three forks the bearers of particular instances of multiply modified properties land upon we must examine the requisites, both of unmodified and modified properties. Requisites underpin our presuppositional theory of positive predication. Whereas privation is about being deprived of certain properties, the assignment of requisites to properties makes positive predication possible, which is the predication of properties the bearers must have because they have a certain property formed by means of privation. (shrink)

In this note, I propose a free description theory that permits self‐predication for empty descriptions without resulting in existential proliferation, contradiction or triviality.

The ontological argument fails because of an operator order switch between (1) “necessarily there is an perfect being” and (2) “there is a being which necessarily is perfect”. Here (1) is trivially true logically but (2) problematic. Since Kant's criticisms were directed at the notion of existence, not at the step from (1) to (2), they are misplaced. They are also wrong, because existence can be a predicate. Moreover, Kant did not anticipate Frege's claim that “is” is ambiguous between existence, (...) predication, identity, and class‐inclusion. To restore the ontological argument, an extra premise is needed to the effect that it is known who the existentially perfect being is. The question is raised whether Kant could have meant the failure of this extra premise by his thesis that existence is not a real predicate. (shrink)

The aim is to uncover the foundations of quine's distinction between definite singular terms and general terms in predicative position, And hence of the general schema of predication, 'fx'. While each term in such a predication specifies its own item, The items so specified exhibit a typical difference exemplified in the basic case by the difference between spatio-Temporal particulars and properties of such particulars. A generally consequential difference of role is that while both terms are applied to the (...) item of lower type, Only the definite singular term has the function of identifying it. (shrink)

Problems about the accidental properties of properties motivate us--force us, I think--not to identify properties with the sets of their instances. If we identify them instead with functions from worlds to extensions, we get a theory of properties that is neutral with respect to disputes over counterpart theory, and we avoid a problem for Lewis's theory of events. Similar problems about the temporary properties of properties motivate us--though this time they probably don't force us--to give up this theory as well, (...) and to identify properties with functions from ⟨world, time⟩ pairs to extensions. Again, the replacement theory is neutral with respect to a metaphysical dispute that the old theory (arguably) forces us to take a stand on--the dispute over whether objects have temporal parts. It also allows us to give a smoother semantics for predication, to better accommodate our intuitions about which objects temporary properties are properties of, and to make temporally self-locating beliefs genuinely self -locating. (shrink)

Reading through the Corpus Aristotelicum we come across a group of expressions meant to indicate predicative relations, which lead us to think that Aristotle connected predication to a part-whole relation. He frequently calls the ‘εἴδη’, “species”, ‘μέρη’, “parts”, of their genera. More generally, the universal is said to contain that of which it is true. In a parallel way, what is contained by something is also what is under something else. Again, it is quite common for him to consider (...) the species as partaking of their genera. Although the relation of partaking is normally used to qualify the way in which species are related to their genera, sometimes also the relation between particulars and species or even genera is expressed in terms of partaking. (shrink)

In Proclus, like in Plato, we find statements about the Forms that at least appear to allow self-predication of Forms. In his discussion of the Parmenides’s Third Man Argument, however, Proclus argues that Forms and their participants are not synonymous, which means that the property that the Form causes in its participants cannot be predicated of the Form itself. In this paper, I try to show how such seemingly self-predicative statements about the Forms are to be understood in the (...) context of Proclus’ metaphysics. I will argue that, in Proclus, statements such as ‘ the Form of Large is truly Large’ should be considered what I will call ‘causal predications’. Causal predication does not attribute any property to a subject, but only concerns the subject’s causal efficacy in relation to that property. (shrink)

Plural predication is a pervasive part of ordinary language. We can say that some people are fifty in number, are surrounding a building, come from many countries, and are classmates. These predicates can be true of some people without being true of any one of them; they are non-distributive predications. However, the apparatus of modern logic does not allow a place for them. Thomas McKay here explores the enrichment of logic with non-distributive plural predication and quantification. His book (...) will be of great interest to philosophers of language, linguists, metaphysicians, and logicians. (shrink)

To what extent do true predications correspond to truthmakers in virtue of which those predications are true? One sort of predicate which is often thought to not be susceptible to an ontological treatment is a predicate for instantiation, or some corresponding predication (trope-similarity or set-membership, for example). This paper discusses this question, and argues that an "ontological" approach is possible here too: where this ontological approach goes beyond merely finding a truthmaker for claims about instantiation. Along the way a (...) version of the problem of the regress of instantiation is posed and solved. (shrink)

We critically investigate and refine Dunn's relevant predication, his formalisation of the notion of a real property. We argue that Dunn's original dialectical moves presuppose some interpretation of relevant identity, though none is given. We then re-motivate the proposal in a broader context, considering the prospects for a classical formalisation of real properties, particularly of Geach's implicit distinction between real and ''Cambridge'' properties. After arguing against these prospects, we turn to relevance logic, re-motivating relevant predication with Geach's distinction (...) in mind. Finally we draw out some consequences of Dunn's proposal for the theory of identity in relevance logic. (shrink)

“Feminicity” is the term for a predicate register that enables feminist work be accounted for as relational “active-points” that collectively can be seen through what they have achieved. But going further, it marks where those active-points contribute to the dynamic field of feminist epistemologies and where change occurs. This article contributes to my larger project’s discussion of this concept. Broadly, feminicity argues that the active-points of feminist practices need to be understood within their situated fields as materialist informatics. In the (...) digital era, examples of the affects of digital feminicity are as identified in works such as those by Wajcman ; Haraway, Hayles, VNSMatrix, Adam, Plant. Collectively, such authors and artists opened a creative, and sometimes radical discourse of the digital field as multidirectional, multidimensional, multitemporal platform of “gender actions”. Taken as a predicated field sense of the term “predicate”), this work contributes to the feminist materialist reappraisal of feminist epistemology, and larger radical feminist deconstructive projects. Thus conceived, the genealogy of digital feminicity problematizes the monopolitical terms of feminism in its collation of actions, enabling a re-situation of feminist practices as positive material interventions and expressions of the ontological constitution of the political sphere. Feminicity does not propose a chronological account of the active-points, but processually and systemically addresses the terms of generational epistemological political change. This article describes the ways in which a materialist constructed register – “feminicity”– can be used to think about encounters between the domains of gender, politics and technology, as manifested by materialist informatics. For reasons of brevity, this article focuses on just two aspects of feminicity: the terms of predication of the female as gendered, and the issue of the image, as digital informatics, comprised of activitypoints of feminist practice. Consequently, these are measurable and offer practical resources for the general problem of gendering politics that operate in governance, resource distribution and a non-equal opportunity social/cultural power structure, under which minorities are disadvantaged. Feminist practice here refers to forms produced through feminist activities, ie, forms generated through relations with the matter of life through specific modalities of needs-based practices. (shrink)

Declarative sentences perform two distinct kinds of work: they contribute descriptive content about states of affairs, and they fix how that content is to be evaluated. While most verbs contribute primarily to descriptive content, a small class contributes primarily to evaluation itself. This paper argues that English lexicalizes exactly four ultra-general orientational operators—be, have, mean, and cause—which exhaust a minimal grammatical space generated by two independent parameters: (1) whether evaluation targets world-structure or contrast-structure, and (2) whether predication is invariant (...) or instance-selecting. This framework explains persistent philosophical puzzles about causation, meaning, and identity by showing how orientational structure has been systematically mistaken for ontological content. (shrink)

The aim of this short book is to discuss the traditional topics of philosophical logic without the “formalistic fetishism and scholasticism” that McGinn associates with recent work in the field. The writing is indeed crisp, engaging, and free of formalisms. The book consists of five separate essays—one each on identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth—loosely united by the general theme that these “logical properties” are real and irreducible. “These concepts,” McGinn says, “form a conceptual bedrock; they stand, as it (...) were, underneath all our other concepts. They have no analysis”. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to present and compare two approaches to formalizing cross-world comparisons like John might have been taller than he is in quantified modal logics. One is the standard method employing degrees and graded positives, according to which the example just given is to be paraphrased as something like The height that John has is such that he might have had a height greater than it, which is amenable to familiar formalization strategies with respect to (...) quantified modal logic. The other approach, based on subjunctive modal logic, mimics the mixed indicative-subjunctive patterns typical of cross-world comparisons in many natural languages by means of explicit mood markers. This latter approach is new and should, for various reasons, appeal to linguists and philosophers. Along the way, I argue that attempts to capture cross-world comparison by means of sentential operators are either inadequate or subject to substantive logical and philosophical objections. (shrink)

While standard first-order modal logic is quite powerful, it cannot express even very simple sentences like “I could have been taller than I actually am” or “Everyone could have been smarter than they actually are”. These are examples of cross-world predication, whereby objects in one world are related to objects in another world. Extending first-order modal logic to allow for cross-world predication in a motivated way has proven to be notoriously difficult. In this paper, I argue that the (...) standard accounts of cross-world predication all leave something to be desired. I then propose an account of cross-world predication based on quantified hybrid logic and show how it overcomes the limitations of these previous accounts. I will conclude by discussing various philosophical consequences and applications of such an account. (shrink)