24.501: Truth, Being, and All That

Fall 1998

Outline

There is a widespread practice in philosophy of writing unexpected sorts of "objects" into the truth-conditions of claims that are not intuitively about objects like that. For instance, the truth of

• "Argument A is invalid"
• "It is possible that B"
• "There are exactly as many Cs as Ds"
• "There are over five Es"
• "I did it F-ly"
• "There are some Gs who like only each other"
• "The so and so is H"

is said to depend on the existence of

• a model that makes A's premises true and its conclusion false
• a possible world at which B
• a one-to-one function from the Cs to the Ds
• a number that numbers the Es and that exceeds 5
• an event of doing it, with me as agent, that is F
• a set of Gs such that each member likes only the others
• a property of being H that the so and so possesses

But there are plenty of people who can't bring themselves to believe in models, worlds, numbers, and the rest, and plenty more who can't believe that such things need to exist for the quoted claims to be correct. Is it possible to do justice both to the naturalness, and the peculiarity, of allowing objects to "call the shot" in the way we routinely do?

Instructor

Stephen Yablo, Philosophy
Office: E39-314
Phone: 258-0740
Office Hours: by appointment
E-mail: yablo@mit.edu

Meetings

Mondays 3:00-6:00 (note new time!!) in E51-390

• John Austin on existence: "like breathing, only quieter -- ticking over...in a metaphysical sort of a way"
• David Lewis on (expressive) power: "It's the character of our world that makes the counterfactual true -- in which case why bring the other worlds into the story at all? .....it is only by bringing the other worlds into the story that we can say in any concise way what character it takes to make the counterfactual true"
• Peter De Vries on power without existence: "...the final proof of God's omnipotence [is] that he need not exist in order to save us" Readings

  A coursepack will be available for copying in the rack by the graduate student mailboxes. See below for a table of contents. There may be the odd classroom handout as well.
  

  Requirements
  • one 25-page term paper, due at the end of term
  • one 5-page expository essay, due in the seventh week
  Notes
  • Not all the readings listed for a given week will be equally important, though all are recommended. I'll try to indicate the week before what the focus will be.
  • Not everything in the coursepack will be discussed during the seminar. But feel free in your term paper to draw on any materials relevant to your topic. I can help you figure out what that might include.
  • Some books that may be helpful either for background reading or your paper(s) are listed below.

  TENTATIVE SCHEDULE: coursepack pagination in bold

  September 14 De-Ontology: Means, Motive, Opportunity

  • Quine, "On What There Is," 345-354
  • Wright, Introduction to Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, 425-429
  • Yablo, sections I-X of "A Paradox of Existence," 552-564

  September 21 Means: Automatic Objects

  • Rosen, "The Refutation of Nominalism(?)," 386-405
  • Wright, chapters 1 and 3 of Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, 430-466
  • Field, "Platonism for Cheap?," 141-153

  September 28 Means: Funny Quantification

  • Gottlieb, excerpts from Ontological Economy: Substitutional Quantification & Mathematics, 205-221
  • Lewis, "Plural Quantification," 232-236
  • Boolos, "To Be Is To Be A Value Of A Variable," 24-33
  • Boolos, "Nominalistic Platonism," 34-43
  • Prior, "Platonism & Quantification," 336-344

  October 5 Means: Fiction

  • Lewis, "Modal Realism at Work: Modality," 237-245
  • Rosen, "Modal Fictionalism," 371-385
  • Nolan & O'Leary-Hawthorne, "Reflexive Fictionalisms," 319-324
  October 13 Means: Metaphor
  • Walton, "Metaphor & Prop-Oriented Make Believe," 406-424
  • Yablo, section XI of "A Paradox of Existence," 564-566
  October 19 -Motives: Traditional
  • Benacerraf, "Mathematical Truth," 18a-18j
  • Burgess & Rosen, section I.A.2 A Subject With No Object, 59-76

  October 26 -Motives: Insubstantiality, Indeterminacy

  • Burgess & Rosen, sections I.A.0 and I.A.1 of A Subject With No Object, 47-58
  • Frege, excerpts from Foundations of Arithmetic, 158-164
  • Wright, sections xiv and xv of Frege's Conception..., 455-469
  • Rosen, sections VI-VIII of "Refutation of Nominalism(?)," 396-399
  November 2 -Motives: Impatience, Paraphrase
  • Etchemendy, excerpts from The Concept of Logical Consequence, 123-138
  • Alston, "Ontological Commitment," 1-5
  • Wright, section v of Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, 442-445
  • Burgess & Rosen, section III.C.2 of A Subject With No Object, 90-97
  • Yablo, section IV and Appendix A of "Paradox," 555-556, 575-577

  November 9 +Motives: Expressive Gain

  • Balaguer, "A Fictionalist Account of the Indispensable Applications of Mathematics," 6-18
  • Melia, "On What There's Not," 315-318
  • Burgess & Rosen, section I.A.3 of A Subject..., 76-79
  • Yablo, section XII of "Paradox...," 566-570
  November 16 +Motives: Saying & Showing
  • Frege, "Comments on Sinn and Bedeutung," 158-164
  • Frege, "On Concept & Object," 170-176
  • Frege, "Notes for Ludwig Darmstaedter," 177-180?
  • Geach, "Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein," 181-189
  • Hugly, "Ineffability in Frege's Logic," 222-231
  • Ricketts, "Objectivity and Objecthood," 355-370
  • Parsons, "Why Frege Should Not Have Said 'The Concept Horse is Not a Concept'," 325-333
  November 23 +Motives: Non-Nominal Quantification
  • Prior, "Platonism & Quantification," 336-344
  • Yablo, "How in the World?," 492-508
  November 30 Opportunity
  • Gibbs, "Making Sense of Tropes," 190-202
  • Margalit & Goldblum, "A Metaphor Game," 284-296
  • Blackburn, "Metaphor and Truth," 19-23
  • Diamond, "Secondary Sense," 112-120
  • Yablo, sections XIII and XIV of "Paradox," 570-575
  December 7 Pure vs. Applied
  • Maddy, part II of Naturalism in Mathematics, 246-283
  • McGee, "How We Learn Mathematical Language", 297-314
  • Yablo, Appendix B to "Paradox," 577-581

  
  Useful Books

  • Benacerraf & Putnam., Readings in the Philosophy of Mathematics
  • Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language
  • Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics
  • Field, Realism, Mathematics, and Modality
  • Gottlieb, Ontological Economy
  • Hale, Abstract Objects
  • Putnam, Philosophy of Logic
  • Weiner, Frege in Perspective

  Coursepack Table of Contents

  1. Alston, "Ontological Commitments"
  2. Balaguer, "A Fictionalist Account of the Indispensable Applications of Mathematics"
  3. Benacerraf, "Mathematical Truth"
  4. Blackburn, "Metaphor & Truth"
  5. Boolos, "To Be Is To Be A Value Of A Variable"
  6. Boolos, "Nominalistic Platonism"
  7. Burgess & Rosen, A Subject with No Object, excerpts
  8. Carnap, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology"
  9. Diamond, "Secondary Sense"
  10. Etchemendy, The Concept of Logical Consequence, excerpts
  11. Field, "Platonism for Cheap?"
  12. Frege, Foundations of Arithmetic, excerpts
  13. Frege, "Comments on Sinn and Bedeutung"
  14. Frege, "On Concept and Object"
  15. Frege, "Notes for Ludwig Darmstaedter"
  16. Geach, "Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein"
  17. Gibbs, "Making Sense of Tropes"
  18. Gottlieb, Ontological Economy, excerpts
  19. Hugly, "Ineffability in Frege's Logic"
  20. Lewis, "Plural Quantification," from Parts of Classes
  21. Lewis, "Modal Realism at Work: Modality," from Plurality of Worlds
  22. Margalit & Goldblum, "A Metaphor Game"
  23. Maddy, Naturalism in Mathematics
  24. McGee, "How We Learn Mathematical Language"
  25. Melia, "On What There Is Not"
  26. Nolan & O'Leary-Hawthorne, "Reflexive Fictionalisms"
  27. Parsons, "Why Frege Should Not Have Said 'The Concept Horse is Not a Concept'"
  28. Prior, "Platonism and Quantification," from Objects of Thought
  29. Quine, "On What There Is"
  30. Quine, "On Carnap's Views on Ontology"
  31. Ricketts, "Objectivity and Objecthood"
  32. Rosen, "Modal Fictionalism"
  33. Rosen, "The Refutation of Nominalism(?)"
  34. Walton, "Metaphor & Prop-Oriented Make Believe"
  35. Wright, Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, excerpts
  36. Yablo, "Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?"
  37. Yablo, "How in the World?"
  38. Yablo, "A Paradox of Existence"