Conceptualism, realism, and intensional logic

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Date

1989-03

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Topoi

Abstract

Linguists and philosophers are sometimes at odds in the semantical analysis of language. This is because linguists tend to assume that language must be semantically analyzed in terms of mental constructs, whereas philosophers tend to assume that only a platonic realm of intensional entities will suffice. The problem for the linguist in this conflict is how to explain the apparent realist posits we seem to be committed to in our use of language, and in particular in our use of infinitives, gerunds and other forms of nominalized predicates. The problem for the philosopher is the old and familiar one of how we can have knowledge of independently real abstract entities if all knowledge must ultimately be grounded in psychological states and processes. In the case of numbers, for example, this is the problem of how mathematical knowledge is possible. In the case of the intensional entities assumed in the semantical analysis of language, it is the problem of how knowledge of even our own native language is possible, and in particular of how we can think and talk to one another in all the ways that language makes possible.

Description

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Topoi. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138676

Keywords

Relative Clause, Intensional Object, Predicate Expression, Intensional Logic, Nominalized Predicate

Citation

Cocchiarella, N. "Conceptualism, Realism and Intensional Logic," Topoi, vol. 8, no. 1 (March 1989): 15-34.

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Article