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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
I believe that the world is a totality of things: there are no properties, or relations, or sets, or states of affairs, or facts, or events; there are only particular things. I also believe that all true statements can be expressed in a canonical language which includes names of things and logical terms only: there will be no predicates in this language. For what is a predicate? Some say that predicates are names of universals which individual things exemplify, or names of sets of which individual things are members. If this is so, it is obvious that a nominalist's canonical language cannot have any predicates. Others say that predicates name nothing, but are satisfied by particular things. What, however, is satisfaction, and how is it different from naming? Semantic relations such as satisfaction, we are told, are not ‘in’ the world. But then a nominalist has no use for them.
1 ‘Substance Logic,’ Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 43:55-74. Also see Zemach, E.M. ‘Four Ontologies,’ Journal of Philosophy, 67:231-47CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Zemach, E.M. ‘On the Adequacy of Type Ontology,’ Synthese 31:509-16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Geach, P.T. Logic Matters (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1979) 47Google Scholar
