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An Ontology of Ideas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2015

WESLEY D. CRAY  and
TIMOTHY SCHROEDER
WESLEY D. CRAY
Affiliation:
GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITYcrayw@gvsu.edu
TIMOTHY SCHROEDER
Affiliation:
RICE UNIVERSITYtimothy.allan.schroeder@gmail.com
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Abstract:

Philosophers often talk about and engage with ideas. Scientists, artists, and historians do, too. But what is an idea? In this paper, we first motivate the desire for an ontology of ideas before discussing what conditions a candidate ontology would have to satisfy to be minimally adequate. We then offer our own account of the ontology of ideas and consider various strategies for specifying the underlying metaphysics of the account. We conclude with a discussion of potential future work to be done on the ontology of ideas.

Keywords

ideasmental statesontologyphilosophy of art

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , Winter 2015 , pp. 757 - 775
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2015 

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