Nominalism and Contemporary Nominalism

NOMINALISM AND CONTEMPORARY NOMINALISM
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor:
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University
Editors:
DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley

GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden
WRST .FY C. SALMON, University of Pittsburgh
VOLUME 215
MIA GOSSELIN
Research Director 0/ the
National Fund/or Scientific Research, Belgium
NOMINALISM
AND CONTEMPORARY
NOMINALISM
Ontological and Epistemological Implications
of the work ofW.V.O. Quine and ofN. Goodman
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

DORDRECHT I BOSTON I LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gossel in, Mia.
Nominalism and contemporary nominalism ontological and
epistemological implications of the work of W.V.O. Quine and of N.
Goodman ! ~la Gosselin.
p. cm. -- <Synthese library; v. 215)
Includes bibliographical references and ,ndex.
ISBN ·13: 978·94-010-7453-7 e-ISBN ·13:978-94-009-2119-1
DOl: JO.1007/978-94-009-2119-1
1. Nominallsm. 2. Empiricism. 3. Quine, W. V. (Willard Van

Orman)--Contributions in ontology. 4. Quine, W. V. <Willard Van
Orman)--Contributions in theory of knowledge. 5. Ontology.
6. Knowledge, Theory of. 7. Goodman, Nelson--Contributions in
ontology. 8. GOOdman, Nelson--Cort~ibutions in theory of knowledge.
:C. Title. II. Series.
B731.G67 1990
149' .1--dc20 90-43006
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7453-7
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To my parents
PREFACE
Though the subject of this work, "nominalism and contemporary nom-

inalism", is philosophical, it cannot be fully treated without relating it to
data gathered from a great variety of domains, such as biology and more
especially ethology, psychology, linguistics and neurobiology. The source
of inspiration has been an academic work I wrote in order to obtain a
postdoctoral degree, which is called in Belgium an "Aggregaat voor het
Hoger Onderwijs" comparable to a "Habilitation" in Germany.
I want to thank the National Fund of Scientific Research, which accorded
me several grants and thereby enabled me to write the academic work in
the first place and thereafter this book. I also want to thank Prof. SJ.
Doorman (Technical University of Delft) and Prof. G. Nuchelmans
(University of Leiden), who were members of the jury of the "Aggre-
gaatsthesis", presented to the Free University of Brussels in 1981 and who
by their criticisms and suggestions encouraged me to write the present book,
the core of which is constituted by the general ideas then formulated. I am
further obliged to Mr. X, the referee who was asked by Jaakko Hintikka to
read my work and who made a series of constructive remarks and recom-
mendations. My colleague Marc De Mey (University of Ghent) helped me
greatly with the more formal aspects of my work and spent too much of his
valuable time and energy to enable me to deliver a presentable copy. All
remaining shortcomings are entirely my responsibility. I asked Prof.
Domien Roggen (biologist of the Free University Brussels) to read that part
of the book that concerns neurobiological theories, in order to control
whether, as I am a complete lay in this domain, I made not too many
mistakes, either in my renderings of the different theories or in my com-
ments concerning them and I am grateful for his remarks.
Last but not least I want to thank Louise De Piere, who with great
patience typed the many successive drafts of the work and Walter De
Schamphelaere, who also contributed to the material realization of this
book.
Mia Gosselin
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 2 NOMINALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM 5

1. Some of the main problems in historical nominalism
in relation with the nominalism of Camap' s "Logical
Structure of the World" 5
2. Anti-metaphysics and metaphysics, or from ontological
neutrality to ontological commitment 10
3. A minimalistic ontological program 12
4. General outline ofthe new ontology 15
CHAPTER 3 ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY

From Empiricism to Conventionalism 22
1. Ontological commitment and empiristic considerations 22
2. "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann,
dariiber muss man schweigen" 25
3. Science is ofthe general 29
4. Things are sums of qualities 34
5. Evolution towards conventionalism 36
CHAPTER 4 LOGICAL SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGY 40

1. General outline of some basic problems of logical semantics 42
2. The theory of signification and supposition of Ockham 47
3. Nelson Goodman's extensionalistic solution 53
CHAPTER 5 LINGUISTIC SEMANTICS 59
1. Behaviourism in semantics 60
2. Ockham on the relation between thought and language 68
3. Evolution, cognitivism and the notion of conceptual scheme 70
x TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 6 THE INDNIDUAL

ONTOLOGY AND IDEOLOGY 79
1. The roots of the problem 79
2. Ontology. The constructivistic individual 88
3. Ideology 99
CHAPTER 7 PARTICULAR AND GENERAL 109

1. Building a world out of general abstract elements 109
2. Building a world out of particular concrete elements 112
3. Strawson on the particularities of general terms 118
4. Is perception basically perception of what is particular? 124
5. How do children in fact learn language? 126
CHAPTER 8 THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE

INTENTIONS AND INTENSIONS 133
1. Nominalists and empiricists on universals,
concepts, intensions 134
2. Knowledge of brain mechanisms in the past 139
3. Behaviourism versus mentalism 146
4. G.D. Wassermann: a neuropsychological model
of thought and language 159
CHAPTER 9 NOMINALISM, EMPIRICISM AND

CONVENTIONALISM 181
1. Ockham's scepticism 182
2. Induction and contemporary nominalism 194
3. Conventionalism versus scientific realism 205
NOTES 212
Chapter 1 212
Chapter 2 212
Chapter 3 213
Chapter 4 215
Chapter 5 217
Chapter 6 218
TABLE OF CONTENTS xi
Chapter 7 220
Chapter 8 222
Chapter 9 227
BIBLIOGRAPHY 230
INDEX 243
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
My subject is nominalism in general and contemporary nominalism in

particular. I examine in this book the advantages and disadvantages of the
ontologies and epistemologies of W.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman, against
the background of traditional nominalism. Both authors are heirs of logical
empiricism; they share the idea that constructivistic systems, suitable as an
instrument for a scientific description of parts of the world, should be in
accordance with the nominalistic principle that the building blocks must be
individuals that are sums of their parts and nothing else. Next to this, there
are several other fundamental points of view they have in common. Like
most heirs of a construction, the first thing they have done was transform
it.
If we compare their empiricism with Camap' s version, it is more critical,
it is more relative and it leaves out the so called "dogma's". Nevertheless
they belong in spirit to the long empiricist tradition that has its roots in the
fourteenth century nominalism of William of Ockham. Their constructivis-
tic nominalism on the other hand is a very peculiar brand of nominalism, it
is an intellectual adventure that necessitates important conceptual shifts and
is no longer traditional in any sense.
Medieval nominalism is based on a particular interpretation of Aris-
totle's philosophy. It stresses, for religious reasons, the contingency of
reality and combines this view with the denial of the existence of the
general, which is a mere product of the human mind without independent
reality. Aristotle's philosophy is deterministic, essentialistic; his world is
ordered and harmonious. He would hardly have recognized his worldview
in that of Ockham, where God has an absolute power and is not the
guarantee of order and harmony, but everything depends on his absolute
free will, limited only by the laws of logic. Nothing here is necessary, not
even the laws of nature, which are created by God. Essence does not
determine existence, but it is identical with existence. Everything that exists
could have been otherwise and if there is a divine order in reality, it is not
of necessity understood by man.
2 INTRODUCTION
Ockham's epistemology is based on the principle of the primacy of the

individual; reality consists of individual substances that can be directly
known by intuition and without the mediation of natures or essences. As it
has been shown by J.R. Weinberg\ these ideas form the basic layer on
which empiricism is built. It is therefore not surprising that we can retrace
them in Camap' s epistemological conceptions, as they are expressed in his
The Logical Structure of the World. It must have been a jolt to him that
W.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman criticized his use of class logic, that
according to them committed him to abstract entities. Moreover, they
detected a number of dogma's in empiricism in general and his epistemol-
ogy in particular that were unacceptable. Like Russell, they believed that
the basic elements and the structure of a language determine an ontology
peculiar for that language. This implicit ontology has to be made explicit
and as abstract entities can be introduced by the quantification of particular
terms, these terms have to be eliminated by mechanisms derived from
Russell's theory of descriptions.
It is a very common simplification to identify nominalism with "a theory
that rejects universals". Nominalism is then considered to imply that only
those things exist that are observable and abstractions, such as classes,
propositions, intensions, are names to which nothing in reality corresponds
and have to be rejected as theoretical entities in a scientific description.
What is forgotten is the premiss from which this follows, namely the
principle of the epistemological primacy of the particular. It is claimed, and
this is more particularly the case in the work of N. Goodman, that formal
systems, devised for a scientific description of the world, need not mirror
the genealogy of knowledge; the choice of basic elements for such a system
is to a certain degree a convention. Moreover, it is thought that the
conception humans have of their surroundings is learned from the members
of the cultural community they belong to and therefore alternative concep-
tual schemes and worldviews are possible and acceptable. This thesis leads
to a high degree of conventionalism in the philosophies ofW.V.O. Quine
and N. Goodman, which is incompatible with the idea, central in traditional
nominalism and empiricism that all knowledge is in the first place derived
from empirical evidence, which is independent of cultural idiosyncrasies;
if knowledge is conventional it is because it is general and all generalization
is an approximation of reality, which is particular.
What is of importance, however, is not so much how far the new brand
of nominalism departs from tradition, but what are its advantages and/or
disadvantages. In the first place I have tried to reassess the consequences
INTRODUCTION 3
of extensionalism. Both authors have adopted a behaviouristically inspired

theory of language: intensions are considered to be abstract entities, they
cannot be observed and therefore they are suspect. This is the reason they
have developed an extensionalistic theory of semantics, that guarantees an
ontology wherein to be is not only "to be the value of a variable", but the
extension of the value of a variable. This must be considered unsatisfactory
both as a base for logical semantics and linguistic semantics, as is cor-
roborated by the many criticisms it has received.
A second critical investigation concerns the "ideology" of the calculus
of individuals, which is proposed, the ideas that can be expressed in it. I
have tried to show that the blurring of the distinction between general and
particular by the reduction of the particular to the general is a one way
operation, whereby the particular vanishes altogether. Though the calculus
warrants, through its principle of generation of new elements out of basic
elements, a controllable ontology and is at the same time extremely
economic, it cannot be used to render the most fundamental and indispen-
sable conceptual distinctions. The basic elements proposed are individuals
that cannot in all cases be individuated, not even by reference to places,
times and/or place -times.
As a counterpart to this investigation of the ideology of the nominalistic
system, it is of interest to compare what can be expressed with what can be
expressed in ordinary language, into which it must be ultimately trans-
latable in order to be of any use. Individuals can be anything that does not
generate non-individuals.
One possibility is to describe them phenomenalistically in terms of qualia
combined with place-times (N. Goodman), another possibility is to describe
them in a more physicalistic way in terms of "stuff" and place-times
(W.V.O. Quine). Apparently, no particular terms other than the impure
predicates locating qualities or stuff in time and space are needed. Quine
has even invented a hypothetical theory oflanguage learning, meant to link
the constructivistic venture to the way we conceive of reality in ordinary
life. It is suggested that children first use mass terms, before they learn
characterizing and sortal terms, which contain an inbuilt principle of
individuation. Empirical studies by linguists and psycholinguists, however,
show that the reverse is true: children first learn particular terms, only later
on terms for relations and general tenus. This is in accordance with P.P.
Strawson's conviction that the difference between general and particular is
irreducible, as universals do not introduce particulars into discourse like
particular terms do.
4 INTRODUCTION
Extensionalism is considered to be the core of nominalism, because it

avoids messy ontologies. Nevertheless intensionalistic semantical theories
have the advantage, that no ontological presuppositions are to be made.
Suspect entities can be described as mere concepts, from the moment
concepts are theoretically respectable. The respectability of concepts and
intensions was neither doubted by traditional nominalism, nor by em-
piricism; in the past there was not much experimental evidence available
for concepts, but their enormous explanative value seems to have made up
for this lack. Today we dispose of much more neurobiological data and
attempts are even made to construct neurobiological models of mental
processes in general and the use of language in particular. I have com-
mented on such a theory, that though hypothetical, is claimed experimen-
tally verifiable.
There is neurobiological evidence that basic concepts are directly
derived from perception and experience. These concepts are pre-linguistic
and not culturally determined; Ockham termed them "verba mentis", and
these preceded "verba oris". Though it is possible today to observe physical
phenomena that are going on under our skull, and discern in detail different
kinds of cognitive activities, we cannot observe the production, the storing
and retrieval of single concepts. There is, as neurobiologists put it, no
"grandmother concept" neuron that can be identified as producing the
grandmother concept, when activated. But even if it could be demonstrated
that there are such specialized neurons this would not dissipate the doubts
of behaviourists and functionalists, because according to them it would
always be possible that the owner of the "grandmother cell" experiences its
activation, not as the concept "grandmother", but as the concept
"grandfather", e.g ..
The obsession with verification through observation, is recently
denounced by Ian Hacking as the core of the sceptical element in em-
piricism today, that thereby becomes autodestructive and turns into con-
ventionalism and cognitivism. This obsession must be countered by a sound
dose of realism: not only what can be perceived exists, but also what can
be acted upon. Knowledge is not only description but also intervention. 2
These reflections on nominalism and empiricism and on the major tenets
in the work of W.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman, have led me to the
conclusion that we must rethink contemporary empiricism and complete it
with a less abstract knowledge of knowledge and science of science, based
on the results of biology, ecological psychology, neuropsychology and
anthropology.
CHAPTER 2
NOMINALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM
1. SOME OF THE MAIN PROBLEMS IN HISTORICAL

NOMINALISM IN RELATION WITH THE NOMINALISM OF
CARNAP'S LOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD
One of the problems in philosophy that occurs time and again is the
relationship between thought, language and reality. It can be considered
either from an epistemological point of view or from an ontological one. In
the Middle Ages three irreducible solutions were proposed, a realistic, a
conceptualistic and a nominalistic solution. The realistic theory has found
its continuation in idealism, conceptualism has mainly been continued in
rationalism and nominalism in empiricism. The fundamental question to
which these theories propose different answers is not whether we should
accept or reject the existence of abstract entities, or even of an infinite
number of such entities, but, as said, is about the link between thought,
language and reality.
The origin of the problem is to be found in the philosophy of Plato and
more particularly in his theory of ideas. In the Parmenides Plato exposed
the difficulties involved. To assume that there is an idea for each kind of
thing, which is one and indivisible and that concrete things are mere
reflections of it, leads to a contradiction. If the idea is present in all the
things that are its reflections, it is not numerically one, but being one and
indivisible it cannot be in different concrete things at different places at the
same time. Aristotle, who had to find a solution for this paradox, neither
merely wanted to decompose reality into its elements like the physicists,
nor to conceive of an ultimate reality that would be the object of a purely
intellectual intuition, he rather wanted to determine what are the common
characteristics of all that is real. Instead of thinking of being as the universal
attribute, the genus whereof the other beings are the species, he declared
that being was not a category, but the One that is above all categories and
that, at the same time, they have all in common. Being is a predicate and
the only things it is a predicate of are individual things, particulars.
6 CHAPTER 2
In this way Aristotle tried to unify thought and concrete reality, science
and the substances. The philosopher can have an intuition of ideas and
therefore he can have knowledge of what is universal, but in Aristotle's
opinion has no separate reality, or he can experience concrete things, that
in their concreteness cannot lead us to genuine knowledge. The next step
is to conclude that the essences of things are no eternal separate realities,
but are embedded in things themselves.
However, by this strategy the problem is not solved but merely displaced.
Aristotle tried to make out of the dialectical method, that was a method for
discussion, a universal method, a logic that was meant to enable us to obtain
knowledge by demonstration. But the first premisses, from which the
demonstration starts, cannot be obtained by dialectical demonstration
without vicious circle, nor can they be obtained by observation, if they are
to be more than contingent. This is why he needed a first science (or
metaphysics) to determine what it is that makes a being be what it is, namely
its quidditas, which consists of its essential qualities. The only way to know
these qualities is by intellectual intuition, by thought that is contained in
perception. The essence of things cannot be found by demonstration, nor
by observation alone, but by grasping the general in the particular as it is
directly perceived.
The original texts of Aristotelian philosophy were not available for
West-European scholars until the thirteenth century. Yet, Roscelinus of
Compiegne held nominalistic views in the eleventh and early twelfth
century and from then on the problem of universals was frequently dis-
cussed, as we know from the writings of John of Salisbury. There are no
texts left of the philosophy of Roscelinus and we know his ideas only
through the work of his opponent, Saint Anselm, and through that of
Abailard, who took a more moderate position in the debate. Porphyry's
commentaries on the logic of Aristotle, which contained three famous
questions, elicited the discussion. These questions are:
-do universals exist or are they the product of the intellect?
-in the first case, are they material or immaterial?
-do they subsist apart from the things we can perceive or do they subsist
in those things?
Porphyry did not give an answer, he simply said that "this would lead
him too far". But his questions and the attention later philosophers paid to
them, prove that Aristotle had not definitively solved the problem. Doubt-
lessly, next to the ontological and logical dimension, we can find in the
work of Abailard, which is more refmed than the philosophy of Roscelinus,
NOMINALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM 7
epistemological aspects as well. That is to say that he did not only meditate
on the existence of general concepts as independent "things", but also on
the relation between knowledge of what is general and of what is particular.
Nevertheless we shall have to wait till the fourteenth century to see
nominalism grow into a fully developed philosophical theory. The thorough
knowledge of the complete works of Aristotle led to new insights in the
different aspects of the subject. It is not at all certain that Porphyry
understood Aristotle correctly, nor that he was in his tum understood by the
philosophers of the eleventh and twelfth century. 1 The interpretation of the
Philosopher by Duns Scotus, named "doctor subtilis", in the thirteenth
century certainly was very subtle indeed and it just made possible the one
step further which was taken by Ockham. As we shall see, Ockham gave
us an answer (and in fact more than one) to the questions of Porphyry, but
this is not what is most important about his philosophy, as others have done
the same; the important thing is the reason why the answer is given, its
foundation. The latter is to be found in the elaboration of the relationship
between thought, language and reality, which throws a new light on the
knowledge of the particular and the general. I hope to make this clear in
the following chapters.
Our subject is nominalism as it presents itself in the work of W.V.O.
Quine and N. Goodman. To understand it fully it is necessary to determine
the position of constructivism, where nominalism is concerned and also the
discussion of universals that is part of it. The detailed history of nominalism
from Ockham, the most prominent of Terminists, on, is not of our concern.
It will be sufficient to establish the link of traditional nominalism with
constructivism. Some historians of philosophy have presented Ockham not
only as the most important nominalist, but also as the first genuine em-
piricist.2 I think this is mistaken, for although Ockham certainly cleared the
way for empiricism, he was not an empiricist himself. He never expressed
the idea that only sensations and experiences enable us to know the world
that surrounds us, idea which is considered its hall-mark. Nevertheless his
views on different problems, such as individuation, knowledge of what is
general and of what is particular relations, were necessary steps, precondi-
tions of empiricism. As Julius R. Weinberg, who has devoted a remarkable
book to the subject, puts it: "It is sometimes forgotten that the problems
about abstraction and generalization were thoroughly discussed in the
Middle Ages and that these discussions had an influence which continued
until the time of Berkeley and Hume despite the contempt and ridicule to
which the eighteenth century writers commonly subjected the School-
8 CHAPTER 2
men". 3 Berkeley and Hume both chose for the nominalistic solution of those
problems and in their tum their nominalism and critical examination of
abstractions are not only central features of British empiricism, but are a
preparation to the discussion of many contemporary issues.4 Indeed, as the
philosophy of Hume was of strong influence on empirio-criticism and
empirio-criticism in its tum was of influence on the Wiener Kreis, we can
establish the affiliation of constructivism to nominalism.
Nelson Goodman and W.V.O. Quine are continuators of the construc-
tivistic philosophy. Their nominalistic version of it was meant initially as
a correction of certain implications of the logic Camap chose for The
Logical Structure of the World. What was Camap's own position concern-
ing the traditional nominalistic assumptions contained in empiricism?
As we have stressed so far, nominalism does not only consist of the
rejection of the existence of abstract entities, but of a solution of the difficult
problem of how it is possible that we have general knowledge, while we
must obtain it from our apprehension of the particular. Therefore we shall
have to examine these questions closely: did Camap consider himself a
nominalist? Was nominalism a necessary ingredient of empiricism in his
opinion? Was the individual, the particular, the basis of his system? What
was his conception of the problem of abstraction, or in other words, of how
we obtain general know ledge starting from the perception of the particular?
Did his system reflect his ontological assumptions, or did he reject ontology
altogether?
The first question, whether he considered himself a nominalist, is fairly
easy to answer, as he was explicit on this point. In The Logical Structure
of the World we find the following statement: "The position which treats
general objects as quasi objects is closely related to nominalism. It must be
emphasized, however, that this position concerns only the problem of the
logical function of symbols (words) which designate general objects. The
question whether designata have reality (in the metaphysical sense) is not
thereby answered in the negative, but is not even posed".5 The reason for
this half-hearted position is to be found in the purpose of the undertaking
of Camap. He not only wanted, in line with the example given in empirio-
criticism, to profess ontological neutrality in order to avoid metaphysical
implications in his philosophical theory, but to go a step further and to
construct a metaphysically aseptic system in order to describe, not the world
in its concrete materiality, but the structure of the world. The properties of
the system, the rules for the use and combination of its concepts had to be
formal, but could have "ontological", "material" implications. This was
unavoidable. Still, we can be certain that, as an empiricist, he thought of

his system as in accordance with nominalistic principles, or at least as not
violating these principle. Not only the previously mentioned text, but many
others prove it.
The elementary experiences that were chosen as basic elements were
particular, since, as he put it, the stream of experience was different for each
person, but being autopsychological elements they were not concrete, but
bore a relationship to what is concrete. Also, the elements that were treated
inhis system as quasi objects, were not abstract objects, but general objects.
Instead of going into the subject of experiences on a material level and
trying to determine what corresponds in reality with them, he assured us
that all objects of knowledge were not content, but form, and after analysis
or quasi analysis, they could be represented as structural entities.6
This was also the case for the elementary experiences. They were the
given, but as they were complex but indivisible, a process of quasi analysis
had to be applied in order to find their quasi constituents, their relations and
ultimately their structure. (For most philosophers those quasi constituents
were the true elements of our experiences, but Carnap considered them
more strictly, in line with Gestalt psychology, as abstractions). In this way
the empirical concepts, which he needed, could be constructed and further
concepts out of these concepts, by giving rules for the translation of
statements containing the derived concepts out of statements containing the
empirical concepts.
Camap's concern to construct a system which mirrored the genealogy
of knowledge and the choice of elementary experiences as the basic
elements indicates that he conceived of the relation of the general and the
particular as a relation wherein the particular was more basic than the
general. But the aim of science was not only to draw conclusions concern-
ing properties of individuals from relation descriptions, "but to attain the
highest level of formalization and dematerialization".7 Therefore, in his
system scientific statements were only about forms and it was not stated
what the elements and the relations of these forms were. This was an ideal,
but in empirical sciences, one had to know at least about what kinds of
things one was speaking. And when Carnap gave examples of definite
descriptions it was clear that he thought that in most cases it had to be
possible to retrace the individual elements between which the relations held,
through analysis of the structure contained in the descriptions, without
having recourse to ostensive def'mitions. He believed the latter would be
necessary only in rare cases.
10 CHAPTER 2
2. ANTI-METAPHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS, OR FROM

ONTOLOGICAL NEUTRALITY TO ONTOLOGICAL
COMMITMENT
Carnap was a notorious anti-metaphysicist and herein he was very close to

the nominalistic tradition. Ockham rejected the very possibility of a rational
explanation of transcendent reality. Knowledge was either about immanent,
concrete reality or it was about transcendence, but in the latter case it was
knowledge based on revelation and not science; metaphysics was rejected
as superfluous. This anti-metaphysical current had its continuation in
empiricism, in empirio-criticism and in logical empiricism. It is all the more
surprising that N. Goodman and W.V.O. Quine accuse Camap of violating
the nominalistic principles and claim he is committed to certain implicit
ontological assumptions, which are unacceptable.
Perhaps this criticism is the result of the ambiguity inherent in Camap's
system. His main "ontological" thesis is the ordinary assumption of the
empiricists that science decides in accordance with observations whether
an entity or entities exist. His constructivistic system, however, cannot be
used to speak in the material mode of things, but only to speak in the formal
mode about scientific statements and to provide criteria for the correct
construction of such statements. Whether the statements are about what
exists, can only be decided by actual observation. This is a guarantee to the
ontological neutrality of the system, but nevertheless logical empiricism
contains a definite conception of the relation between philosophy and
science and a defmite conception of science and knowledge in general and
his system reflects this view. To say this conception can be expressed in
the formal mode and that it is not about objects that are supposed to be real,
but about propositions, more especially about scientific propositions, does
not change anything about the fact that it is a non-neutral conception.8 The
problem is replaced not solved. The propositions that express the epis-
temological assumptions, are neither tautological, nor contradictory, nor
synthetic. They are meaningful but not verifiable; amongst them the prin-
ciple of verifiability is the most notorious example. I shall not retrace the
history of this principle and the many discussions it elicited. There are many
other examples of such unverifiable and not disconfirmable principles, such
as the contention that "whatever exists must be in principle observable", or
"science is one".9 Together they build the doctrine of logical empiricism.
It is of no help to declare that they are not metaphysical statements, but
linguistic recommendations. Such a declaration does not enable us to
distinguish them from other philosophical conceptions, which can be

translated in the formal mode too and are incompatible with the empiricist
doctrinei such as "a proposition is cognitive if and only if it is about true
reality". 0
The doctrine oflogical empiricism is itself debatable; it is a philosophi-
cal choice and that it is a choice, acknowledged as recommendable, if not
always strictly applied by men of science, cannot make it a logical truth.
This hidden weakness of the philosophy under consideration - philosophy
that proposes itself to be different from other philosophies that are con-
taminated by metaphysics and in stating this becomes logically indistin-
guishable from those very philosophies - makes it of course very vulnerable.
By their criticisms W.V. Quine and N. Goodman amongst others, make it
clear that they cannot but be aware of this feature of Carnap' s constructivis-
tic philosophy: it has, like other philosophies,implications that are neither
analytic nor synthetic and that its adversaries with unholy glee would call
metaphysical.
Carnap could not deny that his system was built in accordance with a
corpus of philosophical presuppositions. But he believed that this basic
choices were extraneous to the system itself. His famous dictum "in logic
there are no morals" means that a formal system has to be in principle
acceptable for whoever is interested in the building of a tool for a scientific
description of the world, whatever are his personal convictions, his emo-
tions, intuitions, and even his point of view concerning philosophical issues
such as realism, idealism, nominalism, etc .. In a sense it is true that an
idealist could make use without contradiction of the empiricist language of
the Aufbau, as the only philosophical thesis he has to accept is that we have
"Erlebs", experiences that constitute the directly given.
The criticism of Quine and Goodman, however, is not that the system
reflects an empiristic choice, but on the contrary that parts of its logic imply
an ontological commitment to entities that are not acceptable for an
empiricist. As these revoked elements are general concepts or universals,
namely classes, they call their alternative a nominalistic system. Whether
they have a right to do so is what will be examined in the next paragraph.
Whatever the conclusion about this will be, ontological commitment has
hereby replaced ontological neutrality. The sheer use of a logic, its terms
and its operators, if it has an interpretation, commits us to the existence of
entities, which in the case of the Aufbau are unacceptable for an empiricist.
12 CHAPTER 2
3. A MINIMALlS TIC ONTOLOGICAL PROGRAM
That the principle of ontological neutrality has been renounced by

philosophers who call themselves nominalists, is strange of course. But in
the light of the foregoing we can see what reasons have lead Quine and
Goodman to this step. We have remarked that Aristotle tried to elaborate a
scientific method in order to obtain knowledge by demonstration and that
he was faced with the difficulty of giving content to this formal system, a
content that was at once certain, but not demonstrated, and general, as
genuine science is of the general. Therefore, a first science was indispen-
sable, which comprehended the intuition of what is general in the particular,
of essences and natures, of species and genus, of the categories and of being.
A first science, later termed metaphysics, was required in order to reconcile
thought and reality. As we shall see, W.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman have
returned to the idea that, in order to know, we first need to have an ontology,
we have to know already what general kinds of things there are.
Thomas Aquinas saw in metaphysics a means for conveying to
philosophy greater independence from the constraints of the judgments of
theological authorities. Amongst the divine truths are those that cannot be
demonstrated, but are revealed to us and on the other hand those that can
be explained and demonstrated. E. Gilson has formulated this idea of
Aquinas as follows: "it is indeed better to understand than to believe, if we
are left the choice. ll Although Ockham, like Saint Thomas, advocated the
autonomy of reason, he thought it was impossible to explain or demonstrate
divine truth, though not to know it.
Traditionally metaphysics had been ancilla theologiae, but unlike
Thomas Aquinas, Ockham, to whom the respective limits of reason and
belief were also of crucial importance, felt no need to lend metaphysics a
more important status by establishing a mediating link between the two
faculties. In the discussion about the true subject matter of metaphysics,
either God or the being of being, which preoccupied many philosophers of
the thirteenth and fourteenth century, Ockham did not sustain the claim of
Duns Scotus. The latter contended namely that the subject matter of
metaphysics could not be God as God, because the proof of his existence
was to be given in metaphysics and no science can have as subject that what
has to be proven to exist in that science. Therefore metaphysics could only
treat of God in as far as he is being as being. Neither did Ockham share the
opinion of Siger of Brabant that the proof of the existence of God could be
given either in metaphysics or physics, because the middle term of a proof
NOMINALISM AND CONSTRUCfIVISM 13
that is given in a science must not necessarily belong to that science. (Thus
the middle term of the proof of the existence of God in metaphysics could
belong to another science, namely physics). Ockham simply denied that a
strict demonstration of the existence of God could be given. Only in a
non-strict way could there be proof of God's existence as the First Mover,
because without this hypothesis the acceptance of an infinite regress of
causes was the alternative. It was impossible, however, to derive logically
the existence of God from his Nature. This Nature could not be know by
man, neither intuitively, nor by natural reason. Therefore, for Ockham,
revelation and faith were preconditions of the knowledge of God and only
if this precondition was fulfilled could we derive further knowledge from
the concepts in which the revelation is stated. God and divine truth was the
subject matter of theology, which does not need the help of metaphysics
and is not a science in the ordinary sense. The domain that was left for
metaphysics was being as being and this could be known bt; natural reason
in contradistinction to theology, which presupposes belief. 2 Ockham gave
an argument for this view, which must have been very powerful in his time:
if theological matters could be decided by natural reason alone, every infidel
could arrive at theological truths, whereas this cannot but be the privilege
of the true believer.
Thus metaphysics is relegated to the background, as even being as being
is not its exclusive domain. Indeed, unlike his predecessors, Ockham denied
"being" every ontological import other than individual; no universal es-
sence corresponded to it, it was only the most general tenn applying
indiscriminately to all the particulars, which were all that exists. In-
dividuals, however, were the subject matter of the natural sciences and the
formal description of reality, composed exclusively of individuals, was the
domain of logic.
It is clear from this, that his point of view is founded on a remarkable
prefiguration of the empiricist criterion, which should make it possible to
separate metaphysical matters from common knowledge. He never wrote
a systematic commentary on Aristotle's metaphysics. Some have thought
this an inexplicable flaw in his philosophy. The fact can on the contrary be
explained very easily. Ockham, studying Aristotle, considered "being" as
a logical tenn, which did not refer to anything in particular. Like Aristotle,
he studied the ways it can be predicated of particular individuals. Being was
not a transcendent entity, a universal essence, but was conceived of as a
tenn that was connected exclusively with individual entities, to which it
applied in different ways. These individual entities themselves had to be
14 CHAPTER 2
studied in the different sciences. Metaphysics is reduced, in this interpreta-

tion of Aristotle, to on the one hand linguistics and logic, on the other hand
to the different sciences that study individuals. The primacy of the particular
in Ockham' s philosophy is destructive for metaphysics.
Aristotle compromised with the philosophy of Plato, declaring that the
general inhered in the particular. Ockham neglected totally this aspect in as
far as it did not lead to general knowledge but to knowledge of the general
or, in other words, to metaphysics. General knowledge was vague and the
result of abstraction, it was useful but must not tempt us into the hypostasis
of the general. 13
Carnap, like Ockham, wanted to leave the decision as to what does and
what does not exist to the sciences. His problem was not in the first place
about what he was speaking, but how he was speaking, whether it was in a
correct way or not. Quine and Goodman have rejected this idea: every
formal language has its ontology. If variables are used that can be quan-
tified, ontology consists of the range of the values of those variables. The
choice of those ranges of values, in other words the interpretation of the
system, relies on a choice made in function of a philosophical conception.
Both authors declare their own creeds to be nominalistic and empiristic.
Their concern has not been to return to historical orthodoxy, but to take a
clear position on the subject of ontological commitment, rather than content
themselves with what they considered to be Carnap's halfhearted position.
(Another motive we shall have to discuss, is to be sought in the logic of
Russell's and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica).
The use of the term ontology certainly is confusing. Ontology, as a part
of traditional metaphysics, does not treat of things as they appear to us, but
as they really are, not of what we can perceive directly or indirectly, but of
what is transcendent. The method to obtain such knowledge is speculation,
not reasoning and perception. Nominalism for the first time rejected the
elaboration of any ontology in this sense. The new ontology of Quine and
Goodman, however, is not about transcendence, but about the existence of
kinds of things. It is not concerned with the empirical findings of science
and the detailed classification of this knowledge, but with general sorts of
things, or species. We could put it thus: as empiricists and nominalists, these
authors have thought it necessary to construct a scientific ontology in
accordance to their philosophical beliefs. This could be called a minimal
program, because empiricists only accept the existence of what can in
principle be perceived (and that is far less than what conceptualists or
idealists believe to exist) and because of their total neglect of transcendence.
At first sight this program seems quite appropriate, given their philosophi-
cal situation; the tradition they belong to, had failed to prove that science
without metaphysics is possible, in consequence they have tried to come to
the right conclusions, namely that ontological implications are clearly
unavoidable. In order to keep those implications under control, they had to
find a criterion to detect them and then to make a selection of them in
accordance with their empiristic principles.
4. GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE NEW ONTOLOGY
Let us examine a little further this new meaning of the term "ontology".
W.V.O. Quine states his conception in the following way: ontology is the
answer to the question "what is there?" The reply could be "everything"
and then one could begin to sum up or indicate at least the broad kinds of
things that are considered to exist. This conception would be regarded by
genuine metaphysicians a mistake in that it is not about Being itself.
Heidegger, e.g., would call this "Ontik" and not "Ontologie" and I think
from his point of view, he would be right. Broad categories is what the new
ontologists are looking for, these are generalizations and have nothing to
do with Being as a concept, prior to all categories. Moreover, the use of
"category" in the sense of "general kind of thing" is not the proper use
according to the tradition. Categories are the most general concepts, which
cannot be defined, but can be known only through intuition. To the
categories, such as substance, relation, quantity, quality, modality, etc.,
correspond questions: what?, in relation to what?, how many? , in what way?
etc ... These questions are the most general questions that can be asked of
anything. Quine uses the word category in the sense of species and kind
(examples are "classes", "electrons", "unicorns", "living organisms",
"fabricates"), like the layman would.
Carnap felt uncomfortable about this use of the word ontology.In "On
Carnap's View of Ontology", Quine writes: "When I inquire into the
ontological commitment of a theory, I am merely asking what according to
that theory there is. I might say in passing, though it is no substantial point
of disagreement, that Camap does not much like my terminology here.
Now, if we had a better use for this fme old world "ontology", I should be
inclined to cast about for another word for my own meaning. But the fact
is, I believe, that he disapproves of my giving meaning to a word which
belongs to traditional metaphysics and should therefore be meaningless" .14
16 CHAP1ER2
Carnap, however, thought, as he explained in The Logical Structure of the

World, it is not a meaningless word, but a word which suggests vagueness
and speculative thinking and about which there is no consensus. 15 He
preferred "basic science" where very general, fundamental knowledge is
concemed. 16 But Quine concludes in the following way: "I suspect that the
sense in which I use the crusty old word has been nuclear to its usage all
along" .17 Certainly he is wrong, ontology never has been the answer to the
question "what is there?" 18 and it was never what a scientific theory
(expressed in a given formal language) ontologically presupposes.
Nowadays the new use of the old word is widely spread in English and
American philosophy and even beyond philosophy it has found a still larger
and vaguer application. Anyhow, once the use of a word in a new sense is
established, we have to accept this fact, being at the same time conscious
of its ambiguity.
Another characteristic of this minimalistic ontology is that it is no longer
absolute, but relative to a definite language. Thus there are as many
ontologies as there are languages. It defines the universe the language under
consideration can describe, provided we can interpret that theory in another
broader theory, which can be reinterpreted in a broader theory, until we
reach an ultimate background theory with "its own primitively adopted and
ultimately inscrutable ontology" .19 A universe could contain such diverse
kinds of thin§s as wombats, angels neutrinos, classes, points, miles,
propositions? The Philosopher is not a Chosen Being, he is not very
different from the scientist, his domain is only more general. And it is not
possible for him to see the world as if he was not part of it. He cannot, as
Plato wished, start form the absolute truth of eternal ideas, without having
recourse to unreliable perceptions, and without the need of hypotheses and
scientific knowledge. On the contrary, his knowledge presupposes just all
this. He is laden with the burden of "the lore of the ages" and in choosing
his ontology he uses pragmatic criteria, previous knowledge and common
sense. As a matter of fact, philosophy, science and common sense are one.
About our background language, wherein we interpret our theories, we can
only speak in still another language. But as this would lead to an intmite
regress, in practice we end the regress of coordinate systems by something
like pointing and by acquiescing in our mother tongue and taking its words
at face value.21 This sort of common sense knowledge of a culture, orrather
the personal world view a philosopher derives from it, replaces the nprn't11
qnA.o(Jocpt<x of Aristotle. It is the link between purely formal science and
the elements of the world, Aristotle's substances. From the foregoing it
cannot but be clear that we must be cautious and that even a healthy
scepticism would not be misplaced, just as we are entitled to be mis-
chievous, where Aristotle's categories are concerned, categories, which
cannot be defined, only found by "intuition".
Ontology is not only a question of naming or referring, but of quantifica-
tion. We can use proper names without denotation ("Pegasus"), general
tenns without extension ("number"), but from the moment we say "all...
are", "some ... are", etc., we are bound to admit the existence of the entities
denotated, referred to. In fonnal language, whenever we can quantify a
variable we must admit the existence of its range of values. "Thus I
consider", says Quine, "that the essential commitment to entities of any sort
comes through the variables of quantification and not through the use of
alleged names. The entities to which a discourse commits us are the entities
over which the variables of quantification have to ranPf in order that the
statements that are affinned in that discourse be true". Proper names do
not always refer, they can have, when quantified, undesirable implications,
such as the existence of Pegasus. In the period Quine fonnulated his theory,
he did not - and nobody did - question the logic that made undesirable
implications possible, namely the logic of Principia Mathematica. He
simply accepted the solution B. Russell proposed for the problem, namely
his theory of description. It is the system, though, that is odd, and over-
economic, as the same kind of variables are used for general and proper
names. Following Russell, general names give less trouble, are ontologi-
cally controllable, proper names are the troublemakers. These can be
eliminated in favour of general tenns, predicates, in such a way these do
not name anything.
Another problem is that there are cases, were through the variables of
quantification, entities are implied that cannot be named individually in our
language, e.g. the real numbers, which build a greater infinity than the
totality of all names, which can be constructed in any language?3 This
means that we are incomplete, when drawing up an inventory of all that is
named in the system under consideration and complete, when summing up
everything that is effectively referred to, without naming it.
The well-known distinction Carnap makes between external questions
(does the concept "number" belong to the language we are using?) and
internal questions (are there brontosauruses?) is replaced by the distinction
between classes and subclasses, between more general and less general. As
a consequence it is blurred; categories are no longer fundamentally different
from subclasses, they are only more general. In fonnallanguages the
18 CHAPTER 2
distinction between internal and external questions can be easily rendered

by the introduction of the levels on which different sorts of variables are
used, but this demarcation can be left out, without the occurrence oflogical
paradoxes. Thus the theory of types can be weakened, a smaller number of
different variables can be introduced. In this way it is no longer necessary
to use one sort of variable for each type, considering only those formulas
as grammatical that can be rewritten by a one-by-one translation of the
meaningful fonnulas of the complete theory of types with different vari-
ables for all types. It must even be possible to do without the theory of types
altogether, on condition that we introduce a stipulation detennining what
kind of repetition pattern the variables of the fonnulas are allowed to take,
in order to avoid paradoxes. The outcome is a unifonn ontology, without
hierarchical structure, which is very economic. Expressions like "there are
numbers" and "there are black swans" are treated here on a par. The
difference between ontological and scientific problems, like that between
analytic and synthetic propositions, is a difference in degree not in kind.
But what concepts must be considered to be ontological categories, refer-
ring to the most general kinds of things? Where is the borderline between
very general and less general, between philosophy and science? It is
difficult to answer this question, because the introduction of different types
of variables is a rather arbitrary decision; these types can be chosen at will.
If ontology is the answer to the question "what is there?", namely "every-
thing", the universe that can be described in the constructivistic language,
in principle can contain such diverse entities as "electrons", "plants" and
"good and bad". It is the task of the philosopher to make a decision in
function of the criteria we discussed.
The necessity of an ontology, from the point of view of W.V.O. Quine
and N. Goodman, is the necessity to interpret the language. Formal
semantic rules will not be sufficient. Of course the nature of the criteria
used for the interpretation, for the detennination of the ontology, are not as
lofty as those used to fmd the categories of Aristotle's 1tpmtTl <plAocro<pl(x,
nor as lofty as those of traditional speculative metaphysics. The result is
not based on intuition of absolute truth, but on relative presuppositions,
which are historical, subjective and, why not, conventional. In order to
judge this view the only relevant question is: is there a gain of clarity?
Furthennore we can ask if the ontology of a system has at least to reflect
the genealogy of our knowledge. When Carnap in his Logical System ofthe
World rejected perceptual qualities, it was on the ground that the basic
elements of his system had to be in accordance with the epistemological
NOMINALISM AND CONSTRUCTNISM 19
order. He thought that they were not directly given, but elements of Erlebs,
which constitute our primal way of apprehending the world. They could
not serve the purpose; the epistemic primacy of an object is reflected in the
place it occupies in the system; whether it is basic or derived has to be
reflected in the order of construction. For both Quine and Goodman this
must not necessarily be the case. Constructivistic systems must not directly
reflect the genealogy of knowledge, neither the genealogy of the knowledge
of the individual nor that of the cultural community to which it belongs. It
only has to be in keeping with philosophical aims and creeds; thus in the
case of Quine and Goodman with nominalism and empiricism. But of
course indirectly these aims and creeds are not independent of the processes
of acquisition of knowledge of the individual and the collectivity. The
influence of the conventionalistic theories of P. Duhem on Quine is well-
known. It does not come as a surprise that he chooses as motto of one of
his books 24 von Neurath's comparison of knowledge with a ship that in the
middle of the sea needs to be repaired: "Wie Schiffer sind wir, die ihr Schiff
auf offener See umbauen miissen, ohne es jemals in einem Dock zerlegen
und aus besten Bestandteilen neu errichten zu konnen". Our knowledge is
based on traditions and conventions from the past, which we adapt. Quine
resumes the situation thus: but I know no better!
We have tried to make it clear that the traditional nominalistic theory
was not restricted to the discussion whether universals do or do not exist.
It implied a definite and very complicated epistemology and perhaps an
even more complicated point of view concerning the relationship between
thought and language, language and reality. We cannot treat it fully in this
first chapter, we shall merely try to find the link with logical empiricism
and constructivistic theory.
One of the characteristics of nominalistic semantics is that it is pragmatic.
A sign, a name or a predicate has meaning if it can be used in a proposition
as a substitute for something else. Thus the name "Socrates" is a substitute
for Socrates in the proposition "Socrates is white". A linguistic sign has
also meaning if it can be said of something in a true proposition, like
"white"in "Socrates is white". The meaning of a term is determined by the
use, which can be made of it.
A pragmatic view can also be found in the work of Carnap: he was
interested in the correlation problem, rather than in the essence problem.
The correlation problem is expressed by the question "what terms are
actually used to designate what?", the essence problem by the question "in
virtue of what the correlation between terms and their reference obtains?".
20 CHAPTER 2
Sentences are the only signs that have a truly independent meaning.
Amongst the signs that can be parts of sentences proper names have a
special statute, because they too, but to a lesser degree, have independent
meaning. They designate defmite, concrete individuals. Other terms can be
used in the place of proper names as the subject of a sentence, but as their
designata are ~eneral and therefore fictitious, they are to be considered as
quasi objects.
Carnap does not refuse to make use for practical reasons of general terms,
but to consider their designata to be real objects and he regarded this refusal
as nominalistic.26 Indeed in traditional nominalism general terms, such as
species, do not designate a real entity, but only designate in a vague manner
several concrete individuals, just like a wood consists ultimately of its trees.
The principle is, that whatever can be differentiated in an entity, can be
separated and if the entity can be distinguished from itself it is not really
numerically one. For Camap too, the extension of general terms, of proposi-
tional functions, of relation functions, were quasi-objects. One of the great
difficulties in the elaboration of his system was the construction, on a strict
empiristic base of the sign production (spoken and written words) and the
relation between the sign production and the signified. This relation consists
of the extension and intension of the sentences in question. Where the
extension means roughly the kind of individuals, to which a predicate,
("red", "human", e.g.) applies and has no other ontological implications that
would be objectionable, the intensions are less harmless. Indeed, intensions
are the propositions expressed by the sentences, the conceptual content of
the words.
From the moment on Carnap, under the influence of Tarski, felt that it
was necessary to specify the semantics of constmctivistic languages the
problem of intensions was posed. This became another point of discussion
for Quine and Goodman. Camap posited that intensions are respectable
empirical hypotheses, which are confirmed or disconfirmed by the linguis-
tic behaviour of the native speakers of the language under consideration.
The possibility of an empirical method for establishing the objective
meaning or intension of words or sentences has been strongly objected by
both philosophers and more particularly by Quine. One could deduce from
this objection that this at least is an item where they are more in accordance
with traditional nominalism than Camap. I shall try to show that this is not
the case, that intensionalism is traditionally an element of nominalism, and
that moreover semantics that makes use of intensions has many advantages
over semantics making use of extensionalistic methods only.
In conclusion a few words on the philosophy of everyday language and

its conception of ontology. Logical empiricism rejected ontological
problems; the ideal of ontological neutrality led to the reduction of ontology
to formal linguistic theory on the one hand and on the other hand to
empirical questions, which could only be answered by the sciences. The
philosophy of everyday language is hostile to metaphysics as well; it
considers metaphysical problems as a disease philosophy has to be cured
of by the analysis of the use of language in daily life. Curiously enough
constructivism, mainly under the influence ofW.V.O. Quine and N. Good-
man, reintroduces a (minimal) ontological theory, while on the other hand,
P.F. Strawson, who works in the tradition of the philosophy of everyday
language, has also a renewed interest for metaphysical questions. His
program, however, is also minimal, in this sense that his first philosophy is
not the product of speculative intuition, but some sort of underlying general
pattern of all human thought - and here references to Kant are not out of
place -, a general pattern, which has moulded the expression of our thought,
namely everyday language. The generality of this pattern is due to the fact
that all humans have nervous systems, which are built the same way, brains,
~~~~~~~~~~~~ro~~~~~
general conceptual scheme. The analysis of daily language reveals our
metaphysics.
Considering the renewed interest in ontology, we must conclude, that
though Aristotle's prime philosophy is no longer totally dismissed, it is
replaced by one kind or another of human common sense and this is
contingent and therefore a highly debatable matter.
CHAPTER 3
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY

FROM EMPIRICISM TO CONVENTIONALISM
The main theme in the early philosophy ofW.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman
is the rejection of abstract entities, which engender an infinity of abstract
elements. They call it nominalism but in fact it is much older than
nominalism. Did not Aristotle reject the existence of ideas, because of the
paradox of the third man, which shows that when a thing corresponds to an
idea, there must be an idea that corresponds to this correspondence and an
idea that corresponds to the thing, and the first and the second idea and so
on? Nobody ever called this dismissal of ideas nominalism; the paradox
rests on the false assumption that an idea must have itself the property it
expresses and can be resolved, just as it can be shown that abstract elements
such as classes must not necessarily engender an infinity, or at least that
this can be avoided by observing certain rules. The rejection of the existence
of abstract entities is a necessary but insufficient condition for nominalism.
The new nominalism of Quine and Goodman stems from different
sources. We shall recall them briefly but only in as far as they can help us
understand the peculiar brand of nominalism we are dealing with.
I.ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT AND EMPIRISTIC

CONSIDERATIONS
The first source is of course logical empiricism and its constructivistic ideal.
In The Logical Structure of the World Camap wrote: "there are no morals
in logic" and it is just this immorality Quine and Goodman have fought for
the sake of empiristic puritanism. Yet Camap had chosen ever so carefully
the basic elements of his system, which had to be "directly given" in our
experience and particular, but they did no longer believe that such a kind
of experience existed. They were empiricists all right, but not naive and
moreover they thought the logic Camap used suspect.
Though this logic was that of Principia Mathematica, Camap never
adopted the "theory of the name relation", which Russell had in common
with Frege. Russell believed that the meaning of a name is not a mental
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 23
element, but a non-mental object; it is not its use nor a concept but its
reference. At the time he wrote Principia Mathematica with Whitehead,
these objects could be abstract in his opinion, but later on he became
reluctant to accept the existence of abstractions and tried to reduce drasti-
cally the number of abstract entities, because of empiristic considerations.
Just this identification of the meanings of names with the objects named is
the quintessence of the early nominalism of W.V.O. Quine and Nelson
Goodman; by choosing for ontological commitment they followed
Russell's example. Logic had to be about the world we can experience, in
the same way other sciences had to be about empirical reality. According
to Russell, logic had no more to accept the existence of unicorns than
zoology. He did not try to fmd an alternative logic, but amended the one he
had construed; in order to reduce unwanted entities to innocuous ones, he
invented his theory of description. At this point we witness the clash of two
brands of empiricism, that of Carnap where a clear distinction is made
between "logical" (external, analytic) and "factual" (internal, synthetic),
between the general and the particular and that of Russell, where both are
mingled. The nominalistic constructivists in their tum took over the theory
of description and the theory of quantification. Though the gain of clarity
by the acceptance of ontological commitment and the development of an
ontological criterion seemed immense and the empiristic ideal well served,
the clear distinctions of logical empiricism were lost.
On the other hand it may be recalled that in the philosophy of mathe-
matics there had been several endeavours in order to make sure that
mathematics, including its more recent developments, did not have Platonic
implications. It had been shown that it was rather easy to interpret classical
mathematics without unwanted implications, i.e., that it was possible to
interpret them at least in an intuitive way, avoiding the creation of an
overcrowded universe of abstract entities. Until the development of set
theory, the concept of infinity could be reduced to the concept of potential
infinity, the actual existence of infinity could be avoided. Though this
strategy implied a certain dose of hypocrisy 1, till Cantor, mathematics, if
it was not nominalistic in the strict sense, was at most conceptualistic.
Classical mathematics was generally thought to be in accordance with our
experiences of nature, but the new developments in set theory implied
actual infinities, which could not be represented mentally and thus assimi-
lated with intuitions.
Different ways of reducing undesired entities, such as universals, proper-
ties, infinity, were proposed. One of them was, instead of trying to reduce
24 CHAPTER 3
all undesirable ontological implications, to declare that mathematics is

essentially a technique and consider the denotation of the concepts that are
used, if there is such a denotation, a personal affair to be left to the
judgement of each mathematician; mathematics as such does not contain a
theory about that subject. (Largeault has justly remarked that Camap has
in a way formulated the philosophical counterpart of this theory. Debates
of ontological questions such as the controversy of nominalists and realists
are external to logic, they are not part of scientific discourse)?
Quine and Goodman took part in the debate and chose for the reduction
of parts of mathematics to symbols and rules, capable of generating
formulae without contradictions, but not apt for interpretation. Other parts
could, with some goodwill, be brought in accordance with experience.
So far we met nothing but nominalists. Carnap was one of them, but did
not want to admit it explicitly, for the sake of neutrality. Russell, turning to
the British empiricist tradition, which contains the main nominalistic
theses, could not but reject his early idealistic point of view. In the
philosophy of mathematics in general, we fmd the same urge for harmony
with the main principles of empiricism. Quine and Goodman went one step
further and proposed a nominalistic constructivistic system.
Not all of these nominalisms are as genuine as could be supposed. We
already said that there is more to nominalism - unless we content ourselves
with fragmentary versions of it - than the theory of universals alone. There
are conditions, which in some of them are not fulfilled. The criticisms the
theory of the existential presuppositions arouses may well be linked with
this incompleteness. Most criticists complain about the limited possibilities,
which are offered by the formal system proposed.
Let us examine the problem a little further. It is not part of the theory of
traditional nominalism that the meaning of a categorematic term or name,
proper or general, is its denotation. The theory of supposition is not as
simple as that and moreover it is the complement of a theory of signification.
Let us take this for granted for the moment; I shall treat of this in the
following chapter. At present it must only be stressed that the traditional
semantical theory we consider is severely mutilated, if the distinction
between general and particular terms is abolished. The problems it tries to
solve are due to general terms, not to particular terms. By treating on a par
general and particular terms and by reducing one sort of terms to the other
sort, the new nominalists have made their theory vulnerable, as we shall
see from the different criticisms.
Russell thought of names, whether general or particular, as denoting

one thing and this in contrast to Frege, who in "On Sense and Reference"
said clearly that he deals with proper names, not with names referring to
concepts or relations. 3 A most clear explanation of Russell's ideas on this
subject is that of David Pears. He formulates Russell's basic idea thus: "He
had thought that every word or phrase occurring in a sentence gets its
meaning by being correlated with something which lies outside the sentence
and outside the thought which the sentence expresses. For example, a proper
name indicates an object; a general word, like "red" indicates a concept i.e.
a property, not an idea; and a phrase like "taller than" indicates a different
kind of concept - a relation".4 This leaves us with the responsibility of
coping with objects, properties, relations, according to the philosophical
tradition we belong to. 5 The empiricist can, following B. Russell, accept
complex general symbols that have no instances, e.g. "dragon". Such a
symbol can be analysed into concepts that have instances, such as "having
leathery wings", "having a scaly body", etc .. When we talk about a dragon,
we think of such kinds of concepts. When we talk about the daughter of
Hitler, the problem is harder to solve. The speaker is not talking about the
concept but about the person denoted and any "affirmative proposition in
which a definite description occurs, entails the existential proposition that
there is one and only one thing that fits the description".6 In this case the
solution is that this one "something" would be "female and begotten by
Hitler"? This only implies that we admit the existence of an innocuous
"something". Ayer compares this procedure with the feeding of an insect:
the head, (there is something), remains rudimentary, while the body grows,
assimilating the connotations of the term, (which is ... and has ... , etc.).8
The use of quantifiers simplifies the process and makes it clear that to
be is a property of propositional functions, or in other words to be is to be
an instance of a property. This leaves us with two items to discuss:
ontological commitment itselfand the role ofqualities as ultimate elements
of reality.
2. "WOVON MAN NICHT SPRECHEN KANN, DAROBER MUSS

MAN SCHWEIGEN"
The theory of description and the theory of quantification have been

criticised by philosophers of different creeds. Without in the least trying to
be exhaustive, I shall cite a number of them.
26 CHAPTER 3
laakko Hintikka has devoted several articles to existential presupposi-

tions. He gives different reasons for the fact that such presuppositions,
which are inextricably linked with the theory of quantification, are not at
all self-evident. These presuppositions are undesirable whenever the pur-
pose of the logician is not to describe reality or parts of it, but to formulate
hypotheses and to falsify them, to make counterfactual statements, etc .. 9 In
descriptive contexts "there is obviously little that can be said by way of pure
description of nonexistent individuals" 10, but in modal contexts ontological
presuppositions are a hindrance: "Surely it ought not to be logically inad-
missible to try to say something of what might have happened if some
particular individual had not existed, e.g. if there had been no Napoleon" .11
The same problem arises from other applications of modal logic, such as
doxastic logic, or tense logic. We do not restrict ourselves to talking about
individuals that exist always, everywhere and that everybody believes to
exist. We must be able to formulate and understand logically the hypothesis
that the Abominable Snowman exists and to speak about states of the world
at different times. 12
In other words, we must be able to express the existence of the reference
of a singular term in such a way that this existence can be meaningfully
denied, or we need a formalization of "a exists" even if this implies treating
existence as a predicate. 13 This is precisely what we cannot do in the logic
of Principia Mathematica, nor in the logics derived from it.
In the second place 1. Hintikka draws our attention to the following:
existential presuppositions are linked with the fact that logicians have been
interested 'primarily or exclusively in the existence of kinds of in-
dividuals".1 This is, he says, what the usual systems of quantification
theory are intended to be used for, whereas individuals as individuals, have
received little attention.
This is the point where we can see that on this level also the distinction
between general and particular is fundamental; in knowledge both general
and particular play a role and they cannot be reduced to each other, nor even
translated into each other. A traditional nominalist not only makes the
distinction, but posits the epistemological primacy of the particular. That
is why Carnap's Logical Structure o/the World is implicitly nominalistic
and why neither Russell's nor Quine's nor Goodman's theories are.
The intensional context Quine and Goodman reject for lack of clarity
and try to reduce to descriptions of what is actual, of states of affairs,
becomes clear, when we follow Hintikka and the logic he proposes in order
to be able to make explicit existential statements concerning individuals,
whereas in the system of Quine and Goodman it is only possible to speak

of kinds of things that belong to the attested ontology of the system. It has
never been proven that all intensional context can be translated into exten-
sional contexts. We need them nevertheless in daily life and scientists need
them too. Traditional nominalists never shunned intensions and intensional
contexts, and not - as might be thought - because they failed to see the
problems.
Today, science is no longer considered to be the description of a global
state of affairs, constantly completed and improved and constantly
progressing. It is rather seen as an alternation of progress and self-destruc-
tion (Th. Kuhn), some pretend even that it is a rather anarchistic activity
(K. Feyerabend). It is a constant effort to solve problems (L. Laudan) and
a dialogue between scientists and nature (J. Hintikka). If science was a
description or view of parts of the world, scientists could start with a
definitive ontology of accepted categories (in the non-Aristotelean sense)
and in the framework of this ontology and of the syntax of the formal
language that is used, all we would speak about would exist. In practice,
science is much more vague in its ontology than is generally supposed by
philosophers. Scientists do not always precisely know what they are looking
for, nor whether what they are looking for exists, they often ask nature
questions about what there is. They not only want to say something about
things that exist, and how these things are and behave, but often they want
to find evidence of the existence of hitherto unknown things and kinds of
things.
A paleontologist is working in the Rocky Mountains. He is looking for
fossils in a definite geological layer. There are two kinds of them, namely
those he knows to exist, because they were found elsewhere and those that
possibly exist, e.g., the missing link between two species that probably have
evolved from each other. Of course he can choose his ontology in such a
way that only those species are represented that he knows to exist elsewhere.
He can describe his findings and if among these there is no species that is
not represented in his ontology, all is well. Otherwise he will have to
readjust his ontology after his research is finished, but in that case ex-
perience has decided afterwards, not philosophical or scientific "intuition".
It is not Aristotelean first science then, which decides about the kinds of
things that exist, but it could not be otherwise, because science is the fertile
soil of first science or ontology and not vice versa. It is not intuitively known
that a certain missing link exists, it becomes common sense only after it
was found.
28 CHAPTER 3
In fact, our paleontologist must not only be able to speak of all known
species in a tenseless manner, and of all known species linked with a place
pi and a time tl, what is in accordance with ontological clarity as demanded
by Quine and Goodman, but he must also be able to speak about possible
entities and to confirm or deny their existence at pi and t1, and even in
general, for all times and places in some cases. Possibles and non-existents,
however, cannot be mentioned in the nominalistic systems. The language
he uses for his research and for the final description of his [mdings must be
the same or else, he must dispose oflanguages, translatable into each-other,
unless the final result is meant as a mere facade. Nelson Goodman claims
that he wants to be the bookkeeper of science, without putting constraints
on scientific activity as such. We could wonder whether, as in many firms,
the bookkeeping is not an idealized translation of the facts. But there is more
to management than bookkeeping and many possibles and non-possibles
are to be taken into account.
What can be expressed in constructivistic systems, containing ontologi-
cal presuppositions, is that certain kinds of things have certain properties.
For these systems to have practical value it is necessary that possibilities
can be expressed. It is well-known that possibilities raise ontological
problems, but they can in many cases be turned into dispositions, in such a
way that these problems are avoided. So far so good for some interesting
kinds of possibilities, but how can we say explicitly that something does
not exist? We can say a certain kind of thing is not on this place and at this
moment, though we cannot say there is not a definite thing of such a kind
on this place and at this moment, for we cannot refer to individuals.
However, how can we deny that there are mermaids in general? Must we
introduce them in our ontology by choosing a quantifiable variable that
corresponds to mermaids and then deny, if the places and times of the
system are finite, for each of these places and times that they are occupied
by mermaids? This seems very unpractical and nevertheless it is sometimes
necessary to discuss explicitly in describing states of affairs, the existence
of something, such as a missing link in anthropology, Nessie(s) in Loch
Ness, or the aether.
Scientists do not start looking for species or kinds of things. In practice
they try to fmd individuals, many or few. We could imagine that scientists
could construct, as J. Hintikka pointed out, modelsets for their theories, sets
of formulae that are all true on one and the same interpretation of the
non-logical constants occurring in them. IS According to the theory of
quantification, if they deal with a free individual symbol, they must refer
to an actually existing individual. Empty singular terms are excluded from

discussion. J. Hintikka remarks: "Existential presuppositions in effect
prejudge all questions concerning the existence of individuals referred to
by singular terms, which occur in our model sets or which can be substituted
for our free individual symbols. They thus imply the unsatisfactory con-
clusion that a decision concerning the syntactical status of a term may
depend on the decision of the factual question concerning the existence of
the individual to which it purportedly refers" .16 Indeed empty singular terms
are ruled out in the systems proposed by W.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman.
This is why J. Hintikka changes the rules governing the quantifiers in the
modelsets he proposes in order to be rid of the existential presuppositions
he rejects. By bringing in the open the existential presuppositions through
these modifications in the rules, they are no longer presuppositions, they
are made explicit. The existence of individuals can be meaningfully denied,
what in the case of the ordinary interpretation of quantifiers is not possible.
3. SCIENCE IS OF THE GENERAL
As previously mentioned, Jaakko Hintikka draws our attention to the lack

of interest of the logician for individuals. Logicians are in the first place
concerned with scientific statements, laws, etc.; science is supposed to be
of the general. Carnap believed that the most fundamental sciences start
from a broad base of empirical material, from a large quantity of experien-
ces, all concerning the concrete and individual. In his "Two Dogma's of
Empiricism" 17 , W.V.O. Quine reverses the picture. Science starts from
hypotheses, builds a theory and the confirmation of the theory rests on a
limited number of experiments or observations. This must have seemed to
him in accordance with the construction and confirmation of Einstein's
theory of relativity, f.i., and to hold for theories of physics in general.
Nevertheless, in many sciences, observation of the individual, identification
of the individual is of the utmost importance. An anthropologist, e.g., does
not find a species, he fmds an individual or a number of individuals. Don
Johanson did not fmd the species "Australopithecus Africanus", he found
the skeleton of a de:frnite young female hominoid. These rare and precious
bones were described in every detail and the dead woman was given the
name of Lucy. In many cases the bones show marks of diseases, accident,
old age, they show the history of the individual. This personal history can
be of importance to the anthropologist, still more so to the historian, if the
30 CHAPTER 3
findings belong to historical times. When archaeologists found bones they

presumed to be those of Margareth of Burgundy, they acquired confinna-
tion for their hypotheses, by looking at the kind of fractures the bones
showed, (she fell from her horse) and the defonnations of the skeleton
commonly found with horsewomen. Precise measurements of the skull and
its parts were compared to a portrait by a contemporary and the proportions
of the different elements seemed to match.
Another example can be drawn from biology. It is often thought that
biologists are all taxonomists and that they are only interested in species,
not in individuals. In the first place" species" it is not such a well-established
concept as it seems at first sight and in the second place the objects of their
study are necessarily individuals. Ethologists observe the behaviour of
individuals and for many experiences recognition of individuals is neces-
sary. Research on social behaviour would not be possible without knowing
the animals individually, e.g ..
We could multiply the examples, where scientists in order to construct
general theories, first have to study individuals in their individuality. The
intuition (direct know ledge) of the general in the particular, which Aristotle
considered to be all-important as a base for science, is not a scientific but
a philosophical matter and the general must not be hypostatized. Scientists
do not invent or even create the general out of the blue and in many cases
they derive it from as many individual cases as possible in the old-fashioned
way. Physics is generally considered a model science, where very general
laws and hypothesis are fonnulated. I believe it is wrong to search for the
characteristics of science, having only physics in mind. And even there it
is not true that the individual is of no importance, or rather it is a shortcom-
ing that general laws cannot always predict what will happen in particular
cases, or what will happen to single elements. As an example the classical
interference and diffraction experiments can be cited. I8 By these experi-
ments it is shown, i.a., that though predictions can be made statistically, of
what is going to happen to the photons of a bundle of light, no prediction
can be made of what is going to happen to a single photon, what will be its
pathway.
Whereas J. Hintikka has made it clear that the existential presupposi-
tions, implicated in the theory of quantification as used by W.V.O. Quine,
can be a hindrance, because we need sometimes to speak about thin;§s that
do not exist, as in fact we do in ordinary language, R.H. Severens goes
the other way round in his criticism of Quine's criterion. Instead of
regretting not to be able to speak about possible entities and even fictions
and not to be able to deny the existence of real entities such as Napoleon,
R.H. Severens stresses the fact that linguistic reference is not a sure guide
to ontological commitment. He shows that we refer to entities that do not
exist and that we do this in a meaningful way. If this is the case, linguistic
reference, from which Quine's theory is derived, cannot guide us to fmd to
which entities we are committed. The use of variables that refer does not
tell us what exists, unless we know already from beforehand what can exist
in our theory. The ontological criterion holds for true statements, the bound
variables of which cannot but refer. But if we know beforehand what exists,
why do we need a criterion to know what we are committed to? The same
argument of circularity reappears in the criticisms time and again.
Moreover, following Severens, the criterion is insufficient to identify the
kinds of entities we are committed to.1O Quine himself has proposed an
alternative; he suggests namely to relativize the copula. (This is an old trick
used already by Aristotle). In that case to be has different other meanings
than to exist, such as "being an element of', "being an instance of', etc ..
These interpretations of the copula determine whether we are committed to
classes (in the case the copula means "being a member of') or to predicates
(in that case the copula is to be understood as "is an instance of'). In this
way we need only a single style of variable ranging over any kind of entity
whatsoever. Thus the variables are no longer the sole channel of commit-
ment, but the predicates can playa more important role, (when "is" is
understood e.g. as "is an instance of'). But we remain stuck with a vicious
circle even if we shift the burden of clarifying ontological commitment to
the copula and the predicates. "For selecting which predicates or which
copulas to use in the first place would suggest that we already have
knowledge of the ontological commitments of some theoryi and are at-
tempting to frame a criterion to square with that knowledge". 1
One further difficulty is that the values we are committed to following
the epistemological theory of Quine are very broad kinds of things, like
physical objects, e.g., not at all like "broken ashtrays" and "rotten turnips".
When the bound variable is appended to an adjectival predicate such as
"green" or "runs", asking "a green what?" or "who is running", we cannot
say more than "a physical object", we do not know whether we are
committed to martians as opposed to avocados, to sprinters as opposed to
cheetah's. This comes to a similar objection as I made previously; physical
science is about physical objects, biology is about living creatures, but
though the physicist will be relieved to be committed to physical objects
and not to the a,1tetpOV and the biologist to living creatures and not to
32 CHAPTER 3
fictions like unicorns, they will have to introduce in addition a far more
detailed universe, containing individuals in their individuality. Does it
make sense to do so in the first place and to control afterwards whether it
is done properly by using the ontological criterion? Is this not a waist of
time? Contemporary logic (and the mathematical problems it is derived
from) is a philosophical matter in the first place. Whether it can be a useful
tool for the sciences depends partly on the intentions of the logicians who
made it. These want in the first place to have, philosophically, a good
conscience and even to be thereby the good conscience of science. I do not
daresay that scientists need no conscience at all, but I think they will go on
telling us what there is according to their empirical findings and to neglect
philosophical ontologies even if they are born of the philosophical intuitions
of nominalists and empiricists and even more so if they have their origin in
common sense. At the same time the question is open as to how broad a
category can be (with as an extreme place-times) in order that it be possible
to add enough predicates, to remain at least interesting and to make
individuation possible.
P.F. Strawson, in a famous article "On Referrlng,,22, analyses in his turn
the semantic theory underlying the theory of quantification and of incom-
plete descriptions and underlines the understatement of the importance of
the individual. The main theme is again the ontological troubles related with
the singular existence statements, as exposed by W.V.O. Quine in "Desig-
nation and Existence" and the solution that is proposed, namely the chan-
nelling of ontological commitments through bound variables.
We explained how Quine's ontological criterion is related to Russell's
theory that the meaning of expressions is identical with what these expres-
sions name: if fx is a meaningful expression, this implies Ex (fx) and hence
to be is to be the value of a variable. P.F. Strawson's criticism of Russell's
theory does also apply to this ontological criterion. Logicians in his opinion,
blur important distinctions, when discussing the meaning of expressions
and sentences. The meaning of expressions and of sentences depends on
their use, there is no meaning in se. This use, however, is double: on the
one hand it is determined by conventions, general rules, on the other hand
it is determined by the use an individual makes of them in a certain situation.
Expressions and sentences have meaning, if, when asked, a native speaker
can indicate these rules, i.e. general directions. In se they have no reference;
expressions used in sentences, and also sentences, have reference if actually
used by a speaker to refer to something. Another distinction that must be
made is between what a sentence implies and what it asserts. What it implies
is not to be understood as what it logically entails, but what it suggests, what

it induces the listener to suppose. An example given by Strawson is "my
children are asleep"; if I pronounce this sentence I am not asserting I have
children, but I suggest it. The same holds for the sentence "the king of
France is wise", it suggests but does not assert that there is a king of France
in our time. The listener can suppose that the speaker mistakingly believes
there is a king of France, or that he is going to tell a fairy tale about a king
of France or that he tries to induce the listener in error. Moreover the same
sentence "there are books ons this shelf' uttered in different contexts can
refer to different sets of books, just like "I", or "this" or "here" have a
different reference pronounced by different persons in different situa-
tions?3 There never is a unique reference, as logicians demand, not even
of proper names, like Peter Smith; they refer to a unique person if used in
a definite context. The misconceptions of logicians about meaning and
reference are due to the fact they are preoccupied with definitions and with
formal systems. Definitions are specifications of the correct ascriptive use
of an expression and do not take into account contextual requirements. The
construction of calculi on the other hand, leads to the assumption that
conventions that are valid on an abstract level in logical systems are valid
too, when statements of fact are made.24 This explains their obsession with
logical proper names, which have a unique reference and with extensions.
The position ofP.F. Strawson is very close to the medieval tradition in
that it reveals the distinction between general directions for the use of a sign
(significatio) and the use of a sign as a term of a sentence (suppositio).
Linguistic signs were indeed considered to have different kinds of significa-
tion, but in se they did not "supposit" or "stand for" something, as long as
they were not used in a (predicative) sentence. What is new in the contem-
porary theory is, that it is clearly realized that reference is contextual in a
double sense: it depends on the text that surrounds it, but also on the person
who utters the sentence, on his situation, his intention, etc..
This leads P.F. Strawson to an interesting classification of expressions
into groups with predominantly ascriptive or classificatory use and with
predominantly referring use, and to distinctions of degrees to which the
expressions of these different groups possess their characteristics?5
Strawson's article "On Referring" was published in 1950, and of course
logic has changed and grown in the meanwhile. Another conception of what
science is has incited logicians to invent new kinds of logics. Science is no
longer considered an endeavour to describe the world or parts of it correctly,
but to solve problems. It is seen as a process related to sets of presupposi-
34 CHAPTER 3
tions, hypotheses, interpretations, beliefs, ontologies. That these elements

are multiple and variable is recognized and this poses problems of consis-
tency. This has led to the development of new l~ics, such as paraconsistent
logics and even to dynamic dialectical logics. Perhaps these new logics
that take into account contexts and even contexts that change, can contribute
to fill the gap between the rigid and ascetic epistemological conceptions of
"classical" logicians and the concrete scientific practice. They cannot,
however bridge the gap between logical language and ordinary language.
The latter remains the primal language of scientific research, more formal
renderings with a well-defined logic come afterwards.
4. THINGS ARE SUMS OF QUALITIES
Both W. V.O. Quine and N. Goodman have given creditto the ancient belief
that things can be fully characterized by qualities. (For W.V.O. Quine
concrete things have a privileged ontological status, this is not the case for
N. Goodman). They presumably inherited this idea from Russell, who
thoubht that the existence of a thing can be affirmed through its proper-
ties. If a definite set of properties has one instance, the individual thus
characterized exists. Existence is a property of properties not of things. In
Russsell's philosophy this is linked with the idea that perception of things
(the particular) is not basic; on the contrary, it is the perception of qualities
(the general) that is primal as these qualities constitute the individual. (The
perceptions of those qualities are not repeatable, but they can be similar).
A table is different for each perceiver and even for one and the same
perceiver it is different from a moment to another moment, as light changes,
as we move our eyes slightly, etc .. We have to correlate all these different
perceptions of one person and even the perceptions of different persons, in
order to deduce physical objects from sensibilia. This presupposes of course
that qualities exist independently, what nominalists deny. (It would be a
vicious circle to construct things out of qualities, if the existence of qualities
was dependent on that of things). Russell searches for the ultimate elements
of our experience, which cannot be verbally defmed, but only pointed out.
To this kind of experience correspond just those qualities, red, blue, square,
etc .. The question whether what is experienced is simple or complex is
irrelevant in Russell's opinion, but it is not irrelevant that we never
experience the pin-point particular behind our experiences. The subject in
psychology, and the particle of matter in physics, if they are to be intel-
ligible, must both be regarded either as bundles of qualities and relations

or as related to such bundles by experience. 28 Of course such a bundle
theory leads to well-known and broadly discussed difficulties of individua-
tion. Individuals characterized by qualities that are repeatable and general,
cannot be identified in an absolute way. There could always be other
individuals sharing all those qualities. The only solution is to individuate
them by relating them to specifications of place and time. This leads to other
difficulties, which can only be cleared away by relating place and time in
their tum to a subject, a perceiver.29 Quine and Goodman, going still further
in this tentative undertaking of construing the particular from the general,
encounter different but not less important and interesting difficulties. 30 In
any case it is clear from the foregoing that this is a deviation from the
Aristotelean idea that substances are ontologically primal and that qualities
are secondary, which has led Ockham to the belief that the latter are
conceptual constructs and that they become secondary substances only
when instantiated individually in first substances. From the three principles
of Russell, "truth depends on some kind of relation to fact", "the syntax of
sentences must have some relation to the structure of fact", "what is said
about a complex can be said without mentioning it by setting forth its parts
and their mutual relations,,31, Ockham would certainly only have fully
credited the first one. If it is understood as "the truth of synthetic sentences
is related to facts", the second one would partly have a different meaning,
which will become clear when we go into more details where his logic is
concerned; the last one he would have totally rejected, because it destroys
completely the traditional concept of individual. Indeed, Russell says
explicitly that the world consists of things like whiteness, rather than of
objects having "the property white. 32 They, i.e. properties corresponding to
universals, are the true substances of the world. The world consists of
wholes and their parts. Whether we can ever reach simple parts is a
superfluous question, as long as we can describe all parts and wholes as
composed of qualities. Qualities differ from things by not having spatio-
temporal continuity. In that sense they can be scattered and one at the same
time. Particulars are replaced by complexes "whose members are all
compresent with each other, but not all compresent with anything outside
the complex,,33, a device used also by Quine and Goodman.
Certainly, the idea that in describing the world we should admit as few
kinds of things as possible has played a role. Russell wanted a minimal
ontology that was in accordance with his philosophical beliefs and these
have evolved a lot in the first place and were never really clear-cut in the
36 CHAPlER3
second place. On the one hand the furniture of the world consists of
particular things, on the other hand he constructs those particular things as
sums of qualities. We shall fmd the same ambiguity in the work of Quine
and in that of Goodman, but with this difference, that they do not accept
the consequences of applying the logic of Principia Mathematica and of
translating qualities into classes. 34 They replace the logic of classes by a
logic of wholes and parts. Particulars thus become wholes that can be
analysed into sums of parts and those parts into qualities.
In an appendix to "Of Mind and Other Matters", N. Goodman reflecting
on his early work, stresses the importance of the newly discovered formal
logic on the positivistic philosophy. The new nominalism, as we have seen,
springs from the combination of both, which is not always harmonious. It
was soon considered by a clairvoyant mathematical philosopher, namely
E.W. Beth, as a spontaneous reaction to the Platonic elements in the
philosophies of Frege and Cantor and to the discovery of the paradoxes in
the calculus of classes, paradoxes that made the concept of class suspect.
It had very little affinity with ancient or modem nominalism.35
This was not the opinion of Quine and Goodman, nor of most contem-
porary logicians. They took "the renouncement of variables that call for
abstract objects as values", as explained in two articles of Quine, "Notes on
Existence and Necessity" and "Designation and Existence", very seriously
for nominalism. The basic elements of their nominalistic system can be
physical objects or events, or units of sense experience. The units of sense
experience can be repeatable sensory qualities, which are abstract in kind,
as well as sensory events. 36 The ambiguity of this nominalism is obvious
here, abstract entities are dismissed, but if necessary reintroduced as basic
elements for the construction of individuals. Philosophical intuition is
called upon as an ultimate justification, but purely logical considerations
play an equal part or prevail. Moreover the system must not necessarily,
and certainly not for N. Goodman, mirror the genealogy of knowledge.
5. EVOLUTION TOWARD CONVENTIONALISM
A nominalistic ontology, derived from logical and epistemological con-

siderations, is chosen in function of its possibilities for a logically valid
description of the world, in accordance with the principles of empiricism
and the philosophical intuition of its authors. Whether the world consists
of particulars and the general is a construction of the mind depends on
whether it is possible to describe the world in terms of particulars. Whether

the world consists ultimately of qualities depends on the possibility of
describing the world in terms of universals without making use of in-
dividuals. Scientists are not asked "what is there according to your fmd-
ings?" or "what could there possibly be?". Quine and Goodman determine
what there is, by probing what can be described as individuals (in the special
logical sense of the word, namely: what cannot generate an infinity of
entities). Scientific statements, in order to be logically and ontologically
valid, are to be translatable into the canonic logical language. Soon there
will be no longer a world, namely the world we all live in, but worlds, as
many as are in accordance with nominalistic logic. "Empirical" will be no
longer that what corresponds to our direct experience; we are denied direct
experience, all experience being moulded by concepts. A system is empiri-
cal if it enables us to build worlds that contain only individuals that do not
- if the right logic is applied - generate an infmity of elements. Empiricism
is thus reduced to the having of an ontology with a controllable number of
elements.
Studying the work of both philosophers, one can witness the develop-
ment of the conventionalistic tenet. ill the Fifties W.V.O. Quine acknow-
ledged the influence of the French conventionalist, P. Duhem, who denied
the possibility of deciding between theories explaining the same empirical
facts using truth as a criterion and who minimalized the role of experience
and observation as compared to hypothesis and theory.37 ill "Reification of
Universals,,38 Quine termed the extreme demands of the nominalistic
logician "quixotic" and found some excuses for the tired nominalist, who
lapses into conceptualism and still allays his puritanical conscience with
"the reflection that he has not quite taken to eating lotus with the
platonists,,?9 ill the Sixties, he showed in Word and Object40 that linguistic
meaning cannot be derived from empirical elements alone, and in The Ways
of Paradox41 we find in different of the collected articles a conception of
science that has totally lost the optimistic flavour of early neopositivism,
with its hope to build a hierarchy of sciences, ultimately based on a broad
layer of observations and experiences. The relativization of nominalism and
empiricism is almost complete in The Roots of Reference. Relative em-
piricism is governed by the maxim "Don't venture farther from sensory
evidence than you need to" .42 Quine concludes regretfully: "We abandoned
radical empiricism when we abandoned the old hope of translating cor-
poreal talk into sensory talk; but the relative variety still recommends
itself' .43 This relative empiricism is identified by Quine with nominalism;
38 CHAPTER 3
wherever nominalists can, they must analyse things into sensory ex-
perience. Alas, sometimes they are obliged to quantify over physical bodies
and even to commit themselves to abstract entities such as numbers and
their pairs, triples and quadruples and even the classes of such entities, but
they keep trying to eliminate these cases if possible. Substitutional quantifi-
cation, in accordance with extensionalism, must be safeguarded to the
utmost, though not at any price.
Nelson Goodman seems to have been from the beginning more willing
to relativize his empiricism and less to relativize his nominalism. Em-
piricism and nominalism are not associated, on the contrary, they divorce.
Therefore, the latter can be combined with different sorts of ontologies,
even with ontologies comprising abstract entities that are repeatable, name-
ly qualia and this as long as the rules of extensionalism are respected and
those abstract entities behave as "individuals" in the new logical sense. This
early relativism, where empiricism is concerned, expressed in The Structure
of Appearance (1951)44, has led him to a pronounced conventionalism. It
is significative that in Fact, Fiction and Forecasl s he tackled one of the
weak spots of empiricism, namely induction. He reminded us of the fact
that Hume's theory about the connections of matters of fact never was
refuted. The solution he gave to the "riddle of induction" as he called it,
was pragmatic. Instead of trying to resolve the philosophical problem, he
proposed to content ourselves with the establishment of the correspondence
of a particular case of induction (or more in general of projection) with the
usually accepted rules of induction, which in their tum are based on the use
of well-entrenched predicates. He recommended to make sure that the new
hypothesis we propose is not "accidental", or that when we generalize from
the particular cases, we use well-entrenched predicates and not unfamiliar
ones. But Nelson Goodman of course could see the limitations of this way
of treating the troublesome problem. It is a pragmatic solution, as said, and
it boils down to the certification that a theory works if it works, but we can
give no further reasons for this fact. The only thing that can be done is to
study the confonnity of a prediction with vast regularities, which have been
observed, confonnity, which is cast in our linguistic practices.46
This leads us back to the conventionalism that is related with this
relativization of empirical knowledge. It does not come as a total sutprise
that roughly twenty years later, in Languages of Art47 N. Goodman
abolished the clear-cut distinction between art and science and considered
both as ways to see the world, rather than as a truthful rendering of what
there is. The next step was that from worldview to worldmaking: every
description of the world is a way of making a world. 48 This leads us to his

latest work, OfMind and Other Matters49 where the world tends to vanish
altogether; he is now a cognitivist and we must wonder whether if we did
not make worlds there would be one. Of course, this is an exaggeration, but
in any case we cannot know the world or even the most familiar parts of it,
but only a version of it. Which version we make depends on our habitual
conventions, our culture. In fact our perceptions are only an occasion to
"worldmaking". And as it comes to choose between different worlds we
cannot decide in terms of true or false, only in terms of right or wrong for
the aim that is considered. This idea goes back as far as Structure of
Appearance where he conceived of scientific theories as mapping the
world. There are no true or false maps, only maps we can use to find our
way, while others lead us astray.
Nominalism has often been associated with conventionalism. This can
be explained in the following way: nominalists generally believe that
meaning partly consists of the use of conventional terms or strings of terms
according to conventional rules. Seen in its context, this is a quite harmless
common sense view, but cut from its roots, the complex epistemology of
traditional nominalism, it can be interpreted as the seed of scepticism,
relativism, conventionalism. This elaborate epistemology, has been the
base of empiricism, not of conventionalism, which from a historical point
of view is a reaction to positivism in the nineteenth as well as in the
twentieth century. This subject will be fully treated in the last chapter of
this book.
CHAPTER 4
LOGICAL SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGY
In The Logical Structure of the World, Carnap explained that his aim was
to build an epistemic-Iogical system of objects or concepts. This undertak-
ing was meant as a counterpart of the deduction of statements from axioms,
which had received in the past far more attention than the methodology of
the systematic construction of concepts. His aim was "to advance to an
intersubjective, objective world, which can be conceptually comprehended
and which is identical for all observers".l He wanted to prove something
about human knowledge and more in particular about science and its
method. If it is true that the objects of science in its various subdivisions
can after investigation be reduced to the objects of the constructivistic
system that contains as basic concepts "Erlebs", to which all other objects
can be reduced, he has proven that science is basically one and corresponds
to the principles of empiricism.
The new generation of constructivists, on the other hand, built an
alternative system. Scientific statements had to be likewise in principle
translatable into the formulae of the system. (We have suggested though
that "in principle" is not enough and that the proof would have been in the
eating of the pudding). If such a translation was possible, this did not in the
first place prove something about the methodology of science - we know
their system was not meant to mirror the genealogy of knowledge - but it
proved first and foremost something about ontology. It was meant in the
case of a nominalistic system, as they conceived it, do demonstrate that
scientific knowledge that is translatable into the system is consistent with
the philosophical intuition that the world consists of finitely many elements
that are individual in a logical sense. Or, in other words, we do not need
infinitely many (abstract) objects in order to understand the world, we can
dispense with abstract objects altogether.
The bulk of science was and is not formalized. It consists of statements
in ordinary language. The relation of ordinary language to logic and vice
versa never was very clear. Aristotle's logic was a reply to the arrogance
of the sophists. He wanted to analyse the structure of knowledge, to find
the rules that lead to knowledge, i.e. true statements, deduced from other
LOGICAL SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGY 41
statements by correct reasoning. The statements were formulated in ordi-

nary language and the undertaking of Aristotle was only possible if he had
a perfect comprehension of the possible meanings of those statements. In
a sense logic had to be an empirical science; after all, Aristotle did not invent
thought, nor did he invent language. He had to study the way men think,
know, induce and deduce from previous knowledge and the many ways
they express themselves. Rules existed implicitly, had not to be invented
but only to be laid bare, unless one conceives of genuine thought,
knowledge, truth as inexistent till Aristotle reflected on them. His task as a
logician consisted in addition to analysis and classification, of sorting out
true statements and true inferences and deductions from false ones and to
provide norms. He had to make the leap from is to ought.
This early logic had many shortcomings, it was formal but not formalis-
tic, made not clear all relevant distinctions between different statements,
etc .. Modern logic overcame those shortcomings, but at the same time
detached itself more and more from its empirical basis, namely thought as
expressed in everyday language and its implicit rules, the so called natural
logic.
The relationship of formal logic and its semantics, is as a result of the
foregoing process, ambiguous. On the one hand formal logic that has no
applications is of limited interest, on the other hand if it can be applied it
must be ultimately translatable into ordinary language. Formal logic that
can be thus translated, shares its semantics with ordinary language. But the
formulae of formal logic are only a very small counterpart of a very small
number of statements in ordinary language, compared to the totality of
expressions and statements, which are not an isolated group of expressions;
one cannot study their meaning without taking into account the overall
semantics of ordinary language. Moreover, as we have seen the logic and
semantics of daily language are complex and only partly determined by
general rules. Partly they are determined by the context and partly by the
speaker, the listener and their situation. Today, this small part of sentences
that is worthy of the attention of the logician has been enlarged to a more
considerable number of expressions, but the relation, so it seems, is still
asymmetrical. Probably these are the reasons why the narrow semantics of
formal logic is full of problems that are of ontological order.
No logic can prescribe our ways of thinking, they are an empirical fact.
The nominalistic logic may have many advantages, its ontology may be
precise and economic, but unless it is possible to translate it ultimately into
42 CHAPTER 4
ordinary language, the question remains whether scientific research and

reasoning can be fully fonnulated in it.
1. GENERAL OUTLINE OF SOME BASIC PROBLEMS OF

LOGICAL SEMANTICS
In "On Sense and Reference" Frege exposed his ideas on logical semantics.
The core of his conception, which became known as the "theory of the name
relation", consists of the thesis that the meaning of names is not simple but
consists of their reference on the one hand, their sense on the other hand.
The names that are considered have a meaning, but they must not
necessarily have a reference. The sense of a name was considered by Frege
to be objective; all who are familiar with the language to which the name
belongs are supposed to know this "sense". It is not to be identified with
subjective connotations.
Frege's concern were logical proper names and statements that contain
them. He did not explain why in "On Sense and Reference" he limited
himself to proper names, but simply declared: "It is clear from the context
that by "sign" and "name" I have understood any designation representing
a proper name, which thus has as its reference a definite object (this word
taken in the widest range), but not a concept or a relation, which shall be
discussed in another article".2 (The Article referred to is "On Concept and
Object")? The fact he treated separately of general tenns and particular
tenns did not remain without consequences. We must keep well in mind
that he expressly specified that the proper names he considered do not refer
·
to concepts or reI atlOns. 4
The sentences Frege rated as interesting for the logician are declarative
sentences, statements that have a truth value. They are to be put on a par
with logical proper names and their reference is the True or the False. In
daily life, in literature, sentences can be of interest that do not have truth
value. This is the case if they contain proper names that do not refer. Indeed,
among the examples Frege gave of those proper names are "the number
four", "Alexander the Great", "Bucephalus" and "the Planet Venus", but
also "Odysseus" and "Pegasus". Sentences containing names of the latter
kind are neither true nor false. In science such sentences should be shunned:
"A logically perfect language should satisfy the conditions, that every
expression, grammatically well constructed as a proper name out of signs
already introduced, shall in fact designate an object, and that no new sign
shall be introduced as a proper name without being secured a reference".5

In his opinion it was the striving for truth that drives us always from the
sense to the reference.
The distinction between science (logic) and ordinary discourse or litera-
ture was seemingly clear enough and Frege probably did not suspect it
would be contested one day. He felt also quite sure about the right of the
logician to draw, per contra, conclusions for logic from linguistic distinc-
tions. The reason he gave is that no logician can avoid this, because he
cannot but use ordinary language in order to make clear those conclusions
and this proves neither he nor his opponents can do without a fundamental
trust in our understanding of semantics and grammar of ordinary language.6
As Quine has shown, contesting the foundation of the distinction between
analytic and synthetic, this remains a weak spot in logic, which purports to
be true in all possible worlds and yet partly depends on linguistic and thus
empirical facts.
In the previous chapter we mentioned that Russell believed only proper
names have an ontological import or in other words that the use of proper
names in subject-predicate sentences implies existential presuppositions.
This is in accordance with Frege' s theory in as far as we consider scientific
discourse where each propername is assured an object of reference. Russell,
however, went one step further. Leaving out the strict distinction between
scientific language and language in daily life, he considered proper names
having no reference and showed that their use in a predicative sentence,
implied logically an object of reference nevertheless. Not limiting the field
oflogic to scientific statements, Russell needed a tool to avoid undesirable
ontological implications and this led to his theory of descriptions.
As said, this theory cannot be brought into accordance with Frege's
views. Quine has build further on this theory and therefore his way parts
from that of Frege too. In the theory of descriptions the troublesome logical
proper names are simply eliminated in favour of a set of concepts. Pegasus
becomes something, that is a horse, has wings, etc ... That something, an
indefinite thing, not one and only one thing, but this or that or still another
thing, can replace a logical proper name correctly, logical proper name
that designates a definite, unique thing, which is numerically one, cannot
but be in contradiction with Frege's conceptions. For the latter like for
nominalists and empiricists of the past, abstraction was a necessary opera-
tion for the logician, but an operation that constituted an unavoidable "lye,,7;
abstract thought and its concepts never do justice to reality. In his commen-
tary on Husserl' s phenomenological "reduction of the object", the example
44 CHAPTER 4
is given of two cats, a white cat and a black cat, sitting side by side before
us. If we do not pay attention to their colour, they become colourless; if we
do not pay attention to their posture, they are no longer sitting, though they
still are in the same place; if we do not pay attention to their place, they
have no place, but still they are different. We attain the general concept Cat,
a bloodless phantom. "Finally we thus obtain from each object something
wholly deprived of content; but the something obtained from one object is
different from the something obtained from another object though it is not
,,8
easy t0 say how....
In his "On Concept and Object" Frege warned us: to be a concept and to
be an object exclude each other mutually.9 Concepts are predicative, names
for objects on the other hand cannot be used as predicates. Frege showed
that, if there are exceptions at first sight, they can be shown to be only
seemingly in contradiction with this principle: a concept is the meaning of
a predicate, an object never is the complete meaning of a predicate, only
the meaning of a subject. 10
Frege believed that the exceptions are due to ambiguity in the use of
some linguistic terms, but that, if we are aware of this, we can avoid
mistakes, by taking the ambiguity into account. ll Some words can stand in
a phrase indifferently for a concept or for an object. Paris can in one
sentence designate the town of that name, in another sentence a concept.
The use of quotation marks for concepts can exclude misunderstanding.
Another way to prevent mistakes is the careful distinction between the
use of "to be" as a copula and as a sign for identity. Things can fall under
concepts, concepts can fall under a higher concept, but things nor concepts
can fall under the name for a unique thing, the relation being asymmetrical.
A thing cannot be identical with a concept, a concept cannot be replaced
by the name of a thing. 12 We can express the identity of a thing with itself
by incorporating one of the names of the thing in the predicate as in "Venus
is the Morning Star", where Morning Star is part of the predicate, which in
full is: "is nothing but the Morning Star". When we use general terms in a
sentence, they refer to concepts and have no ontological import.
Quine, in his early period, also came to consider logical proper names
as an isolated category of terms, which is the only channel of existential
entry . Yet to him, like to Russell, the decision whether we are really
committed to the entity that is named seemed to depend on the whims of
the user of the language. Existential presuppositions could be taken serious-
ly or not seriously' in function of personal belief, intuition, philosophical
point of view etc .. 13 Quine rated this a logical disaster.
His remedy, which must lead to the clarification of existential presup-

positions, led to the blurring of the distinction between particular and
general terms. In order to remove logical proper names from their isolation,
a link with general names had to be found, a relationship between singular
existence statements and the rest of discourse. 14 This relationship is shown
by the famous transition fromf(a) to Ex (ftc). The importance of this step
cannot be overrated.
The singular existence statement f(a) does have, said Quine, an effect
on general existence statements (fx) and a word designates if existential
generalization is valid from inference. This gave him a criterion for
determining whether a proper name designates or not: if it does not,
existential generalization turns true statements containing the proper name
into falsehoods. He gave as an example: if we assume that Pegasus does
not exist we can validly affirm that nothing is identical with Pegasus but
not generalize. Ex (nothing is identical with x) is false as x is always x. (Of
course this relates ontology as he put it, to "given patterns of linguistic
behaviour", ontology thus becomes relative).
It is noteworthy that Quine no longer used the expression "logical proper
name" or "proper name", but "name" in the sense of an expression desig-
nating something. Names thus became interchangeable with variables,
"Paris" became interchangeable with "there is something, that...". The
reverse operation is specification; a variable can be replaced by a proper
name and the universal prefix is dropped; (x) f x leads to fa. Names are
from this point of view "constant expressions which replace variables
according to the usual logical laws of quantification". 1 The value of
variables are kinds of entities, e.g. "town"; "Paris" is a substituent for a
variable.
Proper names and general names are no longer irreducible. The distinc-
tion between to be in "Paris is la ville lumiere" and in "Paris is a city" is
lost. Quine did not conceive of "something" as a concept, but as an indefinite
object. The existence of an indefinite object is precisely what was rejected
by Frege. Definite objects, can be reduced in the new theory to indefinite
objects, that fall under certain concepts.
Frege is said to be an idealist, because he believes that numbers are
objects of Reason. However, what makes him akin to nominalists, is that
he did not believe concepts name anything, but apply to things, and by
concepts he meant words that can be predicates. Logical proper names do
refer to objects, and these, in his opinion, could be abstract or concrete.
Functions in mathematics, predicates in languages do not refer to anything.
46 CHAPTER 4
In his Foundations ofArithmetic he was very clear about this. When we say
"all whales are mammals" we seem to be talking of animals, but asked about
which animal in particular, we cannot answer the question. Frege added:
"if it be replied that what we are speaking of is not indeed an individual,
defmite object, I suspect that "indefinite object" is onl;: another term for
concept, and a poorer, more contradictory one at that". 1 It may be true that
the proposition "all whales are mammals" can only be verified by observing
particular animals, but in order to understand it we need not know whether
it is true or not. If a concept is objective, an assertion about a concept can
contain for its part something factual though.I7 The notion of objective
concept is fundamental, though it has a place neither in the philosophy of
Quine nor in that of Goodman because they have adopted behaviouristic
principles. The discussion of the status of concepts can be found in chapter
8, the discussion of the objectivity of concepts can be found chapter 9. Here
we can see very sharply the difference between the name relation theory,
which is intensionalistic and QUine's extensionalism. For Frege the mean-
ing of a general name did not coincide with its extension, for Quine it does.
We could say that for Frege to be was to be named and to be named
individually, whereas for Quine, as we know, to be is to be the value of a
variable, that is to say a kind of thing.
Camap took part in the debate and chose for intensionalism, which, in
his opinion, was not in contradiction with empiristic principles. This seems
not surprising to me, because he laid much weight on the epistemological
primacy of the particular, which is the sole acceptable base for his system,
whereas the general is well distinguished from it, as what is not directly
given, but derived. Extensionalism, the way it is conceived by W.V.O.
Quine and - as we shall see - by N. Goodman, treats general concepts not
as derived, but as identical with sums of individuals. Intensionalism on the
other hand makes possible the reduction of the general to the conceptual,
to an activity of the mind. This in its tum makes a strict distinction between
the mental (general) and the real (individual) possible, which is the counter-
part of the distinction between proper names and general names.
2. THE THEORY OF SIGNIFICATION AND SUPPOSITION OF

OCKHAM
Leaving the contemporary debate between intensionalists and exten-

sionalists aside for the moment, let us turn to Ockham's conception of
signification and supposition.
Ockham not only preconized the principle of the epistemological
primacy of the individual, but also the principle of the discrepancy between
being and thinking and as thought is expressed in language, the discrepancy
between concepts and the signs associated with them on the one hand and
individual things on the other.
As we can read in the Summa Logicae, terms can be of three kinds:
spoken, written or conceptual, the latter - as Ockham added expressly -
existing only in the mind. 18 It was clear to him that the use of language
presupposes concepts; to verba oris correspond verba mentis. Words are
subordinated to concepts, "impressions or intentions of the soul" 19, which
are conventional signs imposed to signify what is already known naturally
in the soul as a concept. If the conceJ>t changes, the meaning of the word
changes without altering its form? "Hence whatever a word signifies
directly and primaril1i it will always signify a concept secondarily", as
Gordon Leff puts it. It must be remembered however, that Ockham
believed that concepts are prior to words, but are in their turn derived from
intuitive, that is to say direct knowledge, of the individual. Conventional
terms can change meaning at will, natural terms or verba mentis cannot.
Moreover, signs cannot provide knowledge of what they signify without
previous knowledge of what is present in the mind as a habit. The sequence
must be intuitive knowledge of individual things, abstractive knowledge
(concepts), signs. Natural signs, "words of the mind", cannot serve as
invariable intermediaries between conventional terms and the things sig-
nified, because they cannot give direct know ledge of the things they signify,
they depend on previous intuitive knowledge, stored in our brains.
Moreover there is not for every conventional word a natural word in the
mind. There is no reason to postulate irrelevant elements among mental
terms and therefore those features of spoken or written language that do not
add to the significative power of language have no natural terms as
counterpart?2
For our purpose it will be sufficient to explain how Ockham solved the
semantical problems that we have investigated in the first section of this
48 CHAPTER 4
chapter, save where his solution cannot be understood without reference to

other parts of his theory.
As we have insisted upon, the meaning of spoken or written words
consists in their being linked by convention with concepts, or intentions,
which are derived from previous knowledge. This derivation is not conven-
tional but "natural". Mental terms signify those things that are known
intuitively and therefore the conventional terms associated with them can
also signify those things. The theory of signification analyses the different
ways words signify, it establishes how and to what words can refer,
according to their meaning. Terms in a proposition can refer to things other
than themselves and therefore the theory of signification overlaps partly the
theory of supposition. The theory of supposition namely, establishes how
a term, the subject or predicate of a subject predicate sentence, "takes the
place of or supposits for very different things, without changing its conven-
tional meaning,,?3 The foregoing could suggest to the reader that significa-
tion in the medieval sense, was synonymous with reference. Though this
approach is tempting, M.J. Loux in an introductory article to his translation
of the Summa Logicae, warns us against it in the following way: "The fact
that signification involves a word-thing relationship suggests that the
medieval notion of signification corresponds to the contemporary notion of
reference; but in fact, the two concepts are quite different. The contem-
porary view tends to be that terms refer (or are used to refer) to objects only
within the context of a proposition. The medievals, however, held that the
signification of a term is a property which it exhibits quite independently
of its role in any particular proposition; and they claimed that, at least in
the case of univocal terms, the significatum of a categorematic expression
is invariant over the various referential uses to which the term is put,,?4
How should we understands this? MJ. Loux assimilates signification more
ore less to the contemporary notion of meaning. In other words it is broader
than reference, reference being one of the aspects of meaning. Is then the
narrower theory of supposition to be understood as the medieval form of a
theory of reference? L. Baudry warns us this time for the difficulties of
defining suppositio. He gives a tentative explanation wherein it is said that
every term has a meaning, but keeping the same meaning, (significatio) it
can "take the place" of very different things in a proposition?5 Thus the
clear and distinct and invariable reference of terms in propositions, dreamt
of by philosophers, is neither to be found in the medieval theory of
signification, nor in that of supposition. The medieval conception is on the
contrary very similar to that of P.F. Strawson, we discussed in the previous

chapter.
Prege too had doubts whether terms had invariant reference in different
contexts: "The regular connexion between a sign, its sense and its reference
is of such a kind that to the sign there corresponds a defmite sense and to
that in turn a definite reference, while to a given reference (an object) there
does not belong only one single sign. To every expression belonging to a
complete totality of signs, there should certainly correspond a definite
sense, but natural languages often do not satisfy this condition, and one
must be content if the same word has the same sense in the same context" .26
(It is for this reason that in scientific discourse we should secure a definite
and invariable reference for all the (logical proper) names). Quine, on the
other hand, dismisses intensions on the logical level. He believes that we
can build valid logical semantics but singular terms should be converted
into "something" that shows certain characteristics. The context, the form
of the proposition, plays only a role in as far as it commits us to the existence
of the sign in question or not, as in the case of the quantification of a term
and that of free variables. But once this form given, there can be no
surprises, all that we are committed to in this way exists as the variables
chosen stand for acceptable kinds of things. Returning to Ockham, we find
a double approach, namely the theory of signification we mentioned earlier,
and the theory of supposition, the first being of the meaning of words in
general and whether they can refer and to what, the second being of what
the terms actually stand for in propositions. In a way, the theory of
supposition is an application of the theory of signification to the combina-
tion of signs in sentences. Once we know what terms stand for in a
proposition we can establish the truth of propositions; a proposition is
namely true when subject and predicate stand for the same thing.
Let us consider first some broad distinctions between words. Words are
in the first place verbal or mental. Verbal words (linguistic signs) can be
divided into categoremata and syncategoremata. Categoremata, whatever
is their primal signification, always signify at least secondarily their
counterpart or verbum mentis. (Two most syncategoremata, as said, cor-
respond no intentions). Linguistic signs can furthermore be offirst imposi-
tion or of second imposition. In the latter case they are conventional names
of words, like "verb", "noun", "adjective", etc .. In the first case they are
conventional names of natural signs, of first and second intention. Natural
signs can namely be signs of real things of whatever kind and then we speak
50 CHAPTER 4
ofJirst intentions or they can be signs of signs and then we speak of second
intentions.
There are still other distinctions to be made, as we shall see. For the
moment we must make two remarks. The first one is that from the foregoing
we can infer that Ockham considered direct knowledge of reality and its
translation into concepts, which are abstracted from it and the natural signs
of reality, to be primal and basic. Linguistic signs are secondary to them
and arbitrary. It was generally believed in the Middle Ages that thought is
prior to linguistic activity and that linguistic activity is but a shadowing of
our mental activity. Therefore speech never fully renders reality, like it is
apprehended by the senses and by thought. In the second place we want to
draw the attention to the fact that Ockham in his classification of terms did
not distinguish between general and particular names. It is only, when
considering the ways terms supposit that he mentioned explicitly the
difference between a term standing for many individuals or for one in-
dividual. The reason for this is that Ockham' s purpose was to demonstrate
in his semantical theory, that no signs whatsoever, and no matter how they
are used, imply the existence of anything that is not an individual and in his
opinion particular terms were no special troublemakers. His theory was
meant to apply to all kinds of verbal or mental signs, and proper names are
but one of those kinds. It is only in the context of a proposition that the
differentiation appears.
N ow that it is made clear that in contrast with contemporary logicians
from Frege on, general and particular names were not treated as separate
problems. They are not confused, we can examine what those names stand
Jor in propositions in Ockham's theory. Terms that have meaning, accord-
ing to Ockham, always stand for something they are not or they standJor
themselves as a word or as a concept. In the first case, they are said to be
used significatively, in the second case non-significatively.
Terms in propositions, subjects or predicates, can be used in three ways.
The first is suppositio personalis, where it signifies a real thing, a concept,
a word or whatsoever that is not the term itself or its conceptual counterpart.
This use is significative. It can be compared with the use of a term that in
principle can be quantified. An example is: "Every man is an animal",
wherein "man" stands for this man and that man and still another man ....
Other examples are: "man runs", "species is a universal".27 The second is
suppositio simplex, where the term supposits for the concept that it repre-
sents and thus in a way it stands for itself. It is called suppositio simplex
because many things are taken under one concept. This use is non-significa-
tive. An example is: "Man is a species", wherein "man" stands for the
concept "man". The third is suppositio materialis where the term stands for
the token it is. This use is also non-significative. An example is "Man is
composed of three letters". The same word man, which can refer, which
has signification, has been used as a term in three different kinds of
proposition and supposits all three time for something different, while only
in the first case truly referring.
At last we have come at the point of this intricate theory, where Ockham
marks off "particular" supposition from "general" supposition. He distin-
guishes namely, in the most important kind of supposition, the suppositio
personalis, between discrete and common terms. As his purpose is to
counter the current theories of his day that contend that between terms and
their reference there are abstract and general kinds of things such as
essences, species etc., that serve as intermediaries, he must show that next
to individual things, concepts (not conceived of as abstract things but as
acts of the mind) and concrete tokens, neither particular nor general terms
have existential import other than individual.
Discrete terms, a proper name, a demonstrative pronoun or a demonstra-
tive pronoun and a general term, being the subject of a proposition, supposit
for one specific individual. Furthermore, in his Summa Logicae, Ockham
distinguishes between three kinds of suppositio personalis, where common
terms are concerned. The first is determinate supposition; in that case
descent to particulars is possible by way of a disjunctive proposition. This
becomes clear from the following example: "a man runs". Indeed if this
proposition is true it follows that "this man or that man or still another man
runs". Conversely "a man runs" follows from each of the elements of the
disjunction. 28
The second kind is merely confused supposition. Here it is not possible
to descend to particulars by way of a disjunctive proposition. Let us consider
the proposition "every man is an animal": from this it does not follow that
either every man is this peculiar animal or every man is that peculiar animal
or every man is still another animal. Nevertheless animal is a disjunctive
predicate (" disjunctive" taken in the noninclusive sense) and therefore from
"every man is an animal" follows "every man is this animal or that animal
or still another animaL.". "Animal" has confused supposition and it can be
truly predicated that every man is an animal. The truth of the original
proposition follows from any particular comprised under "animal,,?9
The third kind is confused and distributive supposition. The term that is
under consideration supposits for many items and therefore it is possible to
52 CHAPTER 4
descend to these items by a conjunctive proposition, though it is impossible

to prove the truth of the original proposition from any of the elements of
the conjunction.3o Indeed, from "every man is an animal" follows that this
man and that man and that man ... (till we have enumerated them all) is an
animal. The truth of "every man is an animal" does not, however, follow
from one of the men that are enumerated being an animal, nor from some
of them being animals.
Philoteus Boehner has characterized the four divisions of personal
supposition in a clear way: "personal supposition can be subdivided in line
with the supposition of the terms of singular, particular and universal
propositions into 1) discrete, 2) determinate (subject and predicate in a
particular proposition), 3) common and confused only (the predicate in an
affirmative proposition) and 4) common confused and distributive (subject
in an affirmative universal proposition)".31
Further distinctions, such as loose or improper supposition, are made by
Ockham and he considers also tenses and modality, but there is no need to
treat of this now. We can conclude from the foregoing that the existential
import of terms used significatively, referring to something other than
themselves, whether general or particular, is only individual, never general.
This leaves us with the problem of the implications of names without
reference. Therefore we have to consider the difference between absolute
terms and connotative terms. Absolute terms signify substances and
qualities; they signify all they can be used to signify in the same way and
on the same level. They can be defined by real definition, which renders
the essential nature of the thing signified, without signifying something else
that does not belong to it. Connotative terms signify one thing primarily,
another thing secondarily and indirectly. They are defined by nominal
definition, namely by a set of words explaining their meaning. (There can
be only one real definition of a term, but more than one nominal defmition).
Connotative terms can be divided into two kinds. First there are those that
cannot be denied an indirect existential implication. Indeed, "white" or
"capable of creation" are, when connotative, used as conventional signs,
not signifying individual things or qualities, but signifying only indirectly
"something that is white", "something that is capable of creation". Frege
did not consider "something that..." to be a substitute for a defmite in-
dividual and Ockham shared this view. But, whereas this first kind of
connotative term signifies indirectly what has existence, connotative terms
of the second kind do not signify indirectly what has existence, but signify
on the contrary possibles and impossibles, negatives and relatives. Ex-
amples are "Chymera", that could be compared with "Pegasus", but also
"void", "infinity". We must note two things: connotative terms of this kind
have signification, are used to supposit in personal supposition and in
consequence for something they are not themselves, namely for other words
used in material supposition. Thus "Chymera" stands for "an animal"
composed of "goat" (or "lion") and "man", in other words for its nominal
definition. "Chymera" is a word defined by and, in personal supposition,
standing for a set of words. The defmition does not contain terms that refer
to a real thing Chymera, but neither do they refer directly to the concept
associated with them, the verbum mentis, because there is no direct
knowledge of "Chymera", "void", "non-being", "infinite" etc., the concept
could be derivedfrom. We learn Chymera as a word that can be replaced
by a set of words.
3. NELSON GOODMAN'S EXTENSIONALISTIC SOLUTION
Like W.V.O. Quine, N. Goodman rejects intensions, he has doubts about

the common acceptation of "likeness of meaning" and thus about analyticity
and an absolute distinction between synthetic and analytic sentences. Also
like Quine, he is a champion of exstensionalistic logic and extensionalistic
logical semantics; for him extensionalism is even a conditio sine qua non
for the construction of a nominalistic system.
The main reason for this is the mistrust he has in common with Quine,
where intensions are concerned. In "On Likeness of Meaning", where he
sketches the outlines of his conceptions in logical semantics, he recalls that
intensions have been identified with ontologically obscure entities, such as
mental entities, Platonic ideas, images, imaginations, representations, pos-
sibilities. 32 Generally it is believed that in contrast with intensions, exten-
sions are clear, they can be determined empirically, according to
behaviouristic criteria. We have suggested this is not the case, but we shall
further examine the problem. Before doing so we shall consider more in
particular N. Goodman's extensionalistic solution for the establishment of
the likeness or difference of meaning of terms that have a null extension.
The examples used are the classical "centaur" and "unicorn". If meaning is
reduced to extension, there is no difference between those two terms, yet
we know there is a difference. "A centaur is a man with horse-legs" cannot
be replaced in a sentence by "A unicorn is a man with horse-legs" without
change in the truth value of the sentence. Neither has "A centaur is a
54 CHAPTER 4
mythical personage, said to be a man with horse-legs" the same truth value
as "A unicorn is a mythical personage said to be a man with horse-legs".
Instead of concluding sameness of meaning cannot be established exten-
sionally and this method is not satisfactory, Nelson Goodman proposes to
introduce two kinds of extensions: the ordinary ones, which we call primary
extensions and a new brand of extensions, the secondary ones. The latter
are extensions of expressions that contain the tenns under examination, in
our case "unicorn" and "centaur". We can indeed fonn compound expres-
sions "foot of a unicorn" and "foot of a centaur", but this not being very
useful for distinguishing the meaning of both tenns, as these secondary
extensions also are zero, N. Goodman cunningly shifts to other expressions,
such as "picture of a centaur", "picture of a unicorn" or to expressions even
less contaminated with mentalistic connotations, "centaur-picture" and
"unicorn-picture". These so called secondary extensions are not zero and
can be distinguished. The objection that we cannot picture a geometrical
fonn or a number is circumvented by fonnulas like "triangle-description"
or even "number-inscription". It can thus easily be demonstrated that if the
meanings of two tenns differ, but not their extension, because there is
nothing real that corresponds to them, there can always be found such
secondary extensions that differ. Even false descriptions are allowed, if they
serve the purpose of differentiating extensions of tenns or expressions that
have not the same meaning. Thus "geometrical form with four sides and
three angles" is accepted, but not logically impossible descriptions, such as
"triangle that is not a triangle".
Many philosophers have had the feeling they were cheated and in "On
Some Differences About Meaning", Nelson Goodman has tried to reply to
several objections.33 For full understanding it must be kept in mind that in
"On Likeness of Meaning" he is not interested in clarifying the notion of
"extension", but in showing that differences of meaning - identity never
occurs - can be established without recurring to intensions.
My objections is in the first place: the fact that we know that two tenns
have the same primary extension, but not the same secondary extension,
does not enable us to distinguish their primary extensions, which are the
troublemakers whenever they are the same. The truth value of sentences
wherein they are interchanged should remain the same, but primary and
secondary extensions being isolated, no influence passing from one fonn
to the other, this is still not the case. Primary extensions cannot be replaced
by secondary extensions. Though the secondary extensions of "centaur"
and "unicorn" are not necessarily the same, "centaur" cannot be replaced
by "centaur-picture" or "centaur-description", without changing its mean-

ing: "A centaur has four legs" cannot be replaced by "A centaur-description
has four legs". Though we know there is a difference between the meanings
of centaur and unicorn, we still do not know from their secondary extensions
what difference.
In the second place: we were interested in logically distinguishing the
meaning of some words that have the same extension, using an exten-
sionalistic method, but what has been shown is that all categorematic terms
differ in meaning. Without the possibility of sameness of meaning there is
no useful notion of difference of meaning. IT synonymy is rejected there is
no purpose in searching to establish the fact two terms differ in meaning.
Per contra there are expressions with the same primary and secondary
extensions that have nevertheless different intensions. Let us compare for
example "William of Ockham" and "venerabilis inceptor": the primary
extension is the same, the expressions denote the same man, the secondary
extensions are the same, as a "William of Ockham - description" and a
"venerabilis inceptor-description" do not differ. Nevertheless the intension
of "William of Ockham" and of "venerabilis inceptor" are only the same in
certain contexts. For example, William of Ockham was William of Ockham
from birth on, but it would be queer to say that he was "venerabilis inceptor"
when still lying in his cradle. This proves again signification cannot be
reduced to reference.
The third objection is, that it is not clear what counts as a picture or a
description. It is not sufficient to say a centaur-description is different from
a unicorn-description or to say a centaur-picture is different from a unicorn-
picture, proof must be given, but must we not know the intension of a term,
to give a description or to make a picture of what it refers to? Pictures and
descriptions are not found in nature, we have to make them. Of course, if
false descriptions are allowed, with a high dose of goodwill we could accept
that in order to give a false description you need not know the intension of
the term, you are providing with a secondary extension. In order to give a
true description of "Walter Scott" and "the author of Waverley", e.g., we
must know the meaning of these expressions, but not if false descriptions
count as acceptable. For example: "Walter Scott is a red moon" , "The author
of Waverley is a green cheese", "Walter Scott who is not the author of
Waverley". How can we compare the extensions of false or even random
descriptions, of descriptions that are not descriptions?
Leaving this dubious problem aside, we must come to the more fun-
damental question of the notion of extension, which is not treated in the
56 CHAPTER 4
article that is considered here, nor to my knowledge elsewhere. Hitherto

intensions have been considered problematic, but what about extensions?
In order to establish them, do we really not need intensions? Can we
determine them using a method that is purely empirical and do we in
practice?
N. Goodman has hinted at this by mentioning the following criticism of
the notion of extension: is an extension, which depends on the state of affairs
in the world, not variable? Indeed if this notion is not clear, how can a logic
based on it and on likeness and difference of extensions, be clear? He thinks
the argument is absurd as the extension of a term comprises everything past,
present, future to which it applies. 34 This is a logician's answer to the third
question of Porphyry: are there general concepts when there are no longer
things in reality that correspond to them? For the logician it does not matter
whether there actually exist such things, to which a term applies, nor exactly
how many of them. It is sufficient to know whether, on an indefinite moment,
there was or will be one, no such thing or some of them. Hence N.
Goodman's remark: "(...... ) neither the making nor the eating of cakes
changes the extension of the term cake,,?5 This shows the ambiguity of
"extension"; it is on the one hand a logical notion, on the other hand it
depends on factual states of affairs in the world. If unicorns have existed or
exist or will exist the term unicorn has an extension and this can be one or
more, otherwise it is zero. The moment of existence or non-existence is
unimportant. If there is more than one unicorn, logically just how many
more is irrelevant. Extensionalism does not make a distinction between
general an particular terms, particular terms can be reduced to general
terms, to predicates and as we have seen, general terms refer to individuals,
but to which individuals in particular cannot be expressed in the nominalis-
tic system proposed. The extension of a general term even if it is not zero
is purely abstract, it is the extension of a predicate that represents a kind of
thing and needs no further specification. Whether it ever applied, applies
or will apply, is known before it is introduced, the actual state of affairs in
the world does not matter. This is the point of view Hegel defended in his
"Wissenschaft der Logik". Distinguishing sharply between logic and com-
mon sense, he says: "Die Zuriickweisung vom besonderen endlichen Sein
(that is to say what exists here and now) zum Sein als solchem in seiner
ganz abstrakten Allgemeinheit ist wie als die erste theoretische so auch
sagar praktischen Forderung anzusehen" .36 The meaning of concepts does
not depend on individual facts, which can be enumerated. The logician,
reducing intensions to extensions, takes a position that resembles that of
Hegel: the actual state of affairs in general and certainly its details do not
matter for the meaning of a term, if existence is already comprised in it. In
the extensionalistic logic existence is already contained in the extension of
the chosen predicates or otherwise reduced to the extension of something
that. .. We know from beforehand whether the term unicorn, Evening Star,
Man, Aristotle, comprises existence in the past, present or future and deal
with it accordingly. Kant on the other hand held the common sense view
that though for the intension of the term "hundred pieces of money" it does
not matter whether the user of the term has them or not, per contra, if he
wants to know to what the term applies, its actual extension, he has to look
in his pocket, or if he is broke in that of other people for instance.
Furthermore, is it not plausible that both aspects are important for the
meaning of a term? This is what Kant stresses: "Denn durch den Begriff
wird derGegenstand nurmit den algemeinen Bedingungen einermoglichen
empirischen Erkenntnis iiberhaupt als einstimmig, durch die Existenz aber
als in dem Kontext der gesamten Erfahrung enthalten gedacht, da denn
durch die Verkniipfung mit dem Inhalt der gesamten Erfahrung der Begriff
vom Gegenstand nicht im mindesten vermehrt wird, unser Denken aber
durch denselben eine mogliche Wahmehmung mehr bekommt. Wollen wir
dagegen die Existenz durch die reine Kategorie allein denken, so ist kein
Wunder, dass wir kein Merkmal angeben konnnen es von der blossen
Moglichkeit zu unterscheiden".37
Carnap is right in considering intension and extension as two aspects of
meaning and in believing that there is a primacy of the intension over the
extension?8 And he is again right when he thinks it is worthwhile to keep
searching for an empirical basis of intensions, (but this is a matter we shall
investigate in chapter 8). U. Eco is equally right when he declares in his
semiotical analyses that the extension of many terms is learned, like their
intension, at school. The famous "Morning Star" is a good example. Though
certainly there are astronomers who have seen it, I for example, never did,
but I write about it and believe its extension is one. The meaning (and this
includes intension and extension) of "Morning Star", namely "physical
object, flying through space, many millions of miles away from earth", is
what Umberto Eco calls a "cultural object".39 Nevertheless if I really want
to, as it is one defmite thing, I can see it. There are few extensions we can
learn by experience, the extensions or rather denotations of particular terms
are exceptions. If we have learned as a child that in presence of a definite
thing to say "red" is appropriate and also in presence of other particular
things and we see they have something that is conspicuous, namely their
58 CHAPTER 4
colour, in common, we learn how and when to apply the tenn red, its
intension, not its extension.4o Thus, even the extension of "red thing" in the
logical sense is empirical only for philosophers. The sum of all red things
is not empirical, as it contains all the red things in the past, present and
future and can be known only at the end of all times, but then there will be
nobody to run up the bills. It belongs to the intension of a word whether it
can apply. If we have learned the word red by ostension, we know itapplies
to actual things. If we have learned at school what Chymera is, we know
there is no real thing it applies to, only a description. Its extension is derived
from previous knowledge of its intension. However, generally logicians
implicitly treat existence and non-existence as intrinsic qualities of kinds
of things and yet consider extensions to be empirical, probably because they
never check this aspect of the notion.
CHAPTERS
LINGUISTIC SEMANTICS
"How can I know what I think till I see what I say?"

Graham Wallace
The subject of the previous chapter has been logical semantics. I have
stressed the ambiguous relationship of logic and language and discussed
the name relation theory, the controversy about intensionalism and exten-
sionalism and have sketched a solution for the traditional difficulties facing
extensionalists when trying to explain the difference in meaning of expres-
sions with the same extension.
In this chapter extensionalism and intensionalism will be related to
different conceptions of cognitive activity. A question of the utmost impor-
tance is whether there can be thought without language. If the meaning of
words consists partly of intensions, these are intermediaries between lan-
guage and reality, between what we say about the world that surrounds us
and that world. The question the intensionalist necessarily is confronted
with is whether these intensions or concepts are linked with language,
determined even by language, or whether they are independent from and
primal to language. Traditionally intensionalists choose the latter solution,
which avoids circularity. This choice goes together with the idea that the
way humans conceive of the basic characteristics of the world is universal
and in its most primitive form not unlike that of other higher animals. Under
different forms this conception can be found in medieval nominalism and
in empiricism.
Extensionalists on the other hand avoid intensions for the explanation of
the phenomenon that words have meaning, because they consider concepts
to be a suspect notion, according to the behaviouristic principles they adopt.
Thought cannot be known except as it is expressed verbally; they tend to
consider thought as determined by language, a phenomenon that is in its
tum determined by culture. This explains why they cannot in treating of
linguistic phenomena refer to very basic universal cognitive phenomena: in
60 CHAPTERS
their opinion they do not exist at a pre-linguistic level or if they exist they
cannot be known.
1. BEHAVIOURISM IN SEMANTICS
Of old it has been thought rightly that the use of language is a sign of
intelligence and wrongly that it is a necessary if not sufficient condition for
intelligence. Animals, in contrast with human beings, do not speak a word
language and in this sense they are dumb. If human beings are not able to
speak, if they are mute or deaf-mute from birth on, they lack an "essential
human quality", they are considered to remain forever in an animal stage.
For a long time and up to our own day, children who are deaf-mute have
been regarded as non-intelligent or at least backward. 1
Today it is known that the ability to use word language is localized in
well determined areas of our brains and that damage in those areas does not
at all destroy intelligence, understanding, thought. Our attention is drawn,
moreover, to the fact that verbal communication is but one kind of com-
munication, amongst others. On the cultural level there is also communica-
tion through images, pictures, signs and on a more basic, only to a very
restricted part culturally determined level, there is body language. I believe
it is good to keep all this in mind, when studying different aspects of the
semantics of verbal language.
The identification of thought and language, implicit in the work of so
many linguists and philosophers, has led a number of them to the idea that
language is not only the more formal expression of our thought, but also
moulds it. This idea has been reinforced by the fact that there are as many
languages and dialects as there are cultures and cultural groups: it seems
very plausible that to different languages correspond different cultures and
vice versa and that each speaker of a language has a conceptual approach
to the world, a worldview reflected in and cast by that language. From this
it is only one step to link also the human conceptual scheme, the most basic
forms of human thought, with language. But then, are there as many
conceptual schemes as there are languages? Or must we be believe there
is one basic human conceptual scheme reflected in the universal charac-
teristics of all languages? All depends on whether we see humans as
exceptional beings, which have invented language and are almost totally
determined in their behaviour and thought by the cultures they have
produced or on the contrary stress the fact humans have much in common
LINGUISTIC SEMANTICS 61
with other living creatures, which never developed symbolic systems,

verbal languages, nor built such impressive cultures. In the second case
pre-linguistic knowledge and non-verbal communication is taken into
account as the precondition of language. It goes without saying that this
approach has consequences for the semantical theory that is adopted.
Traditionalnominalists consider the general and the abstract as products
of the mind and therefore cannot but reject the independent existence of the
meanings of words and sentences, their "hypostasis" or "reification". They
identify meaning with the actual use speakers make of words. But this
conception is compatible with very different points of view. It is said that
Roscelinus of Compiegne identified the use of words with the production
of sounds. When pondering about the existence of universals, he is said to
have reduced them to "flatus vocis". We shall leave aside the question
whether he really proposed such a crude theory or whether his opponents
have deliberately represented his views in a simplified form in order to
discredit him. In any case behaviourism is foreshadowed here. Later
nominalistic theories explained the meaning of words as based upon an
activity of the brains combined with the use of the vocal chords.
Contemporary nominalism has, for methodological reasons, adopted the
behaviouristic method in semantics. Quine formulates this basic option
thus: "Words can be learned as parts oflonger sentences, and some words
can be learned as one word sentences through direct ostension of their
objects. In either event, words mean only as their use in sentences is
conditioned to sensory stimuli, verbal and otherwise. Any realistic theory
of evidence must be inseparable from the psychology of stimulus and
response, applied to sentences"? The advantage of his method from the
point of view of contemporary nominalism is that it can be combined with
a purely extensionalistic logic. As no "intentions" or "intensions" are to be
taken into account the method is at the same time in accordance with
Ockham's razor. This economical principle, however, formulated by Ock-
ham as "pluralitas non ponenda est sine necessitate ponendi", does not say
that, when trying to understand a phenomenon, we must leave as much of
its aspects out as possible. It merely says that you must not use more
elements than necessary for your explanation. For example, if you don't
need the concept "substance" or "essence" to explain the things you
perceive, just leave them aside. The use oflanguage involves an observable
electrical activity of the brains, though it was certainly not clearly under-
stood in the high days of behaviourism, nor is completely understood today.
The aggressive behaviour of a male stickleback is triggered of by the sight
62 CHAPTER 5
of the red belly of another male. In order to explain it you do not need to
presuppose any conscious intellectual act accompanying the instinctive
reaction. The dog of Pavlow, after a learning process, starts to salivate
hearing a bell ring. Again we must not presuppose a conscious intellectual
act. Perhaps here what the animal actually thinks is of no great consequence
for his behaviour and therefore its thoughts have no important explanative
value. Linguistic behaviour, however, is neither instinctive nor is it a
learned conditioned reflex. Indeed, I do not know whether in a waking state
we ever speak unconsciously, independently of our will, but I think we can
say confidently that if we do, it must be rather exceptionally. Therefore, in
normal cases thoughts do have explanative value for the linguistic perfor-
mance and cannot be left out. The behaviouristic kind of approach can be
compared with the study of the input and the output of a machine, that leaves
aside the machine itself, e.g. with studying photographs without bothering
about the way the camera is built and how its parts function. The two things
you know is that a film must be put in, and that you have to press a button
and that afterwards when developing the film, you will see pictures resem-
bling what you saw through the view-finder in the first place. This method
is overeconomic: you have understood something, but not the core of the
process.
What is peculiar about W. V.O. Quine's version ofbehaviouristic seman-
tics? In "Word and Object", where he has stated his semantic theory in the
most complete way, his main objective was to make clear that of the
different aspects of meaning some can be determined using only a purely
empirical method, others cannot. The latter are related to the personal way
of acquiring language of the speaker and related to his cultural background.
Therefore, amongst the speakers of a language, only the native speaker, is
capable of knowing the exact meaning of linguistic utterances. Even if we
leave out the subjective factor, we must come to the conclusion that
non-native speakers can establish only a limited part of referential meaning
empirically and even so they encounter intrinsic difficulties. As for the other
meanings, the research must be supplemented with non-empirical, in the
terminology of Quine "analytical", hypotheses. These hypotheses are
deduced from the conceptual scheme of the foreigner who wants to learn
the language, and the scheme is a particular version of the way of thinking,
of ordering and understanding the world of the culture he belongs to. The
hypotheses are deduced furthermore from the structure of the foreigner's
own particular natural language.
Quine illustrates this with a transposition of the myth of K.L. Pike. The
central concept is "radical translation", a mythical concept because in
practice the conditions for it do not obtain. He formulates his theoretical
aim in the following way: "we shall consider how much of a language can
be made sense of in terms of stimulus conditions and what scope this leaves
for empirically unconditioned variation in one's conceptual scheme"?
(Stimulus conditions are those conditions where meaning is established by
observing the direct relation between observable stimuli and utterances). In
order to attain this goal Quine imagines the following situation: a field
linguist is dropped in the jungle where a tribe lives whose culture and
language are hitherto unknown. The linguist is not accompanied by an
interpreter, nor even by a native who knows a related language, but not the
language is question. Since verbal communication before and during the
study oflanguage is excluded, all data to be found will be strictly empirical,
based on the observation of the linguistic behaviour of native speakers, the
informants. What are those empirical data? The answer is: the observation
of the linguistic behaviour of the native in situations, where this behaviour
is clearly triggered of by stimuli that are observable for the informant and
the field linguists. The sentences that are uttered in these situations are
"occasion sentences" of the type "it rains", "this is a rabbit". They belong
to a broader category of "observation sentences", which include, next to
sentences related to observation of linguistic behaviour on a definite spot
and moment, so called "standing" sentences, such as "honey is sweet",
"copper is green", which do not vary in function of definite circumstances,
but are derived from observations.
In spite of their empirical character, both kinds of sentences can be
misunderstood because of lack of additional information, which cannot be
directly obtained. This is the case, when lateral information is involved. For
example, when in a sentence the expression "sister in law" is used, you need
other information than the presence of a woman at the moment the sentence
is uttered in order to understand its meaning. The informant knows the
relations of kinship between the members of his tribe, he possibly attended
the marital ceremony, whereby the woman became a "sister in law", but for
the field linguist this knowledge is unaccessible as he cannot interrogate
the informant nor other members of the tribe. There is more: referential use
has other pitfalls in the case of radical translation. When a native is pointing
at something one cannot be certain that he is pointing at what strikes us as
a totality, one cannot know whether he uses a plural form or a singular form,
as one does not know whether he observes one or more things of a kind.
64 CHAPlER5
One can only make a guess, but cannot know whether he calls things by
their ordinary name or avoids this name because of a tabu, etc ..
Next to the observation sentences there are the stimulus analytic senten-
ces, which are either of the type "no bachelor is married" or of the type "it
rains or it doesn't rain", . In the first case the truth of the sentence depends
on the meaning of the terms involved, in the second case the truth of the
sentence is of a purely logical kind. Such a sentence is "stimulus analytic",
but, remarks Quine, it is noteworthy that unverifiable sentences such as "all
men are rabbits reincarnate" are stimulus analytic too ....
The conclusion that must be drawn seems to be that a linguistic theory
cannot be based on purely empirical facts, on the observation of stimulus-
response relations; in too few cases these are sufficient to explain the verbal
behaviour. Nevertheless, this did not incite W.V.O. Quine to abandon
behaviourism.
W.V. Aldrich criticizes Quine for this view and says that in analysing
the universe of discourse as comprising two forces, which interpenetrate or
fuse, namely the empirical force, which extends into the field from outside
and the formal or logical force, which radiates out of the centre, bringing
"simplicity and symmetry oflaws", he reduces the empirical element. His
view can be interpreted as representing language as a field of discourse
where the empirical operates only at the periphery, from outside. Quine
replies: "What he misses (... ) is that the peripheral sentences, those most
firmly linked to non-verbal stimulations, are linked also to other sentences,
and thus it is that the external force is communicated inward (... )".4
Another and more decisive criticism must be made, however. At the
beginning of this section I warned for methods of semantical research that
start from a field of investigation that is too narrow. Word language is but
one kind of language, in order to understand it fully it must be compared
to other systems of signs. Men have many ways to communicate, words are
but one of them; there is also body language and next to this men produce
inarticulate sounds just like other animals. To keep this in mind enables us
to see what is particular about word language. Umberto Eco, in: "Latratus
canis" 5 draws our attention to an interesting aspect of medieval semantics.
Medieval philosophers, commenting on Aristotle, accorded importance to
the distinction he made between natural signs and conventional signs. He
considered namely in his "Historia animalium" sounds uttered by animals
as a linguistic phenomenon. Though only late Schoolmen knew this text,
there existed medieval expositions of the discussions the "voice" of dogs,
magpies, parrots and other animals had aroused, which were accessible to
earlier philosophers, and moreover, U. Eco believes, they must have been
aware of the notion of animal "logos" , animal language in the stoic tradition.
I shall not retrace in detail the evolution of the conception of animal
language, as Umberto Eco has sketched it in his article. It is sufficient to
realize that in the Middle Ages, though Boethius did not render Aristotle's
theory faithfully, the general opinion was that signs comprised more than
spoken words, they comprised also next to pictorial signs, natural events
and amongst them sounds produced by animals, such as the barking of the
dog. Those sounds like other natural events, could be symptoms, that is to
say they could enable man to draw certain conclusions. If a dog barks this
is a symptom of his presence. But the more subtle Medieval philosophers
realized that the barking of a dog could be part of an animal language and
signify something to other dogs. Thereby they admitted sounds produced
by animals amongst the voces significativae. This led them to make a
distinction in the voces significativae between those that were produced
"naturaliter", in a natural way, and those that were produced "ad placitum",
conventionally. Among those sounds that were produced naturaliter not
only the barking of dogs figured, but also the wailing and whimpering of
men that were produced in principle "unintentionally" and also those sounds
produced by animals that meant something to their congeners. The latter
kind of sounds was significative and natural, not based on a cultural
convention, (that is to say not "ex institutione"). A horse can neigh or
whinny in order to communicate with other horses and not only in order to
give vent to its emotions, but nevertheless this is not a convention or
institution.
In order to study a cultural phenomenon we always have to seek for its
natural sub-basement. Once these distinctions are made, what is peculiar
about words as one kind of the sounds a man can produce, becomes evident,
they are namely produced ad placitum and not naturaliter. This means that,
in contrast to involuntary whining or wailing for instance, they are only
produced if man wants to, they are intentional, that is, according to Roger
Bacon "ordinata ab anima et ex intentione animae"; The fact that we can
utter words at will is connected with the fact that we can think of other
things than what we see, smell, hear, feel, taste at the moment we are saying
something. Therefore "intention" can not only mean an act of the will, but
also that our attention is directed to something. This can be an object
perceived, but also memories of objects perceived, what is associated with
those perceptions or memories of perceptions, namely other perceptions or
concepts, etc ... This implies that there is no necessary relation between what
66 CHAPTERS
a person says and what he sees. Even knowing the cultural background,
disposing of the necessary lateral information, what a man will say in a
certain situation is uncertain for the hearer. Otherwise what would be the
point of listening?
As said at the beginning of this paragraph the linking of language and
thought has led some philosophers and some linguists to the idea that
language is not only a necessary if not sufficient condition for thought, but
that language also moulds our thought. Not only humans think in words,
there simply is no thought without words. This idea has been reinforced by
the fact there are so many different languages and so many different
cultures. Therefore, it seemed very plausible cultural differences cor-
respond to different languages and these in their turn determine for each
individual speaker of that language his conceptual approach to the world,
his worldview. From this it is only a step to suppose the most fundamental
knowledge of the world, the conceptual scheme of human beings, must be
reflected in language. The great number of languages combined with the
idea we cannot establish meanings on a purely empirical base, suggests the
content of expressions belonging to a foreign language remains forever
inscrutable to some extent. Not only how we say things but also what we
say being determined by the language we use and that reflects our cultural
background, makes on the other hand what is sound in a certain situation
predictable for those belonging to the cultural community in question.
These views contrast with current linguistic theories. The capacity of
man to displacement, to think and speak about other things than the stimuli
that reach his sense organs, is regarded by most linguists and psychologist
as the hall-mark of human intelligence and speech. When A. and B. Gardner
published the positive results of their famous experiment with apes they
taught the use of a human gesture language (Ameslan), one of the main
arguments against their conclusion that apes can communicate in a genuine
human symbolic language was that the apes still had not shown linguistic
capacities comparable with those of humans. In the opinion of the critics,
since they had not proven apes were capable of displacement, this showed
the intelligence of men and apes was quite different after all. I do not know
how serious this argument must be taken as there has certainly been a great
deal of ill-will on the part of the adversaries of the Gardners but it is
symptomatic for the importance accorded to "intentions". (perhaps in the
meanwhile other experiments have yielded concluding results concerning
the capability of apes to displace themselves mentally in time and space
and express this in Ameslan).
In the light of the importance that is generally accorded to the capacity

of displacement, a purely behaviouristic theory of semantics seems to be
predestined to failure. Quine defmitely has chosen the wrong starting point
and though his theoretical approach, radical translation, which had to enable
him to determine the part of linguistic meaning that can be established
empirically, was certainly ingenious, its negative results could have been
foreseen. Once the distinction is made between "naturaliter" and "ad
placitum", it seems trivial that when seeing a tree we can say as well: "This
is a tree" as: "I think of my grandfather" (because he planted the tree) or:
"What is life?" (a tree being in many cultures a symbol of life). And this
are only a few possibilities. It seems trivial also that ambiguous sentences
can have different meanings and which meaning must be accorded to them
depends on circumstantial elements, which cannot always be determined
empirically. An utterance can not always be used as a symptom or a signal.
Our conceptual scheme does not determine what we say. It is also curious
that Quine considers only descriptive communication, but neglect its other
well-known aspects such as giving orders, lying, promising, establishing
beliefs and doubts, etc .. But of course it is quasi impossible to explain these
linguistic activities as predictable reactions to stimuli or even to substitute
stimuli.
It is true that intensions are not identical with intentions, and what the
linguist is after are intensions, or in the case of the contemporary
nominalists extensions, but any way in which manner words can be used
according to the linguistic rules and habits of the language in question. It
is clear from the foregoing that a sound theory of linguistic semantics must
make use of introspection in spite of the qualms of behaviourists for this
method; people have to be questioned about the meaning of words. Of
course this is a path that is impracticable where radical translation is
concerned. Quine's conclusion that few meanings of actual utterances can
be classified as "occasional and observational" is therefore fully justified
but evident. Or rather, there are probably hardly any such meanings, except
when we see a man hurting himself and hear him say "au I". That case is
very close to "natural" use of signs that are symptoms of emotions. Perhaps
other exceptions are those cases where words are used as signals, though
the probabilities are already much vaguer here. The tone of voice can
sometimes help to guess the meaning of words. We can hear whether a man,
running after his dog, is calling him, or shouting angrily some curse such
as "damned beast", even if we do not know the language he uses. Pointing
could be another exception, where the probability of a direct relation
68 CHAPTERS
between what is perceived and what is said can be supposed, though this
relationship has its difficulties too, as Quine has shown. In the other cases
reference to intensions seems unavoidable. We cannot build a sound
semantical theory on an over economic base, neither can we fully under-
stand thought restricting our research to the analysis of linguistic utterances.
Word language is in Quine's conception identified with thought and since
thought is inaccessible with empirical methods, but cannot be denied to
exist, it is restricted to what we can know about it indirectly and thus to
speech. He has stated this very clearly: thoughts that are not expressed in
words are hardly interesting; what we have to study is not the ideas but their
expression. Of course this has consequences for the way thought is con-
ceived of too: if thought is language, concepts are always associated with
words. This view is so common however, that it is hardly examined. "There
is" says Quine, "every reason to inquire into the sensory or stimulatory
background of ordinary talk of physical things. The mistake comes only in
seeking an implicit sub-basement of conceptualization or of language.
Conceptualization on any considerable extent is inseparable from language
and our ordinary language of physical things is about as basic as language
gets".6 This is an unproven and highly improbable hypothesis, which has
poor explanative value compared to the alternative thesis that concep-
tualization on a very basic level is pre-linguistic. In the seventh chapter
further evidence for the latter thesis can be found.
2. OCKHAM ON THE RELATION BETWEEN THOUGHT AND

LANGUAGE
Thus we are led to the question whether there are concepts without lan-
guage, whether there is an implicit cognitive sub-basement. Most em-
piricists have thought this is the case: concepts are knowledge, but that is
not to say that all concepts are linguistic.
How did Ockham solve this problem? The answer is that he much
pondered about it and it is only after he evaluated and adopted several
solutions successively that he reached his fmal version, as we can fmd it in
his Summa Logicae. The riddle is whether a concept is an object of thought
and has thereby objective existence or whether it is a thought and is thereby
subjective. In the first case it is abstract and can be general. That is why
Ockham, at first, adopting this point of view, reduced these objects of
thought to ''ficta'', but this conception could not match his theory of
supposition and his theory of the truth of propositions. 7 Therefore he

decided in favour of the subjectivity of concepts: they are mental acts or
mental qualities, but they are not imaginary, they are genuine knowledge,
they are representational. Certainly, there are ficta too, like Chymera and
the Golden Mountain. This is, however, a special case; they are indeed,
"objects of thought, which mayor may not bear a likeness to real things,
but are not their natural signs. That is reserved for acts of knowing what is
real".8
Concepts, as we must recall here, are verba mentis, natural signs. Natural
signs are those concepts and only those that correspond to something that
is real and are derived from intuition of concrete individual things. Gordon
Leff stresses the fact that thereby not all difficulties are solved: this
explanation does not distinguish between knowing a concept and knowing
a thing. Therefore, although a concept is an act of knowing, it is an act of
knowing that we are aware of and by this it becomes "objective", an object
of the mind. Ockham admits "the mental status of a concept, both as subject
of an act of real knowledge and as an object known in the mind: for unless
a sign is known as a sign it cannot signify".9 Knowledge of a fictum, let us
say Chymera, ends at that, knowledge of a concept on the other hand is
knowledge of a concrete thing, "known by the concept as an act of
knowing". 10
The central idea behind all this is that concepts are not mysterious
entities in the mind, but acts of knowing individual things, from which a
habit derives (left from the past acts of knowing) that makes it possible to
know what is not immediately present. This is the basis of all possibility of
"displacement", which is precisely the capacity to grasp what is not imme-
diately present and to talk about it. But no identification of thought and
language follows from this; the primacy of conceptual knowledge is clear.
Mental terms are natural and precede vocal terms, they must be acquired
before they can be signified by vocal, that is to say conventional terms,
which are arbitrary.
Who is right? Ockham who thinks language must be seen as secondary,
thought, knowledge, the grasping of things as primal? Or Quine who
believes language and conceptualization are to be identified and that
language therefore, as the observable aspect of conceptualization, must be
linked directly to the stimuli that are supposed to be their cause?
In my opinion the choice is not difficult. Quine seems to consider man
as an animal species that has developed culture, knowledge, science, as a
response to the conditions he lives in, response that enhances his chances
70 CHAPTER 5
of survival and this after the empiriocriticists, who passed on their views to
the French conventionalists, who influenced him in their tum. On the other
hand adopting the behaviouristic view, he is bound to pay more attention
to human culture than to those forms of knowledge man has in common
with other species. Indeed, as we have seen, he neglects the natural,
pre-cultural, the instinctive and pays almost exclusively attention to the
stimulus - response scheme and this is to knowledge acquired by learning.
Of course man excels at learning, but today behaviourism is out-dated and
biology and more especially ethology stresses the fact that man not only
can perform what are typical human activities, but also first and foremost
what animals in general perform. There is a part of our knowledge we share
with animals and this part is independent from symbol systems, from
language.
For a long while I believed that all knowledge, either perceptual or
directly derived from perceptual data, had to be termed pre-conceptual, as
concepts are generally conceived of as associated with words. As we shall
explain in chapter 8, contemporary neurobiological theories use the notion
of concept for engrams that are pre-linguistic and occur in animals as well
as in man. Therefore I believe it is justified to use the term pre-linguistic
concepts for our low-level generalization,instead of speaking of pre-con-
ceptual knowledge.
3. EVOLUTION, COGNITIVISM AND THE NOTION OF

CONCEPTUAL SCHEME
N ow we must meet the problem of what is exact! y meant by a conceptual

scheme. The signification of it is generally taken for granted, but I doubt
that for most authors it has a precise meaning. Thus, let us ask: what is a
conceptual scheme and at what level does it operate? The answer depends
on whether concepts are linked with language or not. In a first hypothesis
they are and only man can have a conceptual scheme. This leaves us with
two possibilities; either the scheme is inborn and hence "universal", that is
to say common to all men, or it is culturally determined and hence variable.
If, per contra, it is assumed concepts can be either particular or general and
are equivalent to the grasping of things and can, but must not, be associated
with words, conceptual schemes are considered from a very different point
of view. They are the way different animal species process data from their
environment, the grasping of information. Many of those processes man
and at least higher species have in common. Of course, in this second

hypothesis the conceptual scheme of man operates on a very basic and
pre-linguistic level, whereas in the first hypothesis it operates on the level
of the common sense view of the world, which is culturally determined and
on a sophisticated scientific level, which is of course culturally determined
too.
It will be useful to disentangle the different senses in which the term
conceptual scheme is used, and to evaluate the rival opinions. What I want
to make clear is that W.V.O. Quine fails to distinguish between the
previously mentioned levels of thought, between verbal and non-verbal
knowledge (as he supposes the latter cannot be known in principle),
between common sense and sciences, between language on the one hand
and worldview and ontology on the other hand. In order to establish that
these distinctions are real and important I shall draw some further argu-
ments from the work of Konrad Lorenz, who represents an evolutionistic
point of view, which he has applied to human knowledge.
In an article "Gestaltwahmehrnung als Quelle wissenschaftlicher Er-
kenntnis" he draws our attention to the fact the physiology ofanimals, their
sense organs and their nervous system, is strictly determined by their
surroundings, because they are adapted to the latter as a result of the process
of natural selection. In other surroundings new physiolo gical characteristics
would have evolved or else they would have been threatened with extinction
and in the long run have disappeared. Many philosophers forget this; they
are impressed by the fact a fly, a fish, a bird and a gorilla have different
sense organs, but they all very successfully serve the same purpose, namely
the gathering of useful information. The way they do this may be different,
what is useful for each kind of them may be different, but the results are
not contradictory, they merely reveal different aspects of reality. K. Lorenz
adds: "Es sind nicht die apriorischen Schematismen unserer Anschauung
und unseres Denkens, die willkiirlich und beziehungslos der aussersubjek-
tiven Realitat die Form vorschreiben, in der sie in unserem phlinomenalen
Welt erscheint; stammesgeschichtlich war es umgekehrt die aussersubjek-
tive Realitat, die das im aonenlangen Daseinskampf sich entwickelenden
Weltbild -Apparat des Menschen gezwungen hat, ihre Gegebenheiten Rech-
nung zu tragen" .11 The term "Weltbild-Apparat", which in this context can
be freely translated as "our equipment for building a worldview", indicates
that he is thinking of the lowest stages of know ledge as the base of the higher
stages, namely the way we order the elements of the surrounding reality
and finally our worldview. Indeed, all animals need to sort out what J.1.
72 CHAPTERS
Gibson has called the invariants of their ecological niche, before being able
to order them. The configurationalistic theory, K. Lorenz advocates, ac-
counts for the perception of those invariants. 12 He mentions three well-
known kinds of them: invariance of colour, invariance of direction,
invariance ofform. We see the colour of things nearly unchanged under
different types of illumination. Even with a red lamp turned on when writing
on white paper, we see the paper as white. It could be supposed this is the
result of a conscious reasoning, but it is not, though certainly this would be
a convenient explanation. It is on the contrary a physiological mechanism,
which does the trick. Our sensorial apparatus in the broad sense, comprising
our nervous system, constructs a total view of the part of our environment
we are looking at and our brain calculates the average length of the light
waves that are reflected. If certain colours of the spectrum prevail, it is
derived that the source oflight emits more of this and less of that light. This
conclusion is of course only based on probability, not on certainty. It implies
that the objects in our field of view reflect all spectral colours without
preference. Our retina is stimulated f.i. by red light, our optic nerve informs
our brain about this fact, but at the same time sends it the message of the
complementary colour, in this case green light. Both messages compensate
and that is the reason we still know we are writing on white and not red
paper.13 Lorenz's second example is constancy of direction: shifting our
eyes, we do not perceive the objects jumping in the opposite direction.
When our eye-balls are passive, but we make them move slightly by
pressure of our finger for instance, the objects do seem to make a leap. In
this case the nerve fibres of our eyes do not inform our brain about this
movement and the conclusion is drawn that things are moving in the
opposite direction of the movement imposed upon our eye-balls. The
mechanism, which in normal cases, when our eye-balls move actively,
prevents us from confounding the movements of our eyes with the move-
ments of the things we see, consists of sending a kind of copy of the
command of movement to the sense organs, which receive at the same time
the (false) information of the movement of the stimuli. Both informations
are combined; the first contains "movement in direction x", the second
"movement in direction-x" and thus a zero operation is obtained. The third
example, the constancy of forms, is also a well-known phenomenon.
Though the information on our retina about the form of objects changes
when they move, we interpret this rightly as a change in their position and
not in their form. This is the result of a great number of highly complicated
stereometric calculations, which are preformed by our brain. Even looking
at the cast shadow of moving things, this mechanism works, but we are no
longer able to distinguish directions of movement. What is highly interest-
ing about all this, is that these processes are totally unconscious and that is
why K. Lorenz calls them ratiomorph, they have the form of reasoning but
they are not reasoning. They are part of our perception and some
philosophers tum the tables and conclude that perception itself is concep-
tual, but this is a mere playing with words. 14 "Conceptual" taken in such a
broad sense implicates all activities, conscious and unconscious, of the
brain and becomes totally useless. Ratiomorph processes are proof indeed
that there is, as N. Goodman puts it, more to vision than meets the eye, but
that "more" is not cultural, conventional, but imposed by natural con-
straints.
From this it is clear that evolutionists believe that the basement of our
way to see and understand the world are these underlying pre-conceptual
processes. Our knowledge, the knowledge we use in daily life and scientific
knowledge, would not be possible without these biologically determined
physiological processes. This view is in total accordance with Ockham's
conception, which implies three stages: 1) intuitive or direct knowledge, 2)
abstraction, the forming of verba mentis, 3) the association with words.
"Dieselben Mechanismen der Wahmehmung" writes K. Lorenz, "die es mir
ermoglichen, meinen Chow-Hund Susi von vome und von hinten, von
weitem und aus der Nahe, in rotem und in blaulichem Licht, usw. als
dasselbe Individuum wiederzuerkennen, setzen mich durch einen
merkwlirdigen Funktionswechsel in Stand in diesem Chow, einem Dogge,
einem Zwergpinscher und einem Dackel eine gemeinsame unverwechsel-
bare Gestaltqualitiit zu sehen, die des Hundes" .15 We do not need to study
zoology in order to see similarities between different kinds of dogs. The
capacity to sort out kinds of things is fundamental of course, as fundamental
as recognizing individuals and it is absolutely necessary for survival, but
Karl Lorenz has in mind more than that. A "Gestaltqualitat", "configuratio-
nal quality" is involved, composed of many qualities that form together
some sort of new quality, which can be observed in different individuals
and distinguished from those qualities that conspicuously vary from in-
dividual to individual. This mechanism of our perceptual apparatus is
independent from rational abstraction. A one year old child, which calls all
dogs "woof-woof', has not learned the de:fmition of Canis familiaris. 16 It is
well-known that children are capable of spontaneous recognition of
zoological species. The five year old daughter of K. Lorenz was able to
recognise as such all the specimen of the order of the Rallidae at the Zoo
74 CHAPTERS
of Schonbrunn, without helpful suggestions from her father, even though

there is a rich variety offonns amongst these birds. I7 Perhaps this child was
particularly gifted, but the ability in itself is fundamental for all higher
species, as they have to show the right reactions when confronted with e.g.
a member of a species that preys on them. Whether their reaction to what
is hannful is instinctive or learned does not matter; in both cases the
perception of a general pattern, abstracted from things that show likenesses,
is the precondition. Though W.V.O. Quine admits in Word and Object that
in all languages there are general tenns for certain elements of reality, for
physical objects, e.g., for basic experiences, (hunger, cold), for common
human interests, (food, shelter, fuel), it is not clear whether he links this
fact with the universality of the basic perceptions and experiences or with
more complicated cognitive perfonnances. According to him the acknow-
ledgment of the existence of physical bodies requires in any case a rational
decision 18, related to a later stage in the conceptual development of the
human individual.
In the light of the foregoing this is quite implausible and we can conclude
that there is, for all of Quine's opinion, a sub-basement of abstract concep-
tual thought. It is difficult however to distinguish in human beings the
pre-linguistic layer and the more abstract level of thought, which is cul-
turally detennined. Therefore, as Schopenhauer, who in his time was one
of the rare philosophers who recognised that man is a genuine part of nature
and not metaphysically different from other animals, declared: we should
study the most intelligent animal species, in order to measure how much
intelligence, without the help of reason, (that is to say abstract thought,
which makes use of concepts associated with linguistic tenns), it is capable
to achieve. In the same spirit Konrad Lorenz recommends, when studying
cognitive processes, to pay in the first place attention to those processes
that constitute the largest part, the unconscious cognitive operations, per-
ceptions and thought directly based on these perceptions and only after-
wards to abstract thought and language.
This leads us back to the problem of the universality of the human
conceptual scheme. When studying language and more particularly seman-
tics, it is of great importance that we bear in mind language is a cultural
phenomenon, whereas thought is not exclusively cultural. Therefore, when
relating language to thought, we have to be careful and distinguish between
different realms of thought. As said, in the work of Quine, however, these
distinctions are not made. Neither does he accept a core of non-cultural
perceptual knowledge, nor the idea of a conceptual scheme that consists of
unchanging and universal forms of thought. The conceptual scheme of a

man, from Quine's point of view, is determined by both the language of his
cultural community and the common sense view of the world characteristic
of that community. Thereby the answer to the question "what is there", the
ontology of a human being is predetermined to a large degree by the way
in his particular culture the world is divided into elements, the way the
community conceives of their relationships, etc .. In this view more sophisti-
cated forms of knowledge are a mere extension of the common sense
knowledge. Thus western science is not seen as in many cases at odds with
the common beliefs of the laymen, but as a continuation of the latter. What
is misleading about this is that Quine thus directly links science with our
"surface irritations". This expression suggests science is a response to
perceptions linked to our most basic needs and contradicts Quine's thesis
that knowledge, common sense and science alike are variable, historical,
determined by the society that produced it.
Quine's motto phrased by James Grier Miller, "Ontology recapitulates
philology", expresses this idea. As there are many different languages
determining the forms of thought of the language users, there are many
varieties of conceptualizations. These different approaches of reality are
identified with ontologies, assumptions about what there is. And as each
ordinary language thus implies an ontology and not only implies it but
commits us to that ontology, in order to change our ontology we have to
construct a new language, devoid of the undesirable entities we are com-
mitted to by ordinary language. Of course only the logician is able to do so
and it is his task to sort things out, to clarify things and to determine what
is onto logically acceptable and what is not.
The scientist tries to describe part of the world. He has a definite way of
conceptualizing too, a conceptual scheme, which is reflected in the scien-
tific language he uses. Moreover, this language commits him to a definite
ontology. Can he depart from traditional ways of thinking? Following
Quine, he will do so if too many experimental facts contradict his theory
and even then only reluctantly. There is no conceptual scheme that is the
only right one, though of course we must stick to the one we have got as
long as possible.
What is the evolutionist's view on the problem of "high level" intellectual
performances? Konrad Lorenz concludes from the fact that we can change
our scientific theses in a fundamental way, that Kant was wrong in thinking
the forms of our thought prevent us from knowing things as they are.
Einstein has proven that our intellect is adaptable to such a degree that next
76 CHAPTER 5
to a common sense view, which hides certain features of reality, we can

develop a view that brings to light those aspects and thus know layers of
reality that are out of reach for the more simple knowledge, which is directly
linked to our less sophisticated pre-linguistic thought. It can be concluded
from this that the language we use for science, which is in principle
translatable into everyday language, does not determine our fundamental
scientific presuppositions about reality, nor does ordinary language deter-
mine the totality of our conceptualizations, the fundamental ways to grasp
things. In other words a kind of metasemantics is possible and we do not
need, in order to shift the conceptual perspective we use to look at things,
to adopt a new language, but only to alter certain of its semantic fields or
add new ones.
The naive realist says Lorenz, looks at the outer world without realizing
that he is a mirror, the idealist only looks into the mirror without realizing,
because of the rigidity of the direction of his gazing, that the backside of
the mirror does not mirror anything. 19 The evolutionist neither believes that
we see reality as it is, in the sense of all perception and genuine knowledge
yielding one and the same absolute image of reality, but neither does he
believe that we look through spectacles that distort the image we have of
our surroundings. To pursue this image: when people wear spectacles it is
generally in order to improve the power of their sight. The spectacles are
not - as supposed by transcendental idealists and cognitivists respectively
-contingent or the result of a freak of fashion, a convention varying from
culture to culture.
It is certain that, though there is a universal core of pre-conceptual and
conceptual thought, which builds the fundamental layer for basic and
invariable ways of thinking, next to this there is a large part of our
knowledge, ourworldviews and ontologies, our scientific descriptions, that
is culturally determined and variable. Quine's thesis that strictly and
theoretically speaking we cannot learn on an exclusively empiristic base a
hitherto unknown language, nor can be certain about the meaning of the
utterances of a native speaker of a known language, so that different
translations remain possible, is negative. The only positive arguments for
differences in fundamental ways of thinking he offers are the well-known
differences from language to language in the ordering of colours or the
grouping of kinds of things such as cattle, pairs of things etc .. But here also,
we could conceive of these differences, not as cultural and arbitrary, but as
the result of different natural circumstances.
That Eskimo's have many words for different kinds of snow, only proves
snow is more important to them than to us, not that their way of looking at
things is basically different. Claude Levi-Strauss in La Pensee Sauvage
compares the classifications of zoological and botanical species of different
cultures to those of western scientists and his conclusion is that they are
similar to a simple classification of the Linnaean type?O Being very close
to nature there is no barrier between their knowledge of plants and animals
and the ordering of social relationships; they integrate this knowledge in
their culture and associate the semantical field of the natural, with the
semantical field of the cultural. This is an illustration of the fact our
knowledge is based upon invariable intellectual processes on the one hand,
variable processes on a higher level on the other hand.
Our conclusion is the following: traditional nominalism is more often
than not wrongly associated with conventionalism. Meaning is reduced to
regularities in the use oflanguage by native speakers, there are no transcen-
dent universal meanings; which justify this use. Meanings are expressed
differently in different languages according to different conventions. This,
however, is only part of the story. Traditional nominalists believe that the
result of the intellectual act of grasping things, the formation of concepts
or verba mentis that are indirectly signified by terms that can refer to real
things are not arbitrary, but "natural", i.e. derived from empirical data. The
linguistic signs vary from language to language, but language cannot
determine thought in a fundamental way, it is subordinated to it and what
we think is for the greater part independent of how we say it. This
conception can perfectly well be combined with the recent evolutionistic
approach of pre-linguistic cognitive processes and its point of view regard-
ing the invariability and variability of intellectual mechanisms and habits.
Contemporary nominalism on the other hand, choosing for the be-
haviouristic method, identifies meaning with observable behaviour that is
the result of a learning process. Children are conditioned by their parents,
who are members of a cultural community, to respond by uttering a certain
expression, when stimulated in a certain way. The stressing of the factor
learning leads to the neglect of the basic knowledge that is acquired before
parents teach their children language. This neglect is moreover justified by
stating that this basic thought is unobservable and that it would be unscien-
tific to use it to explain other phenomena. W.V.O. Quine could have asked
with Graham Wallace, "How can I know what I think till I see what I say?",
question I chose as a motto for this chapter. The only way to escape from
the constraints of our mother tongue, for scientific purposes, is to adopt a
78 CHAPTER 5
new artificial language that has a fundamentally different structure. It will

become clear in the following chapters that Quine and Goodman introduce
in their constructivistic systems concepts that are in conflict with our most
basic intuitions of the partitions of reality and we shall discuss the ad-
vantages and disadvantages of the conceptual shifts they propose.
CHAPTER 6
THE INDIVIDUAL
ONTOLOGY AND IDEOLOGY
The thesis of the epistemological primacy of the individual is the core of

medieval nominalism and of the empiricist tradition as well. Our basic
knowledge is knowledge of the individual, all general knowledge is derived
and the general has no ontological status whatsoever; the general is a
product of the mind. Therefore we shall first dig up the roots of the medieval
discussion, then expose the medieval points of view. This will enable us to
understand fully the consequences of the new constructivistic theory.
Indeed, the latter has not only ontological implications, it goes together with
what Quine has called an ideology, a set of concepts that can be expressed
in the system. This ideology, however, determines also negatively what
concepts cannot be expressed and as a constructivistic system is meant to
be applied and to be an instrument for describing reality in a scientific
manner, both aspects, what can and what cannot be expressed, are cruciaL
1. THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM
1.1. ARISTOTLE'S VIEW ON KNOWLEDGE OF THE PARTICULAR
Perhaps the most important event in the cultural evolution of the thir-
teenth century was the fact that the theories of Aristotle gained influence.
It seemed that Aristotle, whose theories were more difficult to reconcile
with theological dogmas and truths than those of his master Plato, was
becoming at last an authority in his turn. It is generally believed that the
Franciscans remained in their majority adepts of the Platonism of Saint
Augustine, while the majority of the Dominicans became Aristoteleans.
Though these tendencies certainly were strong, the situation was not as
simple as that. Thomas Aquinas' ideas were not readily accepted, because,
though he wanted a return to the original theories of Aristotle, it was feared
that this would lead, on the contrary, to the revival of the condemned
philosophies of Arab origin, which were nothing but peculiar interpreta-
80 CHAPTER 6
tions of Aristotle. Determinism and a too great faith in human reason could
be threats to true Christian belief. In consequence Thomistic philosophy
had many enemies even in the ranks of the Dominican order. From the late
thirteenth century on, Thomism and the problems it raised was a major
theme of discussion for all scholars. Franciscans, such as Duns Scotus and
Ockham, gave a version of their own of the way Aristotle should be
understood, in order to avoid the philosophical and theological difficulties
the interpretation of Saint Thomas had provoked. Two important concerns
of Duns Scotus were to show the limits of reason and the omnipotence and
absolute liberty of God. Ockham, the outstanding opponent of Duns Scotus,
in his tum interpreted Aristotle in a new way. We could say that he did not
reject the theses of Duns Scotus, but on the contrary sharpened Scotus'
positions in such a way that a new philosophy was the outcome, a new
philosophy wherein the individual was central. What distinguishes his point
of view from that of Duns Scotus is that we can have direct knowledge of
individual things. Intuitive knowledge is an immediate certainty of the
existence of an individual contingent thing; it is not the same as grasping
or understanding something, but the precondition of it, the precondition of
abstractive, conceptual knowledge. Abstract knowledge can be drawn from
things that exist or do not exist, but it cannot give us knowledge about
. . 1
eXIstence or non-eXIstence.
That we can have direct knowledge of the individual may seem trivial
today for most of us, but in the Middle Ages it was not. Platonists believed
there is no true knowledge but of abstract and eternal ideas, which are
models of the concrete things that surround us and permit us to descend to
the individuals. Aristoteleans believed, though knowledge started from the
perception of individuals, it merited its name only in as far as it was general.
This illustrates the importance of the claim we can know the individual.
Ockham, who, as said, shared the latter point of view with Duns Scotus,
went one step further and declared that we can know the individual without
the mediation of general concepts.
We must now return to the source of the discussion, namely to Aristotle.
As K. Munitz has shown, Aristotle did not study Being as such, he studied
"what there is", namely beings and modes of being. He was not interested
in the transcendent aspects of being, but in concrete things and our
knowledge of them. (This was just the kind of knowledge metaphysicians
like Parmenides would scornfully call opinion, as opposed to Truthk He
was aware that he had to examine a cluster of meanings, the infinitive Efvat
(used as copula); the participle QV ("existent"); the participle as nominal-
TIIE INDIVIDUAL 81
ized, used in the singular to {Sv ("being", "what exists"); in the plural ta
iSvtu ("existing things", "entities") and the noun o-tmu ("substance")?
"",Starting from Elva!, Aristotle asks what means "to be"? The infinitive
EtVUt and the copulaeatt serve as signs of predication. This leads Aristotle
to a logical approach of different types of predicative relations, developed
in his theory about the categories. A complementary aspect of to be as
"being-such-and-such", is "to be true of'.
Starting on the other hand from to tsv Aristotle asks what really exists
and here we come to the ontological approach. This is not the study of the
predicative use of to be, but the study of being as a subject. The questions
to be asked are "what are the basic types of entities there are in the world?",
"what really exists?", "what is that which is?".3 Related with this is the
notion of o'\)mu, which means "substance". Substances are the primary
existents according to Aristotle and they must be divided into primary
substances that are subjects and exist per se and secondary substances or
qualities that are in the subjects and do not exist per se. Secondary
substances are only substances in a broad acceptation of the term, strictly
speaking they are PllIlU, words. The things that exist do not constitute one
single class, which can be considered as a genus. There is not a being that
• ~~ ~ ~I
comprehends all other bemgs; hence the famous statement, OUtE to ov
yEvoa, being is not a genus.
From the foregoing we can see that where contemporary constructivistic
systems are based on an ontological choice of the logician and contain an
ideology, a set of expressible concepts, in accordance with it and restricted
by it, Aristotle's logic is based on the "ideology" of daily language and his
ontology draws also heavily on common sense views on what there is. In
Aristotle's philosophy there is an endeavour to harmonize the ontology with
the ideology and not vice versa. oi)olu, the category of substance, lends
to the different forms of to be a certain unity, it is the fundamental core of
his theories. His "first philosophy" treats first and foremost of the primary
substances. As we have seen in the first chapter, the genuine knowledge
Aristotle considered to be general and demonstrative was in need of a
content that could not itself be dialectic and demonstrative. This content
consisted of the primary substances, which must be known in another,
though not less certain way.
Being is substance and substance in its tum is quidditas, i.e., formal
substance. This is what is explained in Book Z of the Metaphysics. Being
is to be found in all the categories but not to the same degree. Substance is
the privileged category to which all the others are related. Aristotle ex-
82 CHAPTER 6
amined closely different theories about what can be considered as a sub-

stance and concluded that it can be neither a universal nor an individual as
such or as its parts, nor matter, but only quidditas, which is to say the form
that is embedded in and inseparable from what can be known by the senses,
namely individual things. Thus, substances are individual things such as
rocks, plants, animals, men, the Sun, the Moon, but under their formal
aspect, which is cast on the undifferentiated matter they consist of. This
quidditas is what makes defmition possible. It is having an individual
essence that is the hall-mark of substance.4
If in Aristotle's opinion only individuals have autonomous being, it could
seem no peculiar interpretation is needed in order to establish their
privileged status. Nevertheless there are difficulties: though a substance is
an individual essence, the only genuine knowledge is universal. Therefore,
we need universals, genera or at least species to know the particular, but
the form or quidditas itself is not a universal. Thus it would seem that the
individual as such cannot be known, no definition can be given of par-
ticulars, they can only be apprehended by the senses. This difficulty has
been treated in a subtle way by Jean Tricot in the commentary that
accompanies his French translation of the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Aris-
totle was well aware of the problem: the content of knowledge consists of
individuals, but as such it is out of reach.
The implications of this are historically important. In the Middle Ages
the idea that language cannot fully express or render reality was widespread:
"omne animal est ineffabile". The individual cannot be defmed because it
contains matter and matter is indeterminate and thus is unintelligible in
principle.s Therefore it has no sense to seek for "ultimate species" that
would be no longer l(uSOA.O'l) what means as much as "concerning a
totality", but would be individuals, which are always partly indeterminate.
If there is nothing that exists autonomously except individuals, if they
constitute ultimately what is real, science and reality are separated. The
incommensurability of science and reality is the seed of scepticism, which
can lead to a certain form of conventionalism. This seed, to be found in the
philosophy of Aristotle, had consequences for nominalism in the Middle
Ages. Nominalism has indeed frequently be associated with scepticism and
conventionalism by its adversaries. (Empiricism also shows these sceptic
tendencies, which it inherited in its tum from nominalism. These tendencies
appear most clearly in the work of D. Hume: knowledge is general, it is
only an approximation of reality. Knowledge is founded on habits, empiri-
cal knowledge has a high degree of probability, but is not necessary).
THE INDIVIDUAL 83
Ockhamhad a well-detennined vision of the relation between knowledge

and reality. He wanted on the one hand, like Duns Scotus, to draw the limits
of knowledge; he went as far as to show that the 1tpUhT\ CPtAOO'Ocpt(l, the
metaphysics, which Saint Thomas regarded as the key to autonomous
knowledge of theological truth, was superfluous. Knowledge of divine
matters was impossible in his opinion, divine truth can only be revealed to
us, it is a question of belief. To say we know God, to say we can understand
God's ways, is to say God is predictable and therefore detennined. This is
in contradiction with the assumption of the absolute power and the freedom
of God; the latter being limited only by the laws oflogic. On the other hand,
while knowledge of the immanent world is based on the intuition of
particular things, what is general is devoid of reality, a mere product of the
mind. Ontological questions about what is general are reduced to logical
questions, ontology is resolved into logic. This explains Ockham's reputa-
tion as a sceptic and conventionalist.
But let us return to Aristotle's theory for the moment. fu order to avoid
the inconsistency between science and its object, he distinguishes between
potential and actual science, the first being of the universal, the second of
the individual.6 Let us consider the consequences of this step. The senses
can perceive immediately the individual; not red, but this red for example,
not a man, but Socrates or Callias. Inversely, that the senses can do this, is
because this red is a colour, because Socrates or Callias is a man. Thus the
individual is linked again to the universal; the senses apprehend the univer-
sal in the particular. But if this is the case, are the individuals known by
actual science as individuals? Or do they still as such escape knowledge?
Another remedy for the dilemma is to say that the senses are aware of
individuals, but that this apprehension is completed by an intellectual
intuition of the pure fonn as such. It is not certain, however, that Aristotle
could seriously consider this solution, even on the epistemological level,
because it would mean a loosening of the tie of the pure fonn and substance
itself, which would be known separately.7 Still another possibility is to
conceive of perception as a beginning of true knowledge, instead of its
precondition and suggesting that perception directly apprehends the fonnal
aspect of the individual. This would mean that perception is already a kind
of conceptualization, a view we have discussed when treating of Quine's
theory of language.8
Aristotle, following Jean Tricot, rejects the existence of genera, but
accepts that of species, namely that of the species speciallissima, the most
special species. Things are individuated by their fonn, each thing has its
84 CHAPTER 6
own form, which cannot be separated from it and determines its uniqueness,
but on the other hand this form has a limited generality. Grasping the
peculiar form of a thing is the same as grasping the infIma species. The least
we can say is that Aristotle is very ingenious but not very clear on this
matter.
Another way to escape the difficulties that he struggles with is to assume
that the true object of science is not so much the general, but rather the
necessary, thus shifting from an epistemological to a logical point of view.
It is not important, he says, how many individuals a universal notion applies
to, this number can vary from one to unlimitedly many. The generality of
a concept is nothing but a virtuality of extension that is not determined and
therefore is not strictly opposed to what is singular in an absolute way. The
extension presupposes the essence and in reality a definition is based on
the comprehension of the intension of the concept, intension, which is the
condition for its virtual extension. 9
The reason for the problematic character of the individual, according to
Aristotle, is its contingency. If individuals were necessary, it would be
possible to define them. This is the case for s~ecial extraterrestrial and
divine individuals, such as the Sun orthe Moon. l If there would be a second
Sun or a second Moon, their definitions would remain the same. Genuine
knowledge, contained in definitions, does not depend on extensions, which
are contingent, but on intensions, which express a quidditas, necessary
properties. The concept man would not change if there was only one man,
because it refers to a certain nature (a complex of qualities) and not to a
multiplicity or number. In an individual as such, Callias e.g., there is no
such necessity. Thus, after all, in Aristotle's theory, the gap between the
general and the particular, between essence and existence, necessity and
contingence has not been bridged and it will be one of the endeavours of
Ockham to prove the contrary these: essence and existence are the same,
essence has no reality apart from the individual existence.
Aristotle tried out different formulas, which are never really convincing.
He reached the limits of the lowest generality in the hope to blur the
distinction, but without success. Knowledge of the individual not being
possible after all, it can neither be explained, nor be defined and remains a
mere hypothesis, a mere substratum for qualities. This is a disenchanting
conclusion, because Aristotle firmly believed individuals ultimately con-
stitute reality; though they consist, next to form, of indeterminate matter,
this matter alone cannot be the individuating principle of the qualities.
There was no such thing as an individuating bare particular in his opinion;
THE INDIVIDUAL 85
on the contrary it is the form that is what individuates matter. This left him
with an inextricable riddle. As we saw in the fourth chapter, contemporary
nominalism is afflicted with the same vagueness where the relation between
general and particular and that between intensions and extensions is con-
cerned.
1.2. OCKHAM'S SOLUTION
As we know, Ockham, like Duns Scotus, believed the intellect can

directly apprehend the individual. The normal conception was, as Saint
Thomas had put it, that the direct perception of an individual was not to be
considered genuine knowledge, but only left a "similitudo" or image in the
mind. Duns Scotus had said contrarily, that the intellect, as a superior
facu1ty, must be able of knowing all that an inferior faculty such as the
senses can know. Ockham went further and left out the link between the
material individual and the immaterial intellect, that Duns Scotus still
presupposed, namely the species and essences or natures and of course he
rejected a species speciallissima as a separate reality. 11 Also according to
Ockham's theory there is no need for presupposing a kind of pre-
knowledge, independent of perception. True knowledge begins with per-
ception of the individual, which is the sole base, as said, for the
establishment of the existence of what there is here and now. Cognitive or
abstractive knowledge is indifferent to existence or non-existence. 12 Intui-
tive contingent knowledge can reach the individual "sub propria ratione
singu1aritatis", as a singular. By this declaration Ockham reverses the
reasoning of his predecessor, who claimed that as the intellect is more
perfect than the senses and these can know the individual, the intellect must
be able to know it too, but as a species specialissima. Ockham argues, that,
because the universal is more imperfect than the individual - did not
Aristotle consider substances, individual things, the ultimate reality? - the
intellect must, like the senses, be able to know the individual as such. 13 It
is knowledge of the general that is derived, knowledge of the particular is
immediate and not beyond reach for the intellect. Whereas for Aristotle
there was a discrepancy between essence and existence, there is none for
Ockham. Essence is identical with existence: a thing does not have proper-
ties, is not a substratum for the instantiation of its properties, it is the peculiar
instantiation of its properties. This is very different from the ontological
criterion of the contemporary nominalists: "to be is to be the value of a
86 CHAPTER 6
variable", what is the same as "to be is to be a kind ofthing". For Ockham

to be is to be peculiar.
Ockham follows Aristotle in stating that there are two kinds of in-
dividuals, the fIrst substances that exist autonomously, and the second
substances that exist only in first substances. There are several tenns, which
are synonymous: "individual", "singular" and "suppositum".14 There are
three manners to conceive of an individual, which complete each other: the
first is that it is one thing and not many. (This does not say anything about
the nature of a thing; a universal such as "man" is also an individual in this
sense). The second acceptation is that an individual is a thing existing
outside the mind that is one and not many. This is the same as saying it is
a substance. The third acceptance of individual is that it is a token of only
one thing, a terminus discretus, not the thing for which it stands. The
terminus discretus cannot be predicated of more than one thing. This shows
that the three acceptations are not congruent, though there is a common core
of meaning, namely, a thing that is numerically one and not many.
The individual can be a thing of whatever kind: a thing outside the mind,
a tenninus discretus, a universal, but it is always a complete being. If it is
a thing outside the mind, it is a set of qualities that cannot be found in another
being. Neither an unessential part nor an essential part are individuals. An
individual is "incommunicable", that is to say it cannot be different things
at the same time. (Thus though God certainly is a complete being, he is not
an individual, because he is three persons at the same time) 15
Till now we have only considered first substances, but how can second
substances be characterized? Ockham distinguishes between qualities and
properties. Generally a quality is understood as subjective; it is an impres-
sion of one of the senses, while a property is considered to be the objective
aspect of an individual, to which qualities correspond. Ockham, however,
makes another distinction. Qualities are accidental, properties intrinsic, that
is to say they belong always to a certain kind of thing and only to that kind.
If we suppose (as Ockham does) that all men are able to laugh and only
men are able to laugh (what is probably not true; it seems that apes can
laugh too), "able to laugh" or "risible" is a property of man. Let us return
to the more general concept of quality, (not taken in the modem restricted
sense). As secondary substances, they only exist in fIrst substances and
though the abstract concept of a quality is general, its instantiations are
particular and exist outside our minds. Gordon Leff explains this in the
following way: "Ockham treated being as a term predicable of universals
and not a universal essence. To say that "Socrates is white" is to make both
THE INDIVIDUAL 87
tenns stand either for real individuals or for properties of real individuals.
Abstract fonns therefore remain universals only so long as they remain
indifferent or indetenninate, without existential import, so soon as the tt
enter into a proposition significatively they become finite and individual". 1)
Thus both concepts for kinds of things, such as "man", "stone", etc. and
concepts for qualities such as "red", "hot" etc., are derived from intuitive,
namely direct perceptual knowledge of individual substances, "this man",
"this stone", or individual instantiations of qualities, "this white", "the white
of Socrates". This is possible because men resemble each other in many
aspects, stones resemble each other, all whites resemble each other. Their
similarity can be perfect, but they are never identical. They are "similar"
like they are "red" or "white", their similarity does not exist apart from them.
Different things can resemble each other and therefore general tenns can
be applied to each of them, but, as J.R. Weinberg has stated so justly,
"exclusively in tenns of the individual natures of the resembling individu-
als".17
Indeed different cats are all cats, not because they have a common nature,
a set of identical properties, but because they contain sets of instantiations
of qualities that resemble each other. An individual moreover, cannot differ
on one moment from itself, without being no longer numerically one, while
a concept can differ from itself on the same moment and still remain
numerically one.
Two further remarks about qualities must be made here. The first
concerns the species specialissima. Ockham says that whiteness is a species
specialissima. "But whiteness is a lowest level species with respect to all
whitenesses. Admittedly, it sometimes happens that one whiteness agrees
more with a second whiteness than with a third. Thus equally intense
whitenesses seem to agree more than two whitenesses of different inten-
sities. Nevertheless, given two such whitenesses, one always agrees with
some parts of the other as much as any two whitenesses agree with each
other. For this reason whiteness is a lowest level species and not a genus
with respect to whitenesses ".18
This means that whiteness is a general name for this white ... and that
white ... and another white, a name for individuals, which always differ
slightly from each other and are therefore diversa primo. The question can
be asked whether, those whitenesses being alike but not identical, they can
be separated. Not being first substances, they cannot have autonomous
being and inhere in a first substance. It is this first substance that in principle
can be divided into parts. This leads us to the second remark: we must keep
88 CHAPTER 6
in mind as it is relevant for the discussion of the new concept of individual,

proposed by the constructivists, that in distinguishing strictly between first
and second substances, Ockham also distinguishes between predicates that
are general names for the two kinds of substances, between sortal and
characterizing universals.
2. ONTOLOGY
THE CONSTRUCTIVISTIC INDIVIDUAL
2.1. EXTENSIONALISM AND EMPIRICAL INDIVIDUALS
In the previous chapter we have treated of extensionalism as an alternative

for intensionalism in semantics. Now we shall have to reflect again on
extensionalism as a constructivistic tool. In "Steps Towards a Constructive
Nominalism"W.V.O. Quine andN.Goodman wrote: "In "x is a dog", only
concrete objects are appropriate values of the variable. In contrast the
variable in "x is a zoological species" calls for abstract objects as values
(unless, of course, we can somehow, identify the various zoological species
with certain concrete objects). Any system that countenances abstract
objects we deem unsatisfactory as a fmal philosophy" .19
We have already said that the ostracism against abstract objects has not
been maintained in their later work, but this is not what should be our
preoccupation for the moment. Both Quine and Goodman claim that
nominalism consists of describing the world in terms of individuals.
Whether they must be concrete is another matter. In any case this implies
replacing classes by individuals and their members by parts that are in their
tum individuals. Thus the intension of the zoological species dog may be
replaced by the extension of "dog". The meaning of the term "dog" in this
way implies only individuals, namely the sum of all individual dogs, if, as
is the case here, only its extension is considered. This shifting from the
intensions of class-concepts to extensions in the new system seems to draw
heavily on the nominalistic-empiristic heritage. At first sight the new
concepts seem clear, but a second look reveals many shadowy aspects.
In The Structure ofAppearance N. Goodman affirms that it is one of the
purposes of a constructional system to allow only terms and expressions
that have a well-established meaning. He explains this again in "A World
of Individuals": "This discloses the relationship between nominalism and
extensionalism, which springs from a common aversion to the unwanted
THE INDIVIDUAL 89
multiplication out of exactly the same entities by membership; nominalism

goes further, precluding the composition of more than one entity out of the
same entities by any chains of membership. For the extensionalist, two
entities are identical if they break: down in any way into the same entities.
The extensionalist' s restriction upon the generation of entities is a special
case of the nominalist's more thoroughgoing restriction" .20 The schematic,
the purely formal does not say anything about itself, we need an explana-
tion, an this explanation, which can be intensionalistic or extensionalistic,
is what matters. Therefore the distinction between Platonism and
nominalism is not purely formal.
He takes as an example the following diagram:
a ________
d~
------
b · f
c --------
It can be explained either as a representation of the child parents relation

(and then d and f are respectively the father and the mother of the children
a, b and c), or it can be interpreted intensionally, e.g. by understanding it
as a class relationship. In that case d and f are distinct classes, but their
members a, b and c are the same, as in the class of animals with kidneys
and the class of animals with hearts. 21
Besides the nominalist's aversion for the uncontrolled generation of
entities, there is the demand to know what entities a term applies to in the
first place. In scientific discourse, as Frege had already stated 22, it is not
only required to know whether to count a wood and the trees it is composed
of as one individual, it is also required to know whether the term "number"
applies to anything and whether the term "Chymera" applies to anything
and if a term denotes, to know what it denotes. According to N. Goodman,
in his system this can be anything as long as it is an individual. Now, let us
suppose we are certain a term applies to a number of individuals. Must we
also know those individuals individually, must we be able to enumerate
them, to identify them? Here we are back at the doubts about the concept
of extension we formulated earlier.
N. Goodman needs, as not all names we want to use, even though familiar
and meaningful, are quite clear, definitions for explanatory purposes. A
constructional definition, he says, is correct - apart from formal considera-
90 CHAP1ER6
tions - if the range of application of its defmiens is the same as that of its
defmiendum?3 This is, however, in many cases too strong a demand and it
must be replaced by the weaker demand of extensional isomorphism.24 The
principle of extensional isomorphism is that the set of all defmientia of a
system must have the same extension as the set of all definienda.
How are extensions detennined? The answer is: "not by inspection of
everything to which the two expressions apply, but rather by bringing to
bear all sorts ofother knowledge. But if extensional identity is taken as the
criterion of definitional accuracy, then our willingness to accept a proposed
defmition will be measured by our confidence that the definiendum and the
defmiens apply to exactly the same things, regardless of how that con-
fidence is acquired or sustained. Considerations of possibility will in a
sense enter into the choice of definitions. We shall have to consider whether
it is possible that there are cases of either expression that are not cases of
the other, and we shall adopt a definition without reservation only if we are
certain there are not. But when we are sure that extensional identity occurs,
no further question of possibility enters" .25 Whether extensions are worthy
of our confidence, whether they have a foundation that is empirical is far
from certain. Their advantage over intensions seems to shrink to the vague
stipulation that they consist of entities that can be anything that behaves
logically as an individual, out of which no new entities can be generated.
The distinction between extension and intension was made by the Port
Royal logicians. The intension of a term consists of the qualities into which
the concept that is associated with it can fall apart. Its extension are the
things that fall under the concept. This classical conception of extension
and intension is much more explicit about the kind of knowledge we need
to establish extensions; we must namely understand the concept and the
properties that are the result of its analysis. Is "all sorts of other knowledge"
not just this, and is this not further proof that Carnap was right in believing
that intensions are generally prior to extensions, save where the first names
we learn are concerned? After all it is only the first few times we learn to
apply a name, when somebody is pointing to the thing named, that we use
nothing but empirical infonnation. Afterwards, when applying the term to
other things showing a similar quality or a set of similar qualities, we are
already using a concept, abstracted from the empirical situation oflearning.
Let us consider different situations. (For brevity'S sake, I do not consider
cases that are not in accordance with ordinary use). If you reach me a bag
and say: the extension of the expression "the things contained in this bag"
is this: and then you pour out the content of the bag on my table, I know
THE INDIVIDUAL 91
exactly a) which things form together the extension of the expression and
b) in consequence I need no further empirical or non-empirical information.
If you point at something and say "This is Mr. John Johnson", I know the
denotation of the expression and must know nothing on beforehand, not
even what kind of thing Mr. Johnson is; it could be a certain man, a guinea
pig or a robot e.g .. If you say pointing at a collection of things: "these things
I call my favourites", I know again the exact extension of the expression.
(It is to be noted that we do not consider the prelinguistic learning process
of kinds of things, but the learning of the meaning of terms).
There are, therefore cases where the extension of a term or an expression
is empirical indeed. Determining the extension of general terms like "red"
or "man", however, is quite another matter. It is not possible without
detailed knowledge of the meaning or intension of the term, for it is not
possible to assemble all men who ever lived, who live and will live, not
even to assemble those actually living and the same holds for red things.
We cannot even in principle know who lived in the past and who will live
in the future. The extension of general terms is a logical abstraction that is
no more or no less empirical than their intension, both are generally derived
from the same observations. Complete examination of extensions is impos-
sible for general terms, therefore we have to rely on other knowledge
including intensional connections for establishing extensional isomor-
phism. Thus, we can say with N. Goodman: "And the correlations we
consider the most natural are in general just those that most readily engage
our confidence".26 Extensions presuppose, save in rare cases, the
knowledge of sets of properties, (knowledge acquired by abstraction from
experiences or acquired by description in words or images), which will
enable the user of the term to determine whether to count an element of
reality as belonging to its extension or not.
This is how it is possible to derive extensions of general terms from
intensions, and how it is possible to learn new concepts (and the intensions
of the corresponding terms) by combining concepts that are already known.
The distinction between extensions of general terms and particular
expressions is not made explicitly by N. Goodman. One example he gives
is "those residents in 1947 that weigh between 170 and 180 pounds and
have red hair". His comment is that in order to determine the extension of
this expression we must not consider the cases that might have been, but
only actual cases. This kind of expression, which in his system can be the
name of an individual, presents no peculiar difficulties. When he comes to
examples where the extension is ambiguous, we are not surprised to find
92 CHAPTER 6
that these examples are general terms. Not only ambiguous names like
"cape", which can be applied to clothing or to certain bodies of land are
mentioned, but also words like "fish" or "fern". The latter are in his words
"indeterminate with respect to certain entities". We can have difficulties in
deciding whether a certain individual plant is or is not a fern, whether an
animal we observe is a fish or is not a fish. Therefore, if we want to define
"fern" or "fish", we should see to it that our definiens has no extension that
is in contradiction with common usage. (As we shall see, the individuals of
his system may be fishes or ferns, but they may be also of the queerest
nature and it may be asked whether there is any chance of sticking in those
cases to "common usage").
At last he comes to what he considers to be the more difficult problem
of the extension of terms like "point" in the mathematical sense. Here we
are faced with an abstract term and as there are infinitely many points its
extension has no empirical content at all. It is purely conceptual and shrinks
to an intension. At least, however, there are no doubtful cases here and
therefore it is a logically clear notion.
Admitting only extensions of terms as their meaning - honesty demands
to remind that N. Goodman does not reduce meaning to extensions, but
considers extensions to be the only part of it acceptable for establishing
meanings in scientific discourse - supposes that only those terms can be
used that have a definite extension. What terms are ruled out in a nominalis-
tic system? Those that have no extension at all: "Pegasus", "phlogiston",
etc ... Those that have extensions that cannot be clearly determined, "good"
f.i .. But we can ask, is not, according to Goodman, the extension of "fish"
or "fern" indeterminate too? Is it not a matter of degree? This shows that
terms are admitted or excluded, not on the base of the possibility or
impossibility of determining an extensional isomorphism, but according to
the personal judgement of the constructivist. Does the constructivist ever
ask what is the opinion of the scientist who must in principle be able to use
the system? He writes about the example of the fern: "In such a case we
demand of a constructional definition only that it is in accord with common
usage in so far that this usage is determinate". 27But is the extension of terms
determinate in common usage? P.F. Strawson has drawn our attention to
the fact that in ordinary language we must distinguish between signification
(that to which terms can refer according to general semantical rules, not
necessarily known explicitly by the langauge user) and the reference of a
term part of an expression. The latter depends on the broader context it is
TIIE INDIVIDUAL 93
used in, on the intention of the speaker, the empirical situation at the
moment of utterance, etc.?8
Cases where the signification of the term is fairly well-established and
the reference least context-dependent are some proper names, like "Earth".
By convention the term applies only to one planet, we live on that celestial
body, it can be seen from space. Further cases are general terms combined
with terms indicating definite empirical elements such as times and places,
persons: whereas even terms that are at first sight not problematic, like
"fruit-fly" are extensionally indeterminate to a certain degree, the expres-
sion "the fruit-flies in the bottle in the laboratory of Prof. 1.1. Smith on the
5th of lune 1985 at twelve o'clock" has an extension that is fixed.
Our conclusion is that shifting from intensions to extensions does not
seem to bring us much gain in semantical clarity, in N. Goodman's own
words, "all sorts of other knowledge" being needed to replace the inten-
sions.
2.2. TIIE CALCULUS OF INDIVIDUALS
Classes are concepts, individuals are things or parts of things. Like exten-
sions are thought to be more clear than intensions, individuals are thought
to be philosophically more acceptable for nominalists than classes.
The calculus of individuals as constructed by H.S. Leonard and N.
Goodman is derived from Lesniewski's mereology, which presents us with
a new concept "collective set" or "mereological set". Mereology, to put it
in a simple form, is an axiomatic extralogical theory of "parts or wholes as
pieces or aggregates and their most general relationships,,?9 The term
mereology is derived from the Greek 'to ~po~, part. The main charac-
teristic of mereological classes and totalities is that they do not differ from
their elements or ingredients, they simply are their elements or ingredients.
Examples given by E.c. Luschei, the main source of information concern-
ing the work of Lesniewski for those who do not read Polish, are social sets
or classes consisting of persons, planetary systems consisting of planets,
armies of subgroups of one or more men, oceans of water, rain of raindrops,
paper of paper, expressions of words, Morse signals of dits or dashes,
multiple images of component images, and headaches of assorted aches or
pains. These examples are not without importance; they do not yet tell us
formally what can be considered an individual in the system, but they tell
us what Lesniewski had in mind. If Luschei is right, the world Lesniewski
94 CHAPTER 6
wanted to describe in his system consists of the kinds of things enumerated

in these examples: "Lesniewski stressed that mereology and his related
investigations are based on the conception of class (or set) of such and such,
as a totality of individuals that are such and such, a collection literally
composed of all those individuals as ingredients, which are not necessarihl)
discrete. This conception he considered firmly based in popular usage".
We shall establish that for many reasons the latter cannot be said of
Leonard's and Goodman's calculus of individuals.
We have seen that for Quine and Goodman nominalism and exten-
sionalism always go together. The calculus of individuals they use in "Steps
Towards a Constructive Nominalism" is extensionalistic and Nelson
Goodman's system as exposed in The Structure ofAppearance makes use
of the same calculus. Lesniewski's mereology is extensionalistic too, in
contrast, for instance, with the sets of Cantor. Though Cantor had a similar
conception of sets, he suggested that there is an idea or intension that
corresponds even to sets that are the sums of their parts. For example, the
performance of a piece of music, being a sum of sounds that corresponds
to the score, thereby corresponds to the Platonic idea of the composition. 31
Intensions, universals, classes are conventions. A strict distinction, how-
ever, must be made between collective use and distributive use of a
predicate. In distributive use something is said about a number of in-
dividuals, in collective use, something is said about a totality composed of
individuals, totality that can have properties that are different from the
properties of each of the individuals it is composed of separately. This
distinction must be reflected in formal language. In the first case no
class-concept is needed at all, in the second case a collective functor is
indispensable?2 It is stressed again and again that no individual is different
from the totality or the collective class of itself and neither is a totality
different from the totality or collective class of itself or from its ingredients
or parts.
Let us first consider a few similarities and differences between mereol-
ogy, understood, not as a theory in itself, but as one part of Lesniewski's
logical system and the calculus of individuals. Lesniewski distinguished
between protothetic, ontology and mereology. In his protothetic he de-
veloped his logic of nouns and verbs and the logic of nominal and verbal
functors. These two parts of his work correspond roughly to Aristotle's
study of being: on,.!!Ie one hand propositions based on the different ways
of using the verb d Vat and to predicate, on the other hand, starting from
'tu ~v'ta, the study of concrete beings. Mereology, as the third part of the
THE INDIVIDUAL 95
systems, is an extralogical theory based on the two former systems,

protothetic and ontology. Lesniewski had studied thoroughly the philoso-
phical tradition and what he proposed must always be seen against this
background that he took into account.
The fIrst remark we must make concerns the fact that Lesniewski, in
contradistinction to Quine and Goodman, wanted his logic to reflect the
broad grammatical categories of ordinary language. Therefore, in his
ontology, he distinguished between nouns and verbs, the latter not being
transformed into predicates. But like Quine and Goodman, he did not
distinguish between general and particular or proper names. Or, rather, this
is Luschei' s interpretation. I would say that Quine and Goodman eliminate
particular names and proper names and in consequence use only general
names in their logic. Indeed, as on the ontological level proper names and
particular names are troublemakers, they are unwanted. Lesniewski on the
contrary had no such scruples, as he did not share at all Russell's view about
ontological commitment; proper names were important, not to say pivotal.
Logically however, nouns, particular and general had the same function
and, like in Ockham's opinion, they had to be treated on a par. Their import
consisted of individuals, either existing or not existing.
Quine, under the influence of Russell, interprets (x) (x exists) as: every-
thing exists. In consequence, in his logic all nouns must be names. However,
from this follows, that the formula (Ex) (x does not exist) is a contradiction
in his 10gic.Existential generalisations therefore must be restricted to nouns
that are names. Lesniewski, following Luschei, did not like logical artifIces,
which did not correspond to common sense and use in ordinary language.
This is why he did not interpret (Ex) in an existential way, namely "there
is something", but as "for some x ... ". Thus (Ex) (x does not exist) became:
for some x it is not the case that x exists". Luschei comments in the
following way: Quine tries to build a logic that is independent of empirical
facts (and in my opinion this holds for N. Goodman as well), Lesniewski
did not. It should be added however, that the initial choice of the values of
the variables in the constructivistic nominalism of Quine and Goodman
reflects their opinion on "what there is". The logician determines in what
way his logic should be interpreted. Building a system, he chooses basic
elements, determines whether his variables correspond to individuals built
of basic elements, sums of individuals, sums of parts of individuals, etc ..
Though Lesniewski, did not, like Russell, want to make a distinction of
logical type between names of just one individual and other nouns, he did
not believe that, as Quine tries to prove, we can totally dispense with a
96 CHAPTER 6
hierarchy of types. He distinguished f.i. between "facts" and "things",

between verbs and nouns. His definitions, however, said nothing about
existence.
2.3. THE IDENTITY OF INDISCERNABLES
As we have seen, Lesniewski stressed the fact that no individual is different

from the totality of itself and no mereological set differs from the sum of
its parts. In N. Goodman's "On Relations that Generate", we can fmd an
alternative formulation of this principle: a system is nominalistic if no two
elements are obtained, starting from exactly the same elements. In order to
test this we must know the generating relation of the system or at least of
its atoms. 33 "In other words, the nominalist countenances only individuals
but may take anything as an individual. Whether a system is nominalistic
depends not upon whether the entities admitted are in fact individuals
(whatever that might mean) but upon whether they are construed in the
system as individuals - that is, upon whether the system always identifies
with one another entities that it generates out of exactly the same selection
from the admitted entities that it does not generate out of others". 34 Entities
differ when their "content" differs partly or totally. If, like it is mostly done,
extensions are identified with classes, those classes are indistinguishable if
they have the same members.35 There are two problems here: N. Goodman
declares that in a nominalistic system everything can be taken as an
individual. We shall postpone an answer to the question whether this is
acceptable.36 The second problem can be identified as that of the traditional
principle of the identity of indiscernables. This principle is in its tum
derived from the rejection of the formal distinction. Ockham rejected the
distinction, which was introduced by Duns Scotus, in order to explain how
knowledge of the individual was possible, though all genuine knowledge
must be universal. Duns Scotus' thesis was that in every individual there is
a nature and a contracting difference that individuates it. Both are less than
numerical unities, they are only formally distinct. Ockham per contra, held
that every individual is individual because its properties are individual and
not because the common nature in which it partakes is individuated by a
contracting (= individuating) difference. As a consequence Ockham did not
accept the thesis that there is "cat" in every cat and "red" in every red. Both
"catness" and "redness" are species specialissimae, species that are the least
general that can be distinguished. "Catness" and "redness" are not names
THE INDIVIDUAL 97
for what is general in the particular, not genera of species, but general names
for particular individuals or particular qualities, such as this cat, that cat and
still another cat; this red, that red and still another red.
The principle of the identity of indiscernibles says that if there is no
characteristic one can truly ascribe to A that one cannot also ascribe to B,
A and B are identical and numerically one. From this it follows that a formal
distinction between an entity and itself, mat conceptually make sense, but
does not correspond to a feature of reality. 7 We can conceptually distin-
guish between an entity and itself, but it is difficult to maintain knowledge
and reality are one. (One of the main principles of Ockham's nominalism
is that the concepts and categories of knowledge have no independent
reality).
In the epistemology of N. Goodman - and as we shall see in that of
W.V.O. Quine too - the principle is transformed: "if no distinct entities
whatever have the same content then a class (e.g. that of the counties of
Utah) is different neither from the single individual (the whole State of
Utah) nor from any other class (e.g. that of the acres of Utah), whose
members exactly exhaust this same whole. The Platonist may distinguish
these entities by venturing into a new dimension of Pure Form, but the
nominalist recognizes no distinction of entities without a distinction of
content" .38 The example that is given here is appealing at first sight, perhaps
because we think of it as a mere application of the formerly mentioned
principle of the identity of indistinguishables or simply as based on the
rejection of formal distinctions. It is neither: formal distinctions concern
natures and their contracting differences, not classes and their content. The
problem of the formal distinction is related to the ontological status of
different degrees of generality. The principle of the identity of indiscer-
nibles was used by Leibniz in order to make sure that no two monads that
are exactly the same can exist and "exactly the same" means in this context
"having exactly the same properties". In the new nominalistic version it is
not an individual and its nature that are compared, nor two individuals and
their properties, but individuals and sums of their parts. But of course,
departing from tradition can have advantages.
2.4. THE ADYANTAGES OF THE CALCULUS OF INDIVIDUALS
One of the formal benefits of the system is illustrated by an example taken

from Carnap' s Logische Aufbau. Carnap' s basic elements, his "Erlebs", are
98 CHAPTER 6
in principle indivisible, but by quasi-analysis, we can try to know what

qualities are combined in one "Erleb".39 This quasi-analysis, however, is
strictly analogous to a real analysis on the base of a description in terms of
relations. Goodman thinks that here we find the essence of Camap' s
solution of the problem of abstraction in an epistemology based on the
particular 40: how can we know, i.e. characterize in general terms, in-
dividuals?
We suppose a set of individuals or things that have different colours. Our
task is to define each of the three colour-classes by isolating them, without
knowing what colour or colours each thing has, but knowing what colour
relationships (= having one colour in common) pairs of things show. A
colour-class is a class of things that have a certain colour, alone or in
combination with other colours. A pair of members of the colour-class has
a colour in common and must be on the list.
For convenience I re~roduce the little scheme of "the Calculus of
Individuals and its Uses" 1, which illustrates the example that shows most
clearly the logical implications of the new system.
:;mo
..... m
."
............
............
S
1111 ::::::::::::
----- ........ _-- "'---Y-"
M ~~~~ p ~~~
-_ _---- _-
------.. .... ----
....---- ..
1111 ---- ...... ----
----
'- S ___
-..,....-
column a column b column c
The capital letters represent different shades of colour
In order to do justice to this aspect of the technique of the calculus of

individuals, I cite extensively:
"Suppose we have as elements a set of three columns, each colored with
three bands, as pictured in the accompanying diagram, and suppose that the
relation S is such that "x S y" means that in some one band - lower, middle
THE INDNIDUAL 99
or upper - the two entities x and yare identically colored (in the sense that
no color in the band either in x or y is different from anyone color in that
band in the other). It is clear that S is a relation like those already considered;
we may have three columns, like the ones pictured, such that a S b, b S c
and a S c, even though all three columns have no single color in anyone
band.
However, nothing in our specification of S prevents it from taking as
relata, not only single columns, or elements, but also those entities that are
sums of the elements; the expression "x S y + z" has the perfectly clear and
unambiguous meaning that x and y + Z are identically colored in the sense
described, at some level. In the illustration given, therefore, "a S b + c" is
false, for at whatever level we look, either a and b + c have entirely different
colors, or else a is uni-colored while b + c is bi-colored, and the condition
for the holding of S is not satisfied in either case. The proposition "x S y +
z" will thus hold only if x and y + z - and therefore x, y and z - have a single,
identical color at some level; and accordingly the triadic degree of the
relation may be defined by the function "x S y + z" ( ... )" .42 Camap argued,
in his "Autbau", that the case that colour-classes cannot be distinguished
will seldom occur and thus possible difficulties are improbable. In N.
Goodman's opinion, on the contrary, there is a good chance that in some
things a certain hue of blue for instance occurs only if, at the same time,
other hues of blue, slightly lighter or darker, occur.
Thus a non-negligible advantage of the calculus of individuals, is the
treatment of multigrade relations. Leonard and Goodman stress that this is
possible by the fact that in their system a + b is a concept of the same logical
type as a and b themselves, and more generally, that the fusion of a class is
of the same logical type as its members. But this advantage is at the same
time a disadvantage. That is what I am going to show in the following pages.
3. IDEOLOGY
3.1. THE DIFFERENT CONCEPTS EXPRESSIBLE
Another example of such a multigrade relation is the meeting of three

persons at the same place and at the same moment. In the calculus of classes
this case cannot be distinguished from the case where f.i. John met Peter
and Peter met Bob, without Bob and John having met each other. In the
calculus of individuals John can meet the sum Peter + Bob, just like a colour
100 CHAPTER 6
can be toge~er with the sum of two other colours, which fonn a new
individual.'1- In the previous section I mentioned the fact that Lesniewski
seems to have tried in his system to stay as close to common sense and the
use of different concepts in daily life as possible.44rhe new nominalists
depart from both.
Compared to class logic in some respects the gain is considerable.
Leonard and Goodman, trying to solve the problem of the multigrade
relations, advanced the argument that it would be an onerous and imprac-
tical technique to raise the logical type of buildings and parts of buildings,
windows e.g., to a higher logical type, molecules e.g., in order to find a
common denominator, which would enable us to express the relationship.45
(All buildings are members of the class of buildings A, all windows part of
buildings, are members of the class of windows part of buildings B, but
though windows are parts of buildings, class B is not part of class A; but
the class of the molecules of all windows part of buildings C is part of the
class of the molecules of all buildings D). This technique cannot be applied
in all troublesome cases, however. It is too complicated and would require
a special theory of physics. Therefore the calculus of individuals seems
preferable and Leonard and Goodman use "individual" and "whole" ex-
plicitlyas interchangeable.46 The latter are "what is represented by signs of
the lowest logical type" and they state: "The concept of an individual and
that of a class may be regarded as different devices for distinguishing one
segment of the total universe from all that remains". 47 As a matter of fact
we do not in practice distinguish totally arbitrary segments. In connection
with classes the question is not raised because classes generally correspond
to well-established concepts. In the calculus of individuals no kinds of
entities are mentioned, the variables stand for names of anything that
behaves logically as an individual. Logicians in general- and Leonard and
Goodman as well as Quine in particular - strive for simplicity of means in
their system, but though this leads to a gain in logical and ontological
simplicity, it does not lead to epistemological clarity. Many concepts that
are indispensable for genuine knowledge cannot be reduced to the logical
concept of individual.
Though it seems Lesniewski did not aspire to such an extreme soberness,
because he saw logic as an expedient for the conceptual regimentation of
scientific and common sense knowledge, respecting its irreducible and
indispensable complexity, his concept of individual is also very broad.48
Indeed, in ordinary use of language no individual is part of another
individual in the literal sense, (though there can be random cases such as a
THE INDIVIDUAL 101
baby in its mother's womb). Nevertheless, in Luschei's terms: "If [in-

dividual] A is in [individual] B, then B as well as A is an individual, and if
inA it is the same as individual A" and also: "If A is part ofB then B is an
individual not part of A", "A overlaps (.. .) B if and only if at least one
ingredient of individual A is in B".49 This cannot but mean that Lesniewski
thought of totalities and wholes as individuals. Probably he had in mind
such examples as woods composed of trees, populations composed ofliving
beings. Analogically Quine and Goodman will think of Peter and John or
the sum of the acres of Utah as individuals, but they are going to broaden
the concept still further and include the sum of different quantities of water
amongst its instances. It is certain that Lesniewski's mereology gives rise
to such derivations. On the other hand it is rich enough to express all the
necessary conceptual distinctions. Its concept of individual is very large,
but individuals in the narrow sense can be characterised as special cases of
the general category of totality or whole. This is not the case in the calculus
of individuals. Let us put the logical concepts of mereology, the calculus
of individuals and Ockham's logic on a row. In the first place individual
class or collection. It is composed of at least one individual, it is a collection
of one or more individuals of a certain kind. In the second place "whole"
or "totality"; in conformity with the medieval tradition it is considered to
be identical with the sum of its parts. Ockham affirms that all that exists is
one and can be added up with other elements that exist, or can be divided.
Therefore in a large sense a whole or totality is everything that can exist
"per se". In this sense, however, the arm of a man is not a whole or totality.
Whole has two further meanings: something that has more than one part
and cannot exist without its different parts. (In this acceptation a whole is
something that has parts belonging to its essence or, in other words , it cannot
exist without its parts, but not vice versa). In an improper sense whole
means "that what is common to many things", like a genus is common to
different species, a species to its individuals. This meaning corresponds to
the class concept, which in Lesniewski's system is replaced by the in-
dividual class or collection. (The species do not belong to the essence of
the genus, the individuals to the essence of the species or in other words,
as concepts they can exist without the correspondin& parts, their relation-
ship is that of the more general to the less general). 5
The next concept is that of individual. We know that "individuum" means
originally that what is "indivisible" and have mentioned the fact that an
individual no longer exists as such when divided, but is destroyed. An
individual can exist per se, is a whole or totality and it can have proper parts ,
102 CHAP1ER6
which are less than the whole. Like every whole an individual is, in the case
it has parts, nothing but the sum of its parts. In a way it is this concept that
is misleading; it blurs the difference between a totality and an individual.
A wood is a tree and a tree and still another tree ... A cat is not a paw and a
jaw and a tail and... etc., it is not the sum of its parts, though it is not different
from its parts. Though an individual can have proper parts, it never contains
a plurality, whereas a totality can contain a plurality.
In the calculus of individual collections, totalities, individuals and their
parts are treated on a par. Yet this is not intuitive. When dividing concep-
tually the world that surrounds us, the divisions are the outcome of a
cognitive process that sorts out the invariants, those features that remain
constant under changing circumstances. These vital elements, which we
distinguish from the rest of our environment, are coherent to various
degrees and this variety is grasped and ordered into different concepts.
Some examples from daily life may be useful. In the first place we speak
of things: persons, animals, objects. Their most conspicuous feature in this
context is their continuity, they are one, do not show gaps, but they need
not be homogeneous. They mostly have parts that can differ in shape and
material.
Though all individuals, taken in the broad sense, are things, we must
distinguish between the normal use in daily language and the philosophical
use. In daily language individuals are persons and living beings in general.
Philosophically speaking individuals are those particular things that are
destroyed by division, not only because by division they undergo change,
but because they are never homogeneous, their parts are not the same kind
of particular things as the whole, and moreover they are, when the division
is drastic, destroyed as the things they were. Especially a living being that
is cut into pieces is not only no longer the same thing, but in most cases,
except in some of the lowest species such as sponges, the operation is lethal.
The common examples of totalities or wholes such as a pack of wolves,
a drift of snow, a wood, should convince us that though individuals are
totalities or wholes, not all wholes or totalities are individuals. The main
characteristic of a totality or whole is that it is generally not continuous.
Mostly it is composed of similar elements, the homogeneity of which can
vary. A whole or totality contains a plurality of elements that show a certain
degree of coherence. A pack of wolves is a pack as long as the wolves
occupy a single territory. A flake of snow on the North Pole is not part of
a drift of snow in England. An individual is a kind of limit-case: it is
coherent but it contains one (non homogeneous) element.
THE INDIVIDUAL 103
The two last concepts we shall consider, concepts which we also use in
daily life, are "quantity" and "collection" or "class". Where a quantity is
concerned we can think for instance of a gallon of water. The homogeneity
is maximal, the continuity unimportant. A gallon is a gallon whether in two
recipients or in one. Collection, class or set has as a characteristic that all
its elements have certain properties in common. A pack of wolves is a
whole, not because all the wolves have properties in common, but because
all the wolves are integrated in a structure, limited in time and space; a
collection or class of red things e.g.,is composed of elements that share one
or more characteristics, but time and place are in most cases undetermined,
unless they belong to the properties the elements of the collection have in
common.
In Lesniewski's systems there are constants linked with each of these
concepts we use in daily life, except for "a quantity of matter" .51 Moreover
different kinds of parts can be distinguished. Indeed, the concept of part is
a complement of that of collection, quantity, totality, individual.
There are two ways of considering parts. The first is in function of the
idea that things are the sum of their parts. From the fact that some segments
of reality are the sum of their parts is derived in the logic of the calculus of
individuals that all segments that should be considered in a nominalistic
system are segments that are the sums of their parts. I have argued hitherto
that not all interesting segments are individuals, I shall argue now that not
all segments are sums of their parts in a literal sense. The calculus of
individuals is meant to be a substitute for the calculus of classes. Certainly
we can consider sums of classes. In a logical universe comprising only blue
things, red things and yellow things, the class of the coloured things
comprises the sum of the class of the blue things and the class of the red
things and the class of the yellow things. The concepts blue, red and yellow
fall under the concept coloured, or the concept coloured applies to blue
things, red things and yellow things alike. The individual class, which
replaces the ordinary class concept, is in a way the extension of this class
concept. If the things that fall under a concept are thought of as the parts of
their sum the departure from ordinary usage is minimal. In arithmetic we
can add meters to meters or kilograms to kilograms or Belgian Francs to
Belgian Francs, why couldn't we add members of classes, thinking of them
as pieces or parts of a collection? A collection of stamps is in a way also
the sum, though not the logical sum, of the stamps. By extension the same
holds for a totality; a shower is the sum of its raindrops. What should we
think of a quantity? Is it also the sum of its parts? In a way it is not; it has
104 CHAP'IER6
namely no parts. In a way it can be: two pints of water is the sum of one
pint and another pint. In the calculus of individuals it is said that an
individual in the ordinary sense of the word is the sum of its parts too. But
here we can see clearly the fallacy: an individual does not contain a
multiplicity of separate elements in the first place and therefore cannot be
the sum of such elements. An individual has not parts, but is its parts.
Moreover the addition is a commutative operation, the order of the elements
is unimportant, A + B =B + A, whereas the order of the parts of an individual
is all important. That is why I am not my head + an arm + my body + a leg
+ an arm... Moreover, I am not, as is supposed in the calculus, divisible into
my parts, because I am continuous and a fortiori I am not divisible into the
parts of my parts. I am not the sum of the molecules of the parts of my body.
These separate molecules cannot be added in a random way and form the
same individual. A collection of molecules has not the same properties as
an individual composed of these molecules. The principle of the identity of
indiscemibles, is that things that have exactly the same characteristics
should be identified. The addition of my molecules has not the same
properties as those I have. Nelson Goodman mentions a difficulty that
apparently is similar and recognizes that the molecules of a lump of silver
hardly have the same properties as the lump of silver. 52 The reason is that
the electrons that compose the silver of the lump are not silver themselves.
The one-place predicate silver is not dissective; not every part of every
individual that satisfies it does also satisfy it. The reason we think that not
all individuals are the sums of their parts, however, is not that these parts
do not have the same properties as the individual, though indeed this is not
the case, but that the peculiar connections of the parts are lost in the concept
"sum of parts".
The second way to consider the concept of part, is the traditional way,
which is also the base of Lesniewski's view. Ockham believes a genuine
part of something is a part that is essential, or in other words, a part without
which the thing cannot exist. (We remember that essence and existence are
one and the same in his philosophy). Thus my arms, my legs, my head, my
body, are real parts of me. An integral part per contra is a part that can exist
autonomously, such as a tree, which can exist without a wood, a piece of a
puzzle without the puzzle, etc .. (Also interesting is what Ockham says about
numbers: in a strict sense a part is what forms one totality with something
else, but in a large sense it is that to which, taken together with something
else, can be applied a certain predicate, which could not be applied to it
THE INDIVIDUAL 105
taken alone. Thus Socrates and Plato are two, but neither Socrates nor Plato
is two).53
Lesniewski at last, distinguishes part from ingredient and sole ingredient.
An individual part is not the whole of an individual, it is incOIporated as
part in the individual, it is a piece, a proper part, a part less than the whole.
An ingredient can be part or whole of an individual. Thus an ingredient can
be contained in a collection, a totality or an individual. Lesniewski con-
siders collections as well as totalities and ordinary individuals to be in-
dividuals, as we have seen. Individual is taken in the broad sense of unique
object. It is yet possible to characterize individuals in the strict sense as
those individuals that have one and only one ingredient and this means they
are real individuals. Lesniewski has a special constant to express this.54
3.2. DMSION AND INDIVIDUATION
As we have seen, the idea of adding up individuals (in the broad sense) and
their parts is derived from the calculus of classes. In this calculus it is
possible to consider as one class very different things, providing they share
one or more properties. A logician, using class logic, would hardly consider
the class of the Morning Star and Napoleon: these elements have very little
in common. In the calculus of individuals the sum of Napoleon and the
Morning Star is an individual. To sum up is to consider together, to take
conceptually as one entity things that can but need not have sets of
properties in common. Socrates and Plato are two, considered together they
have a new property, they belong to the class of pairs; in the calculus of
individuals the sum of Socrates and Plato is one, namely an individual.
Reality has not changed, it is only segmented conceptually in a new way.
The reverse of addition, division, is even more remarkable in the calculus
of individuals. The common sense view is that you cannot add up every-
thing, for instance not apples and pears, unless you are counting pieces of
fruit. The common sense view is also that though in principle and only in
principle it is possible, we do not actually divide reality or appearance in a
random way, but in function of its characteristics and these are established
by a long tradition based on the way we know reality. They may be objective
or subjective or both, but they are derived from experience.
Let us consider the (conceptual) division of on the one hand a glass of
water, on the other hand an individual in the usual sense. If you divide a
quantity of water, let us say into four fourths, these fourths are individuals,
106 CHAPTER 6
but how can you recognize one fourth from another fourth? Only by relating
each fourth to other empirical elements, such as left from you, right from
you, at this moment, etc., or the fourth in the glass on the bookshelf now,
the fourth in the glass on the table at this moment, etc.; in other words with
impure predicates, predicates related to time and place. But even then, there
are many ways to divide a quantity of water into four equal parts. You can
pour four equal quantities of the original quantity into four recipients. You
will get one fourth that consists of the upper layer, two of the middle layer,
let us say, and one that consists of the bottom layer. If you are patient, you
can spoon four fourths out of the original recipient, and even this can be
done in different ways. Still, the result will be the same, namely four fourths
that cannot as such be recognized individually, but only in function of the
place-times they occupy. Now, conceptually divide a person into four parts.
Though this can be done in many different ways too, you will never get
four indistinguishable parts. Interchange them as you like, there will always
be a part containing the head or part of the head, a part containing one of
the legs or part of it, etc.. Treating quantities on a par with individuals in
the strict sense leads inevitably to problems.
Moreover the fourth's of the glass of water, can be divided in their tum.
In order to individuate these parts they must be linked to smaller places and
times. The process can be repeated till we reach molecules and their atoms
and their parts and these can no longer be pinned down to a time and a place.
The individual, as is it is proposed in "the Structure of Appearance", is
not only spread over different places and possibly discontinuous, but also
spread in time. This makes the problem of individuation still more difficult.
The glass of water we took as an example is a certain individual on moment
t 1, which can be divided in different ways on the moments to follow. Let
us say somebody drinks a bit of the water on moment t 2. Just like a plate
and its parts when it is broken, following the authors of "The Calculus of
Individuals and Its Uses", are one and the same individual, the part of the
water that is still in the glass and the other part of it that is in the body of
the person who drunk it, are one individual. If on moment t 3 part of the
water is absorbed by the body and part is excreted these different parts also
are a "time slice" of the original individual. As a consequence, wherever
the molecules are on the next moments t(x ... n), they constitute together
each moment a "time slice" of the original quantity of water. There is
offered no criterion as to where an individual begins and ends. Of course I
have chosen my example, a quantity of a certain material, in order to be
able to show to what queer results the theory in principle can lead. Nelson
THE INDIVIDUAL 107
Goodman however, rarely is afraid of the unusual and to use an expression

of Ayer, is not easily "tied to the apron strings of common sense". He
resumes the problem in the following way: "We may, of course, still ask
why certain cross sections, and similarly why certain presentations belong
to a single thing while others do not. The detailed answer would be
complicated and difficult to arrive at but the question is entirely parallel to
the question why certain things related in a certain way make a table rather
than a desk. The only difference is that in the former case we are asking for
a general defmition of "thing" rather than for the more specific definition
of table. None of these problems concern us at present. I simply want to
emphasize the point that the identity of a thing at different moments is the
identity of a totality embracing different elements" .55 This leaves us with
the question of how we are going to decide. Are we going to make an
arbitrary choice or a choice based only onpurely pragmatic considerations ?
I believe that there are two possibilities: either it is tacitly understood that
the actual use of the system presupposes the ordinary traditional concepts,
or we must consider the new system, as a genuine alternative for our usual
conception of reality, a conceptual revolution translated into a logical
system. In that case the ordinary concepts of individual, totality, whole,
collection and quantity are absorbed by the concept of individual, which is
inflated to such an extent that it can be applied to any segment of reality.
Judging by the standards of the later work of Nelson Goodman, where his
relativism and conventionalism take a still more important place, the latter
interpretation must be the correct one. Does the gain in logical clarity
outweigh the ideological poverty of the system? It is up to the reader to
judge.
Lesniewski's system contains enough distinctive constants to express a
broad range of concepts. One example is "totality with one ingredient". If,
per contra, every element of the system is divisible, save the atoms, which
are qualia, as is the case in the system proposed in The Structure of
Appearance, each individual can contain a multiplicity of elements, ele-
ments which can be divided in their tum. There is no guarantee that the
system's elements are not infinitely many, even though they are construed
out of a fmite number of qualia.
In the system, however, we can restrain from an interpretation implying
an infinity, but its possibility is not excluded: "It should be especially noted
that the calculus is to contain no postulates implying that the number of
individuals is either finite or infinite, thus for example it will contain no
statement affirming that every individual has a proper part" .56 N. Goodman
108 CHAPTER 6
suggests the use we make of the calculus detennines whether infinity is

involved or not. The system can be intetpreted in such a way that the
variables of the calculus apply to individuals that have proper parts and are
divisible and I or to individuals that have no proper parts and therefore are
indivisible. The system contains individuals that are divisible into in-
divisible individuals (qualia), but it is not a consequence that it is finite. It
can contain individuals that are sums of an infmity of atoms and therefore
be infmitely divisible. 57
In this chapter we have concentrated on the notion of individual, in the
next chapter we shall study the relation between general and particular in
the new brand of nominalism. This will give us the opportunity to return to
many questions we have raised and to improve our insight into their nature.
CHAPTER 7
PARTICULAR AND GENERAL
There are three fundamentally different ways of conceiving of reality. They

all presuppose the world is composed of particular elements. As it would
be too complex to be known as such, its variety must be regimented. ill
order to achieve this, Plato invented his Pure Forms: though everything that
we perceive is particular, it corresponds to an ideal model. The ideas form
a world apart, which is exemplar and more real than the shifting world of
ordinary perception. The Aristotelean conception of reality is that all
concrete independent elements of reality are particular and general at the
same time. They are particular in their accidental properties, general in their
essential properties; in other words there are properties different individuals
have in common. Thereby the general is present in the particular and thus
it is real to a certain degree, though it has no independent existence. The
third conception represented by Ockham is that in as far as we can know
reality, the transcendent being exclusively a matter of belief, it is composed
of particular elements. We must order these elements using general con-
cepts, but these are only products of the mind, expedients that have no
independent reality whatsoever.
These three basic conceptions determine the way ordinary language is
conceived of and the goal philosophers set themselves when constructing
ideal languages.
1. BUILDING A WORLD OUT OF GENERAL ABSTRACT

ELEMENTS
ill The Structure of Appearance, Nelson Goodman proposes to undertake

the construction of a logical system on a phenomenalistic base. He under-
lines that he has chosen this phenomenalism because it has advantages, but
that it is by no means proven that this is the best choice. There are good
alternatives. The Structure of Appearance can be considered the outcome
of the first period in his work, which already contains an outspoken
relativism. According to which position the philosopher starts from, a
logical system is a way to describe reality (concrete things), or appearance
110 CHAPTER 7
(the result of our perceptions). This tendency towards relativism shows a

crescendo ranging from The Structure of Appearance over Languages of
Art and Ways of Worldmaking to Of Mind and Other Matters. He denies
that there is one independent reality and prefers to speak of different
versions of reality. This needs not discourage his readers to be critical about
the one version given in The Structure ofAppearance. After all, in his own
words, there are good and bad versions, useful and useless maps. One thing
is certain: if a constructional system is a kind of map, it must enable us to
find our way in the world that surrounds us. It is a curious consequence of
his beliefs, that we can only find our way by first making one world or
another and then starting to map it; indeed, there has to be a fixed ontology
from the beginning. The map is intended to indicate where is what at a
certain time and how things are related. (For geographical maps this seems
to be alright, but whether this is also the case for scientific research is a
question we have debated in chapter 3, where we discussed ontological
presuppositions).
The central idea in the epistemology ofN. Goodman, as I interpret it, is
that the world as it appears to us, can be described by projecting a huge
network on it. The meshes can be made as coarse or as fme as is convenient
for its use, they consist of e.g. visual field places and times, a kind of
co-ordinates and then the meshes are filled with qualia, in this case colours.
The same can be done for other sensorial fields. It must be remarked that
places and times count as qualia too. 1 This is not the traditional view on
times and places, which are generally not counted amongst the phenomena.
N. Goodman sets forth a series of arguments, such as the fact that
phenomena and not only physical things have spatial and temporal aspects
and that moreover times and places bear the same relations to one another
as the other qualia. A much more serious problem than that the approach
mentioned by the author is unusual, is whether qualia can be identified
independently from one another; especially for places this is not a simple
poser. Qualia, as the atoms of the system, cannot be divided, but they are
part of presentations. (A presentation is the way a segment of our surround-
ings, composed of concreta, appears to us at a certain moment)? Other
remarkable conceptual shifts are to be mentioned. For example, there are
not only, as we have seen in the previous chapter, next to indivisiblequalia,
divisible individuals, but there are also general individuals, though these
are not concrete.
Are qualia objective or subjective? Certainly the system is solipsistic to
a certain degree, but can we control our experiences? N. Goodman, refer-
PARTICULAR AND GENERAL 111
ring to the theories of C.I. Lewis, argues that they are neutral. In order to
test the reliability of qualia, we can verify if there are means to predict that
two objects will match in colour when observed together under some
specified conditions. 3 According to Nelson Goodman this prediction is
possible and therefore it can be established whether two objects have
identical colour properties: "Though presentations are momentary and
unrecallable, they are neverthele~,s comparable in that they contain
repeatable and recognizable qualia. 4 Of course quale recognition is not
testable in the strict sense, it is founded on a decree by the perceiver, but
such decrees are not arbitrary, they have to fit other decrees made earlier
and a whole background of accepted decrees. s We shall not discuss this
matter. For the moment we can accept that they are neutral material derived
from experience and it is not whether they are only objective in a relative
sense which is a problem, but rather the fact that they are repeatable in two
ways: two presentations of one thing can namely contain the same qualia
and two things can also contain the same qualia. This is not merely a manner
of speaking, the construction of the system reflects it. The difficulty is not
one of the riddles that follow from Plato's theory of ideas, "how can one
idea be at different moments and at different places at the same time"?
Qualia are quite different from ideas, they are perceived by a subject and
lead no independent life. There are in our perception qualia that we cannot
distinguish, because of the functional limits of our sense organs. These
qualia can be construed as individuals because we count as the same what
we cannot distinguish, though it is not in principle indistinguishable. This
is N. Goodman's approach and it implies repeatability: a same individual
can occur at different times and places. This is not extraordinary for things
and living beings, but it is for sense data. The principle of the identity of
indiscernables is no longer upheld. If both qualia and combinations of
qualia are individuals in the system, how are these individuals per se to be
identified? They can not, they are only identifiable when combined with
other qualia, namely qualia of time and place. This is the reason why, next
to colours and qualia of the other sense realms, times and places are adopted
as qualia; they are individuals we perceive and as such they can individuate
other qualia and their combinations. I doubt whether this is a very satisfac-
tory solution. Strawson has tackled this problem in an interesting way and
I shall return to it later. For the moment we must keep in mind that all qualia
are repeatable, hence also times and places. I suppose in N. Goodman's
opinion a place can occur together with different times and is then repeated.
What he says explicitly is that a colour is repeated, if it occurs at two places,
112 CHAPTER 7
even at the same time and a time is repeated, if two qualia of some kind
occur at that time.6 From this follows that the qualia all can have instances
and can be universal 7 They are abstract and only the combination of a quale
with a time-place, where all three occur together, is concrete. Therefore, it
can be said, that concrete and identifiable are the same in this system.
Indeed, no two qualia of one sense realm or combinations of such qualia
can be at the same place at the same time, but the same quale or combination
of qualia can very well be at different places at the same time or at the same
place at different times. To sum up, the term individual applies to three
kinds of things: to a quale, which though indivisible can have many
instances, to combinations of qualia that do not contain a place-time (and
therefore can have different instances) and to concreta, the combination of
one or more qualia together with a place-time, which are unrepeatable.
These characteristics make Nelson Goodman's constructivistic system a
very special version of nominalism. Anyway, we can conclude from the
foregoing that not all individuals are identifiable (a quale or even the
combination of several qualia that are together but not with a time-place,
are not). Those that are, are made so by a place-time. Nominalism can
therefore, in the sense in which it is used by Nelson Goodman, be realistic,
while traditionally nominalism always is particularistic. The question
remains open whether identification by means of the equivalent in this
system of "impure" predicates, namely place and time qualia, is an accept-
able solution.
2. BUILDING A WORLD OUT OF PARTICULAR, CONCRETE

ELEMENTS
For W.V.O. Quine, concrete objects are epistemologically primordial.

Normally this should involve the epistemological problem how, starting
from particular elements, we can produce valid general knowledge. In his
case the revere is true: in constructing a system for the description of the
world he does not want, for the reasons we fully explained before, to use
particular terms, but only general terms. Therefore he has to explain how
particular elements of reality and more especially concrete objects can be
described in general terms in a way that makes individuation possible, thus
facing the problem that normally is involved by a Platonistic or a concep-
tualistic point of view.
In Roots of Reference 8 W.V.O. Quine links the building of a theory of

the world, based on the way we refer to things, with the problem inherent
in the empiristic theory and mentioned - but not solved - by Berkeley and
Hume, namely, "how do we derive the existence of bodies, concrete things,
from our perceptions?". Today we now however, that what are sensed are
not separate elements but" structured wholes", in other words bodies. The
"old epistemologists" thought their theory was based on introspection, but
it was not; it was based on the contrary on the physical theory of their time.9
His conclusion is, that our theory of the world is based on the sensing of
bodies and the rest of our assumptions is derived from it. He starts from this
thesis for the construction of his theory of reference.
In the work of W.V.O. Quine it is always difficult to determine whether
the fact that he does not refer to the traditional way of viewing the problem
is due to his disrespect for tradition and a voluntary omission or whether
he believes he merely builds further on that tradition. In the case that
occupies us, I believe his views are totally revolutionary and in clear
contradiction with all preceding theories. There certainly is an evolution
from From a Logical Point of View and Word and Object to Roots of
Reference. More and more the advantages of reference are valued and the
problem of vagueness is left aside. The constant element on the other hand,
is the elimination of direct reference to individuals. Another constancy is
the endeavour to banish all assumptions that cannot be verified according
to behaviouristic principles. A consequence of this behaviourism, which is
of interest, is his thesis that if we want to establish how we know the world,
conceive of it, theorize about it, we must shift from the study of perception
to the study of linguistic behaviour. As I shall try to show, this putting the
cart before the horse is quite misleading. In the previous chapter I have
defended the point of view that there is knowledge that is not based on
linguistic, but on a kind of pre-linguistic knowledge and I shall defend here
again the point of view there is genuine knowledge without language. A
baby knows already many interesting things about its surroundings before
having pronounced a single word. (The happy event of the first word usually
occurs before it is one year old). Its pre-linguistic knowledge can be
demonstrated by studying its behaviour only and we do not need mentalistic
presuppositions.
Let us follow Quine in his hypothetical reconstruction of the learning
process of language. He begins with explaining what are observation
sentences and exposing the problems linked with observation. We can skip
his introduction to the subject, which comprises also a paragraph on
114 CHAPTER 7
ostensive learning. We have treated already of this matter and its difficul-
ties. 10
W.V.O. Quine starts from ostensive expressions, like "red" and "milk"
or "water" and "Mama" and then shifts towards the learning of terms like
"yes" or"no". As was to be expected the learning process is represented in
behaviouristic terms. The linguistic activity is not to be considered spon-
taneous. It is not a reward on its own, it is always a response to a stimulus,
activated by the expectancy of an external reward, a sweet, praise, etc .. Then
he treats of words that express a value, like "good", "flimsy", "sick", etc ..
All this does not involve great problems. It is when he treats of masses and
bodies that we can see the same blurring of concepts we criticized in the
previous chapter.
Indeed Quine compares words like "Mama", "Fido" and "Jumbo" with
words like "red" on the one hand, like "water" or "snow" on the other. All
these words, he claims, are expressions linked with direct observation and
this is the uniting principle of his new regimentation. He contrasts these
words with words like "apple" or "square". The learning base of the three
kinds of words is very similar in his opinion: Mama, water and red are
recognizable recurring presences. Mama differs from water and red, in
being, for all her sporadic comings and goings, spatio-temporally con-
tinuous, but this distinction is a sophisticated matter, derived from physical
theory with "little bearing on the learning of observation terms". 1 Further
he remarks about this difference that "Mama" implies a shape, what is not
the case with "red" or with "snow". Though Mama's shape often changes,
her various orientations ad contortions are joined by observed continuity of
deformation. Mama is perceived as a totality, "a simple unified figure". On
the other hand red is very similar to water: it is amorphous and can be
present in different portions at the same time. Though from the point of
view of observation "water", "red" and "Mama" can be put on a par, Mama
is a body, red and water are not. Why then contrast this kind of words with
words like "dog"? Because, Quine argues, words like "dog" have individua-
tive force, they imply division of reference. 12 Moreover, the similarity basis
necessary for the acquiring of a word like" dog" is a second order similarity:
"not only this dog, but all others as well". The different presentations of a
dog show similarity and different dogs are also similar to one another.
The following step in Quine's hypothetical construction are "relative"
general words, "same as", "more than", "less than", etc., which raise the
problem of the identity of different presentations of the same thing. (Ab-
solute identity statements occur only at a sophisticated level, these state-
ments are meant with at either side of "is" a proper name). Then comes the
learning of compounds of words, names for colours and shapes, truth
functions and analytic sentences. We can omit to go into detail as these
topics have no direct bearing on the problem of particular and general.
The chapter of Roots of Reference, where Quine treats of reference
instead of the learning process of language, goes beyond the aspects of it
we already know from Word and Object. Knowing what words a child has
learned does not clearly establish what he is referring to, according to
Quine's theory. For instance even if a child gives evidence of recognizing
red, whenever it is present, this fact does not make clear what kind of
reference is made. 13 Is he referring to a body that shows a red surface, a
colour, a colour-patch that is different from occasion to occasion? Only in
the broader setting of a context can this become clear, though even then
alternatives are not excluded. Nevertheless, Quine considers the referential
part of language as central to our conce~tual scheme and it can learn us a
lot about ontology and about universals. 4
What he wants to show us is that though certainly man is a body-minded
species and though traditionally there are two ways of referring to bodies,
namely by using particular terms or general terms, according to whether
we are referring to one of them or to many of them or to an indefmite number
of them, this distinction is not at allfundamental: "Mama" and "Fido" are
singular terms, though our categorizing them as such is a sophisticated bit
of retrospection, which bears little relevance to what the learning child is
up to. "Animal", "dog", "apple", "buckle" and "body" are general terms,
retrospectively speaking and what makes them so is the built-in individua-
tion. 1 The learning of singular terms has nothing to do with "objective"
reference, reference to bodies.""Snow", "water", "white" and "red" can be
learned in the simple manner of "Fido" and "Mama". These all start out on
a par, with no thought of designation and no premium on bodies".16
Amongst general terms"body" is, according to Quine, the most general
term. Other general terms are, as said, "animal", "apple", "dog", etc ..
"Colour" seems to be a general term for "red", "blue", "green", etc., but it
is not, because a colour is not a definite portion of reality; it is a linguistic
convention what portions of the spectrum are distinguished and given a
name. Like the notion "~eople whose telephone numbers are prime", colour
is an unnatural notion. I Therefore we should not say "red" is a colour, but
"red" is a colour-word. This is a very curious distinction; in my opinion the
extension of words like "ancestors of the dog" are not clear-cut either, it is
not determined in a purely conventional way or at random, but certainly
116 CHAPTER 7
laymen just as well as scientists occasionally disagree on these matters.

Here he does not seem to see problems, though such terms can be considered
unnatural too. I believe Quine exaggerates this distinction and I already
mentioned that in so called "primitive" societies, when compared to our
own, there are more parallels to be drawn than there are differences where
the use of colour words like red, blue, white is concerned.
The important thing is that "red" is considered to be a mass term rather
than a quality. This means that Quine shifts from the quality red to red things
that are not specified. Qualities become things, things become stuff. The
world consists mainly of stuff. Indeed: Mama-stuff, red-stuff, snow, blood,
apple. But apple can also belong to another kind of terms, namely terms
that are individuative, like dog, mani etc... "Once the wedge is in, the
analogy drives it further", says Quine. 8 Colour words come to be thought
of as general terms, so that "Snow is white" and "Blood is red" are
assimilated to "Fido is an animal", instead that they are thought of as a mere
subsumption of one mass term under another. And then the colour word in
subject position, as in "Red is a colour", comes to count as an abstract
singular term, like "square" in "s~uare is a shape", rather than as a concrete
one, as in "Fido is an animal". 1 This proves that for Quine a quality is
abstract, red things are concrete, therefore he reduces qualities to red things.
His excuse is, that in ordinary usage the contrast between concrete
general and abstract singular terms is indistinct and identity is likewise
rather foggy. There is one principle the ontologist can depend on: ontology
is a generalization of somatology. This is a tendency of ordinary usage,
"colour" and "shape" tend to be used like general terms for bodies, but
thereby incorporeal things are introduced. As this multiplies our ontology,
the remedy of the constructivistic ontologist, striving for simplicity, is to
generalize some of his categories. He generalizes namely the concept body,
which becomes the concept "physical object". This makes it possible to
refer to any material aggregate however scattered with an abstract singular
term. The alibi is that we learn "Mama" and "sugar" in the same way. The
roots of scientific theory, even if it occasionally departs from ordinary
language, lie in the learning process of that same language.2o
Two elements of the referential apparatus of ordinary language and their
counterpart in logic and mathematics are to be examined: the pronoun,
which enables us to construct relative clauses and can be compared with
variables in logic and mathematics, and quantification in both ordinary and
formal languages.
In short Quine's theory concerning the relative clause is that the relative
clause is learned, like general terms, though certainly, in exceptional cases,
in order to respect grammar, the relative clause must not be replaced by a
general term and so is grammatically speaking not quite equivalent to such
a term, as Geach had already shown. This serves well Quine's purpose:
relative clauses, which are stepstones for the learning of quantification, can,
with a good conscience, be constructed as general terms in formal language.
This leaves us with mass-terms and general terms, two broad categories,
one of them individuative, but no proper names or particular terms.
Whatever we want to refer to is reduced to physical bodies of different
kinds, scattered or continuous, but all subsumed under the concept of
individual and referred to by means of mass-terms or general terms, which
are primordial.
For technical reasons Quine shifts from ordinary usage of the relative
clause to the "such that" clause. Thus, "Fido that I bought from a man that
found him", becomes "Fido is a thing such that I bought it from a man that
.found it".21 The relative clause enables the logician to put any sentence
about "a" into the form of a predicate sentence "a is P", where P is a general
term. From then on any "a" can be replaced by an "x" and the particular
term can be eliminated in the familiar way: "a is a thing x such that Fx" or
"a vice xFx".22 Quine concludes: now that the words "thing" and "such that"
are suppressed from view, we can easily dissociate our "a" and "x" from
the category of singular termsi for this substitution operator makes sense
for any grammatical category 3 and he considers it a comforting idea that
the constructivistic system proposed is in keeping with the way a child
learns to refer to things: "Our child could learn this general substitution
operator "a vice x" as easily as he learned the relative clause. For the words
"a is a thing x such that" are just a special case of "a vice x"; they are the
case for singular terms. The equivalence transformation by which the
general case would be learned is just the same 24, but in the case of the
general terms a paradox can arise, which resembles Russell's. Luckily the
case of substitution of "x such that" for "a" or "a vice x" is innocent of
paradox.
He shows further that quantification comes forth in a natural way. The
child that masters "Every L is a B", "every apple is a fruit" can learn
"everything x, such that Fx is a thing x, such that Gx"; He explains that this
kind of quantification hinging on the use of the relative clause is substitu-
tional and not objectual in character. Variables begin as substitutional, but
the next step is to switch to objectual quantification. The reason is that we
118 CHAP1ER7
have no names for all apples, rabbits, etc .. We could say the child becomes
capable of that degree of abstraction where apple is a species and fruit a
genus. The variables do no longer stand for individually specifiable things
or bodies; to stick to substitutional variables of quantification, would mean
that one must leave out objects that cannot be individually specified. As
examples he gives electrons and transcendental numbers, grains of sand
and stardust. The question is, what to count as singular terms and further
more there is also the ever recurring problem which of them we must count
as naming. 25
I believe this point of view is satisfactory in this sense that it does no
longer imply that the extension of terms is scientifically acceptable, but
intensions are not. What is the difference between objectual quantification
and the acceptance of intensions? If one is not able to specify what exactly
the terms one uses are true of, beyond e.g. "red is true of all red things",
"all" is a purely logical concept with no empirical content in objectual
quantification. Compare with: "all the things in this sack are red", where
"all" has an empirical content.
For the moment we are leaving W. V.O. Quine to the further elaboration
of his hypothetical construction of the learning processes of reference,
because he now turns to the problem of abstraction and that is not our theme.
3. STRAWS ON ON THE PARTICULARITIES OF GENERAL

TERMS
In the previous paragraph I have tried to recapitulate some of W.V.O.

Quine's views on semantics and reference and to draw the attention to some
of their peculiar characteristics. He uses all his ingenuity to show that in
the learning process of language there is no fundamental distinction be-
tween the general and the particular. Individual things can be reduced to
stuff that is general. As said, Quine states there is at this first level of
language learning no premium on bodies. Qualities can be divided into two
kinds; those the addition of which yields the same quality, (e.g. red + red
+ red... is red) and those on the other hand that cannot be added the same
way, because the result is not the same quality, (e.g. a square + a square +
a square ... is not necessarily a square). The second kind of qualities gives
rise to the hypostasis of those qualities, (square leads to squareness, f.i.).
The first kind of qualities on the other hand gives us no indication about
the shape of the things that show the quality and can therefore be treated
the same way as stuff, like gold or water. Therefore the contrast between
concrete general and abstract singular is indistinct following Quine.
As we mentioned earlier, he contends, when considering the genealogy
of language, grammar is an element that masks differences in language
learning. From a grammatical point of view talk of bodies is central and
with it objective reference. The ontology of grammar is a generalization of
somatology. Standing at the banks of a certain river we can point at the
water now and a moment later and later again. The next step is to take all
these elements together, the river bed, the moving water, its different laye~
its different stages; we call this "the river Cayster" or simply the Cayster.
We have added an object to the universe of our discourse. This leads to a
simplification in grammar, because a spatio-temporally spread element can
be named with one single term, but in ontology this can give rise to an
undesired multiplication if we are not careful.
The philosopher who is a constructivistic ontologist, devises and im-
poses in order to simplify ontology, by generalizing some of his categories.
The broadest category derived from body will be "physical object". This
construction enables him to unite the two tendencies we mentioned into one
principle: the singular can be turned into the general, as in Mama becoming
Mama-stuff, but on the other hand the general can tum into the singular, as
in waterlayers and waterstages, which can be added and are identified with
a single diffuse object, or as in this red thing and that red thing and another
red thing ... , which become "red", a diffuse object, containing all the red in
the world.
It is clear from this that blurring the distinction between particular and
general serves an ontological purpose. The world consists of physical
bodies, this term being taken in a new, broader sense: Mama, water, milk,
dogs, the Cayster, red things. A justification for this construction is that, in
Quine's opinion, it is more in accordance with the way we learn language
than with grammar, which contains categories that show a clear-cut distinc-
tion between the general and the particular.
In section 1. of this chapter we have given an account of the different
approach worked out by Nelson Goodman. Instead of seeking to construct
a system that still has links with common sense, he radically chooses for
abstract elements, namely qualia, as building blocks for his system and just
like in the work of Quine, the elements he wants to build out of qualia do
not correspond to the usual conceptual distinctions. Not only does he want
to speak of John and of Peter, but of their sum as well, not only of the plate
on which the dinner is served, but of the sum of the elements of the (broken)
120 CHAPTER 7
plate. Elements scattered in space, elements scattered in time are added and
become individuals. A cat is a sum of what and where it is now and what
and where it is tomorrow,just like a table is the sum of its parts, namely its
top and its legs. And last but not least: amongst the qualia are times and
places, on a par with colours, e.g .. Qualities are repeatable, though not time
qualities. Therefore, they are general, but when a time-place is added to a
quality it becomes "concrete".
P.P. Straws on, as we have mentioned, has developed a theory in order
to establish the difference between general terms and particular terms. In
accordance with his opinion that bodies not only playa central role in our
conceptual scheme, but are even fundamental and primal, he shows that
particular terms presuppose empirical facts, general terms not. This dif-
ference is the base for the different roles particular terms and general terms
play in propositions and more especially in predicate sentences, where the
general term can be used as subject or as predicate, whereas the particular
term can only be used as subject and never as predicate. To complete this
theory he wants to ascertain that universals do not introduce particulars in
the same way particular terms do. In order to do so he must convince us
that the different kinds of universals he distinguishes can be reduced to or
replaced by a kind of universal that does not introduce particulars at all,
though it can yield the introduction of a kind of pre-particulars. These
special universals are what he calls feature-universals, the kinds that are to
be replaced characterizing universals and sortal universals.
The interest of Strawson's theory for our subject lies in the fact that, in
his endeavour to show that there are two irreducible grammatical and
conceptual categories or kinds of terms and their associated concepts and
thus having a purpose that is in a sense at the opposite of that of W.V.O.
Quine and that of N. Goodman, he makes analyses that are clarifying for
the nature of the difference between general and particular.
Let us start with the feature-universals. In what sense can we say that
they are special? Strawson wants to reach a layer of our language where no
particulars are introduced in the way particular terms introduce them and
the feature universals form such a layer. Examples of such feature univer-
sals are gold, snow, rain, coal, etc .. They are by no means reducible to
characterizing universals. Though "golden" and "made of snow", etc. are
characteristics, "gold", "snow", etc. are not. On the other hand, when we
say, e.g., "there is snow here" we do not imply there is a drift of snow here,
or there is a flake of snow here or there is a heap of snow here, and when
we say "there is gold here", we do not imply there is a golden plate, a golden
watch or a lump of gold here. We do not determine what kind of individuals

are involved. In order to do so we need to shift to expressions such as "this
drift of snow", "this golden plate", etc .. 27 These particulars, however, are
not, following Strawson, a fairly reasonable selection of individuals that
are introduced into discourse by particulars. All the more it is doubtful
whether, as W.V.O. Quine does, it is wise to use the feature-universals
(mass-terms), which are the base for these particulars, as the basic type to
which other terms are reduced for constructing a new system.
What about characterizing universals, such as adjectives and verbs
transformed into adjectives, "red", e.g., or "loving"? These offernog great
difficulty, because they do not introduce particulars at all, they are ap-
plicable to particulars. They have the power, however, to group particulars
already distinguishable by some other principle or method?8 I would like
to add that when I see a red flower I can mention the red of this flower, but
this red is not an individual in the broad sense, like a lump of gold, though
it is a particular. It is in the Aristotelean sense a second substance, it has no
existence of its own. What is the difference with feature-universals? Straw-
son says that features are not characteristics, but are characteristics a special
kind of features? Though gold cannot exist without being either a lump, or
a jewel or a plate or an ingot, etc., it cannot be put totally on a par with "red"
or "loving". A lump a jewel, a plate, an ingot, etc. are first substances, can
exist on their own, while "this red", "that red" and "still another red" cannot
exist on their own but only inhering in things that can exist on their own. It
is clear therefore that characterizing universals do not give rise to the
derivation of particulars of the same kind as feature universals.
Let us now come to sortal universals. It is obvious that this is the most
difficult problem, because sortal universals introduce in a straightforward
manner particulars. "Dog" introduces dogs into discourse, "apple" intro-
duces apples into discourse; what could be the difference with the way
particulars are introduced in discourse by particular terms? The latter
presuppose empirical facts in this sense, that they introduce particulars that
can be identified. What Straws on has to prove is that sortal universals
introduce particulars that cannot be identified. They introduce a range of
individuals, not definite individuals. In order to do so he tries to explain this
by reducing them to feature-universals, which are in a way more basic. The
problem is whether "cat" introduces individuals that can be described as
cat-stuff. This is clearly much more difficult than to explain gold as
introducing the material gold, because the concept cat contains already the
122 CHAPTER 7
element shape. Gold and gold and gold is gold, but is cat and cat and cat
cat?
Moreover, another difference is linked with reidentification. When
seeing snow you can say "there is snow here", a moment later "there is snow
here again", "there is more snow", "there is still snow". Whether you speak
about the same snow you see again, or about fresh snow or other snow does
not matter. If, on the other hand, you see a cat and say "there is cat here"
and then a moment later "there is more cat here" or "there is cat again",
something is left unspecified that matters, namely, is it the same cat you
are talking about or another cat or other cats? Following Strawson "the
decisive conceptual step to cat-particulars is taken when the case of "more
cat" or "cat again" is subdivided into the case of "another cat" and the case
of "the same cat again"". 29 Thus sortal universals cannot be treated in terms
analogous to those used for treating feature universals.
The only possibility that seems to remain is to dissolve cats into temporal
cat-slices. In that case saying "cat !" or "there is cat here", comes to saying
"there is a cat-slice here", no matter what form this particular cat-slice here
and now has. (This ought to render the duality of the sortal universal, which
are at once general and range over individuals). There seems, however, to
remain a difficulty: they are different from the basic ordinary particulars,
namely bodies, in that they are not objective, they have no clear limits in
time and space, they cannot be reidentified like ordinary particulars. Straw-
son formulates this thus: "when are we to say that we have the same
cat-slice? Shall we say that we have a different cat-slice when what we
should ordinarily call the attitude of the cat changes? Or its position? Or
both? Or shall we say that the limits of a cat-slice are given by the temporal
limits of a period of continuous observation of the cat-feature? Thereby it
becomes clear that the cat-slice concept is not an objective one, but a
subjective one".30 This conclusion does not startle us. We repeatedly said
that extensions are no more empirical than intensions. The particulars that
are introduced by sortal universals, cannot be identified one by one and
their sum therefore, of necessity, is a mere psychological variable datum.
Strawson's theory enables us to see clearly that some universals do intro-
duce particulars into discourse without identifying these particulars. The
latter can only be done by the use of particular terms. Particular terms cannot
be resolved into general terms and used as predicates, because it is a
characteristic of predicates that they do not name one definite thing, but
range over a number of things. At the same time his analysis has further
clarified the conceptual distinctions between different kinds of universals.
It makes the hypothetical construction of the process of language learning

proposed by W.V.O. Quine all the more implausible. Quine's construction
is an endeavour to resolve the particular into the general and to blur
conceptual distinctions, whereas Strawson convinces us that particular
terms and general terms cannot be thus resolved into one another. In a
language where no particular terms are allowed, such as the language
W.V.O. Quine proposes, the reduction of predicates of particulars, namely
characterizing universals and sortal universals to feature universals, is a
further step that cuts off the possibility to introduce particulars into dis-
course, particulars that can be distinguished from one another and reiden-
tified. Also of interest are P.P. Strawson's remarks on times and places,
which not only play an important role in Quine's theory, but also in Nelson
Goodman's constructivistic system, where they figure as qualia that
individuate qualia and sums of qualia.
The first point we must discuss is whether times and places are par-
ticulars. Strawson finds proof that they are not in the fact they can only be
identified and reidentified by reference to other particulars or by trying to
characterize them as occupied by a certain feature. He remarks that of
course there are universals of spatial or temporal "quality" such as "a foot
cube" or "an hour", but their instances can only be identified by what
occupies those shaped volumes and those stretches of time. 31 Following
Strawson, to borrow criteria of distinctness for places from the feature-con-
cepts themselves, which correspond to the sorta! universals, is, though
difficult, not altogether impossible, if we know how to delimit those places,
but for times this cannot be done. The whole project of identifying places
and times is vital for the construction of a language that does not contain
particular terms. The most conspicuous anomaly about places and times as
particulars is that the same places can be variously occupied at different
times?2 Compare the fact that Socrates is a man with the fact that a certain
place is occupied at a certain time by a certain feature. Socrates is an
instance of the concept man and that he is an instance of man is not an
accidental fact, because he would hardly be Socrates without being a man,
but places and times cannot be thus instances of features nor of the sortal
universals the features are derived from. What occupies a place or a time
is purely accidental for that place and that time. Strawson goes even as far
as trying out the idea whether places cannot be instances of universals of
shape-and-size, such as "a foot cube". Once we admit such universals we
could consider also places that are mathematical points. Then we can start
mapping the world: we can think of the world in general as made up of a
124 CHAPTER 7
defInite number of extended places of standard shape and unit areas,

represented on the map by squares, and an indefinite number of extension-
less points, each in principle identifIable by giving a map reference. 33 It is
difficult, he mentions, to see how ordinary particulars would fIt into such
units, they would only very rarely coincide with them. Nevertheless, could
we not then, think of these identifiable elements as filled in with general
features and would this not be a description of the world? And would this
not be comparable to the general idea ofN. Goodman's system? Strawson
thinks that though this is not to be excluded, it is a mere refinement and
extension of the scheme where places and times take the place of ordinary
particulars. His conclusion is that no such system can work, unless it is
linked to empirical facts, because the places and times show what he calls
the completeness that is the hall-mark of particular terms: in order to use
them we have to presuppose empirical facts. So long as the situation at a
place remains stable during a stretch of time, times and places individuated
by a feature that occupies them show no difference with terms for ordinary
particulars. But as is clear from his example of a granite block that occupies
a place during a stretch of time, as soon as the situation changes and e.g.,
a piece is chopped off or the block is moved, then the individual place still
exist, though it is differently occupied.
A language as imagined above by Straws on, would have an enormously
swollen class of feature universals, which have, as it were, devoured the
other kinds of universals. In any case Strawson' s conclusion is, that all well
considered the premium of the introduction of ordinary concrete particulars
is enormous, the gain in simplicity overwhelming. 34
4. IS PERCEPTION BASICALLY PERCEPTION OF WHAT IS

PARTICULAR?
The way we conceive of and the importance we accord to the distinction

between general and particular in our use oflanguage and our ways to refer
to things is related to our opinion about perception and the most fundamen-
tal layers of our knowledge.
Two main conceptions prevail: we perceive the particular and this
perception of the particular is immediate (i.e. unmediated) knowledge of
elements of reality. All generalization is based on omission of details, on
selection and is less perfect than immediate apprehension. This is the
nominalistic and empiristic point of view held by Ockham, by Hume and
other empiricists. This does not exclude a) that in our perceptual system as
a whole on an unconscious level there are "ratiomorph" processes, b) that
once a conceptual system is built, there can be to a limited degree a
feedback: concepts derived from perceptions can influence our further
perceptions.
The other point of view is that perceptions are perceptions of the
particular, but are not yet genuine knowledge as this is always general. This
is roughly the Aristotelean point of view. The elements of reality are
particular and general at the same time. Our perceptions are perceptions of
the particular but the particular at the same time consists of a peculiar
combination of general elements. This is the reason we can generalize:
following some Aristoteleans, even at the perceptual level, we pick out the
general elements that are common to many individuals and form the base
of our concepts. The individual elements of reality as peculiar combinations
of general properties correspond to our general concepts and when we
perceive we see the general in the particular.
This controversy is very puzzling. In an article "Conventionalism versus
Realism", I have tried to disentangle this knOt.35 In the first place I have
made it clear that it is necessary to shift from the traditional point of view,
where perception is seen as that what gives us a more or less faithful picture
of the word and therefore knowledge of it, to perception from an ecological
point of view as proposed by J.J. Gibson. This new theory about perception
considers man to be an animal and more specifically a land-animal and a
primate. His perception is the result of an evolutionary process and has been
proven satisfactory as a system that draws useful information form the
affordances of his environment. Perception enables us to survive: to [md
our way, to [md food and shelter, to [md a mate, to flee from enemies etc.
and not in the first place to know.
Perception is at the base of our two main kinds of behaviour: on the one
hand instinctive behaviour, on the other learned behaviour. Instinctive
behaviour is triggered off by internal and external stimuli. This behaviour
is determined genetically, it can be simple or show a complicated hierar-
chically ordered pattern. At first sight it seems that the stimuli that trigger
off a certain kind of behaviour are the same for all the individuals of a certain
species. For example a male stickleback reacts to the red colour of another
male. It has been shown that a male stickleback performs his innate
aggressive behaviour when seeing any object that has a fish-like form and
a lower half that is red. From this it could be concluded that animals respond
to a certain kind of" general property" the objects have in common, namely
126 CHAPTER 7
"red on the lower half'. But on second view, this seems not to be the case:
the animal does respond differently, in the sense of more of less, to more
ofless intense presentations containing the stimulus. This has been shown
for many species, such as butterflies, fishes and birds. This proves that
animals do see f.i. this red and that red and another kind of red and not only
a general quale red.
On the other hand, where learned behaviour is concerned, this is more
often than not linked to unique elements of the environment. Animals learn
to recognize their parents, they recognize their nest and find their way back
to it, social animals know their companions individually. The best examples
are perhaps monogamous species, which are to be found amongst fishes,
birds and mammals.
Without having to go into further details, which would lead us too far
from our subject, we can conclude that our perceptions are basically
particular. Nevertheless the capacity to distinguish between individual
elements that show very similar characteristics is not always needed. In
many cases an animal does not need to pay attention to these distinctions
and it would even be harmful to do so. The smell or the sight of any of its
predators will make an animal run and there is no time to pay attention to
details. When I see a heap of apples I could study them one by one, before
choosing one, but generally it is of no importance which one I take, an apple
will do.
This makes it improbable that, as in Quine's hypothetical reconstruction
of the learning process of language, a child learns to associate his mother
with a general word, a mass term. A child asking for milk is content if he
receives a glass or a cup of milk, any glass or any cup. But when asking
for Mama he is only content, if it is his one and only Mama who is there.
This leads us to recent research in the field of psycho-linguistics.
Newborn babies are very finely tuned in to their mother in the first place,
to their father in a slightly lesser degree. It is no wonder that they respond
in a different manner to different persons. As we all know, they normally
depend on a unique person for their survival and this is a little later mirrored
in their early linguistic behaviour.
5. HOW DO CHILDREN IN FACT LEARN LANGUAGE?
Consulting different studies on the language acquisition of children, I got

convinced that one cannot understand how children learn first words and
later grammar, without involving the pre-linguistic period. Children do

communicate with their parents before they learn to speak: as I already said,
they are finely tuned in on their parents, which is not surprising as their
instinctive behaviour must correspond to that of their caretakers in order to
be successful.
Moreover they are learning very quickly though this may not always be
conspicuous. Nevertheless, it was generally believed that no true com-
munication takes place before the age of seven or ei~ht months by linguis-
tically oriented researchers and cognitive theorists. 6 Infants are not yet
capable, it is thought, of reference to objects. From seven to nine months,
just before they utter their first words, they communicate intentionally, they
start real social exchanges. Ed Tronick has explained, however, why we
must accept that there are even earlier stages of communication. The
newborn baby must coordinate his internal processes to the external situa-
tion. This external situation is largely determined by its caretakers, normally
its parents. The baby must adapt itself to feeding times, etc., to the particular
person peiforming the caretaking, etc. ( ... ). It is to be kept in mind that "it
is the self-regulated rhythmic organization and the receptivity to highly
specific environmental cues that makes the regulation of endogenous
processes possible".37
Ed Tronick distinguishes a second level of communication, which he
partly associates with learned skills. After the second month, there is a kind
of "behavioural conversation" taking place between the mother and the
infant. It has been shown that the infant behaves differently with the father
and the mother and there is also a modification in behaviour in the presence
of strangers.
In the first place children show their moods by facial expression. They
are not at all passive; there is a whole range of ways to express themselves
and to elicit certain behaviours in their parents. Indeed, at an unconscious
level adults respond to the facial expressions of babies and more specifically
to their gaze and its direction. The baby can modify its behaviour in
accordance with modifications in that of the adult. 38 These capacities are
at that stage not demonstrated in the presence of objects. The baby tries
actively to change the current state of affairs if it is abnormal; he is,
following Troninck, trying to restore the normal mutual interaction. This
competence for imposition of social relationship is not learned. The inter-
action between mothers and infants or infants and other adults shows very
complicated patterns. No particular modality, sight, hearing, tactile sensa-
tions, are of unique importance. Moreover, during this early period this
128 CHAPTER 7
interaction is by no means extended to objects, there is a clear difference

between persons and things and it is only at a later stage that interaction
with objects will take its full importance. The social interaction has another
particularity. It is namely generative in this sense, that it is varied because
it is created at each time of occurrence. The rules, however, are implicit and
innate. These rules pennit on the one hand the elaboration of patterns, while
on the other hand they specify the permissibility of that pattern and they
determine also the way in which one partner modifies his behaviour in order
to influence the behaviour of the second partner conform to his own goal. 39
These general lines are corroborated by different authors. Alan Fogel
studied closely the facial expressions and gestures of babies two months
old. He confirms that there is a difference in behaviour in the presence of
the mother from that in the presence of another baby or another adult and
he confirms that babies modify their behaviour when confronted with a
situation that does not correspond with usual interaction patterns. When a
mother is asked by the experimenter to show a "still-face", to send no longer
(comforting) signals in other words, the baby is anxious, and expresses this
by looking away, smiling no longer, etc ..
Babies very frequently point at and reach for their mother. During the
first half year these gestures are directed to their mother, later on to objects
while looking at the mother. A. Fogel asks interesting questions about the
meaning of this phenomenon: must babies first point at their mothers in
order to be able to point at objects, is this the case for all babies, what is the
relationship between the development of social and non-social competen-
ces?40
As soon as the baby can move about he disposes of other means to
establish contact or to avoid it. The positions of the baby's head and body
express different features of his relationship with persons. He can tum away
from somebody in different ways or on the contrary tum towards them.
Daniel Stem argues convincingly that head and body orientation and
distance are species specific signals, regulating the interpersonal behaviour.
Most of these signals are "language-resistant", more than it is the case for
behaviour related to objects. They express the status, the motivational state,
the affective state, the immediate intentions and can be contrasted with
behaviour directed towards external objects and events. The latter are not
language-resistant but on the contrary proto-linguistic. One of the differen-
ces is that gestures arouse immediately and directly what I would call a
predetermined response, while the words that correspond to those gestures
do not. 41 Another difference is that gestures, according to Daniel Stem give
us "dimensional" information, whereas words give us "categorical infor-

mation". With "dimensional" is meant that all gradations of what we express
are available, while this is not the case when we use words. For example,
we can say "he smiles", "there is a smile on his face", etc., but even if we
qualify the smile, there is a limit to this, though we can smile in many more
ways than can be described. The perceiver on the other hand is quite capable
of distinguishing all those smiles. In other words, gestures are dimensional
in that they cover all points along a gradient. Words, on the contrary, are
categorical, they can only render gradations in a relatively coarse way.
Moreover, if I say somebody smiles, this implies that it is not true there is
no smile on his face. Gestures, and facial expressions can be produced in
such a way that they can be denied. A last remark concerns the neurological
aspect: the gestural behaviour and facial expressions we mentioned fall
under the categories of spatial body-environment mapping and form-per-
ception tasks, which are not linguistically coded and neurologically linked
with the functioning of the right hemisphere of our brains.
There is much more to say on this interesting subject, but it is time to
return to the problem posed by Quine's hypothetical construction of lan-
guage learning. If I am right that perception is basically particular and
considering the foregoing results of the research in the field of the pre-lin-
guistic communicative behaviour, it would be very surprising that the first
words babies pronounce are words that are not particular but general or else
are grammatically particular, but, when considered from the point of view
of the reference that is made, general. The question is then, whether the first
words of children are indeed words like "water", "milk", "Mama", whether
"Mama" is really to be understood as a general term for a stuff, whether
only in a later period a child is capable to individuate, to refer to particular
objects and whether this moment coincides with the learning of general
terms that are individuative, like "dog" or "apple".
The study of Lois Bloom One Word at a Time gives us further informa-
tion that is of importance. What kind of words are actually learned first?
Infants all go through a period they say only one word at a time. Lois Bloom
stresses that the interesting thing about this period is that it contains change,
not only in quantity but in quality. (These changes are important to explain
why a baby of l3-14 months is usually not capable to use syntax, whereas
a baby' of 19-20 months frequently is, but this aspect needs not concern us
here ).~2 The first word usually is not produced before nine months. This
word is often "Mama", in any case the name of a person. This first use of
single-word utterances is characterized by the fact the words are names of
130 CHAPTER 7
people. During this first period from about nine to seventeen or eighteen
months, many words are learned and then dropped from speech for an
unknown reason. There are groups of words that are persistent, however,
and amongst them is the group that contains the names of persons 43, which
are learned early in the first period and another group consisting of "rela-
tional" words or function forms. Next to words like "Mama", "Mimi",
"Baby" etc., words appear that express a relation, like "up", "oh", "more",
"no", "down", "away", etc .. Once learned these words frequently recur.
"The child comes to recognize recurrent phenomena, in certain instances
the figurative and functional attributes of phenomena like chairs and shoes,
in other instances behavioral or relational phenomena like the notions
"upness", disappearance, or recurrence with respect to objects like chairs
and shoes. Both kinds of phenomena come to be represented by the child
as conceptual notions that can be conveniently coded by word-forms".44
Another group of words acquired a little later, are the substantives. Here
again the little child starts from the particular and according to the study of
Lois Bloom the use of words like" chair" or "cookie" occur when the child
is confronted with a specific object for sitting, a specific object for eating.
It is only after having learned to use the word for highly particular instances
that he learns to extend the reference to different objects in different
contexts. The basis for this generalization is, as could be expected, the
features the objects have in common.45 The process of generalization is not
an easy one. Lois Bloom mentions a case study where the child saw a shoe
and pointed to the second shoe of the pair, saying "more". "More" in itself
does not refer to a class of things, its meaning depends on relations of
individual things.
Things, individual bodies, are referred to in a very early stage, the child
uses then the demonstrative pronoun "this", or points and says "there".46 It
seems not to be the case, as W.V.O. Quine thought, that "body" is a
sophisticated notion. On the contrary bodies can be seen, touched, dropped,
thrown, pushed, etc. and they are of immediate interest, though parents,
caretakers in general seem to be even more important, as the child before
he can act on objects is totally dependent on these persons to reach them to
him, e.g .. Not only "this" and "there" are mentioned, but also interjections
that accompany notice of an object or event.47
The child is soon capable of comparing things: some move, some not,
some can be eaten, some can be sat upon, etc. and starts to use words like
"car" or "cookie" or "chair". As we saw, the process of generalization is not
very simple and the children seem to be often out of pace with the adults.
On the one hand over~ inclusion is very common. A child may use one word
in very different situations and the adult must look carefully and reflect in
order to know what it means. For example, a child can use "truck" to refer
to all vehicles, or "quaqua" to refer to all ducks, or "quaqua" to refer to
ducks and water. Lois Bloom stresses that the early over-inclusion of
referents in the use of a particular word is based on a loose and shifting
association of figurative, functional, or affective features of otherwise
diverse objects and events.48 It is only later that children generalize on the
base of clearly discriminable, consistent and recurrent features of objects.
Thus they may use "dog" for all animals that are four-legged. It seems
plausible that, not knowing the word for cat e.g., they call it "dog", because
a cat is more like a dog than like any other thing they know the name of.
The collective meaning is not given to a word for a collective thing, but to
a word for individual things that show similar features, or things that are
experienced together.
Under-inclusion occurs when the child uses words that are the name of
a large group of objects only for a subgroup, such as "car" for actually
moving cars and not for vehicles that do not move.
To recapitulate, the child learns the names for persons, relational terms
(also called function words) and substantives, in that order. Adjectives are
mostly learned subsequently just like verbs.49 Their occurrence certainly
is not simultaneous with that of proper names. A child masters the use of
the word for mother a long time before it learns to use words like "red" and
"blue" correctly. Therefore it is not very probable that the learning of
"Mama" is similar to that of "blue". Though in the studies I consulted, I did
not fmd explicit mentioning of this, it seems plausible from the foregoing
that "milk" for instance is learned on a par with "cookie".
Lois Bloom, like Roger Brown, proposes the "rich interpretation"
method for the single word utterances. They are not sentences, but it is quite
possible to infer more from what a child says if the global situation in which
the word is pronounced is taken into account, than if one considers only
what is actually said.50 Thus from the use of one word in different situations
are deduced different meanings; "light", when the child that is observed
actually sees a light and when the child points to the switch, has two
different meanings. When a child uses a verb like "see", "eat" etc., the
meaning of the utterance in a definite situation is relational: to see means
to see something, to eat means to eat something and what exactly is meant
to be seen or eaten can be inferred from the situation.51 One of the most
important conclusions of the study of Lois Bloom is that the period of the
132 CHAPTER 7
one word utterances is a foreshadowing of the later period of sentences

containing syntax, which are not, however, in their turn a foreshadowing
of the syntactical relations expressed in adult speech. What is crucial for
our discussion of Quine's theory of the learning of language is that it
appears clearly that it is not because a child does not use certain words,
express certain relations, it has no knowledge of those aspects of his
envirorunent. Children can well be aware of the existence, disappearance
and recurrence of objects, before using words like "there", "away", "more"
or a fortiori being able to label them with a substantive. The general
conclusion is that children think before they speak. 52
This conclusion is also reached by I.M. Schlesinger in his Steps to
Language. Following the Bible, God made the world by naming things;
children find the world all ready made and need not name things in order
to bring them to existence. Schlesinger points out that there is neither
enough evidence nor need for a rationalistic Prelinguistic Concepts
Hypothesis. That children learn with so much ease the meaning of words
seems to make it plausible that children rely on their previous acquisition
of corresponding perceptions. But as our perceptual world is structured,
shows perceptual regularities, these operate with the linguistic regularities
in a mutually reinforcing manner. 53 This is not to say that the texture of the
human envirorunent completely determines the linguistic texture, it does so
only partly. This argument makes it possible to account for the differences
between languages and also for the similarities.
In conclusion we can say that the pre-linguistic stage of early childhood
as well as the first stages of language learning corroborate the primacy of
the particular and the derivative character of the general in learning proces-
ses.
CHAPTER 8
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE

INTENTIONS AND INTENSIONS
Nominalists and empiricists postulated intentions, which are concepts

associated with words. Their theories concerning the way we acquire
knowledge and concerning language are much more in accordance with the
results of sciences that did not even exist in their days, such as ethology,
neurobiology, psycholinguistics, than many philosophical, psychological
or linguistic theories that are proposed today. Behaviourism and some
cognitivistic theories are, indeed, to a large degree incompatible with the
most recent fmdings in these domains.
Curiously enough, in times when we would expect an anthropocentric
view to prevail, nominalists and empiricists seem to have accepted that
there is a continuity between man and animals in many respects. This
assumption is present in their theories of knowledge, knowledge that is first
and foremost practical, adjusted to the simple tasks of life. Instead of
considering language as a cultural phenomenon that must be explained by
speculation, language is considered as a cultural phenomenon that has to
be explained in terms of the more fundamental layers of the human
intelligence, and these in their tum are understood as capacities man
possesses to a high degree, but at the same time shares with animals. Living
beings are seen in a broader context: the world is one and its parts are in a
kind of equilibrium, animals as well as man are adapted to their environ-
ment. Before the eighteenth century this happy state of affairs was con-
sidered to be due to the wisdom of God, afterwards to the lawful nature of
the world, which is a great clockwork. God, if he plays a role at all, has only
created the world's initial state and given it its impetus.
In the twentieth century, however, another approach is chosen.
Knowledge is regarded as a cultural phenomenon only and so is its expres-
sion, language. Artificial languages are created in order to be able to
describe the world "scientifically". Axioms, postulates and hypotheses are
explicitly formulated, critically examined and eventually discarded if there
is the slightest doubt that they could commit us ontologically to non-em-
pirical elements and linguistic categories are regimented accordingly.
134 CHAPTERS
I propose to examine first the theories of nominalists and empiricists of

the past and to tum our attention to what they can have known about the
substratum of all intellectual activities, the brain. Mterwards we shall
examine the controversy between behaviourism and mentalism and which
one offers a sound base for a theory of language and its diverse ramifica-
tions. Finally, after having given a survey of what is grosso modo known
about the brain processes that accompany linguistic behaviour, I would like
to examine a hypothetical neuropsychological model that gives a possible
solution of problems that are left unsolved for the moment. I hope to be
able in this way to show in how far intensions can be established scientifi-
cally nowadays and what is the relevance of this for our subject.
1. NOMINALISTS AND EMPIRICISTS ON UNIVERSALS,

CONCEPTS, INTENSIONS
It is of importance to repeat that in Antiquity and during the Middle Ages,

general terms, especially names of species, gave rise to philosophical
discussions, not particular terms. Therefore, it is in treating the problem of
universals that Ockham stated most clearly what he considered to be the
"mental content" of terms.
He characterizes universals in three ways: "universal" is like "genus" and
"species" a term of second intention, a term that names a kind of term. As
such "universal" is opposed to "particular". Secondly a universal is a sign
of many things, it can be predicated of many. But we must not deduce from
this that a universal is not one in number or else we must accept that nothing
is a universal, as everything that exists per se is one in number. Universals
are one in number and exist actually in the intellect, they are acts of the
mind and thus they are particular. There are two kinds of them: those that
are derived from previous knowledge of particular things, the verba mentis,
a kind of mental names for these things and considered to be acquired in a
natural way and those that are acts of the intellect that are related to a
convention, the verba oris. l Natural universals are signs of things outside
the mind, but the relationship to these things is derived from direct
knowledge of these things, namely perceptions. Ockham compares this
relationship to that of smoke to fire, which is not based on a convention,
whereas the linguistic sign that is associated with the natural universal or
concept is completely arbitrary and conventional.2 The verba mentis
precede the verba oris. In Ockham's words: "Nature works unseen in
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 135
universals, not in producing universals outside the mind, but because by

producing its knowledge in the mind unconsciously, (quasi occulte) -
whether directly or indirectly - it produces these universals as a natural
process. And so all that is in common is in that sense natural and comes
from outside the mind, but it can be produced in the mind".3 And this in
contradistinction to the verbum oris, "a sign conventionally appointed for
the signification of many things".4
We can conclude from the foregoing, in accordance with what we said
in chapter 5.2., about the relationship of thought and language in the work
of Ockham, that in his opinion the conceptual, derived from sensorial
experience, is prior and complementary to verbal knowledge, a view we
shall also [md in the work of Locke and Hume. Concepts are not given but
acquired, formed after birth, a fact that is confirmed by neurobiological
studies.
Used in a predicate sentence, universals can supposit in three ways:
material, simple orpersona1.5 Neither terms used in simple nor in material
supposition have real import, they signify nothing else than themselves,
either the word, or the concept linked with it. In personal supposition on
the other hand a universal stands for different individuals in a vague manner,
that is to say for anyone of them. (We remind that they do not stand for all
of them, or the sum of all of them). This idea of vagueness is important.
Only particular terms supposit in such a way that they have real import,
namely a particular entity. Only particulars can be perceived, the general
has no autonomous reality whatsoever. Perceptions are precise and detailed,
the concepts that are derived from them lack this clarity.
These ideas can also be found in the work of the empiricists. Locke
explaining how words, whether general or particular, which are after all
mere sounds, can signify, says: "Man, though he have great variety of
thoughts, and such from which others as well as himself might receive profit
and delight, yet they are all within his own breast, invisible and hidden from
others, nor can of themselves be made to appear". Clearly Locke thinks of
thoughts without words. He continues as follows: "The comfort and ad-
vantage of society not being to be had without communication of thoughts,
it was necessary that man should find out some external sensible signs,
whereby those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might
be made known to others".6 Thus, in his opinion, words are signs, not of
things, but of ideas: "The use, then, of words is to be sensible marks of ideas
and the ideas they stand for are their proper and immediate signification".?
Man uses words only for ideas of things he knows and for ideas he has, not
136 CHAPJER8
for ideas another man has. Nevertheless, though he must himself have these
ideas, the use of signs for them presupposes that other men have com-
parable ideas and use the same signs for these ideas. Men do not speak
about their thoughts alone, but about that what their thoughts are derived
from, namely the reality of things. It is dangerous, however, to make words
stand for anything but those ideas we have in our minds 8, they never signify
anything outside our mind in a direct manner, only mediated by ideas. For
Locke the meaning of words seems to be just this relationship between
things, our knowledge of things, encoded in concepts and linguistic signs.
Where do these ideas come from? Locke, like Ockham, states explicitly
that all things are particular and therefore, in as far as they exist, ideas must
be particular too and derived from distinct things. But, the multiplicity of
what man perceives being so great, it would be beyond his capacity to
"frame and retain" particular names for all these things. Moreover, as other
men are not necessarily acquainted with the same particulars, these proper
names would be useless. Though ideas are in the first place impressions of
particular things upon our mind and knowledge is always in the first place
knowledge of particulars, it enlarges into knowledge of kinds and things
named by general names of kinds and species. As he did not have to worry
about class logic, Locke states that these "come within some compass and
do not multipl~ every moment, beyond what either the mind can contain or
use requires". This is not to say that proper names are useless, because
there are more things in the world that can be experienced, let alone named,
than there can be proper names. Men distinguish particular things by
appropriate names where convenience demands it. Empiricist philosophers
have always considered man to have much in common with other species,
their approach of human capacities unlike that of rationalists an idealists is
"biological" and even "ecological". Instead of explaining culture by refer-
ring to qualities, only to be found in man, they explain it by deriving it from
what man has in common with animals. If Locke says that proper names
are useful "where convenience demands it", this means "in their own
species, which they have most to do with and wherein they have often
occasion to mention particular persons, they make use of 8ropernames, and
there distinct individuals have distinct denominations". 1 Besides persons,
countries, cities, rivers, mountains and other distinctions of place must be
named individually.
In the light of the foregoing it is not astonishing that Locke had a simple
but quite accurate idea of how language is learned. He analyzes the way we
learn in our first infancy notions and names and enlarge our ideas. The result
of his pondering is quite in accordance with the findings of Lois Bloom in

One Word at a Time: "There is nothing more evident than that the ideas of
the persons children converse with (to instance in them alone) are, like the
persons themselves only particular. The ideas of the nurse and the mother
are well framed in their mind and like pictures of them there, represent only
these individuals. The names they first gave to them are confined to these
individuals and the names of nurse and mamma the child uses determine
themselves to those persons"Y Later on "time and large acquaintance"
learns them there are many other things in the world that show a
resemblance in their shape and other qualities. And this is how general ideas
and the corresponding general names are learned.
Human reason for Locke serves in the first place practical purposes,
namely to lead a comfortable life and a better life after death. That is the
reason why there is knowledge that is out of reach; our intellectual
capacities are not intended to give us complete knowledge of and the truth
about everything. Ideas, in his opinion, are not innate; otherwise, why
would we need eyes and other sense organs? Like Ockham he distinguishes
between knowledge acquired before speach and knowledge combined with
speech; children have knowledge before they are able to speak, though this
is very soon in their lives, and before they come to what we call the use of
reason. 12 The acquiring of general ideas and the use of general words grow
together. Long before they know the use of words like "wormwood" and
"sugar-plums", Locke remarks, children know the difference between bitter
and sweet.13
He distinguishes between alterations of the body that do not reach the
mind and are mere impressions and on the other hand alterations of the
sense organs that is taken notice of and that are actual perceptions. This is
also a fact that is corroborated scientifically today. The first leave no idea
(we would say engram) in the mind, where the second lead to the most basic
simple ideas. Furthermore, Locke is also right to believe that children have
their first perceptions in their mother's womb and that they are aware of
them in the sense just mentioned. ill other words babies have a few ideas
before they are born. These ideas are not different from those that they will
store after birth, only they are "subservient to the necessities of their life
and being there [in the womb], so after they are born those ideas are the
earliest imprinted which happen to be the sensible qualities which first
occur to them; (... )".14 After birth, one of the things children are attentive
to is light: "lay them how you please they tum their eyes to that part from
where the light comes". The ideas that are most familiar at first vary, the
138 CHAPTER 8
order of their appearance in the mind of the newborn child is not certain
and Locke recognizes that there is not much material that can lead to
knowledge of this subject.
Though Locke was a deeply religious man, he was quite undogmatic. He
was a practical thinker for whom the rigour of logic did not prevail on
common sense and experience. This explains perhaps why his opinions are
more in keeping with what science has discovered during the following
centuries than the speculations and hypotheses of many contemporary
theorists are with the scientific data available in the twentieth century.
When comparing the intellectual capacities of men and animals he profes-
ses opinions that prefigure evolutionism.
He presumes plants have no sensations, their movements are not reac-
tions to impressions, but can be explained mechanically, (e.g. the turning
of a wild oat-beard by insinuation of particles of moisture).15 Though plants
do not, all animals, he believes, have perceptions of one kind or another.
Even a cockle or an oyster must have some perceptions, though not as many
nor as quick as those of higher animals or man. They cannot move from
one place to another, so of what use would quick sensations be? Would they
not be a nuisance? Living beings have the sensations they need to have,
namely sensations in function of their environment and in accordance with
their peculiar needs. However, Locke's commentaries on nature and the
living beings he is acquainted with are not solely based on observations,
but on religious premisses. Though these premisses are not scientific, his
conclusion is very accurate: God's Providence guarantees each kind of
animal has the senses and the intelligence it needs. Sensations being the
source of all perceptions and of all ideas, the excellence of the sense organs
determines the intellectual possibilities of a species. This leads him to a
conclusion that was certainly daring in his time. In some very old men,
where the memory is blotted out, the senses are to a large degree destroyed,
so that they have only dim impressions and even the little they perceive is
not retained, there is no more intelligence than in a cockle or an oyster... In
arguing thus, he rejects the possibility that man is bestowed by God with a
superior kind of reason, with a set of innate ideas, which correspond to
reality and enable him to have a certain (humble) part in divine know ledge.
Thus religious belief and philosophical conviction are in accordance:
knowledge, in animals as well as in man, is not an end in itself, but must
be subservient to survival.
Locke's conception of human thought is that each man makes his own
ideas, ideas are different in different individuals, because they are not
from the same, but only from similar experiences; the overall result is
therefore also similar, but not identical. For nominalists thoughts are
individual brain processes, whereas rationalists believe they are universal.
Not being objects, they are not everlasting. They can be remembered, but
if they are not revived from time to time many of them are forgotten, they
vanish; without fresh sensations we would not be able to think. Some have
better memory than others and he wonders "how much the constitution of
our bodies and the make of our animal spirits are concerned in this and
whether the temper of brain makes this difference that in some it retains the
characters drawn on it like marble, in other like freestone, and in other little
better than sand" .16 How can the rationalist explain these differences, how
can he explain our capacity to memorize and to forget?
The theories of David Hume concerning the psychological mechanisms
underlying the process of the acquisition of knowledge are not substantially
different. Simple ideas are directly derived from "perceptions which enter
with most force and violence". Impressions derived from sensations, pas-
sions and emotions are prior to simple ideas; these in their tum prior to
complex ideas. Hume thus avoids the criticism that had been formulated
concerning Locke's theory, namely that it did not explain how ideas can be
representations or images of a reality that is of a different order. For Hume
the basic elements of his theory are not things, but impressions: ideas, as
copies of impressions, are of the same nature as these. They resemble each
other closely, as ideas are faint images of the vivid impressions. How
impressions are caused is a question that is left to the anatomistsP
Locke's picture of nature and its species shows us a hierarchy of
perfection of the sense organs of the species and a parallel hierarchy of their
intellectual capacities and his point of view has been very influential. It
seems that all that animals are capable of intellectually, man must be
capable of. Hume goes one step further and believes that, where mental
operations common to man and animals are concerned, we can sa~ nothing
about the capacities of man that does not also apply to animals. 8 This is
one of the reasons why Hume rejects an immaterial soul that would
distinguish the human kind from animal species.
2. KNOWLEDGE OF BRAIN MECHANISMS IN TIlE PAST
How is it possible, one can ask, that nominalistic philosophers in the past,
opposed to all hypostasis of elements of reality that could not be derived
140 CHAPTER 8
from direct knowledge of particular elements of reality, accepted concepts

and intensions? It is true that Ockham proposed different theories of the
mental counterpart of general terms, first considering them fictions and only
later coming to recognize them as mental acts. This second point of view
avoided certain difficulties that arose from the construction of universals
as fictions. It was plausible, in accordance with common sense and did not
imply that mental entities were objects, either outside or inside the human
head, but that they were products of the brain that were only operative when
actually revived. The most important was not to introduce entities that were
general: the abstract was not the main source of discomfort but the hypos-
tasis of the general. In as far as they existed, concepts were not to be
repeatable, universal, eternal, though, being verba mentis, they could be
derived from the impressions of many things that resembled one another in
one or more respects and associated with verba oris applicable to many
things at the same time.
In Ockham' s time, the conception of Avicenna, inspired by the works of
the Greek anatomist Galen of Pergamon (130-200 A.D.), still prevailed. 19
Our brains were described as a system of three connected compartments,
each with a distinct function. The frontal pair of ventricles was the site of
the perceptions (the sensus communis) and connected with the nerves of
the sense organs. The images formed in these frontal ventricles, were passed
on to the middle ventricle, which was the seat of reason (ratio), thought
(cognatio), judgment (aestimatio). One can easily see that this concords
with Ockham' s linkage of verba mentis with prior knowledge, acquired by
the senses. The last ventricle was the seat of memory (memoria). According
to Ockham, "memoria" enables us to retrieve the verba mentis, which once
acquired seem to stay at our disposition but must be recalled each time by
a (conscious) act of the mind, though they are formed, as we have seen, by
a non-conscious process. Memory is derived from past knowledge, made
accessible to the intellect by a habit, which like all habits is conserved in
the soul through the requisite disposition of the body.20 Since memory can
occur, independently of the thing remembered, it must be caused by
something in the sou1.21
The theories of the empiricists do not differ substantially from those of
Ockham, except that they characterize impressions as images and concepts
as images resembling the corresponding preceding impressions, but fainter,
in a more vague way. What anatomical data were known in their time? From
the sixteenth century on, the experiments abandoned since Antiquity were
taken up again. Leonardo and Vesalius studied experimentally the human
brain and provided us for the first time with excellent drawings. Though
the latter were no longer constructions of the mind, only vaguely reminding
of the observations of authors like Galen of Pergamon, there was no
fundamental contradiction with the theories of Avicenna, because they did
not provide us with clear data about the functional role of the different parts.
In the seventeenth century Willis, with the aid of the architect of London
cathedral, Christopher Wren, made still better drawings, but the same
remark holds here. This explains why Descartes could describe the brain
again non-realistically, as a system of ventricles, each with a hypothetical
function. Moreover, theorizing about the mechanisms of the brain, which
could explain psychological phenomena, was still a dangerous business.
Progress in these matters was greatly impeded by religious constraints;
relating the mental to the material, because of the power of the church in
the state, could even have political implications. No wonder in the seven-
teenth century philosophers without exception postulated a soul distinct
from the functioning of the brain.
The first major step forward was made in the eighteenth century. The
invention of the microscope by Antony van Leeuwenhoek enabled him to
perceive for the first time in more detail the structure of the nervous fibres,
observations that were repeated and ameliorated by Malpighi. Some
courageous atheists no longer accepted the postulate of a soul distinct from
brain processes. The most famous of them certainly was Lamettrie, who
explicitly stated man was a machine, a mere automaton and who, of course,
had to flee from France. It is interesting to compare this point of view with
behaviourism: on the one hand it is believed that man's behaviour can be
explained in mechanical terms, on the other hand the observed behaviour
is explained as a reaction to stimuli. Behaviourism is a more primitive
model, because a mechanistic explanation takes into account the input, the
transformations the input undergoes as a consequence of the structure of
the hardware, the energy that is supplied and the output, while the be-
haviourist only notes the input and output and declares to know nothing
about what goes on in between.
Lamettrie can be considered a forerunner of the cognitivistic
philosophers, who design computer-models of the brain activities, but do
not thereby explain what goes on in the brain of living organisms: they try
to achieve the same goals by other means, but draw, as we shall see, wrongly
the conclusion that a brain is a kind of computer.
Not only Lamettrie, other French eighteenth century philosophers as
well, believed that the only way to explain psychological phenomena is to
142 CHAPTER 8
identify them with (mechanical) brain processes. The sensualists founding

all knowledge in our bodily sensations, rejected an abstract mind inde-
pendent from our body and the materialists of course reacted against the
dualism of Descartes' rationalism, though their theories were also rational
constructions, rather than based upon empirical data.
Though in the nineteenth century further progress was to be noted, due
to more adequate techniques and technical means such as better micro-
scopes, the slicing and staining of brain tissue and due to the study of
electrical impulses in nerves and brain, the debate underwent no fundamen-
tal changes: materialists and spiritualists were entangled in endless argu-
ments. Mach and Avenarius declared the only scientific position is to be
neutral. The only neutral basic elements for a scientific description of the
world are experiences, that are neither objective nor subjective and the
psychical is just that: a mode of describing experience. The psychical is not
the subjective counterpart of an objective reality and this will be grosso
modo the point of view of Camap too. Though he adopted the theory of the
correspondence of all psychological events to events in the central nervous
system as an empirical hypothesis and assumed that types of individual
brain events correspond to various sorts of psychological events, the
problem was not yet solved in his opinion.22 Indeed, he did not believe that
these assumptions can help us establish experimentally the relation between
the psychological and the physical in an individual. This relation could only
be revealed if a subject could observe psychical events in himself by
looking, after trepanation, in a mirror at what goes on in his brain. It would
not do to follow the brain processes in another persons brain, while he is
e.g. thinking of something, or feeling bad, because we cannot in principle
observe what another person feels or thinks. As it was precisely the task
Camap set himself in The Logical Structure of the World to construct,
starting from autopsychological events, next to physical events, hetero-
psychological events and even cultural events, he rejected behaviourism,
because it avoids the problem by merely replacing psychical events by
physical events.
Following Camap, we must distinguish between on the one hand the
construction of the heteropsychological, based on the empirica/presupposi-
tion that to all psychological events correspond events in the central nervous
system and that the types of individual brain events and the various types
of psychological events can be determined and their parallelism established
and on the other hand the explanation of the relationship between the two
kinds of events. The first problem belongs to the domain of science, the
second belongs to metaphysics and cannot even be stated in tenns of his

constructional system.
His thesis is that the epistemological nucleus of every concrete cognition
of heteropsychological occurrences consists of perception of physical
phenomena, or to put it otherwise, the heteropsychological occurs only as
an (epistemologically) secondary part of the physical?3 What kinds of
physical events are considered for establishing a correlation with the
psychological? In the first place the results of introspection: a subject
reports processes of his consciousness, the events being the words he speaks
or writes down. In the second place the "expressive motions" of the subject,
e.g. his facial expressions. In the third place the external conditions of the
subject, provided we have gathered knowledge of his character previous~,
conditions that eventually enable us to sunnise his conscious processes. 'f
Carnap repeatedly expressed his regrets that science had not done
enough efforts to clarify the brain events that accompany psychological
events 25, though there are no fundamental obstacles, no absolute limits. I
believe he was quite unfair: from the nineteenth century on this has been
one of the main objectives of the scientists. Indeed once the anatomy of the
brain was known, the next step was to differentiate between the different
functions of different parts of the brain. These were mainly discovered,
when lesions in the brain of a human being were linked with deficiencies
in perceptions, in speech, or with motoric disturbances, with intellectual
deficiency and with loss of memory. Even the effects of the surgical
splitting of the brain and the differences in the function of corresponding
parts in the two hemispheres were studied, not to forget the research in the
electrical activity of the brain. Also at the time "The Logical Structure of
the World" was written (1922-1925), scientists were making progress in
the knowledge of the brain mechanisms that correspond to psychological
events. Colin Blakemore considers the First World War to be "a vast,
unwanted experiment in neurology,,?6 Indeed, the brain injuries of the
soldiers, the effects on their brains of the terrible experiences that pushed
them to the limits of endurance offered new empirical material to the
scientists?7
It is however true, that not before 1957, when scientists disposed of
electronic microscopes, neurologists could observe the details, the compos-
ing elements of neurons, their axons and dendrites and study their functions.
Biochemistry, the biology of the cell progressed and this gave rise to new
hopes: possibly biological events could be linked to electrical and chemical
processes in groups of cells and electrical and chemical interaction between
144 CHAPTER 8
cells. First it was thought that the cortex is composed of "modules",

geometrically defined unities, which are repeated many times. It seems,
however, that it is composed of vertical bands, in their tum composed of
neurons, which respond to stimuli of one kind only. These bands are
arranged like opposite leaves in a book, or books placed on shelves back to
back. There are few kinds of neurons, classified according to the form of
their axons and dendrites. Different parts of the cortex are composed of the
same elements but often in a different way?8 The architectural diversity of
the different regions of the cortex are explained, at least partially, by
differences in their connexions, by their "entries" and "exits" and the
connexions established with different other unities in the layer of the cortex
they belong to. 29 It seems the basic elements of the brain show a very limited
variability in fonn, but are individualized by the place they occupy in the
system, their connections with other cells of the same region of the brain,
with other regions and with nerve cells that pass on infonnation drawn by
the sense organs from the outer world. This explains that our intellectual
capacities are not confined to clearly delimited areas of the brain, but spread
over many different parts.
Paradoxically, as is often the case in the history of philosophy, exactly
in a period of progress scepticism grows. Compared to what was known in
the eighteenth and even the nineteenth century, the beginnings of the
twentieth century were hopeful for brain research, it is not a period of
standstill, but a period of intense research. Nevertheless, it is then that
behaviourism came up. It mirrored Camap's doubts and cautions, but
magnified and exaggerated them beyond what he thought reasonable. It led
to an almost absurd theory, which can be compared to a maimed version of
Camap's construction of the mental. Indeed, Camap indicated different
ways of describing the mental in tenns of empirical data. Behaviourists,
however, do not in principle want to describe and explain the mental, as
this cannot be observed, but only behaviour and this in tenns of action
(stimulus) and reaction (response). In this view to be thirsty is not to be in
a mental state that reveals itself indirectly through behaviour, to be thirsty
is the same as to behave in a certain way, namely, to drink of a fountain or
to askfor a glass of water. Mental states, thoughts, are denied explanative
value, and therefore are not referred to. Skinner, e.g., considers ideas as
themselves constructed, derived from what has to be explained, and
denounces thereby an implicit "vicious circle". 30 But of course,if I make a
remark, that I know to be incomprehensible for the listener, because there
is no way to relate it directly to the circumstances I am in, the stimuli I am
apparently receiving, I can clarify my remark by a new remark, relating it

to my thoughts, which were hidden form the listener. In that case my ideas
are not constructed from my behaviour, in casu my remark, but rather, the
other way round, my remark is the expression of my idea that explains my
particular verbal behaviour. Seeing a dog I can say "that dog makes me sad"
and explain: the dog reminds me my dog Max, who died recently. Ideas
create or evoke other ideas, which cannot be explained by the conditions
that are present.
Taken at face value behaviourism seems to make sense, it is based on
the demand of the verifiability of scientific propositions. The problem is,
as we shall see in some detail, that it is impossible fully to explain important
phenomena, such as the use of language, without positing mental states.
Mental states, thoughts, cannot be derived from propositions, but from
fundamental, basic elements. The normal thing to do is to try to understand
at least the function of mental states, thoughts, concepts, in linguistic
behaviour and, if possible, to understand how these are produced by the
brain. As science steadily progresses in doing so, it seems all the more
strange that even in the second half of our century, some philosophers stick
to behaviourism on methodological grounds, accepting all its limitations. I
believe that their methodological puritanism is exaggerated. Indeed, though
we cannot observe gravity in a direct way, today it can be explained by
physicists with the help of quantum mechanics and moreover we could of
old observe its effects. The same holds for mental processes, we cannot
observe them in detail; either the scientist observes the activity of regions
of the brain, and not of just these neurons that are involved when a person
is in a mental state, perceives something, thinks something, feels something,
or he observes the activity of one or at most a few neurons at the same time,
whereas a very great number, not necessarily limited to one region, are
involved. Nevertheless, we can observe their activity, we can explain to a
certain degree the causes of this activity and we can observe its effects.
146 CHAPTER 8
3. BEHAVIOURISM VERSUS MENTALISM
"How can I know what I think till I see what I say?" .31
3.1. THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE
Let us begin this section with a quotation of W.V.O. Quine, reflecting on

the acquisition of knowledge and more especially scientific knowledge.
"We want to know how men can achieve the conjectures and abstractions
that go into scientific theory. How can we pursue such an inquiry when
talking of external things to the exclusion of ideas and concepts? There is
a way: we can talk of language. We can talk of concrete men and their
noises. Ideas are as may be, but the words are out where we can see and
hear them. And scientific theories, however speculative and however
abstract, are in words. One and the same theory can be expressed in different
words, so people say, but all can perhaps agree that there are no theories
apart from words. Or if there are, there is little to be lost in passing over
them".32 However, we can ask stubbornly what are the meanings of those
words, how we can know them, extensionalism being, as explained earlier,
neither a "pure" nor a satisfactory base for a semantic theory.
Nelson Goodman, until recently, shared Quine's convictions, though in
Of Mind and Other Matters he relativizes his position and calls himself "a
rather behaviouristically oriented cognitivist". Nevertheless, he refuses to
identify brain processes with consciousness.33
In chapter 5.1. I stressed the necessity to distinguish between pre-lin-
guistic thought and thought linked with linguistic activities and the
relevance of this distinction for a coherent semantical theory. Some further
arguments related to this subject are of interest.
A great deal of mental activity is not linked to verbal elements, another
deal is not linked to one kind of overt behaviour. Mental activity shows a
great variety, a fundamental kind of it is shared by man and animals. One
part of this kind of the mental is instinctive, it has nothing to do with learning
processes, though it may be basic for these processes, and cannot be
explained in terms oflearning, conditioning, rewards. It induces observable
behaviour, which involves action (a key-stimulus is present in the environ-
ment) and reaction (the animal reacts to the stimulus), but can only be
accounted for by the key-stimulus + an internal stimulus (electrical activity
of the central nervous system, sufficient level of hormones in the blood) +
an innate pattern of behaviour stored in the brain. The latter element can
only be explained by presupposing a mental (though unconscious) element.
Another part of the mental we share with animals is reasoning, though it is
more developed in human beings. This can, but must not, show itself in
behaviour of any kind. It is a creative activity, which at its most fundamental
level has as little to do with verbal conditioning as instinctive behaviour.
Studying the cognitive development of children, Jean Piaget
demonstrated that in little children the acquisition of language and the
development of the capacity to solve logical problems are independent. The
maturing of intelligence is the precondition for both cognitive and verbal
skills .34 He showed that children can solve problems involving combination
and dissociation by acting on elements of their surroundings, but are not
yet capable of describing verbally what they are doing. This proves that
linguistic skills are not at the base of the solving of the problems?5
Hans Furth's results with deaf-mute children have confirmed this. (Deaf-
mute children are not literally mute, but as they are deaf from birth on they
fail to learn to speak before the age of four, when children lose the capacity
oflanguage acquisition. Their vocal apparatus and brain are intact). He has
contested the general belief that deaf-mutes are backward, because they do
not learn to speak. It seems remarkable that when adult, most deaf mutes
are socially well adapted and lead normal affective lives. Their overall
behaviour does not differ drastically from that of other adults. They have
the same interests, have similar professional and recreative activities. The
only significant difference is that the range of these activities is mostly
restricted?6 This has led Hans Furth to the investigation of the relationship
between thought and verbal language.
The first thing that draws the attention is that deaf-mute children are not
as well-adapted as the adults, they do not manage as well as other children
and are in some respects retarded compared to hearing children of their age.
It is remarkable that in growing up they gradually catch up with the others.
It could be supposed that the reason is that school learning is almost
exclusively formulated verbally, while in daily life many tasks can be
performed, without verbal expression being required.
In order to test this hypothesis, Hans Furth has made experiments for
children, where they can show their intellectual capacities, without making
use of words. These tests are of the transfer type: a person demonstrates
with a certain material how to accomplish a certain task. The child, by
imitating the adult, tries to do the same. Then new and different material is
given to the child and he has to transfer the activity to it, thereby proving
148 CHAPTER 8
his cognitive abilities. The experiments are conceived in order to test

inversion, transposition, recognition of similarity and include a number of
experiments used earlier by Piaget.
The global results are, that if the verbal difficulties are removed, the
arrears almost disappear. The slight difference that remains is, following
H. Furth, comparable with that of children of a culturally poor environment.
Indeed, in America it generally has been the custom not to teach the children
sign-language, because this could demotivate them to express themselves
verbally, a skill, which is considered to be an absolute necessity for social
and professional success. Very few deaf-mutes, however, are capable of
learning a verbal language. Left without means of communication the
children are not stimulated to train intellectually. This seems a plausible
explanation: grown up they mostly learn sign-language after all and make
up for the lost time. Furth's experiments have been repeated by Pierre
Oleron, a Frenchman who obtained similar results.37
Furth's conclusion is: "... we can say that the major significance of the
reported findings for theories of thinking is the demonstration that logical,
intelligent thinking does not need the support of the symbolic system.
Thinking is undoubtedly an internal system and language is a hierarchical
ordering within which the person, as a result of his interaction with the
world, expresses that internal organization. However, the internal organiza-
tion of intelligence is not dependent on the language system; on the
contrary, comprehension and use of the ready-made language is dependent
on the structure of intelligence".38
In Chapter 7, 5 we tried to find out how children acquire language and
in what order they learn different kinds of words. From the empirical study
by Lois Bloom it became clear that they first learn the proper names of
persons, then words for relations, for objects, animals, etc ... This order
corresponds to their vital needs and the development of their motoric
capacities. In the second phase of the process oflanguage acquisition, when
they use more than one word at a time, a comparison can be made between
the development of their intellect and the structure and complexity of the
expressions they use. We cannot understand language acquisition without
taking into account the language independent basic conditions and intellec-
tual maturing of the child. This gives a supplementary dimension to the
different experiments with infant-apes devised to test their linguistic
capacities. We can understand their amazing performances in learning
non-verbal, symbol languages, from the comparison of their vital needs and
intellectual development with that of children of the same age. During the
first years these are very similar and therefore the intellectual base for the
learning of language exists. Considering language from this point of view
makes it very improbable that a sound theory of language can be built,
which is not based on the study of non-verbal psychical phenomena in the
first place. We must try to understand our fundamental ways of perceiving
and thinking before we can understand the way we speak and not the other
way round.
3.2. MENTALISM VERSUS BEHAVIOURISM
The latter is just what behaviourists are doing. One of the elements that
show clearly that behaviourism is wrong is that the main hindrance for
understanding the meaning of the utterances of a native speaker of a certain
language is that he can in one and the same situation say many different
things and no probability calculus can bring order into the chaos. We
pointed out this difficulty elsewhere: seeing a cat I can say "I love cats" or
"I hate cats", "Cats make me sneeze", "This is the cat I saw yesterday" or
anything else that passes through my mind, I might even say "I like dogs".
What would be the point in saying something if what I was going to say
was already obvious to the hearer? W.V.O. Quine acknowledges, joining
Whorf and Cassirer thereby, that when deriving the meaning of utterances
from the observable situation of the speaker we are faced with the fact that
if the speaker belongs to a cultural community that speaks "a hitherto
unknown native tongue" he can differ from us, not only in how he says
things, but in what he says.39 These cultural differences cannot be denied,
but are probably outweighed by the common human interests we share with
people belonging to other cultures. Quine bypasses, however, the more
serious problem of the speaker's subjectivity, i.e. his personal mental states.
RudolfCarnap, taking the objections against mental states and intensions
very seriously, tried to defend an intensionalistic these, as he was not willing
to give up distinctions between meanings that are clearly different, but not
so according to the criterion of extension. He followed the line of C.1.
Lewis, who stated that the "comprehension of a term is the classification of
all consistently thinkable things to which the term would correctly apply" .40
I believe this is a wrong way to tackle the problem. Indeed it does not
dispose of the criticism formulated by Quine that if we take into account
possible things we ought to consider infinitely many of them. Moreover
seeking the intension of a term in practice presupposes knowledge of this
150 CHAPTER 8
intension. Not only did Carnap not consider infinitely many possible things
to which the term could apply, but he did not consider the innumerably
many actual things either. Indeed, he used his foreknowledge to select those
limit-cases, where it is up to the subject to decide whether the term applies
or not. For example, in determining the extension and intension of
"unicorn", Camap would probably have shown the subject a horse, perhaps
a zebra or a rhinoceros, a picture of a unicorn, but not an apple or a pear
and not a picture of Pickwick. Though he replaced possible things by
countably many descriptions or pictures, in order to avoid the implication
of an infmity, and though this enlarged extension is a means to refine our
knowledge of meaning beyond the results of the traditional extensionalistic
method, which considers only actual things, not all the problems are solved.
The enlarged extension, based on introspective data, is not really equivalent
to the intension of the term.
Carnap envisaged still another method: instead of studying empirically
the linguistic dispositions of a person, we could make an analysis of his
"internal structure". Once this internal structure is known, it should be
possible, with the help of general physical laws, to predict, under specific
circumstances and the person being in a specific state, how he will react.
As our knowledge of the human brain and nervous system did (and does
not) permit us to make such predictions, Carnap shifted to the application
of the method to a robot, the hardware of which is completely known. In
doing so he tried to demonstrate the method was correct, though not yet
applicable to human beings, by lack of detailed knowledge of brain
mechanisms.
It is time to confront the different positions with that of Chomsky, who
as a linguist, cannot accept the behaviouristic views of a number of
psychologists and philosophers. He criticizes both the optimistic version of
Skinner and the pessimistic version of Quine. He resumes Skinner's thesis
as follows: for the understanding of verbal behaviour external factors, the
present stimulation and the history of reinforcement are of major impor-
tance and the principles revealed in laboratory studies of these phenomena
enable us to understand verbal behaviour. Chomsky comments that the
failure of this method indicates how important the phenomena that cannot
be explained this way are. Indeed, he believes that Skinner's book Verbal
Behavior has made clear that the methods of the reinforcement theorist can
be applied to complex human behaviour only in the most gross and
superficial way. Language involves the higher mental faculties of the
speaker and these can be studied scientifically, he says, "though their
specific character cannot at present be precisely formulated" .41 The same

criticism holds for the linguistic theories ofW. V .0. Quine, though the latter
has rightly pointed out several insurmountable difficulties in trying to give
a purely empirical description of the meaning of words and expressions of
daily language. Moreover Quine believes, as said earlier in this paragraph,
that the main difficulties are linked with cultural differences between the
linguist and his subjects and neglects almost completely the creative mental
activity of the speaker. Chomsky contends, like K. Lashly that the linguistic
theories of psychologists and philosophers alike are premature: "the com-
position and production of an utterance is not simply a matter of stringing
together a sequence of responses under the control of outside stimulation
and intraverbal association (... )".42 He wants to find out what the built-in
structure is, which enables a system that produces information, namely a
human being, to learn to use language and to study' the integrating processes,
the imposed patterns, the selective mechanisms.43
Of course the fact that philosophical, logical and epistemological
problems are mingled with linguistic theories does not simplify the matter.
These questions are not the main concern of the linguist and neither are the
more pragmatic aspects of purely linguistic studies relevant for the solution
of the logical riddles the philosopher is often confronted with.
It is interesting, however, to note that Chomsky introduces two criteria
for establishing meanings, which we did not find in Carnap's approach.
Intensions that are empirically established are reliable if there is a consensus
amongst speakers with the same background and if there is invariance in
the answers of a speaker questioned on several occasions.44 Chomsky puts
faith in operational tests, which can be applied in the case of intensions
determined by introspection, but a theory is never satisfying, if the dif-
ference between expressions that are in accordance with the intuition of the
speakers and those expressions that are not, cannot be made clear. Empirical
tests are of no use at all, if they cannot help us to determine differences in
meaning, as is shown e.g. by the test of what Quine calls stimulus-meaning;
the [mdings of the (field) linguist are totally irrelevant for the meaning of
the term or expression.45 Chomsky concludes that Quine's thesis that
radical translation is impossible amounts to the claim that to empirically
meaningful sentences logically different possible meanings can cor-
respond, "what is true but not exciting" .46 This stimulus meaning test cannot
learn us anything that does not stand already to reason and is even more or
less trivial. To say that this is the only really scientific method comes to
throwing away the baby with the bath-water. Semantics, according to
152 CHAPTER 8
Quine, is about all we shall never know for sure. Chomsky concludes that
what must be verified is not the methods of semantics, but Quine's view on
the verifiability of scientific theories.
What the linguist must be preoccupied with is how a human being has
to be constructed, in order to build sentences he never heard before and to
understand such sentences when they are uttered by another person.47 In
other words, how, given the production, the producer must be. Though this
is the domain of theoretical psychology, this research is only possible if an
adequate linguistic theory of language production is available, taking into
account the peculiar creativity of the language user.
As the semantical element is inseparable from the syntactical element,
we have to understand "intension" in the broad sense of semantical content
of an expression or a sentence. What are we committed to, if we follow
Chomsky? Intensions correspond to dispositions of language users, which
are partly inborn. The latter means that linguistic dispositions of a very
general and basic nature, a kind of fundamental scheme is already present
at birth. I shall not discuss this hypothesis, which has been criticized from
many sides.48 It is of greater interest, as this will be our next theme, to note
that Chomsky contests the widespread opinion that to refer to the mental in
order to explain linguistic behaviour is unscientific. He stresses repeatedly
that his mentalism could be called as well physicalism, because the evolu-
tion of science justifies the hope that mental phenomena will be identified
with physical phenomena. It is not mentalism that has divorced from
empiricism, it is in fact behaviourism that is sceptical about empirical
methods of explaining the mental.49
3.3. FUNCTIONALISM
In order to understand linguistic phenomena and more especially the

meanings of expressions, we have, according to Chomsky, to ask how the
producer of language, given the product, must be. This can be understood
in three ways: in Carnap' s opinion it is the responsibility of the neurobiolo-
gist, who must examine the correspondence between the data of psychology
and brain mechanisms, what is in principle possible but not yet ac-
complished; in Chomsky's opinion we need the help of experimental
psychology, in order to study mental processes that are at the base of verbal
behaviour; in Fodor's opinion this means that the linguist has a right to
theorize about these mental processes, which are the precondition of the
linguistic production. The inspiration of the latter is mainly based on

artificial intelligence and computational theory, in other words the study of
systems that produce information.
In a vefd revealing article in Scientific American, "The Mind-Body
Problem" 5 ,Fodor compares different attitudes concerning the problem of
explaining our behaviour: the behaviouristic point of view, the reductionis-
tic point of view and functionalism. After having rejected behaviourism
because it can only account for causal relations between stimuli and
reactions, but not for causal relations between mental phenomena, he also
rejects reductionism in its strong form. "Type physiological reductionism"
merely says that certain psychical phenomena are identical with neurologi-
cal phenomena, whereas "token physiological reductionism" states that all
mental phenomena are to be reduced to human neurological processes. The
latter excludes the functionalistic option that to think is to perform certain
computations and that, if machines or ghosts or martians are capable of
these computations, the results of their performances can be called "mental"
on a par with the results of a human nervous system and a brain.
Fodor follows the functionalistic line and combines it with a theoretical
approach of psychological progress.
He tries to explain the relation between the output and the input, as the
result of a series of operations carried out by the brain; given the results, he
tries to specify these operations by theorizing, without taking into account
what is known about the blueprint of our brain. He says he has a right to
do so, as even if there could be established a parallelism between each
mental state and a neurophysiological state, there is no guarantee that the
functional organization of the brain does not cross-circuit its neurological
organization, nor that the mental predicates of the special sciences (psychol-
ogy) do not cross-classify the physical natural kinds. 51 Of course this is a
feeble argument. If the mental states would be ascribed to a machine and
the blueprint of the machine be fully known and also the ways it functions,
nobody would ask if these functions could be described with the predicates
of a special science, especially tailored to the mental states of this machine
and not translatable into the predicates used by the engineers. Psychology
is a special science because historically prior to the development of a
neurological theory of the brain. It is probably not the organization of the
psychological functions of the brain and that of its neurological organiza-
tion, which do not correspond, but their descriptions. Therefore the ideal
remains to see to it that both match as much as possible.
154 CHAPTERS
There is yet another assumption that is controversial: in The Language

ofThought J.A. Fodor identifies more or less thought with computation and
whether this is correct or not depends on how thought is defined. However,
he does not give us such definition. As we shall see, many neurologists do
not believe that most of the functions of our brain, even not what we
understand in a loose way under the word "thoughts", are comparable to
computer processes'. In order to understand Fodor's point of view we must
assume, pending a close examination of these criticisms, that at least some
thoughts can be considered to be the result of computations. In that case
there must be a kind of inner representation of the world that surrounds us
and that we perceive, in other words a language of thought. A great part of
Fodor's book is devoted to the demonstration that there is such a repre-
sentation and such a language. Therefore Fodor must argue that concept
learning goes beyond perceptual learning and involves the formation of
hypotheses and their infirmation or confirmation. This formation of con-
cepts is prelinguistic and ~resupposes a language of thought that is different
from natural languages. 2 In so far, there is no big difference with the
neurologist's conception of mental processes. Fodor characterizes the
peculiar approach of cognitive philosophy that he advocates, as the linkage
of behaviour not with stimuli, nor with neurological processes, but with a
series of transformations of information. 53
In fact the idea that all thought presupposes the representation of reality
and thus an internal language, resembles the medieval theory of the verba
mentis as mediation between language and the world. Language is mostly
about the world and traditionally it was not doubted that this could only be
explained by a mediating factor: words of the mind, which were abstracted
from direct (perceptual) knowledge of that world.
In any case, says Fodor, this language of thought must be different from
ordinary language, as there are non-verbal animals that think. 54 He adds
that the only models we have for non-verbal thought are computer models.
The latter is not true; there are neurobiological models, which he does not
mention. Again, the lack of a definition of what mental processes are to
count as thoughts, and thus as basic elements of the system makes the
statement less clear than it could be. We could not possibly deduce from
what Fodor says, whether birds that learn not to eat wasps, came to any
conclusion about the noxiousness of wasps in a non-verbal language. Is the
memory of a series of similar perceptions, whether in humans or animals,
a concept, a sign of the internal language? We cannot decide from Fodor's
theory whether this is the case.
The computational theory takes psychological events to be the outcome

of changes in the state of a physical system. These changes can be charac-
terized as storage, computation, acceptance, rejection, etc. and result in
propositional attitudes, cognitive states. In a cognitivistic theory the fact
that somebody remembers P, (a proposition), is formulated as follows:
somebody remembers P if he has stored F (a formula in the internal code).
Formulated slightly differently, cognitive psychology seeks to explain
propositional attitudes by providing for each of these attitudes "nomologi-
cally necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of computational relations
between the organism and formulae of the internal representational sys-
tem".55 It is assumed that the internal language is not learned, but this is a
supposition that is superfluous, if we assume that it is built up as a result of
the maturation of intelligence during the pre-linguistic stage of our life. The
internal representational system is in this view the precondition of the
learning of a natural language. It is a kind of private, non conventional
system, which is to some degree analogous with natural language and has
to contain the equivalent of predicates. Indeed learning a natural language,
following Fodor, means "formulating and confirming hypotheses about the
semantic properties of its predicates". If this is the case, then, before the
language is acquired, the subject must have access to a representational
system that contains properties, which are processed; operations are carried
out in order to detect truth conditions, and are followed by the storing of
hypotheses about truth conditions, etc .. Once a few words of the natural
language are learned, more complicated concepts can be tackled, which are
not directly learned from perceptions, but demand a series of interlinking
definitions. Fodor comes then to the conclusion that there are thoughts that
only someone who speaks a language can think. Nobody, however, would
have doubted that you can hardly think: "this is the subject of this sentence",
if you do not know a natural language. The internal code contains concepts
in terms of which the others are learned and thus is partly pre-linguistic and
partly linked to natural language. At different developmental stages dif-
ferent conceptual systems are available, which are ordered and increase in
power. The only supposition required is that the elementary concepts of the
early stage or stages are not learned, though they may mature or develop
slowly. The environment provides exemplars of one's concepts 56, not a
definite extension; e.g. learning what "red" means is to learn that red applies
to something, if it is sufficiently similar to the colour of " a poppy, a sunset,
or a nose in winter".57 Fodor also supposes that the inner language is very
rich and determined genetically; if it is to be the mediation between the
156 CHAPTERS
natural language and the world, it has to be. As said, it is only partly
determined by stimuli coming from the world that surrounds us.
The structure of the inner code can be derived from that of the natural
language. The latter cannot be taxonomized by grouping together those
utterances whose production is elicited by the same stimuli. Chomsky
proved that such a grouping of expressions does not lead to a classification
according to coreferentiality. Only the first words we learn can be divided
that way: a child mostly has to see a cookie in order to learn the expression
"cookie". Here stimulus and reference are the same, but in all developed
adult speech, communication is contextually defined and an expression
refers if the speaker intends it to refer and this becomes clear to the hearer
from what he knows about the conventions that hold for the given language
and the supposed intentions of the speaker in a certain situation. In order to
understand the phenomenon of communication, linguistic and cognitive
processes must be linked, their relationships must be studied and from this
certain features of the structure of the inner-code can be deduced. In order
to know what messages utterances do contain, the linguist searches for
correspondences between both, on the assumption that human beings have
internal computational system for the association of messages in the lan-
guage of thought with messages in verbal language. The correspondences
explain the ability to encode and decode speech. Thus, cognitive psychol-
ogy in the broad sense can be the basis for a theory of messages.
Fodor makes liberally use of intentions in his semantic theory, but we
can ask if there is anything that is more vague, underdetennined than an
intention. He ascertains that intentions are vague only if we want to establish
them by linking them with behavioural data, not if they are explained by a
correspondence between computations in the inner representational system
and the linguistic utterances as perceived by the hearer. That these com-
putations cannot be perceived in the way behaviour is perceived is only a
worry for die-hard reductionists. To him it seems sufficient that the struc-
ture of the inner language and its correlation with verbal utterances connect
with empirical issues in psychology and linguistics. 58
Has a language of thought a vocabulary? For heuristic reasons Fodor
assumes that this is the case. But then, is it smaller or as rich as the
vocabulary of a natural language? Ockham already asked the same question
and believed that it is smaller: synonyms correspond to one concept, one
verbum mentis. This is what can be found in the dictionary theory of
meaning: the semantic level Rrovides the same representation for
"bachelor" and "unmarried man".59 There is a dictionary relation between
semantic representation and surface sentence. The answer to the question

whether the primitive vocabulary of the higher levels of linguistic repre-
sentation is less rich than the surface vocabulary of a natural language is
that there is no evidence for this. Indeed, this would require that the
defmiendum, e.g. "bachelor", could be replaced by the sole defmiens
"unmarried man", but it is not even probable that such replacements are
significant processes in the decoding of wave forms into messages.60
The alternative to the dictionary theory is a semantic theory that does
reject definition as a fundamental semantic relation, and postulates an
internal representational system with a vocabulary as rich as that of the
sUiface sentences in natural language. But then, how are meanings deter-
mined? Fodor shifts from definitions to Carnap's meaning postulates.61
Meaning postulates, unlike definitions, give no rules for elimination of
terms, nor for a distinction between logical and non-logical vocabulary,
categorematic terms and syncategorematic terms; "bachelor" and "and" are
treated on a par. Fodor distinguishes two elements: the sentence "under-
stander", which enables us to reconstruct the communicative intentions of
the speakers, and the logic, the data processes, including inferences that can
be drawn from the information the utterance contains. To base semantics
on definition would simplify the logic, as the definiendum and its logic has
been explained away, but the process of assigning messages to wave forms
(utterances) is more complicated if we assume it requires definition. Fodor
finds here a supplementary reason for adopting meaning postulates instead
of definitions: to understand a sentence is an on-line operation, it takes
virtually no time, to understand its logic takes any amount of time. The
logic, therefore, can be complicated, the understander must be simple. The
outcome of his speculations is that "the language of thought may be very
like a natural language (... )". This could be the reason "why natural
languages are so easy to learn and why sentences are so easy to understand:
the languages we are able to learn are not so very different from the formulae
which internally represent them" .62
These are the kinds of arguments Fodor uses for his hypothetical con-
struction of a language of thought; facts about human natural languages can
be used to select possible structures for that language of thought and to rule
out others. He considers it more important that these kind of arguments
become accepted and thereby a theoretical approach to the mental is proven
respectable, than that his theory in particular will be ultimately accepted;
he is well aware of its hypothetical character.
158 CHAPTER 8
In his last chapter Fodor uses psychological evidence, to characterize

further a possible language of thought. It is worthwhile to mention his
results, because it will enable us to compare his theory with neuro-
psychological data and theories.
The first thesis is that, as the process of understanding a sentence shows
different levels, a phonetic, a semantic and a syntactic level, the internal
representation has to contain different levels too. The representation that
gets assigned to an utterance in a speech exchange must be heterogeneous,
a kind of sum of representations, drawn from different kinds of sublan-
guages. Understanding is a graded notion and this greatly complicates
matters. Moreover, the understanding oj one sentence can interfere with
the understanding oj another sentence. And last but not least there is a
certain kind ofJreedom in the choice oj an internal representation. Indeed,
certain sentences draw our attention, are listened to carefully, others are not
attended to, some information is more useful than other information, the
plausibility of the information, (what it is likely that somebody will say,
given his personality, the circumstances, etc.), plays a part. In other words,
the understanding of a sentence depends on many factors. The internal code
provides a medium for internally representing the psychologically salient
aspects of the organism's environment. Adult human beings use the con-
veying of information and the understanding of information as a conscious
process, a calculated strategy for the attainment of goals.63 If this is true,
then they must dispose of a representation or even representations of
representations.
Another matter is whether these representations are images. I am not
going to comment at length Fodor's arguments against the idea that the
totality of the internal code consists of images. The main point is that the
internal representational system must allow us to assign semantic properties
to the predicates. According to Fodor, this cannot be the case if these
predicates are images. No pictorial representation has truth value:
hieroglyphs can function like words, but sentences cannot be rendered
pictorially. Nevertheless images perhaps have advantages for the ac-
complishment of certain tasks, if combined with a description that deter-
mines what they represent. In that case they function like Humean ideas,
they are particular, but can be used as though they were universal.
At the end of The Language oJ Thought we find Fodor's answer to the
question that preoccupies from the start any reader who is aware of the fact
that neuropsychology (or as Fodor calls it, "psychophysics"), has formu-
lated theses, based on empirical data, about many of the topics he treats.
He distinguishes radically between perception and thought (input and

output) and believes the domain of "psychophysics" is the interaction of an
organism with the stimuli of its surroundings. "Cognitive psychology starts
as it were, where psychophysics leaves off, but the methodologies differ
radically. Psychophysical truths express the lawful contingency of events
under psychological description upon events under physical description;
whereas the truths of cognitive psychology express the computational
contingencies among events which are homogeneously (psychologically),
described. Cognitive psychology is concerned with the transformation of
representation, ps~chophysics with the assignment of representation to
physical display".
We could not wish a better introduction to the next paragraph, where I
shall show that though the two approaches are possible, their proponents
cannot ignore each others results without displaying a great deal of ill will.
It will be interesting to notice which hypotheses of Fodor are in accordance,
and which other are incompatible with the neuropsychological model we
are going to present.
4. G.D. WASSERMANN: A NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL

OF THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE
4.1. FUNCTIONALISM AND NEUROBIOLOGY
There is a fundamental theoretical and methodological opposition between

a functionalistic model of psychological phenomena and a neurobiological
model. Fodor, as a proponent of a functionalistic theory or in his own words
theoretical psychology, claims that mental phenomena cannot be reduced
to physical phenomena, though it is in principle possible to correlate both.
Most neurobiologists and also G.D. Wassermann are reductionists; they
believe that a neurobiological model can be built, which can account
consistently for the various mental data. 65 Fodor, on the other hand,
believes that, although sciences must be unified and physics is the basic
science, and from this follows that all science must apply ultimately to
physical things, it is not required that all scientific languages must be
reduced to the language of physics.66 I have chosen to sketch in broad lines
Wassermann's venture, because he has dared to imagine a neurobiological
model not only of separate mental phenomena, such as perception, the
command of movements, motoric skills, memory, etc., but in addition to
160 CHAPTER 8
this, of intellectual processes, such as generalization, association, linguistic

skills. He does not postulate mental entities in his model, though he does
not deny that other models for psychological phenomena are possible. His
model is a valuable candidate amongst competing systems for the explana-
tion of how psychological phenomena come about. It is not his ambition to
explain why they come about, as this depends on idiosyncratic genetical
elements, on idiosyncratic ontogenetic elements and on the individual
situation of a subject. Neither can he analyse their ultimate nature; this is
not the domain of science. J.A. Fodor stresses the ultimate difference
between our subjective experiences and physical events, his point of view
is in this respect in line with that of behaviourists. As an example that
illustrates this he mentions that two individuals, one with a normal sight,
the other with an inverted spectrum, (who sees e.g. red where normal people
see green), have different experiences, but can show the same behaviour.
Indeed, if the latter is taught, when he sees what most people call green, but
he experiences as red, to call it green, and vice versa when seeing green,
but what is what most people call red, he learns to give it the name red, his
behaviour does not enable other people to detect that his experiences of
colours are not similar to that of normal men. (The case of the inverted
spectrum is not to be confused with that of colourblindness, in the latter
case people are not able to see differences between e.g. red and green light,
this is a problem when they have to face traffic lights, but they can be taught
to distinguish the colours by using other clues, such as the respective
positions of the lights). What is unintentionally illustrated by this example
is that Fodor by stressing the peculiar subjective aspect of experience,
which cannot be detected from the overt behaviour of a person, shows
clearly the importance of neurobiological complementary studies: the cones
in the retina that are necessary for our perception of "red" and of "green"
can be distinguished and today it is even known exactly what is the
difference in the processes that are going on in the two kinds of cones and
in the efferent nerves and how the part of the brain dealing with visual
stimuli is wired in. 67 It is very improbable that the cones being normal and
the wiring in of the nervous system being normal, there can be such a
supposed undetectable inversion. The idea could be compared to that of a
man seeing with his ears and hearing with his eyes: if each time he sees
something with his ears he is taught to say that he sees something and if
each time that he hears something with his eyes to say he hears something,
this would be undetectable too (save that in the dark he would instead of
seeing nothing, hear nothing). Fodor wants to make us believe that we can
experience "green" when stimulated by red reflected light and "red" when
stimulated by green reflected light; he divorces the physical process from
the experience. This is because he sees a parallel between our cognitive
processes and the computations of machines, where hardware and software
are separated. In living beings, however, as we shall see more extensively,
the hardware is to a certain degree the software: when they have a visual
perception of a certain colour definite processes take place in defmite cones,
in the optic nerve and its branches, in certain parts of the brain reached by
the latter that are different from those that take place when they see another
colour. Now that all this is known, the undetectable subjective inversion in
colour vision is as absurd as the example of the undetectable seeing with
our ears and hearing with our eyes.
While there are special cones in the retina sensitive to red light and nerve
cells connected with these cones and with other nerve cells in our brains,
there is not a "grandmother neuron", a special neuron or special neurons
for thinking just one thought. Nevertheless, there is hope that we shall be
able in the near future to establish experimentally what kind of neurons and
perhaps even which neurons are activated when we are thinking a certain
kind of thought, how the information is gathered, stored, retrieved and
forgotten and what kind of processes are going on in those neurons. Once
we shall understand all this, we shall know eventually how concepts,
intensions and intentions come about.
Fodor is aware of the fact that his model is hypothetical, but thinks that
it is less important that his own particular model will be verified, than that
it is shown that the construction of such a model is possible. The same holds
for Wassermann; perhaps his theory will be proven wrong, but at least, to
speak with W.V.O. Quine, there is something to be wrong about.
4.2. DIFFERENT MODELS OF THE CODING SYSTEM
Either the philosopher renounces his endeavour to understand the results of

science, or he trespasses the limits of his own domain and his steps become
uncertain. But as Ramuz says in "The Legend of the Soldier", "on ne peut
pas tout avoir". It is my hope that the reader will forgive me if my rendering
of some results and hypotheses of neurobiologists will be clumsy from time
to time. I shall cite abundantly to make up for this, and to enable the reader
to refine my renderings and correct them if necessary.
162 CHAPTER 8
The first item on our programm is to establish what is known today of

the mechanisms that account for mental processes and what is agreed upon
by most neurobiologists, the second task is to enumerate the different
theories available concerning those phenomena that are interesting for our
subject, namely intensions, but not all neurobiologists do agree about. The
third task is to present the reader with a hypothetical neurobiological model
of psychological phenomena.
The ideal situation would be that neurobiologists, studying what goes on
when we see, think, speak, write, etc., would be able to observe separately
but at the same time, what goes on in each neuron of the brain. This is not
possible as there are about fifteen billion neurons, connected by a network
ofaxons and dendrites, that is, there are ten thousands of times fifteen billion
connections between neurons. This is the reason why either regions of the
brain have been investigated or single nervous cells and this has hampered
the progress in the research on the encoding systems o/the brain.68 As we
have seen, Fodor has constructed a model of the operations that have to be
perfonned, given the initial state of the person, the input and the output.
These operations have to be carried out in a certain language. The questions
he has tried to answer are grosso modo whether it is a symbolic language,
or a language with a vocabulary consisting of images, whether this language
is layered and whether the layers are ordered hierarchically, whether it is
conventional, whether it is private and what is its relationship to verbal
language. Do neurobiological facts, linked with the encoding of infor-
mation, corroborate his theory? Is there a neurobiological model his model
can be compared with? He does not bother and states explicitly that
cognitive psychology starts where psychophysics leaves off 69; to me
however the two approaches seem complementary and seem to cover the
same domain.
In order to give an idea of basic facts neurobiologists agree upon, I must
make a preliminary remark about the phylogenetic and ontogenetic
development of the brain. One of Fodor's arguments for the existence of a
language of thought is that animals are intelligent, they can to a certain
degree reason, i.e. carry out mental operations. As they do not dispose of a
verbal language, they must think in a non-verbal language. The same
argument for a mental language can be drawn from the fact children are
intelligent before they speak. Moreover, this is in accordance with what is
known about the phylogenetic development of the brain. Our brain is
composed of the same material as the nervous system of a planaria (a kind
of wonn) and it is composed of the same kinds of nervous cells as that of
"higher" animals, such as a rat or a monkey. The difference between man

and other animals is not qualitative, it is quantitative: our brain has a greater
surface, the cortex is, compared to the other parts, more important.
Biochemically there are no fundamental differences, there are only very
slight differences between the DNA of a human being and that of a
chimpanzee, e.g ..70 The cortex, which takes such an important place in the
human brain, is composed of a surprisingly restricted number of cellular
elements, repeated many times and the few major categories of these
elements are found in all stages of the evolution, from the primitive
mammals to man.71 Of course the greater surface of the brain goes together
with an increase of the number of neurons, but not with an increase of
categories of neurons. (Primitive invertebrate animals with few neurons
compensate for their lack of huge numbers of neurons by a relatively high
number of kinds of neurons). To draw the conclusion that we can think and
do think in a mental language is certainly in accordance with the tradition
of the empiricists (Locke, Hume) that in order to understand human
faculties we must first consider the capacities of animals, capacities we
possess too and see these as the base of our more elaborate intelligence,
which comprises thought on a very abstract level combined with linguistic
skills.
What can we learn from the ontogenesis of our brain? Scientists agree
that after birth the number of neurons does not increase, but most of their
wiring in still has to take place. The first months of the life of the newborn
baby are crucial in this respect. It seems that a baby perceives already when
still in its mothers womb and it recognizes its mother's voice almost
immediately after birth. Nevertheless, very few connections between nerve
cells are present before birth, most are still to grow.72 The growth of
connections does not take place at random, but is genetically determined,
though sensorial stimuli are necessary for a normal development. Some
scientists, like F. Vester, believe that, though the general pattern is the same
for all human beings, the details are idiosyncratic and of great sig-
nificance.73 In order that we be able to think, our neurons must be con-
nected; all human beings have their own DNA (hence the possibility of
DNA fingerprinting) and also a unique set of genes and moreover, if stimuli
have an influence on the processes of wiring in, then the nervous system
and brain of each human being, though very similar to that of each other
human being, must be unique in its details. Our mental language must be a
private language, if it develops in function of a unique set of stimuli and
depends on a nervous system and brain that is uniquely wired in, in function
164 CHAPTER 8
of our earliest perceptions and our genetic individuality. Our language of

thought is a private language, but in order to transfer thought in a conven-
tionallanguage that is the same for all the members of the community we
live in, the language of thought of its different individuals must be very
similar. As stressed throughout this work, the particular and the general are
both of vital importance, but the particular seems to be prior and primal.
Fodor supposes that our language of thought is not learned, but develops,
matures spontaneously. This too seems probable: babies at first need not
learn to think from adults, all they need is a rich and stimulating environ-
ment. A child can imitate the uttering of words and later of expressions that
his parents or caretakers use, but does not imitate their thinking. He does
not copy their thoughts at this level, the imitation of ways of thinking is a
cultural matter, which takes place at a later stage.
Most neurobiologists content themselves with an explanation of proces-
ses in the brain, which are linked with mental phenomena, such as sensa-
tions, hunger, cold, etc. and emotions, anger, desire, etc., with the storing
of information in short time memory and long time memory, with skills
such as speech, writing, coordination of movements, etc .. Unlike G.D.
Wassermann they do not construct global models of more complex mental
phenomena such as the building of concepts, the association of concepts,
the learning of language. A basic common interest however is the code in
which information is stored and the processes that go together with learning.
In The Psychobiology ofMind W.R. Uttal distinguishes three fundamental
questions in psychobiology: "where in the brain are particular processes
mediated, how are mental processes represented by cellular action and what
are the plastic mechanisms that underlie the flexibility of our behaviour?".74
We can be short about what we know of the anatomy of the brain. The
brain activities are well localized, save where representation, learning and
memory are concerned. We know what parts of the brain are involved when
we see, hear, speak, write, move and even when we are reasoning, effec-
tuating logical operations. Though other areas may be involved in these
activities, the former are well established. We can even literally see what
activities are going on where in a person's brain, namely by "ideography",
a new technique, which permits to visualize brain activities without
trephination. Regions that are active spend more energy and the resulting
differences in the flow of the blood can be seen with the help of x-rays,
after radioactive isotopes have been injected in the blood of the subject.
Thus we can observe differences between certain mental states and mental
activities; vigilance, states of wakefulness, sleep, activation of a sense
organ, perception of different kinds of stimuli, speech concerning some-

thing that is not present, etc ..75 The positron camera enables us to see the
activities of large sets of neurons, but there is hope that one day we shall
be able to see the activity of single neurons distributed over different parts
of the cortex.
A much more difficult question is that of the coding ofinformation. It is
one thing to derive from the in- and output of a system plus its inner state
that there must be a language of thought, it is another thing to build
experimentally verifiable hypotheses about the material counterpart of the
elements of the language and their relationships. The information we use
when carrying out mental operations are diverse; perceptions, concepts,
words. Sensorial impressions are simpler to study than concepts or words,
more is known about what happens when a man, or a living being in general,
sees something, e.g., than about what happens when humans are reasoning
about things that are not present.
Let us review the main theories of encoding. Two theories have been
proposed, which seemed promising but have not been retained by the
majority of the neurobiologists. The first is a "computer theory" of the mind;
there are mental operations that can be simulated by computers and it has
been periodically fashionable to make computer models for the brain.
Though these attempts can occasionally make evident interesting properties
of some of the operations that are "imitated", neurobiologists warn for
unjustified conclusions. The brain does some of the things a computer can
perform, but does not work like a computer. Brains have no hardware and
software that are neatly separated and many creative processes are made
possible by this fact. Indeed the particular configurations of the neural sets
involved in storing information, and perhaps even those involved in carry-
ing through operations, is part of the representation of this information and
this is not the case in a computer. The topology of the connections of
neurons forms a kind of map of what is going to be represented on them
and therefore they are hardware and software at the same time.76 Another
difference is that computers are more vulnerable than brains where circuit
defects are concerned, and also that creative thinking cannot be described
in terms of Boolean Algebra.77 The operations carried through are not the
only thing that matters, it is also the machinery, the mechanisms, which are
of importance. For example, I could perhaps imitate certain instinctive
actions of certain animals, using my intellect, but that I could do so, would
not explain the fact that animals perform these actions instinctively nor the
conditions that have to be reunited in order that the animal be capable of
166 CHAPTERS
these actions. (I could simulate the fleeing of an animal (a mouse) when a

defmite stimulus (a cat) is presented to me, but what explanative value this
would have?).
The second theory, formulated by Pribram, is that the brain-repre-
sentation can be compared to a hologram. After it had been proven that,
though different brain functions can be localized, the stored information,
concepts, associations, words, are not to be found in definite places, because
brain damage does not seem to cause an irreversible loss of memory of a
certain type determined by the localization of the damage, but only a
diminished memory, a new manner of representing the way information is
stored was found. Stored information resembles on the one hand a crystal,
on the other hand smoke; it is a cooperative activity between certain
neurons, but on the other hand these cells are dispersed, have no simple
geometry .78 This cooperation of neurons can be enregistered as "resonance"
of information. This phenomenon can be compared with a hologram, a three
dimensional picture codified by laser beams on a photographic plate. The
hologram is a distributed form of recording images; the total picture can be
retrieved from any part of the plate. When part Of the photographic plate is
destroyed, the rest of it can be used to form a picture, which is still coherent,
but less sharp. Karl Pribram, the most important proponent of the theory,
has tried to use the mathematics of the holographic theory for the descrip-
tion of storage of information in neural systems, but criticism of the neural
implementation of the Fourier models that are involved makes Pribram's
theory suspect. It must be noted that Pribram considered the hologram to
be only an analog of the neural system; the analogy suggesting that the brain
contains interacting fields of activity.79 Most neurobiologists believe that
the theory will remain a comparison only, though a useful one.
Furthermore, there are non-synaptic and synaptic theories of coding. In
the first kind of theory either it is supposed that only certain special neurons
are involved for the storage of information obtained from experiences and
learning processes, such as microneurons or glia-cells 80, or else it is
supposed that experiences, learning, provoke persistent changes in the
properties of the membranes of neurons. (The membrane of neurons, which
separates the plasma of the cell from the environment of the cell, plays an
important role in the exchange of sodium and potassium ions between the
plasma and the environment. Changes in the membrane can alter the
concentrations of these ions, which are involved in the generation of
membrane action potentials, in that they are persistently displaced from
their normal equilibrium levels).81 On the other hand there is the synaptic
hypothesis, one of its most famous proponents is D.O. Hebb. (Synapses are
the terminal knobs of the nervous fibres, they act like switches between
nerves or between nerves and muscles, nerves and neurons, etc .. The signals
that arrive in the synapse are transmitted to the neighbour-cell, after the
synaptic knob has released a substance called transmitter. Different kinds
of transmitters exist, some facilitate excitation of the neighbour-cell, some
cause inhibition. In any case the transmitter released by the presynaptic
region of the cell from which the information comes is diffused across the
space between the terminal knob of this cell and the cell it contacts, and this
produces an alteration in the membrane potential of the latter, called
postsynaptic cell). The synaptic theory accounts for learning processes by
linking them to changes in the synapses, causing changes in the organisation
of the neural network. These changes can consist of the growth of new
synaptic junctions or of a process of differential facilitation of the transmis-
sion of the messages after repeated experiences of the same type. W.R. Uttal
stresses that these phenomena are to be considered as probabilities of neural
responses, rather than as deterministic changes in the action of individual
neurons. Indeed, singular synapses are probably irrelevant for "molar
mental acts" .82
A further possibility of explaining learning and memory and their coding
system is a theory that is based upon the production of large molecules,
RNAt involved in the storage and reproduction of genetic information.
Proof for this hypothesis, formulated by H. Hyden, is found in the fact that
RNA-formation is undoubtedly increased in the brain tissue after learning
processes and the blocking of its production by injection of certain chemi-
cals, such as puromycin, seems to make the storage of information in long
term memory impossible. There is a consensus among neurobiologists that
this does not imply that memories can be chemically extracted from an
animal that has been trained and then transferred to other animals. The
information is not stored in the molecules, but protein synthesis causes
functional changes in synapses and neurons. RNA-involvement has been
shown in many experiments concerning learning processes; moreover,
memory seems to be distributed and to involve stable structural changes
and this is in accordance with the fact that RNA-production is not a localized
phenomenon and with the fact that RNA-proteins are less ephemeral than
circulating signals, which in themselves cannot account for lasting storage
of information.
The coding of memory in circulating electrical signals is known as the
"spike-train" theory: variation in physical parameters of the environment
168 CHAPTER 8
are translated in variations of nerve impulses, the preexisting spontaneous

chemical and electrical activity of sets of neurons. (These electrical ac-
tivities show patterns, which are called spike-train patterns. Communica-
tion in the neuronal network, following the adepts of the spike-train code,
is effectuated by solitary waves, circulating along the nerves of the network,
from one point to another. 83 Criticisms are formulated regarding the spike-
train code theory. It cannot account for the fact memories are well
preserved, though huge amounts of neurons in the cortex die per day and it
is difficult to explain "the persistence of engrams and the possibility of
memory retrieval, when seizable parts of the nervous systems become
damaged".84
What conclusions can be drawn from the foregoing by the philosopher,
who wishes to know whether mental acts, concepts, intensions oflinguistic
terms, can be explained in terms of brain codes? All these different theories
about storage of information do not seem to merge into one broad model
that accounts for the mental phenomena he is interested in. Each of the
established theories that are accepted by most of the neurobiologists,
describes an interesting aspect of the problem and research in recent years
has confirmed that several of the approaches we mentioned went in the good
direction.
Up till now, most of the techniques available were applicable to single
neurons or to whole regions. In the future perhaps more attention will be
paid to the "synergetics" of the brain. H. Haken has defmed it in the
following way: synergetics is concerned with the cooperation of individual
parts of a system that produces macroscopic spatial, temporal or functional
structures. It deals with deterministic as well as stochastic processes.
Synergetics is an interdisciplinary field of research and resembles more a
research program than a fmally established theory.85 This idea is present
under one form or another in many recent reflexions on the direction
research will take in the future, where mental phenomena are concerned.
Pierre Changeux considers this to be the key to the problem of the identifi-
cation of "mental objects", perceptions, images, concepts, and of the
association of concepts, the generation of new concepts and perhaps, we
would like to add, to the logic of concepts, namely reasoning. 86 At the same
time it is probable that the theories about the storage of information,
learning, memory and braincodes that are well established and verified
experimentally, will have to be combined, a kind of synthesis will have to
be found. This is just what G.D. Wasserman has tried to do: he examines
critically the available theories of the mechanisms that partly explain mental
phenomena and uses them in combination with his own findings to con-
struct a neuropsychological model. This model is hypothetical, though he
claims it is experimentally verifiable. Many alternatives are possible, but
for the philosopher it is important to know that research has reached a stage
where it is possible to formulate such hypotheses and to construct such
models. An explanation of how we form images and concepts and link them
with words would be the stepping-stone we need for further establishing
the fundamental role of intensions in theories of meaning, their primacy
upon extensions.
4.3. WASSERMANN'S NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL.
4.3.1. Some presuppositions.
G.D. Wasserman presupposes that there are neurobiological mapping units

in the central nervous system. The word mapping is important: a map can
be divided into units, the mapping units are specific because of their unique
position in the system and correspond to what is mapped. The system is
"ultraspecifically" wired in and not at random. Cells are labelled qualita-
tively by means of cell-specifiers. Cells that are similarly labelled can
"recognize" each other and form connections. There is enough DNA-
material to account for the huge amount of labels. The high specificity of
the units of this neuropsychological model is the base for an explanation of
perceptual, cognitive and motor performances.87
Nerve impulses do not encode "messages"; instead neurons are carriers
of cablelike molecular channel systems, such that any particular channel
can pass in, through and out various neurons and traverse pre- and post-
synaptic membranes and synaptic cleft.88 (Roughly: pre-synaptic is what
comes before the synaptic cleft, when we consider a synapse from the cell
that conducts the excitation wave, and post-synaptic is what comes before
the cleft when we consider the cell that is contacted by the excitation wave
carrying cell).89
Thus, next to classification of cells according to the type of tissue they
belong to, a morphological classification or macroclassification, cells can
be classified according to their chemospecificity, a microclassification. In
a group of cells that are macrospecific, several sets of cells that contain
specific proteins can be differentiated. These cells are called "set-unique
specific" (SUS). Next tot these cells, it is supposed, there are "cell-unique
170 CHAPTER 8
specific" cells, (CUS)-cells. From this supposition follows that, whether of

the SUS-type or of the CUS-type, neurons are uniquely specified during
their development: SUS-type cells are formed durin~ the ontogenetic
developmental stage by cloning from a CUS-type cel1.9 The specifities of
the labelling of cells are assumed to be expressed by means of cell-specify-
ing proteins made by that cell, each cell-specifying protein being trans-
latable off one or more corresponding cell-specifying messenger-RNA
molecules.91
Those specific molecules cater for the molecular channels we mentioned
and for "cell surface appendage systems". Cell surface appendages are
proteins that are locked to the membrane and can traverse it into the synaptic
cleft. They are said to form a molecular map if they form a sufficiently large
patch on the cell surface membrane. These appendages are supposed to be
sensors, belonging to chemospecific cells and being also chemospecific in
genetically determined relationship to the cell they belong to; by these
appendages cells can recognize each other and be linked. Moreover ap-
pendages are shaped, they can contract and decontract, their topological
properties can playa role in the mapping of sensorial data. In order to make
a better understanding possible I cite an example of this given by Wasser-
mann. Our visual acuity suggests that the brain can present minute differen-
ces of the positioning of image items. "In the type of pictorial CNS mapping
<central nervous system - mapping> that I am proposing, the terminal head
of message carrying appendages of a presynaptic knob serves as a separate
mapping structure, which represents on an image mapping UMMS <unit-
molecular mapping system> either an individual central foveal cone or a
micro cluster of cones andlor rods. If a mapped representation of retinal
receptors on a UMMS is to preserve intraretinal relationships of spatial
order, then this requires that neighbouring loci on the retina are mapped
onto correspondingly arranged neighbouring loci on an image-mapping
UMMS. Nearest-neighbour cones of the central fovea, as well as microclus-
ters of cones or rods could be ordered relative to each other according to
the complementarities of the <labelling> proteins which the (assumed)
CUS-cones <cell-unique specific cones> of the central fovea, orrespective-
ly, the microcluster cells of other retinal regions, make. Also during
formation of the synaptic knob these segments of molecular channels which
partly protrude into the <future> synaptic cleft could become chemospecifi-
cally ordered..
Suppose now that the molecular channel specificities are such that to
neighbouring cones of the central fovea there correspond neighbouring
appendages of any typical retinal image-mapping UMMS; and that similar

remarks apply to neighbouring microclusters on the retina. It then follows
that to retinal relations of neighbourhood there correspond relations of
neighbourhood among appendages of image representing UMMS" .92 This
example shows that mapping of sensorial data is made possible by the
accurate wiring in of the system, where cells contact cells that have the
chemospecificity that corresponds to theirs and the presynaptic and
postsynaptic appendages become linked in an appropriate way, this linkage
becoming stable and thus engrammatic after the release of a stabilizing
substance.
These elements are responsible for cell-cell recognition, which can
explain the precise wiring in of the brain and the mapping operations.
Wasserman adds that the mammalian brain, consisting of non-regenerating
cells, can be assumed to consist exclusively of CUS-cells, though this is not
vital for his theory; mammalian brains could also consist of a very large
number of micro clusters of SUS-cells.93
What is the advantage of supposing that each cell of the central nelVOUS
system is specific? Either like in most theories, the message modifies the
undifferentiated elements and the code consists of this modification and its
effect on the functioning of these undifferentiated elements in the system,
or the message is projected on a set of differentiated elements, the selection
of the elements and the possibility of selected combinations being exploited
for the storage of information. In the latter case not only the fact each
element has a specific position in the system, but also its intrinsic specificity
is exploited and thus "hardware" and "software" are doubly merged. The
order in space and time inherent in the stimuli is reproduced in our sense
organs and their nelVOUS cells and preselVed in the corresponding nelVOUS
cells in our brain. The specificities of the stimuli are mapped on the
specificities of the specialised part of our brain. The advantage is that the
qualities of the environment have not to be translated into a code that
consists of repetitions of a few elementary bits, but are directly represented
by a huge amount of discrete and distinctive elements, which are intercon-
nected. At this level our brain does not computeg does not detect features,
but represents them. Wasserman says explicitly 4 that there is no analysis,
that specific groups of neurons, (the so called feature detectors), simply
respond to particular features. There are no operations involved that extract
certain elements out of a totality. He stresses that the ordered coherence of
all parts of a visually perceived figure points strongly towards a pictorially
mapped image representation in the central nelVOUS system, which permits
172 CHAPTER 8
us to preserve the figural coherence.95 Therefore it would be surprising that

the hypothesis that non-pictorial codes of different features would account
for a brain representation of the coherence of figures, as they are attested
by numerous Gestalt phenomena, is correct. Visual acuity suggests that the
brain represents minute differences of positioning of image items. Is this
representation non-pictorial and abstractly coded? A simpler solution is to
suppose that they are pictorially mapped on so-called "unit-molecular
mapping models".96 It then follows that to retinal relations of neighbour-
hood correspond relations of neighbourhood among appendages of image
representing "unit molecular mapping models" .97
We know that the nervous cells of our sense organs are connected to
sensorial parts of the cortex in such a way that our sense organs are mapped
on those parts 98; they are represented in our cortex. The principle invoked
here, just like in the mapping of the sense organs on our brain, is that the
topology plays a fundamental role in the representation, but in this case not
the global topology of neurons but the topology of the minute details of the
neurons and the details of their connections. The storage of sensorial
information in the form of images is corroborated by recent psychological
experiments: when comparing pictures of (unusual) three-dimensional
objects in different positions, in order to decide whether two pictures are
pictures of the same object after it has been rotated, or of two different
objects, we "tum" the presented object "in our mind", to see if the image
thus obtained coincides with one of the pictures presented.99
4. 3. 2. Mental representation and cognitive operations.
We must now investigate in more detail the way Wasserman conceives of

mental representation and cognitive operations. We must keep in mind that
he rejects the idea that the brain functions like a computer, that he denies
that cognitive operations, which are self-generated programs, can be ex-
plained in a biologically adequate way in terms of computer simulations of
the actions resulting from these self-generated programs: behaviour must
be related to functions of structural components known or believed to be
present in living organisms. lOO
In Wassermann's model the structural component for such an explana-
tion is a "unit molecular mapping model". ill his own terms a single
molecular channel could start from a peripheral receptor neuron and make
its way to appropriate higher order eNS <central nervous system> neurons
via a sequence of intermediate neurons. Constituents of the same channel

could differ for each neuron with which the channel is associated, so that a
channel could consist of a set of segments that are tandemly pieced together,
each segment being specific for one particular neuron with which that
channel is associated. Molecular channels starting from many different
peripheral neurons could stepwise converge towards the same neuron. Also
chemically matched molecular channels could develop branches. Specific
central nervous system neurons could each accommodate segments of a
very large number of channels that are chemically distinct per individual.
Within the synaptic clefts of many CNS-neurons certain molecular
channel components that traverse synaptic clefts are assumed to form unit
molecular mapping systems (UMMS's)".lOl Each activated molecular
channel conveys its "private" message owing to its chemospecificity.
Message-representing electronic excitation waves are assumed to be
propagated along each activated channel, inside the channel's protein
constituents and interconstituently. Not all message propagation starts from
receptor neurons. 102 ItSpeCI·f·IC centra1 1 · message propagatIOn
y ongomg . can
always be invoked as primary initiators (or "preceding causes"),,.103 There
is, following the author, experimental evidence for this theory, the latter is
in principle testable though its strength lies primarily in its explanatory
value.
Indeed, Wasserman believes that his model can explain multiple editions
of mappings, as branches of the same molecular channel can reach different
unit molecular mapping models that can be stabilized by the presynaptic
release of a specific substance and then give rise to phenomena, such as
binocular depth perception and interocular interactions in general. It is
9,
interesting to note that multiple mappin must not, as could be supposed,
imply multiple consciousness problems. 04
The next step is to introduce an engram-mapping hierarchy. If unit
molecular mapping systems are models or engrams, then these can be
ordered: unit molecular mapping systems representing unit molecular
mapping systems can be postulated. Images represented by unit molecular
mapping systems can be remapped onto unit molecular mapping systems,
which are called engram unit molecular mapping systems by Wassermann.
He thus introduces hierarchies of engrams, first order engrams are percepts,
higher order engrams are concepts or concepts of concepts. The form of the
mappings differ, but not the mapping mechanisms. He rejects the reluctance
of philosophers and linguists to introduce concepts and meanings in their
174 CHAPTER 8
theories: "if concepts prove useful h~othetical constructions, then no

excuse is needed for retaining them".1
The foregoing elements of his theory allow Wasserman to explain
linguistic behaviour in a way that is in keeping with the nominalistic-em-
piristic tradition. Indeed, he starts from a hierarchical order of engram unit
molecular mapping systems, which correspond to psychological
phenomena on the pre-linguistic level. Let us once again have a close look
at the basic units. As we have seen, perception begins with the impinging
of a stimulus on a sense organ, followed by an electrical excitation wave,
which runs along molecular channels and reaches unit molecular mapping
systems constituted by molecules present at the pre-synaptic and post-
synaptic level. These unit molecular mapping systems thus consist of
appendages of the cell membrane traversing from both sides the synaptic
cleft: "Molecular channel segments within a synaptic knob can in this model
be continued across the presynaptic membrane into the synaptic cleft, where
they may link up with chemospecifically matching channel segments in the
following neuron. A typical molecular channel could thus be continued
through a sequence of many neurons and across their synapses and could
serve as a message encoder (... )".106
Thus unit molecular mapping systems, as we have mentioned, could
produce mappings of retinal images and other sensorial data, but they could
also function as message transmitters and form engrams when stabilized by
neurotransmitters, for short term or long term memory. Sequences of unit
molecular mapping systems could form engrams of serially ordered image
sequences, concept sequences, etc. 107 and this is of crucial importance for
the capacity of the model to account for several mental operations and more
especially for the linguistic skills we are interested in. These skills involve
a quick and easy retrieval of information, in Wassermann's model stored
in different layers of the hierarchy of engram unit molecular mapping
systems. This retrieval is only possible after repeated stimulation, repeated
performances during learning processes, in other words rehearsal. How
well a sensorial image, a concept or, as we shall see, an association is
remembered depends on the number of stimulations, which in
Wassermann's system, next to stabilizing it, increase the number ofengram
unit molecular mapping systems that represent it. In order to account for
the fact many of the items we store must be serially ordered and retrieved
in the same order as they were stored, biological clocks are introduced. lOS
This hypothesis is vital for the explanation of the inherent serial order of
the production and reproduction of sentences, when they are spoken or read.
In the first case the order is order-in-time, in the second case order-in-time-
and-place. The same holds for the order of phonemes in morphemes, which
is of great importance in the process of language acquisition, more espe-
cially for writing and reading skills, where a global approach of the
morphemes and sentences, not accompanied by analysis of the order of the
phonemes and words, leads to difficulties. 109
Hitherto we have considered two kinds of ordering, which had to be
accounted for in neurobiological terms, namely the hierarchical order of the
representations on different levels of information inherent in the stimuli that
reach us (images, concepts, concepts of concepts) and the order in the
representation of stimuli that are serially ordered. There is, however, a third
kind of ordering. The items belong namely to different sensorial modalities.
In each modality associations of representations are formed, associations
of images of sounds e.g., associations of concepts with images, of concepts
with concepts, etc .. (These associations Wassermann calls intraCACs,
intramodal concept-representing association complexes). On the other hand
there are associations of images or of concepts or of images and concepts
that belong to different sensorial realms (These are called interCACs,
intermodal concept-representing association complexes). Wasserman ex-
plains by the underlying neural mechanisms we have sketched 110, the
establishment and reinforcement of the associations, the serial recall of
certain elements, the recognition of patterns and subpatterns based upon
these intermodal associations, which are represented by central concepts.
4.3.3. Language
These mechanisms are the foundations of his neurobiological theory of

language and more in particular semantics. He rejects the idea that language
can be accurately analysed into separate domains, phonetics, semantics and
syntaxis and does not believe syntaxis is the basic part, while, like in
Chomsky's approach, semantics plays a secondary role. I 1I Semantics and
syntaxis are interwoven, there is a high degree of semantic coherence of
words within a sentence. This is in accordance with the idea that the
acquisition of language is an epiphenomenon relative to the prior acquisi-
tion of sensorial knowledge and the formation of concepts drawn from
sensorial experiences. From this follows that semantic compatibility of
words is fundamental: the position of words in a sentence, the syntax may
playa role in the construction of semantically correct sentences, but there
176 CHAPTER 8
are other factors such as the purely semantic compatibility. It is because

meanings are related to experience that "Cows lay eggs" is semantically
wrong, though syntactically correct and it is for the same reason that though
"Hens lay eggs" is semantically and syntactically correct, "eggs lay hens"
is only syntactically correct;
Linguists like Katz, Fodor and others, under the attack of behaviouristi-
cally inspired philosophers, psychologists and colleagues in their field,
have tried to circumvent the critique that meanings are not empirically
well-established, by reducing the meaning of words to synonymy: the
meaning of a word can be made clear by other words with the same
meaning, the meaning of the latter words is supposed to be known by the
language user and in any case can be made clear by still other words with
approximatively the same meaning or by a paraphrase. In a dictionary the
meaning of each word is in principle defined by the meaning of other words.
W.V.O. Quine, however, has contested this by showing that "synonymy"
is as dubious as "meaning". Indeed, men of different cultures do not only
differ in how they say things, but in what they say and even men belonging
to one culture may, when using the same words, showing the same be-
haviour, mean different things. Following Quine, though all humans
belonging to the same cultural community learn the same language, they
all learn it in a different way. This opinion must be related to the be-
haviouristic approach. Indeed, behaviourists do not relate language to the
pre-linguistic stage, to learn the meaning of words is to learn to associate
words with stimuli, not with already formed concepts. These stimuli are
only similar, not identical but of the same kind. Therefore, Quine stresses
the fact that learning processes can be different in different individuals.
When considered from the point of view of a linguistic community, lan-
guage is a purely cultural phenomenon. Like Whorf and Cassirer he
believes that the way we conceptualize the world is culturally determined
and partly determined by the language we use. These two elements,
individual and cultural idiosyncracies, make radical translation impossible.
Wasserman on the other hand explains language as a cultural
phenomenon, the acquisition of which is made possible by the pre-linguistic
conceptual knowledge already present and also by the fact this basic
knowledge is very similar in different individuals, in spite of the existing
idiosyncracies. Meaning must not be explained in terms of synonymy, but
in terms of basic experiential data common to all humans. It must not be
forgotten, moreover, that partially our pre-linguistic knowledge is not
learned, but instinctive and that instincts develop phylogenetically. This
view is largely supported by the recent experimental work in the field of

language acquisition we cited in the previous chapter. Children, at the age
they learn language have already acquired many concepts, only the hierar-
chically higher levels, abstract concepts, concepts of concepts, which are
partly or totally culturally determined, have still to be built. Not the cultural
habits are of importance at this first stage, but all those interests and instincts
human beings share with each other and to a large degree with closely
related animals, interests, which constitute a kind of "natural" knowledge.
Correct use of meaning depends on pre-linguistic engrams in the
auditory-verbal modality associated with engrams in one of the five dif-
ferent perceptual modalities and then, as the next step, on associations of
auditory-verbal concepts (the concepts we have of the phonemes of a word)
and concepts or their associations formed in one of the five modalities or
associations of such concepts belonging to different modalities. We can
control the correct use of words by retrieving engrams; for instance, visual
engram sequences confirm that birds but not cows lay eggs. Science fiction
writers and fairy tale authors may transgress the boundary between lan-
guage and experience and invent fictions like cows that lay eggs, Martians,
dragons and witches, on behalf of their readers, who fully master the
language. (And why not extend this to the electrons, photons and other
theoretical concepts of scientists, which are not observable the way objects
of the macro-world are?) The hearer or reader can rely on his experience
induced engrams to distinguish realistic from fictitious or nonsensical
meanings: knowledge acquired in the past is the base of the creation of new
cognitive constructs of whatever kind, even of fictions. 112
The "dictionary theories" of meaning cannot be accepted because they
do not take into account the way brains function: we do not learn our first
language from a dictionary and when we try to understand a sentence we
do not refer to a dictionary in our brain, consisting of pairs of synonyms.
Wasserman claims that any explanation of the human competence for
linguistic communication depends on the general hypothesis that the brains
of different individuals can form representations of concepts by similar
mechanisms. 113 Therefore he concludes brains are the primary source of
meanings, and this is not trivial. Meanings are conventional and at the same
time based on the similar experiences ofreality of human beings, experien-
ces they store as percepts, images, concepts and associations of concepts.
If we see a statue of Voltaire, we do not consult a dictionary, we do not
search for synonyms, but we consult our brain for the identification of the
association of a visual image and a verbal concept. No description of a
178 CHAPTER 8
person makes recognition certain, I would like to add. Indeed, if we must

meet somebody we have never seen in a crowd, a description is insufficient,
we have to ask him to wear a carnation in his buttonhole as a distinctive
mark.
The extraordinary performances of our brain are not made possible by
its size, but by the way it is constructed. Language does not require as much
cognitive competence than more abstract cognitive performances, and
people with dwarfed brains may be perfectly capable of speech. 114 Not only
those cortical regions shown to be involved in linguistic performances, but
other regions too, playa role. Motivational systems as well as engram-stor-
ing systems related to various senso?: modalities, are directly or indirectly
involved in audio-verbal activities. 11 Probably the multiple representations
are basic for the explanation of our verbal skills. Wasserman posits next to
a hierarchy of concepts, central concepts, which explain why we learn
language and even several languages more easily than the performance of
less complicated tasks. Central concepts represent several associated con-
cepts in different modalities, or in other words, they are concepts whose
subconcepts are represented in different sensorial realms. 1l6 This makes
clear why we are able to learn that "Hund", "chien" and" dog" are synonyms.
They become conceptually associated with the non-verbal concept dog,
which is in its tum associated with sub-pattern concepts such as barking,
four legged, bone eating, etc .. This central representation of verbal and of
non-verbal concepts can explain the huge vocabulary, which many people
have acquired in their native language and even in different tongues.
Generalizations are explained in the same way; one has to learn that
different names like Jack, Jim and John, e.g., are male names and that there
are visually perceptible and verbally expressible cues for maleness, and so
on for other classes.
Always in the same vein, G.D. Wassermann, stressing the priority of the
semantical over the syntactical, rejects transformations as basic for the
learning of language. Children who learn that "Jim's bicycle was fetched
by John" is equivalent to "John fetched Jim's bicycle", first learn to
associate both expression and to relate them to (a) central concept(s). It is
at school that they learn that an expression can be transformed by applying
certain rules into an equivalent expression. Moreover, a child learns easily
that "John holte Jim's Fahrrad ab"is equivalent to"John fetched Jim's
bicycle" though we can hardly say the German sentence is a transformation
of the English sentence.
Philosophers and linguists alike have often doubted the validity of

explanations of meaning in terms of the relationship of words with con-
cepts, drawn in their tum form experience, breaking with the empiricist
tradition. They have shunned concepts as mediatory elements between
words and things. They said not to know what concepts are. Neurobiologists
believe they can explain if not what they ultimately are, the result of what
kind of brain mechanisms they could be. The philosophers and linguists
complained not to dispose of enough neurobiological data, to make sense
of psychological phenomena in terms of these data. Wasserman has sup-
plied a model partly theoretical, partly based on empirical findings, a
hypothesis that can be confirmed or not confirmed. Other neurobiologists,
in their endeavour to account for cognitive phenomena and more especially
for verbal skills, have supplied us with mere sketches, have indicated the
outlines of a theory.117 As far as I know, in great lines their results are in
keeping with those of Wassermann. This is why I believe that the latter has
good reasons to consider most linguistic theories of meaning as ad hoc
creations, devoid of biological significance. u8
What are intensions, considered from a neurobiological point of view?
They are concepts, states of individual brains, they can be dormant or
activated. They are representations of percepts or of concepts drawn from
percepts; if they are higher order concepts, they are representations of
representations in different modalities. These concepts are the result of the
functioning of brain mechanisms similar in all humans, they are ultimately
dependent upon sensorial experience, which must be prior to them. These
concepts are associated with words individuals learn from adults during
their early childhood. To these intensions correspond extensions: once the
association between a word and a concept drawn from experiences of
elements of the surroundings of an individual is acquired, it is possible to
derive the extension of the word, to conceive of a collection of all those
elements the percept of which would be similar to the percept the concept
is ultimately drawn from.
This corresponds very well to Ockham' s theory: verba mentis are derived
from previous experience and associated with words, verba oris. Intensions
or meanings corne about by acts of the mind, by brain mechanisms. Like
we do not actually remember all our memories, we do not use all the
intensions, all the concepts that are associated with words we have learned.
Electrical excitation waves make intensions operational; without such
excitation waves intensions are no more than a particular state of structured
sets of neurons in our brain. This state of those sets of neurons in our brain
180 CHAPTER 8
corresponds to that of similar structured sets of neurons in a similar state in

the brain of other members of our cultural and linguistic community.
CHAPTER 9
NOMINALISM, EMPIRICISM AND

CONVENTIONALISM
The purpose of this last chapter is the investigation of the global epis-
temological implications of the contemporary nominalistic theories we
have studied. These theories depart in many points from logical empiricism,
they have relativistic and conventionalistic traits, which are not congenial
to the spirit of Camap' s philosophy. How can we explain these tendencies
and what conclusions can we draw? Is their source to be found in nom-
inalism and/or in empiricism, which admittedly contain the seed of scep-
ticism?
Let us sum up once more the relativistic and conventionalistic elements.
In "Two Dogma's of Empiricism" Quine has doubted the verification
principle of early logical empiricism, declaring that only global theories
can be verified, not the propositions they contain one by one. The analytic-
synthetic distinction has lost its absolute character. Knowledge presupposes
knowledge; we never tackle a problem starting from the collecting of "pure"
observations, but from hypotheses and available theories, which are con-
ventional to a certain degree. Nelson Goodman denies that a constructivistic
system has to mirror the genealogy of our knowledge; indeed, he even
proposes as basic elements for such a system, abstractions that are theoreti-
cal constructs, namely repeatable qualia. These conventionalistic tenden-
cies still increase after The Structure ofAppearance, culminating in Ways
of World Making, where he explains that to know the world is to give a
version of it amongst other versions, thus making a world, rather than
describing reality as such.
The controversy about scientific realism versus scientific conven-
tionalism is very actual today. I propose to gain some clarity concerning
the roots of the latent scepticism in the work of W.V.O. Quine and N.
Goodman, by examining whether the claim that traditional nominalism
contains sceptic elements is justified. It is my contention that many of the
contemporary philosophical issues can be studied very effectively in the
works of the scholastic philosophers, who treated them for the first time;
many troubles arise from neglecting to examine the origin of philosophical
182 CHAPTER 9
discussions. The latter leads to the reiteration of arguments that already

were proven to be false or on the contrary to neglect the important elements
in the discussion. This is why I propose to return again to Ockham and to
reflect on his reputation as a sceptic and whether if he was a sceptic, the
fact empiricism took over the main theses of his epistemology accounts for
the scepticism it contains in its tum. The next step will be to relate the results
of our examination to the position ofN. Goodman and W.V.O. Quine. This
will eventually lead us back to our starting point, the controversy of realism
versus conventionalism in the contemporary philosophy of science.
1. OCKHAM'S SCEPTICISM
Historians of philosophy believe that Ockham's theories, both theological

and epistemological, were of great influence on the main intellectual
currents of the Renaissance, and even as late as the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Though in those periods scholastic philosophies had
a bad reputation, many of their general principles and ways of putting the
problems were never questioned. This influence of Ockham's philosophy
is evaluated very differently: for some it has been negative, destructive
even, according to others modem philosophy is made possible only because
nominalism cleared away several traditional conceptions that hampered
real progress.
Let us first have a brief look at the accusations formulated against
Ockham by those who see his philosophy as destructive. In the first place
Ockham is said to have undermined traditional theology, moreover, he
created a terrible uncertainty for the believer concerning the salvation of
the sinner after death and last but not least his reduction of metaphysical
questions to logical ones led him to tum philosophy into a "dry" and
technical science.
Whether beneficial or destructive, Ockham' s influence was not as great
as supposed by most of his interpreters. In "The Dissolution of the Medieval
Outlook" 1, Gordon Leff tries to make clear that the traditional view of the
role played by Ockham's philosophy is often exaggerated. Indeed, many
of the ideas that are mentioned in this respect are not peculiar to Ockham,
but were under one form or another generally accepted in the first half of
the fourteenth century, they were not restricted to nominalism. According
to Leff, after too literal an acceptance of the philosophy of Aristotle, which
was a non-Christian, a pagan theory of the world, by the Latin A verroists,
NOMINALISM, EMPIRICISM AND CONVENTIONALISM 183
literal acceptance, which in spite of their "theory of the double truth" lead
to the condemnations of 1277, a reorientation and redefinition of the
Christian framework became necessary.
In the first place this signified the end of the great systems that expressed
the Christian worldview. The search for. understanding moved from
metaphysics to evidence and speculation moved from an independent world
of abstraction to concrete meanings in the real world. The change appears
negative and is even today interpreted largely as intellectual decline and
loss of direction? But this is only justified, according to Leff, when the
change is seen against the background of the past, against the systems of
Henry of Genth, Albert the Great, Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas. 3 Though
it was a general tendency to treat philosophical questions on the logical and
linguistic level, rather than on the metaphysical (ontological) level, there
were several important areas of dispute. For instance, philosophers were
divided over the nature of what was known of the physical world and the
source of this knowledge. Ockham identified both with what is individual,
all that exists being particular. Thus he reversed the accepted order: tradi-
tionally an attempt was made to explain individuals in terms of universals,
natures and essences; he, on the contrary, tried to account for universals in
a world consisting exclusively of individual things.4
Another subject of dispute was the certainty in knowledge and also, but
this does not concern us, in belief. Evident knowledge was restricted to
knowledge of actual existence and the efficacy of knowledge was accord-
ingly limited. Ockham' s conception that all knowledge is knowledge of the
particular or derived of such knowledge was opposed by many
philosophers, but it was a general tenet in the fourteenth century to believe
that no existence, except that of God, was certain and necessary.5 This
general point of view in Christian philosophy did not commit those who
held it to Ockhamist epistemological theories: "The almost universal ten-
dency to imagine that it did is the greatest misconception still prevalent
about the thought of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (...). They
<things, facts> all shared inherent contingency of creation, so that however
necessary the laws that God had ordained for this world were, they were
only conditionally necessary on God's havin"g willed them and not by any
unqualified absolute necessity of their own" .000is is not a new idea, it is in
accordance with Saint Augustine's theory of grace and predestination, but
it led to the narrowing of what was considered to be known necessarily and
with absolute certainty, and to the replacement of necessity by probability.
This has been understood as an attitude of criticism and scepticism, which
184 CHAP1ER9
destroyed the scholastic achievement. Furthennore, speculative philosophy

had hitherto given an imaginative account of reality, not based on intuitive
evidence; now the problem, instead of being the reconciliation ofindividu-
als with their universal natures, became how to describe individual things
with universal words. What had been a problem of the nature of being
became a problem of language.7 Ockham cannot be held responsible for
the fact that in the second half of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century
philosophy evolved from the search for the substantive meaning of
problems to the pursuit of argument for the sake of argument. Nevertheless
Ockham's name is associated with conventionalism: truth cannot be estab-
lished as such, it is a matter of convention. 8
Compared to the Latin Averroists, who were condemned for trespassing
the limits of what the theological authorities could permit, the fourteenth
century produced a philosophy that was a reassessment of the traditional
Christian worldview. Indeed the Averroists, taking Aristotle's authority to
be equal to that of Christian revelation, proposed a deterministicworldview.
God did not create the world and its order, he was merely the First Cause
of a chain of causes and effects. The fourteenth century stressed God's
freedom, his absolute power to do whatever is not contradictory and also
the contingency of the material world and its elements. The notion of
causality itself, became, as we shall see, a matter of experience, which was
not demonstrable as such.
The only kind of knowledge that was necessary was logical knowledge,
inductive knowledge being only probable. Before going into the matter of
Ockham's alleged scepticism we must consider for a moment the status of
logical truth.
Throughout the early Middle Ages the neoplatonistic view prevailed that
all that can be thought is in the divine intellect and corresponds thereby to
the essence of God. Thus there can be no true knowledge independent of
God, as our world that God has created mirrors his being and knowledge.
The possibilities in our world are potentialities that cannot remain eternally
unrealized. Most philosophers believed all that is possible is bound to be
realized at one time or another. This is clearly a view wherein the domain
of the real and the possible overlap. Nevertheless our world is a changing
world and philosophers accounted for this fact by a statistical approach of
modalities. Causes are necessary if the effect always follows the cause, if
the effect follows only sometimes, they are contingent.9 Contingency, as a
merely epistemological notion, namely what is thinkable, is encountered in
the writings of Siger of Brabant 10, but he left these conceptual possibilities,
which depended in his opinion on the absolute divine power, to theology

and faith and retained as sole object of study for humans the natural causes
in the world God has created by his ordained power. Even this version was
unacceptable for the theological authorities, because they believed God's
absolute power was thereby doubted or at least unintelligible and this could
imply that theologians, using the notion of absolute divine possibilities, did
not know what they were speaking about.
Duns Scotus seems to have been the first medieval philosopher to
secularize the modalities: his thesis was that what is necessary and possible
does not depend exclusively on God's intellect and will. Criticizing Henry
of Genth, he claimed that an infinite power can realize freely whatever is
possible, but what is possible does not depend on that infinite power.
Neither is what is possible ontologically determined by a realm of "esse
intelligibile" in the intellect of God.
In Scotus's modal theory the domain of possibility, i.e. of thinkable
'-uemg:Is-consmerciras-consISimg-ora1rPosstDle'mlhviaurus,LmeIrl'OsstDIe
properties and their mutual relations. I I This leads to the idea of alternative
possible worlds based on sets of compossible relations. If possible beings,
which can occur in several possible worlds at the same time, also belong to
the actual world, the predicate of existence applies to them. I2 What is
necessary has no counter example in any thinkable world. "God's infinite
intellect comprehends all that can be thought without contradiction".13 The
idea of thinkable worlds gives rise to the distinction between logical and
natural possibilities: the first are considered genuine alternatives for the
actual world, whereas the latter are only other versions of our world as we
know it, versions wherein the course of history is different, but not the
fundamental structure of nature. The most important element here is that,
as L. Alanen and S. Knuuttila stress, the domain of the possible and the
necessary is prior to any intellect, human or divine. From this follows that
logic is neither the fabric of an intellect, nor the reflection of its structure,
logic is not the transcendental aspect of our knowledge. Moreover it must
be noted that necessities nor possibilities have an intrinsic reality and a
fortiori what is impossible has no reality whatsoever.
According to Alanen and Knuuttila, Ockham, despite his criticism of
Scotus, when he suspected him from hypostatizing possibilities, held very
similar views: necessities and possibilities are independent from intellect
human or divine, and have no intrinsic reality. The individuals, which are
the elements of reality, have possible being of themselves, but not really as
something inhering in them. This is consistent with Ockham's conception
186 CHAPTER 9
of relation: relations are not inhering in separate individuals, neither are

they realities separate from those individuals. 14
The domain of logical necessity is of interest for our subject because it
delimits demonstration. That this domain is restricted in Ockham' s opinion
is because he had to reconcile Aristotle's theory of demonstration with his
own conception of the actual world, wherein everything is not only contin-
gent, freely created by God, but wherein everything is individual. Even the
moderate realism of Duns Scotus implies the existence of the general, of
natures or essences, not really different from particulars but only formally
so by an individual difference. Thereby the essence inherent in individual
things is really the same in different individuals of one kind. For Ockham,
on the contrary, there is no general essence that could be known a priori.
Essences are known a posteriori, they are abstractions derived from intui-
tions of the particular. This makes essential predication necessary but
indemonstrable. Indeed, "man is a rational animal" is a necessary proposi-
tion, because being a rational animal is essential to man and belongs to his
defmition. Moreover God could not have made the being we call man
non-rational, though he could not have made him, but something else
instead. In as far as there actually exist men, and this is in itself not
necessary, "man is rational" is a necessary and evident proposition, which
cannot be doubted and therefore not demonstrated. As we shall see,
demonstrable propositions were derived by Ockham from attributive
predication, by shifting, from the categorical mode to the conditional or
hypothetical mode. Our provisional conclusion is that Ockham held views
concerning modality that were similar to those of Duns Scotus, but not the
same, the main difference being that Ockham stressed that individuals are
really unique, even in their essential qualities. Propositions that cannot be
doubted were reduced to those where the predicate makes explicit a
property that belongs by definition to the subject and as said to those that
can be demonstrated, namely derived from attributive predication.
Many misconceptions about Ockham's influence linger on 15, but is it
not true after all, that by carrying the stress on the absolute power of God,
on the contingency of the facts and things that constitute reality, to its
extreme consequences, and this in combination with his principle of the
primacy of the individual, his epistemology is tainted with scepticism?
Could it be that all nominalistic epistemologies have inherited this kind of
aversion of absolute truth? Not all authors agree about Ockham's scep-
ticism 16, but it is generally recognized that even ifhe was not a sceptic, the
central notion of evidence is not very clear in his work and this leads to
ambiguities.
One formulation of the reproaches in this respect can be found in T.K.
Scott's "Ockham on Evidence, Necessity and Intuition"Y In Scott's
opinion Ockham's scepticism is an established fact, to him he was "the
father of the critical and sceptical tendencies of fourteenth-century
philosophy,,18 , only the sense and reason of this fact remain to be inves-
tigated. The first question he asks is what is the relation between evidence
and necessity. And this relation can best be studied from attributive predica-
tion. In contradistinction to attributes, accidents can be predicated of a
substance contingently, they are terms that occur as predicates in non-
modal, categorical propositions. Attributes on the other hand cannot be
denied of a thing, if they are ever truly predicable of that thing and therefore
attribute-predication is necessary.19 Attributes can be predicated of com-
mon terms to yield modal propositions. For example, if it is true that this
particular man laughs, then "man is risible" 20 is necessarily true, its truth
not depending on the fact whether any particular man is or will be laughing.
According to T.K. Scott, it does not follow from this that attributive
predication implies the presence in each of the supposita of the subject, (in
our example this man and that man ... etc.), of some real quality or disposi-
tion or potency to be such that the corresponding accident-predication is
true of it: if there is one dog that barks, "all animals belonging to the species
dog can bark" is a true sentence, but the dogs do not all have the potentiality
or disposition to bark. (possibilities are not qualities, but purely logical).
What must be established through this analysis is how attributive
predication can be the base of scientific knowledge, which is always of the
universal. Indeed, virtually every principle of science is an attribute-
predication. Therefore Scott returns to the example "man is risible" for a
second inspection of this kind of proposition. What does it mean that any
accident, predicable of a thing, is predicable of any other thing of the same
specific kind? Surely it cannot mean that any thing of a kind can be any
other thing of the same kind, being able to share not only all its essential
qualities, but also all its accidents?
One answer could be that substances are distinct and separable from their
qualities, but differ by their substance itself. Scott believes this answer is
indefensible on philosophical grounds. (However, it could be said that the
substance, i.e. the individual thing, is a unique instantiation of those
qualities, essential and accidental, it has in common with other substances
of the same species).
188 CHAPTER 9
Scott's solution is that Ockham could have argued that though from
accident-predication can be derived attribute-predication, the reverse is not
true. Indeed to predicate an attribute of an individual is not to say or imply
that any accident-predication either is or can be true of it, but is just to say
what kind of substance it is. 21 Thus the requirement is fulfilled that science
is of the universal. Its concern is indeed with relations among kind-con-
cepts, how they are hierarchicallr arranged and not with possibilities that
would be qualities of individuals. 1ne determination of the kinds and their
relations is arrived at by comparison of the attributes predicated of them.
This can lead to difficulties because things sharing attributes with things of
different kinds belong to several kinds at the same time. This need not be
the case in my opinion. An attribute is not the same as an essential quality:
attributes are predicates expressing a specific difference, between the
species a thing belongs to and the genus it belongs to. It is not only
necessarily predicated of the species, it can also be predicated ofthat species
only. Thus "risible" is typical for humans, th~ are (rightly or wrongly)
believed to be the only animals that can laugh. In attributive predication
to a property corresponds a predicate that is true of the subject in a
proposition per se in the strict sense; it is part of the defmition of the subject
and its predication of the subject cannot be false, in other words, it is
necessary. Thus if "whiteable" is true of "man" and of "stone" then white-
able is no attribute of man, nor of stone, whiteable is not the specific
difference between the species man and a genus, nor between stone and a
broader class of things. That man is white able says something about the
relationship of the concept man to other concepts such as stone: like other
kinds of things, man can be white. Even an essential quality can be common
to several kinds of things. Let us take Quine's example, of the heart, the
lungs, the liver and the kidneys. To have those organs is an essential quality
of a large group of animals, not of one species of them. My conclusion is
that only some accident-predication can lead to attributive predication.
Thus it is not enough for a raven to be black in order to be a raven, blackbirds
being black too, nor does the contingent fact that some men are white lead
to attributive predication. The fact however, that some individual men
laugh, can lead to attributive predication.
This lays bare a problem, which is not mentioned by T.K. Scott: how do
we know what are accidental and what are essential qualities? The reply is
that Ockham believes we can know this intuitively and this implies that we
cannot prove an essential quality to be an essential quality. We see different
men and know what a man is, thereby knowing his essential qualities; this
can be compared with the contemporary conception that we are abe to

perceive "Gesta1tqualiUiten", after having observed a series of similar
individuals. To know individuals and to know their natures is the same, to
these natures correspond simple concepts that sJF.!ifY all the individuals
coming under them univocally and essentially. The question remains,
however, whether knowing such an essence, we can make the distinction
between the essential qualities, which are part of the essence. Also, after
knowing quid est, can we know what are the attributes? According to
Gordon Leff, attributes - in contradistinction to essences or natures - are by
defmition really distinct from the subject of which they are asserted in a
proposition. To be a man is not the same as "to be risible", if there is a
necessary connection it must be a connection between the term man and
the term "risible". Thus risible signifies man together with the act of
laughing?S One thing is certain, whenever a predicate is attributive it cannot
be denied of a concept on one occasion and asserted on another occasion.
Thus we can say this man laughs and then an accidental quality is ascribed,
because we can say a moment later that he does not laugh, but the same
cannot be done where the attribute risible is linked to the term man. Whether
attributive predication, being necessary, is demonstrable, will be examined
indue time.
Let us return to Scott's analysis. The second part of it is the most
important, because it consists of a close examination of Ockham' s peculiar
notion of evidence, which is often considered to be the root of his scep-
ticism. Even assuming that attributive propositions can be analysed the way
Scott did, and thus are valid and the base of science, as they are derived
from contingent propositions that are evidently true, we still must examine
· means to be an eVl'd'ud
W hat It ent J gment.26
We have seen that in the fourteenth century a deterministic view of the
world was rejected. If there was an inherent order in nature and if there were
laws, this was because God had willed this, but at any time he could
intervene and therefore all that exists, save God himself, was considered to
be contingent. The fact Ockham stressed, like his predecessor, Duns Scotus,
the Absolute Power of God, has consequences for his epistemology and
logic: God can at any time intervene in our processes of knowledge and
e.g., make us have an intuition of what he has destroyed, of what is no longer
there. T.K. Scott deduces from this that in that case we might well go on
believing the object still exists and therefore that, though we have immedi-
ate knowledge of it, this evidence would be false. He is strongly opposed
in this by different authors, who claim that God can make us perceive what
190 CHAPTER 9
is not there, but not in that case make us believe that what we perceive
.
eXIsts, .
sInce h e cannot In
. duce us In
. error. 27
But even then, leaving this theological question aside, Ockham' s notion
of evidence is not clear. Ordinary perception, he must admit, is not infal-
lible, it can lead us sometimes to wrong conclusions. Therefore, the fact
knowledge is called evident does not seem to justify that it is treated as if
it was necessary; this would require that we could not but know correctly
and lead inevitably to a vicious circle in our reasoning.
All knowledge is either simple or abstractive, either non-mediated by
prior knowledge or mediated and in Ockham's conception simple cogni-
tion, i.e. "pure" perceptions, not mingled with concepts, is the basic layer
of allfurther cognition. These perceptions, although being of the individual,
can be confused, because of the limitation of our senses: the individual is
always immediately perceived, but not necessarily known distinctly. In-
deed, seeing a person in the distance, we do not necessarily know whether
it is John or whether it is Peter, not because we are seeing a universal, but
because we must have a closer look to make the distinction. Simple
cognition always implies being, intuitive knowledge is of what exists, while
abstractive (i.e. conceptual) knowledge is indifferent to being and non-
being; abstracted from simple cognition it can be universal. T.K. Scott asks
whether, like we can pass from simple to abstractive knowledge, we cannot
pass from abstractive knowledge to simple knowledge. When we have
intuitive cognition, immediately and without activity of the intellect, a
concept is formed of the thing intuited and all similar things. Just how the
intellect is made to "abstract" the common concept from the intuition of the
particular is "occult", but the process is always held to be natural. 28 Can we
not, inversely, infer from the concepts we have, that we have really intuited
the things that correspond to them? His conclusion is that this cannot be
deduced, as only to words we use correctly correspond concepts gained by
intuition and this is what we do not know unless we know whether we had
the relevant intuition, the correct use of a conventional word in a conven-
tionallanguage not being itself a matter of convention. 29
Let us now cite champions of Ockham. Gordon Leff, like R.C. Richards,
defends Ockham against the allegation of scepticism. Whatever can be laid
before Ockham's door, he says, it is not that knowledge can be reduced to
sensorial experience. The intellect plays a very important part of course and
nothing else is required to explain abstractive knowledge than previous
intuitive knowledge and the habit their conjunction engenders. 3o R.C.
Richards adds, that barring the cases where simple cognition is caused by
God, evident assent as a way of apprehending things, so that the truth of

statements about existence and non-existence is known, poses no problem:
to ask for more evidence is to misunderstand the word "evidence".31 The
Venerable Inceptor, he adds, is not sceptic where knowledge of the material
world is concerned, but could have made more clear the notion of evidence
by showing how we distinguish exceptional illusions and supernaturally
caused perceptions from ordinary evident simple cognition. Leff makes a
similar remark, but not quite the same. It is true some things we observe
appear less than certain; we can have intuitive cognition, which is naturally
caused, where there is no doubt about the existence of what we perceive,
but the perception can be vague. Unlike Saint Augustine, Ockham did not
linger over the psychological aspects of perception and Leff considers it to
be a defect in Ockham' s epistemology that for "most of the time he is not
concerned to go beyond a naive realism in his desire to establish the
cognitive primacy of individual existence in all knowledge,,?2 Ockham is
therefore optimistic about the capacity of the intellect as far as natural
experience is concerned and Leff concludes that there is no discrepancy
between judgments and experience other than as a malfunctioning of the
machinery. Intuitive knowledge is as certain as any contingent truth can
be.33
In opposition to intuitive knowledge necessary knowledge is based upon
logical reasoning. It arises only in the absence of immediate knowledge and
therefore it must be about something that could be doubted before
demonstration. This is the case where the connection between things that
exist and their attributes is not immediately known?4
In the strict sense a demonstration is a syllogism where the conclusion
follows directly from necessary premisses. It is propter quid or a priori if
the premisses are logically priorto the conclusion that is derived from them,
while they cannot be derived from the conclusion. It is quia or a posteriori
if the premisses are not logically prior to the conclusion, but only better
known than the conclusion. It is the latter kind of demonstration, which
though less potent than the first kind, is most of the time used in science. It
is logically necessary knowledge derived from what is already given
intuitively. The conclusion of a demonstration quia is a proposition that
contains a predicate that cannot be verified at all times from the separate
individuals signified by the subject. This characteristic distinguishes this
kind of knowledge from the demonstration propter quid, which is universal
and necessary and where in the conclusion the predicate is verified at all
times of all the individuals signified by the subject.
192 CHAPTER 9
The less potent demonstration quia is important in that it permits to

establish relationships between concepts and acquire new insight, which is
at once certain (to a certain degree demonstrable) and based upon synthetic
propositions. In this way Ockham was capable of reconciling his point of
view, where the primacy of the individual is all important, with Aristotle's
classical analysis of demonstrability. It is true, however, that in Ockham's
theory there is no ontological necessity other than that of God and necessity
is no longer "in rerum natura". There is a necessary relation between "man"
and "rational animal" ,but not between individual elements of reality. The
proposition "this herb cures this complaint" is not necessary even if we have
observed a case where a specimen of this herb cured a particular case of
this disease, and even if we have observed many such cases, but we need a
reasoning including as a middle term the general principle that every cause
of the same kind has effects of the same kind in order to derive a necessary
proposition. This proposition is not universal and categorical, it is not
"every such herb cures each case of such a disease"; we must pass from the
present tense to the conditional tense and from concrete individuals to the
concept that applies to them. Namely, if "a concoction of this herb is given
to a patient with such a disease, it can cure the disease". This example is of
a species specialissima, a definite kind of herb, but in the case of a genus
the same holds, we must start from intuitive knowledge of the individuals
of the several species included by the genus. The reasoning we held above
is inductive, it is not a true demonstration, because the middle term we need
to derive the conclusion, "things of the same species have the same effect",
though necessary in itself, is not a necessary nexus between the contingent
premiss and the conclusion. Only if the premisses are not evident, but
self-evident, logically necessary, though indemonstrable, can we speak: of
strict demonstration. If they are, like in our example, evident and in-
demonstrable and thereby contingent, we can only generalize by an induc-
tive process, not truly demonstrate. This is in accordance with Ockham's
thesis that there is only logical and no natural necessity: necessary is that
what we cannot deny without contradiction.
That we cannot derive from intuition necessary knowledge by strict
demonstration is in a sense a lack in Ockham' s epistemology and it must
lead to a certain kind of scepticism, though this is not in accordance with
his intention. Gordon Leff formulates it thus "We must therefore invert the
not uncommon assumption applied to Ockham, that the denial of
demonstrative certainty represents a denial of natural certainty; rather it is
the derivation of all knowledge from individual experience, immediately
accessible to man for all that he encounters in the contingent world, that
restricts demonstration to what cannot be known immediately and must be
known necessarily (... ),,?5
Another reason, for this restriction of what can be demonstrated is that
Ockham, though he believes, as we have seen, that we can know essential
qualities, rejects that taken together they form an essence distinct from the
existence ofthe substance in question. Essence and existence differ as terms
only and Ockham gives extensive proof of this. Departing from the main
Christian tradition, he treats of being as a term predicable of individuals
and not a universal essence. Abstract forms remain only universal as long
as they are indifferent or indeterminate, (in simple supposition) as soon as
they enter into a proposition significativelYj: (in material or personal sup-
position) they become finite and individual. 6 This is why the whiteness of
Socrates is not the whiteness of Plato or like G. Bergmann states: Ockham
did not only accept the real existence of individual objects but individual
instances of qualities present in them. 37 The same holds for universals that
are kinds or natures. As soon as "man" is instantiated in a determinate
manner and no longer indifferent to being, it supposits for an individual.
This identification of essence and existence goes together with a new
and for Ockham' s time revolutionary conception of causality: he dispensed
with two of the four causes distinguished by Aristotle, namely with formal
and material causes, which are intrinsic and took into account only final
and efficient causes. In accordance with what has been said previously, he
held that all form and matter are singular, because no universal is a
substance and no universal can be the principle or cause of any singular
thing. Departing once again from Aristotle, matter became something real,
which is actually in rerum natura, though matter alone is not a substance.
Matter in his opinion exists undifferentiated or differentiated in individual
substances. (We shall leave aside the interesting theological implications
of this claim). Form, on the other hand, cannot exist alone, but only inhering
in matter and thereby becoming substance and thus it has like matter
physical extension. For Gordon Leff it is clear that Ockham effectively
reduces form to an efficient cause and that the abandonment of a fourfold
cause is one of the fundamental differences between a medieval and a
modem conception of the world. 38 Indeed, matter and form are no longer
a priori principles, but the result of abstraction of individuals: as soon as
they exist they are individualized. Causality is not renounced, but changes
in the world and their regularities cannot be explained by the abstract
nature of things as was believed by Aristotle. The formal cause enabled
194 CHAPTER 9
Aristotle to know a priori changes in the universe: a stone that is dropped

falls on the ground because the natural place of a stone is the ground.
Ockham, on the other hand dispensing with the natures of things as
principles separated from those things, only considers efficient and final
causes and in his opinion "knowledge of natural phenomena can be univer-
salised from experience and by deduction precisely through the universal
concept of cause". 39 Thereby causal propositions are no longer necessary,
but through a combination of generalisation and deduction, inductive, as
we have seen.
2. INDUCTION AND CONTEMPORARY NOMINALISM
Conceptualists and realists alike believe there are universal models for
individual things, either in the mind or in reality. These universal models
can explain how all individuals belonging to a same kind, sharing the same
nature, are the causes of the same effects. Nominalists and empiricists reject
these abstract entities, which cannot be known by the senses and we have
no direct knowledge of and therefore they are confronted with the problem
of generalization, of which induction and causality are special cases. It must
be remarked that two positions can be distinguished: eithernot only abstract
entities are rejected, but also the general is denied any ontological reality
other than as a product of the mind, or the general is tolerated under one
form or other.
I propose to consider now the point of view of contemporary
nominalism. N. Goodman in Fact, Fiction and Forecast defends David
Hume against his critics. David Hume explains namely induction by
supposing (like Ockham) that if an event is frequently followed by another
event and after we have experienced this a number of times, a habit is
formed in our mind, which leads to the idea of a necessary connection.
Regularity establishes habit, but is it valid to infer something about reality
from a psychological feature? Hume's opponents claim that not why a
prediction is made is important, but how it can be justijied.4o Nelson
Goodman considers this criticism as wrong. Indeed, nobody has hitherto
succeeded in justifying induction without referring to the way induction is
in fact arrived at, unless he introduced a universal Law of the Uniformity
of Nature.41 As I have tried to show, this principle can only be valid in its
tum if we presuppose that the general exists, that there are kinds and
properties, or in other words still, that universals exist. This is just what
NOMINALISM, EMPIRICISM AND CONVENTIONALISM JfT-.J
~
D~vid Hume denies as is shown most clearly in A Treatise of Human

Nature, where he says expressly that "the mind cannotform any notion of
quanti~ or qualitv without forming a precise noiion of the degrees of
each".4 He adds .fuat there is J.~o distinction and no possible s~paration of
the quality or qmintity and thti degree, which are conjoined inthe concep--'
tion. That all th:lt exists in/nature is particular is "a principle generally
received in phil~ophy" 43/and therefore universals, which are acts of the
m~~J,are particu\r, th01Ugh they apply to several things.
~,~rder. k5Ufiderstand induction it must be seen as a method of reasoning
and sl.udied as such. Goodman gives first an analysis of its logical aspects,
ex:runining the different forms inductive propositions can take. After having -
shown the logical implications and difficulties of each of these forms, he
approaches induction as a special case of generalization. The translation of
the troublesome inductive proposition "if a match is scratched then it will
light"· into other propositions, involving counter/actual conditionals, pos-
sibles, (which, because of the fact they are ontologically suspect, are
promptly translated into dispositions) even translation into propositions that
involve probabilities, give rise to many logical difficulties and are no real
solution. Dispositions, which seemed to be a promising notion, immediately
confront us with the very problem of induction itself: the two, says N.
Goodman, are but different aspects of the general "problem of proceeding
from a given set to a wider set. The critical questions throughout are the
same: when, how, why is a transition or expansfon legitimate?" 44 To solve
what he calls "the new riddle of induction" is no longer to find the
legitimization of necessary connections between facts, but to justify induc-
tive inferences by showing they are conform to the general rules of
induction. This is what Ockham had known from the start; because he never
assumed there are necessary connections between facts. Neither did David
Hume: both believed that reality and its elements is contingent and that the
reason why we assent to inductive statements is a habit of the mind, which
follows after repeated experiences of the same kind. Necessary connections
in nature are as doubtful as a universal Law of the Uniformity of Nature.
Nelson Goodman, conform to this nominalistic tradition concentrates on
causality as a form of induction and is aware of the fact that lending validity
to an inference by referring to the rules of induction is a circle, but he is
also confident that this circle in his reasoning is not vicious but virtuous.45
The interplay between rules of induction and particular inductive inferences
is an instance of the dual adjustment between definition and usage,
196 CHAPTER 9
"whereby the usage informs the defmitioll, which in its tum guides exten-
sion ofusage".46 .
Let us have a closer look at what is said, about 'the kinds of hypotheses
that are confmned by experience. N. Goodnkn gives twQ,example~ of such
hypotheses, "copper conducts electricity" an~ "all men in til.is room are third
sons", The first is a lawlike hypothesis, whi~h is confllmed each time a
piece of copper is found to conduct electricity~\ the la~s not confirmed
by the fact a man in this room is indeed a third sv.n. In ny OPiniOn~rlS is
not at all obvious, unless we do take the first hypodiesisserlOt'~ly, b :t not
the second one and this because hypotheses of the first kind in pracf e are
already derived from many experiences and harcijy need further confinna-
tion, while those of the second kind are not drawn from experiences but a~'
mere "jeux de I' esprit". But, as we know since Quine's "Two Dogma's of
Empiricism", scientists are supposed to start from hypotheses and to look
afterwards whether they are confirmed byfacts. This is the reason why both
hypotheses are considered on a par. Moreover, the possibility of "pure", i.e.
immediate perceptions, Ockham's evident knowledge, is rejected. The
method advocated is conform to the principles of rationalism: we start from
concepts, from propositions, from previously established knowledge,
reason deductively and experience serves only to confirm our conclusions.
In the case of copper, which conducts electricity, it is hardly believable,
however, that this hypothesis is chosen at random and then confirmed or
not confirmed, the fact it can be confirmed or not confirmed being proof of
its "lawlike" quality. The formulation of this problem by Hempel does
clarify, but not solve it; his way of putting it is that evidence related to the
hypothesis not only confirms it, but also follows from it. Hereby a fact about
scientific practice is transformed into a logical problem, and this problem
leads to further problems: the combination of the hypothesis with all true
statements that follow from it being confirmed by the evidence that con-
firms the ~othesis, in the end every statement confirms every other
statement.4 The difficulty disappears if we specify that the lawlike
hypotheses are only confirmed by consequences that are instances of it in
the strict sense of being derivable from them by instantiation and not by all
propositions that follow from them.
Another improvement that is required is that hypotheses form a consis-
tent "universe of discourse" and the evidence a "universe of evidence
statements". This avoids that evidence that a thing b is black confirms that
all things are black, while at the same time evidence that a thing c is not
black confirms that no things are black. The two evidence statements "there
NOMINAUSM, EMPIRICISM AND CONVENTIONALISM 197
·
is a thing that is bMck" and "there is a thing that is not black" taken together,
l
are not confirmed by the evidence for either of the hypotheses. The
fpregoing is an irAprovement, but does not tell us why certain predicates
are prOjeCtibl d others not. (To be precise we should specify projectible
in relation to 'Y lat, because few predicates are projectible in relation to
whatsoever). .. Goodman shows that hypotheses can be confmned by
ins~8. o! em in the strict sense and yet contain predicates that present
dit*6ulties. In his famous example of the emeralds, he compares the
hypothesis that all emeralds are green with the hypothesis that they are grue,
f.e. j'examined before moment t and green or not examined before moment
t and blue". The prediction that all emeralds are green and the prediction
that all emeralds at:e grue are confirmed at time t by the same evidence
statements, saying that the examined emeralds are green.48 It is clear that
other knowledge than the evidence statements must be taken into account,
namely past predictions and their outcome. (A conclusion that would have
been reached earlier, if hypotheses were seen as the outcome of previous
observations, instead of as propositions coming out of the blue).49 The rules
of projection are now the following: the projection must be actually made
and the hypotheses explicitly fonnulated. We must be clear about what to
count as positive and what as negative instances, which make respectively
the hypotheses more or less plausible. Actual projection obtains if there are
already established positive cases, no negative ones and there remain
undetennined cases. Moreover, it always takes place at a definite time. Let
us return to the example of the grue emeralds. IT we are now at time t, when
all the emeralds that have been examined were green, how can we exclude
that our positive instances confinn the fact emeralds are grue? The answer
is that such a projection will conflict with other projections, e.g. with the
projection that all emeralds are green. "Green", being projected historically
much earlier than "grue", has a more "impressive biography, is better
entrenched than the predicate grue".50 N. Goodman adds that it is not so
much the word, but its extension, that becomes entrenched.
Have we thereby reached the bottom of the problem? In a sense yes, the
conclusion being that generalization, induction and causality are methods
of thought that are valid, because successful, not because they can be
derived from more fundamental ontological principles. The results of
generalization, induction, the establishment of causal connections, are
reflected in language, but vice versa these processes must be in keeping
with the common usage of language, they adjust each other mutually, as N.
Goodman puts it. I believe, however, that in order to understand fully these
198 CHAPTER 9
phenomena of generalization and induction and the ;tearch for causal

connections, we must not only link them to linguistic beihaviour, but to the
underlying basic cognitive processes, which lead to con~ ';~Pt formaiion and
the generation of systems of concepts. In The Web ofBeli~f, W. V.0. Quine
and J .S. Ullian, commenting on Goodman's theory of proj~!~()n, take a step
in that direction. They give a simple example of prac~al induction:
squeezing a tube of toothpaste, we expect toothpaste to exude, ~cmJ.se etach
time we squeezed in the past we were provided with toothpaste. 51 IP~s a
firm belief; if we do not obtain toothpaste we do not change our mind abotlt
cause and effect, but suppose that e.g. something blocks the passage of the
toothpaste. (Not specifying whether they know this to be a firm belief,
because persons who squeezed toothpaste tubes told them what they
thought, the problem of introspective and thus from a behaviouristic point
of view suspect information, is not raised). I believe however, that induction
occurs long before humans can speak and that it is a basic cognitive ability
of animals too. Once a baby has experienced the pleasant connection
between squeezing and obtaining toothpaste it will be difficult for its
parents to destroy the child's conviction. One needs not have experimented
with monkeys or apes to suspect that the same holds for them and that it is
likely that they will heap up positive evidence until their hypothesis is
confirmed to such a degree that their belief becomes virtually ineradicable.
Quine and Ullian come to a similar conclusion: we have (and I would like
to add higher animals have) a knack for spotting projectible traits of reality
with better than random success. 52 Green is a trait we notice, grue not and
this is confirmed by the fact we had - before N. Goodman invented it - no
word for it. Projectibility depends on spotting similarities in what we
perceive. Our eye forprojectibility is really our eye for similarity: we expect
similar things to behave similarly, things that behaved in a certain way in
the past to go on doing so in the future and these expectations greatly
simplify life. They conclude that induction is not a peculiarly intellectual
matter, but one of learning from experience what to expect; we are at it
continually and other animals too. Therefore, there must be continuities and
similarities in nature. Nevertheless this fact does not justify a universal Law
of the Uniformity of Nature, nor an ontological status for the general.
If we admit that generalization and therefore induction, are not very
intellectual, but occur in animals and little children as well as in adults and
are thus pre-linguistic cognitive activities, it is here we must seek the origin
of predication in general.
Once we have realized that we must study the rules for the projection of
predicates we apply, the rules of induction and causal connections, in order
to justify these kinds of reasoning, careful distinction of the cognitive levels
will greatly clarify the matter. Roughly we can distinguish a pre-linguistic
level, the linguistic level of the child mastering language and of the adult
layman and a scientific level: to each of them corresponds a different degree
of sophistication.
It will be interesting to consider different kinds of predication from this
point of view. One great classical distinction is that between sortaluniver-
sals and characterizing universals.53 Indeed, in N. Goodman's Fact, Fiction
and Forecast our attention is drawn to the predication of characterizing
universals, which results in general, inductive or causal propositions that
belong to the second and third level. Descending, however, to the pre-lin-
guistic stage of cognition, it is worthwhile to consider the connection of
these predicates with sortal universals. In the seventh chapter I have tried
to show that terms signifying individual things are the first terms children
use and that probably to these correspond our most fundamental concepts,
thereafter we learn terms for kinds of things and only in the third place
characterizing universals. To recognize kinds of things is probably to
recognize complex qualities (GestaltqualiHiten), to be able to distinguish
separate qualities is the next prelinguistic step. (Higher animals not only
spontaneously differentiate between certain colours, but also can learn to
do so, as is proven by many experiments; they have colour concepts, though
these are not linked with words).54 Children learn to associate "dandelions"
with "yellow"; to know what dandelions are is to know implicitly they are
yellow, to say "all dandelions are yellow" we must have reached level two
and know explicitly the semantics of English, or even level three where we
are able to understand this as a scientific proposition, part of a definition or
as a prediction partly verified by experiences in the past. Sortal and
characterizing universals are inextricably linked with each other and there-
fore when studying generalization and inductive and causal predication, we
must not only concentrate on the characterizing universals. To know a kind
of thing and to know its qualities, unanalysed or analysed, is the same.
A second distinction that merits our attention, is that between accidental
and essential qualities, because it is a complement to the foregoing. Since
W.V.O. Quine's criticism of the distinction, it is considered to be obsolete.
The well-known example is that of a trapezist: to have two hands is an
essential quality for him, for a bachelor on the other hand it is an accidental
quality, but then, what is it for a trapezist who is a bachelor? This is a riddle
200 CHAPTER 9
for logicians only. To have two hands is an essential quality for a bachelor
trapezist as well as for all other kinds of trapezists, considered as trapezists.
Essential qualities are related to concepts, pre-linguistic or linguistic, not
to individual things, as I shall try to show. To know kinds of things is to
know their essential and accidental qualities. A little child knows what a
dog is, if it knows its "invariables", but to know the invariables of a kind
of thing is also to know that some qualities (the colour of its fur, the length
of its ears) do not matter for the decision whether something is a dog, but
do matter when the child is not looking for a dog, but for Fido.
An essential quality is not a quality that, together with other qualities,
forms the essence or the transcendent nature of certain things. Essential
qualities are those qualities all things of one kind are supposed to share or
put otherwise theirinvariables. Concepts and therefore concepts of essential
and accidental qualities, change during the cognitive evolution of in-
dividuals, they also change during the history of cultural communities. A
child that never saw but green apples will consider green to be an invariable
of an apple, a quality all apples have and without which they are not apples.
Therefore it will perhaps fail to recognise a yellow apple as an apple. This
leads later on, when it can speak, to "underextension". In that case it fails
to call a yellow apple an apple. A child that never saw but red apples will
perhaps call a rire tomato an apple, a phenomenon, which is called
"overextension".5 Dandelions are yellow, but are all dandelions yellow?
Daffodils are yellow, but are they all yellow? Let us suppose a grower
succeeds one day in producing a bright red daffodil. If red daffodils are a
commercial success, the meaning of the term "daffodil" will slightly
change. If daffodils of different colours can be grown, then the colour of a
daffodil will become an accidental quality. The same holds for scientific
defmitions, based on the "essential" qualities of what is defined. They
change if something in nature changes or if new discoveries are made. A
chemical element was defined in an other way in the past than nowadays,
when we know qualities such as its atomic weight. In nature there are no
necessary qualities, because nature is not a reflection of an ideal world, of
transcendent models, it does not correspond to eternal concepts. Evolution
and change are possible. Man decides what qualities a thing must have in
order to be the kind of thing it is, i.e. to correspond to a certain concept. His
decision is based on the experience that led to the formation of the concept
in the first place, and this experience is similar to that of the other members
of his community and, where basic and vital experiences are concerned,
similar to those of all other men. The distinction between essential and
accidental qualities in this non-metaphysical sense is still a useful one.

Nevertheless the distinction could be termed otherwise, to please those who
have qualms concerning the metaphysical connotation of the traditional
terms. The statement "all emeralds are green" is equivalent to "green is an
essential quality of emeralds". That it can be considered a hypothesis, a
prediction, is because there are ontologically speaking, no necessary
qualities, that can be known a priori.
Let us consider whether green can be essentially predicated of emeralds.
If we consult an encyclopedia of minerals and rocks we fmd that emeralds
are a green variety of beryl 56; the green colour is due to small quantities of
chromium. Scientists have decided that beryl is called emerald only if it
contains traces of chromium or in other words that the specific difference
between emeralds and other kinds of beryl such as aquamarine, heliodor
and morganite is that the former are green. Nevertheless, such essential
predication is not absolute. Also traditionally "rationality" has been con-
sidered the attribute of man, the specific difference between men and
animals and all other things and it was believed that even a madman, though
not rational, is at least in principle, capable of rationality. Today this thesis
is no longer tenable as it has been proven that higher animals are capable
of rationality too, though to a lesser degree.
The most interesting kind of predication must still be mentioned: causal
predicatioIL In order to establish that emeralds are green, we can rely on
our knack for spotting projectible traits of reality. In the case of causal
predication we need in addition to this a general principle that can serve as
a middle term in our reasoning. Ockham's example we cited before is: "a
certain herb cures a certain disease". Evident, but indemonstrable
knowledge of individual cases, combined with the principle that all things
of the same species have similar effects, enables us to reach the conclusion
that" all specimen of the herb can cure cases of the disease". The difference
between projectible terms like "green" and like "medicinal" seems to be
that what is projectible in the first case are qualities in the second case
effects. Let us not consider causal predicates from a scientific point of view,
but let us descend to a more primitive cognitive level. Seeing for the first
time a green precious stone and being told that it is called "emerald", we
can derive logically that "an emerald can be green", but this, though a
logically necessary conclusion, will not be of much help for the future
recognition of emeralds. We must see many emeralds that are green in order
to arrive inductively at the conclusion that all emeralds are green. Now we
possess useful knowledge, we can, when shown other varieties of beryl,
202 CHAPTER 9
sort out the emeralds, which are the green ones. Causal predicates like "can
cure", "medicinal" or "lethal" or "inflammable" 57, provide other less
complete information. "This herb is medicinal", "arsenicum is lethal",
"matches are inflammable", are not informative in the same way as
"emeralds are green": in the latter case we know what colour the precious
stones we are looking for or talking about actually have, but in the former
case we must not look for herbs that are curing persons, stuff that is killing
persons or wooden sticks, dipped in sulphur, that burn. We need com-
plementary information: "this kind of herb will cure, iffirst concocted and
then administered to a person suffering from a certain disease", "this stuff
kills a person, if administered in high doses", "this match will light, if
scratched'. The information will not in the first place enable us to distin-
guish these kinds of things from other kinds, but is a sort of recipe, an
instruction for use or even a warning, after we have recognized the thing
as being of a certain kind. Some of such directions we learn from others,
together with a suitable predicate, some we learn on our own, even before
being able to speak, completing our knowledge later on with a predicate
that enables us to communicate about it. (The example of Quine and Ullian,
namely the squeezing of a tube of toothpaste by a little child is an illustration
of the latter case). The original aim of the conceptualization of causal
connections is certainly not prediction, which is only a secondary function,
belonging to a higher cultural and even sophisticated scientific level.
Our question was, what is special about terms that can be predicated of
things and that are called causal? Why, next to the reasons given above, can
"green" not be a causal predicate, whereas "medicinal" can? N. Goodman
draws our attention to the fact that disposition terms or causal terms are not
always recognized by a tell-tale suffix, -ible, -able, etc .. To say that a thing
is hard, just like to say that it is flexible, is to make a statement about
potentiality, a flexible thing being capable of bending under appropriate
pressure, a hard one being capable of resisting pressure or abrasion. 58 D .M.
Armstrong calls causal predication "external". Like I said, such predicates
do not give us complete information about what quality is expressed.
"Brittle", according to him, is such a predicate that is only partially naming
a property, in virtue of which objects shatter when hit sharply.59 (D.M.
Armstrong defends a mild realism, and therefore uses the term property,
the nominalistic equivalent being quality or characteristic. Let us recall,
moreover, that Ockham did not consider dispositions true qualities). In
Armstrong's opinion, nothing must be postulated, no predicates must be
introduced that have no effect on the spatio-temporal world. Thus, it makes
only sense to say certain things are green, if we know what effect this can
have. And of course to most qualitative predicates can be ascribed possible
effects: for example a green object reflects a certain wavelength of light
and causes the cones in the retina of my eyes to undergo a change each time
I look at it. That a caterpillar is green is the cause that it will not be easily
detected amongst the leafs of a plant and therefore will not be eaten. This
means that, not only predicates are distinctive, (if a thing is red it is not
green, nor blue, nor brown), but also that this can have an effect on or make
a difference, positive or negative, to the rest of the world. Is thereby the
distinction that preoccupies us wiped out? I do not believe this, but it shows
again that our classification of predicates is neither natural nor arbitrary.
And it also shows that W.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman are both right in
believing that (most) knowledge presupposes knowledge, only not neces-
sarily sophisticated knowledge, but also practical knowledge. Most predi-
cates scientists use are those of ordinary language and these are derived
from our basic experiences, which are partly determined by what Quine has
called "common human interests"; they do not serve in the first place the
purpose of enabling man to describe the world, to find truth or truths, but
less lofty aims. Schopenhauer was right in saying that intelligence is the
same in all animals and men and has everywhere the same simple form:
knowledge of causality, the transition from cause to effect and from effect
to cause. But the degree of its acuteness and the scope of it can, in such a
great variety and multiplicity, reach different levels. (Reason, in contrast to
intelligence, is the faculty to handle abstract concepts).
The fact we call foxglove (digitalis) a medicinal plant, the fact we say
matches are inflammable, reflects not only a part of our knowledge derived
from experience, but also what beings we are, how we are practically related
to our environment. The fact we do not have causal predicates for colours,
shows they are not, in our experience, qualities that have conspicuous
effects other than that we perceive them. What we consider to be the kinds
of things we encounter in reality, their essential and accidental qualities, is
not once and for all determined and this is an indication that conceptualiza-
tion mirrors at once our human interests and our knowledge.
E. Husserl believed we can find the essences behind phenomena. These
essences were not abstracted from empirical data: all that was needed was
the careful application of his method of reduction to the subject who carried
through the examination and to the phenomenon that was considered, the
object. His critics rejected his theory as solipsistic: an "objective idealism"
is impossible, even if the subject is stripped of all that can interfere with his
204 CHAPTER 9
speculative investigation and no presuppositions as to whether the object

exists or not are allowed. Indeed, there are no essential qualities that are a
priori.
A child learns to associate with "dandelion" yellow flowers with a
leafless reddish stem and seeds that can easily be blown away and drift
through the air attached on little pieces of fluff. The popular guide says:
"Dandelion, Taraxacum ojficinale, is the all too common weed of lawns
and waste places. Its solitary flower-heads on hollow leafless stems appear
March-November and throughout mild winters. The name derives from
dent de lion (French for lion's tooth) which refers to the shape of its
leaves".60 The popular guide is in most cases beautifully illustrated. The
scientific Flora, does not suppose we can recognize the flower from such a
simple description. It supposes almost nothing about our knowledge, or our
faculty of recognition from pictures. In order to find to what species a plant
belongs the reader must run through the most broad classifications: "Is it a
tree or a shrub?", "is it an aquatic plant?" "Is it a climbing plant?",
(...... )."Does it have no leafs and no flowers?" (.....). If the plant has leafs
and flowers the reader must classify it according to the leaf-arrangement,
finally he reaches the family it belongs to, the species and the variety.61
Now, does a dandelion have more chances to be a dandelion if it has
"yellow flowers, one per hollow stem", or if it has the characteristics of the
family of the composite, namely that "its five anthers are grown together,
but its five filaments not"? Plants like all living beings have a genetic
system, that determines certain of their characteristics, these genetic sys-
tems vary from species to species and so do the characteristics. The system
can fail but does so only in rare cases. Therefore, if man does not intervene
in the mechanisms of heredity, the chance that dandelions show certain
characteristics will be almost 1. Scientists are supposed to know what are
the most reliable characteristics and the attributes, those qualities that are
unique for the species in question. It is a statistical matter and good botanical
guides indicate the anomalies, which are found from time to time. This is
why I said there are no necessary qualities in nature, necessary qualities
exist only by defmition. Is it not possible after all that traces of another
element than chromium colour beryl green or that chromium colours beryl
blue? Will these emeralds be called emeralds? In that case the scientific
defmition must be broadened.
These considerations make it obvious that qualities like "inflanIIDable",
cannot be essential, not even in the feeble sense of "yellow" in relation with
dandelion, because they are incomplete.
Must we draw the consequence from all this that knowledge even at a
basic level is conventional? I do not think so: as it is directly derived from
experience, which is very similar for very similar beings, it does not depend
on a purely cultural decision, but it is already abstract to a certain degree
and therefore vague.
3. CONVENTIONALISM VERSUS SCIENTIFIC REALISM
In this section we must draw some conclusions from the foregoing. Does a
nominalistic position lead to conventionalism where scientific theories are
concerned? What is the difference in this respect between traditional
nominalism and contemporary nominalism? What can we deduce from
what is said in the previous section, about the genealogy of the conceptual
basis of all kinds of knowledge?
Let us start with the last question of the series. IfI am right, our primitive
concepts are directly based on experience and this is a firm ground for
building more complex concepts. Nevertheless the experience we men-
tioned is translated into "mental terms", concepts, after some sort of
statistical computation, which does not reach the conscious level. Our
mental terms can change, get a wider or a smaller content e.g., as the
example of the under- and overextension in language learning shows. (The
concept "apple" the child handled in the example did not match general
linguistic use and had to be adapted).
From this can be concluded that our most basic concepts are brought into
accordance with a defmitional system based on the conjoined experiences
of the cultural community we belong to. The conceptualization of reality
seems to be universal in its basic aspects and to differ only on a more
sophisticated level, where cultural idiosyncrasies playa more important
role. This conceptualization is the basis of "our practical knowledge about
the physical and social worlds", as Jonathan Powers puts it, in Philosophy
and the New Physics. 62 We possess a body of practical know-how, which
is both flexible and robust. It is contrasted to knowledge coordinated in a
precise explicit theory, i.e., to science. Nevertheless we must not forget
that scientific activity is underpinned by "the same kind of practical
recipes ".63
Nominalists and empiricists alike believe that concepts are neither
realities outside the mind, nor a priori given mental entities. Our concepts
are derived from experience, but moulded by the very mental activity that
206 CHAPTER 9
forms them. This activity was considered by Ockham to be occult, as he

was not able to understand it, but yet a natural process. This process,
however, is more than a mirroring of images, it is more than a reflection of
reality, it is "ratiomorph", as Konrad Lorenz terms this kind of processes
in animals and men.
The next question we have proposed ourselves to answer is what, in
regard with conventionalism, is peculiar to traditional nominalism. From
the foregoing follows that the latter is interested in concept formation as a
process that abstracts "mental terms" from a number of experiences of
individual cases, which are "statistically" processed. ill contemporary
nominalism the primacy of the individual is not epistemological, but purely
a constructivistic option, a logical method. Individuals, in the system of
Goodman, can be sums of repeatable qualia. Therefore, their individuation
depends on location in time and place and is expressed by "impure"
predicates. Though the building blocks Quine chooses for his epistemology
are not qualia, but concrete things, these can be concatenations of quantities
of stuff or parts of such concatenations and their individuation again
depends on places and times. illdividuals, their parts and their sums, cannot
be described but in terms of sortal and characterizing universals, or in terms
of universals naming stuff, material.
Traditional nominalists, on the other hand, not only believe that, though
we describe reality in terms of universals, these stand not only for in-
dividuals, but also for individual instantiations ofqualities. No numerically
different things are identical instantiations of the kind they belong to, no
instantiations of qualities are identical, being differentiated only by the
indication of their place and the time at which occur, as in the new
nominalism. The consequence is that each description of part of the world
in terms of states of affairs is only a vague description, it leaves out
particularity. All inductive reasoning based upon such states of affairs are
gross simplifications and all we can derive from regularities is based on
psychological habits, rather than on alleged general qualities and necessary
connections of these qualities. The only accurate way to apprehend reality
and its characteristics is by direct perception. This is the fundamental
difference between traditional and contemporary nominalism: the latter is
sceptic about "pure" experiences. Traditional nominalism holds that each
form of conceptualization, i.e. generalization, and even more so its verbal
expression, comes short of the multiplicity and complexity of concrete
reality. This was a common view in medieval philosophy 64: knowledge is
formulated in terms of the general, which is a product of the mind and
therefore is never totally adequate to render the particular, the individual,

the concrete. This is not to say that genuine, accurate knowledge is impos-
sible, only that it is never perfect.
From this comparison follows that the conventionalism of Quine and
Goodman is not directly implicated by their nominalism, at least not if we
understand this nominalism as the refusal to construct a system with an
indetenninate ontology that may countenance logical non-individuals and
an infinity of elements. Their conventionalism is a consequence of their
critical attitude toward logical empiricism and "its dogma's". Logical
empiricism is also called neopositivism and it does not betray either of its
names: it has great faith in the empirical base of knowledge and in the fact
scientific propositions can be verified empirically, either directly or in-
directly. When the principle of verifiability became shaky, alternatives for
logical empiricism have been proposed. One of them is operationalism:
concepts are meaningful if defined in terms of perfonnable operations,
sentences are meaningful if testable by means of perfonnable operations.
Others, like Quine, believe that scientific propositions and their tenns
cannot always be justified empirically, but that it is sufficient that the theory
as a whole can be tested by experiment. Instrumentalism sees theories as
tools and stresses that like tools they can be replaced by other theories if
these are better tools.
Different fonns of conventionalism have succeeded one another. How
must we evaluate them? Are conventions not anti-science? Speaking of
science, we always mean western science, as if it were the only genuine
science and indeed our science is very peculiar as I have tried to show
elsewhere.65 During the Middle Ages though, it was very ordinary: com-
pared to that of contemporary cultures, the Chinese, Aztec or Islamic
culture, we can hardly say that its quality was superior. This can be
explained by the fact that, like these other cultures, it was traditionalistic.
In order to be acceptable, knowledge had to be based on authorities like
Plato and Aristotle, who at that time were dead for at least a thousand and
in the fourteenth century even for little less than two thousand years.
Moreover, knowledge had to be in accordance with Christian beliefs. This
science was based on traditions, the equivalent of conventions. Slowly, very
slowly, at the end of the Middle Ages, science freed itself from these
constraints. Its history from the Renaissance till the eve of our century is
the history of the struggle of science against medieval, scholastic, religious
conventions. Are these cultural conventions ultimately different from scien-
tific conventions? The acceptance, not of the fact that natural science is
208 CHAP1ER9
partly based on agreements, on postulates, on hypothetical and theoretical

entities, etc., but of the inevitable and permanent character of conventions,
is in fact the acceptance of the non-science of science. Where science has
progressed, mere conventions have been replaced by pieces of theory based
on empirical evidence. But today relativism and conventionalism are
carried to such an extreme that it has become doubtful for some
philosophers whether science really progresses.
In order to deal with this tendency scientists must track all that is
conventional in their domain, as many presuppositions and tacit agreements
that require proof and are implicit, as possible. Secondly, it is helpful to
ask, when introducing non-empirical theoretical elements, where they come
from, how they come about, what are their effects. An example of dealing
with theoretical entities is the investigation of the notion of structure by
Jean Piaget.66 Instead of positing structures to explain phenomena, first we
should ask what is their "genealogy". "Structure" is a tricky concept,
because it implies on the one hand elements, on the other hand a totality.
What comes first, the elements or the totality? In order to be elements of a
structure these elements must be ordered, but to be ordered there must be
a structure. ITthe structure comes before the elements, it cannot be anything
else than a transcendent entity.
Structures can be transformed into other structures, by applying certain
rules. But what is the origin of these rules, do they change or not? IT we
believe they do riot and are given once and for all, it is but one step to dismiss
the problem of their genealogy. As an example Piaget cites Chomsky, who
explains generative grammar by innate laws of syntax, instead of referring
to processes of "compulsory equilibration", which can explain how they
develop. Indeed, what explanative value do innate structures have, if the
way these structures are formed biologically is totally obscure? Jean Piaget
concludes: "On peut toujours alors proceder par decrets comme les
axiomatiques, mais du point de vue epistemologique, c'est Ia une forme
elegante de vol, qui consiste aexploiter Ie travail anterieur d'une classe
laborieuse de constructeurs au lieu de construire soi-meme les materieux
de depart" .67 The same reasoning holds for the third characteristic of
structures: "autoregulation". Autoregulation means that the structure,
though ever new elements can be formed within it, conserves its charac-
teristics and has stable boundaries. Though the notion of self-regulation is
clear in logic and mathematics, the regulation coinciding with the correct
application of the rules of transformation in other sciences supposes
independent mechanisms such as anticipation and retroaction (feedback).68
To establish the notion of structure empirically is to see it as a bundle of

transformations that cannot be dissociated from the physical or biological
operations inherent in the object or the operations effectuated by the subject.
These operations are events, acts, which are coordinated in systems, they
-yIt~ru-srruCUIre~tnar'<ii'anorexlsioeIOremese aCts or events ana atme same
time detennine their character.69 If the way the operations are implemented
is explained and the explanation verified, the notion of structure as we fmd
it, e.g. in linguistics, or in the social sciences, is no longer a convention and
science has progressed.
A position that is kindred with the forgoing is that of Ian Hacking, who
fonnulates the problem thus: "reality has more to do with what we do in the
world than with what we think about it" 70, thereby linking science to
practical knowledge, to low level-knowledge, that serves survival. To know
whether something exists, even if we cannot perceive it directly, is to
understand effects and causes; this can result in the explanation of some-
thing else.71 A crucial example he uses are electrons. An experiment has
shown that by spraying positrons and electrons from a standard emitter,
positive charges on niobium balls can be neutralized. Like structures,
electrons can be said to exist and are not mere concepts, if we know what
causes them and what are their effects.72 Ian Hacking concludes from many
examples he analyses that in many cases after a period of doubt about
theoretical entities in a certain domain, scientists shift from anti-realism to
realism. Science is composed of theory and experiment, of representation
and intervention. Stressing the experiment rather than the theory can
persuade the sceptics that realism makes sense after all.
His idea is that the diverse fonns of anti-realism in the philosophy of
science spring from the conception that science is almost exclusively
representation and only to a minimal degree experiment, interaction with
the world. Nevertheless, he does not plead for a sway back of the pendulum
in the direction of empiricism, because empiricism stresses observation, not
experiment. By the standard of "esse est percipi", many theoretical entities
pass through the meshes of the net and must be considered to be (useful)
fictions. Logical empiricism has taken the same line; verifiability is the
central idea and all its modified versions have one thing in common: they
are ways of preserving the claim that whatever has a right to be called
scientific must be linked with the observable. Moreover, this movement,
which comprises also later developments such as the nominalistic construc-
tivism of Quine and Goodman, has adopted the method of "semantic
ascent", as Quine has tenned it. It consists in a shift from the examination
210 CHAPTER 9
of reality, to the examination of what is said about reality. Thereby the

aspect "representation" comes once more to the forward, while "interven-
tion" is neglected. Though Quine concedes, that theories as a whole must
be verifiable (and this means verifiable by observation), direct observation
is, following Ian Hacking, seldom enough to persuade scientists of the
validity of a theory, experiments are needed to convince them.
In section 1 of this chapter I have come to the conclusion that, though
traditional nominalism contains sceptical elements it does not lead to
conventionalism and nevertheless it is often linked with this tenet. The
reverse happens too, conventionalism is associated with nominalism. Ian
Hacking, who is not afraid of lapidary formulations, says the following:
"Idealism is a thesis about existence. In its extreme form it says that all that
exists is mental, a production of the human spirit. Nominalism is about
classification. It says that only our modes of thinking make us sort grass
from straw, flesh from foliage. The world does not have to be sorted that
way; it does not come wrapped up in "natural kinds". In contrast the
Aristotelean realist (the anti-nominalist) says that the world just comes in
certain kinds. That is nature's way, not man's".73 Of course this is a gross
oversimplification; for one thing it is forgotten that conceptualization and
therefore also classification, was following nominalists drawn from the
direct apprehension of the individual, from observation and observation
yields evident knowledge. Classification, based upon the ways we concep-
tualize, was all but arbitrary, all but conventional for nominalists, em-
piricists and even logical empiricists. It is true, however, that it is no longer
the case for contemporary nominalists. Quine believes alternative concep-
tual schemes are possible and as a consequence, also believes "radical
translation" is impossible. The same holds for N. Goodman; classifications
are not" objective", but relative to the culture we belong to. A western visitor
in a western waiting room equipped with a stereo system, discovers, when
looking around, speakers built into a bookcase, a receiver and a turntable,
a remote control switch. Another visitor, "fresh from a lifetime in the
deepest jungle" will neither see a stereo system, nor even books.74 Good-
man suspects he will see in books and plants fuel and food. Like Hilary
Putnam, W.V.O. Quine and N. Goodman are what Ian Hacking terms
"transcendental nominalists". He describes the "internal" realism of Put-
nam as follows: "Within my system of thought I refer to various objects,
some true, some false. However, I can never get outside my system of
thought, and maintain some basis for reference which is not part of my own
system of classification and naming C••• )". 75 He sums up this point of view:
"we do investigate nature as sorted into the natural kinds delivered by our
present sciences, but at the same time hold that these very schemes
constitute only a historical event. Moreover, there is no concept of the right,
final representation of the world".76 Indeed, to speak with Nelson Good-
man, there are only "ways of worldmaking".
If we have to choose between this conception of knowledge and more in
particular of science and the conception of science as a way of intervening
in the world, I choose the latter, because it can be easily combined with
confidence in perception and observation. Indeed, since Gibson, perception
is considered from an ecological point of view, it is not a form of repre-
sentationfor the sake ofrepresentation, it is the active drawing of informa-
tion from the world, which has as its finality our survival in the world and
enables us to intervene in that world. Thus,to my satisfaction, there is a
continuity between what Giovanni Rocci, in his work on conventionalism,
terms "fede animale", animal faith, the confidence of an animal in its
perception of its surroundings,77 i.e. between low and medium-level
knowledge on the one hand and sophisticated theoretical knowledge of
high-level on the other hand.
NOTES
CHAPTER 1
1 J.R. Weinberg, Abstraction, Relation and Induction, The Univ. of Wisconsin Press,
Madison & Milwaukee, 1965.
2 I. Hacking, Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
London, New York, 1983.
CHAPTER 2
1 J. Largeault, Enquete sur Ie nominalisme, Nauwelaerts, Louvain, 1971, p.68-78.
2 E. Gilson, La Philosophie au Moyen-Age, Payot, Paris, 1962, p.640: "Joignons acette
severe conception de la demonstration un gout tres vif pour Ie fait concret et Ie
particulier, qui devait s'exprimer dans un des empirismes les plus radicaux que l'on
connaisse, et nous aurons les deux donnees initiales, qui nous aideront Ie mieux a
comprendre sa philosophie toute entiere".
3 Weinberg, Abstraction, Relation and Induction, p.4.
4 Ibidem, p.3.
5 R. Camap, The Logical Structure of the World, University of California Press,
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967, p.50, § 27.
6 Ibidem, p.107, § 66.
7 Ibidem, p.23.
8 Cf. J. Ruytinx, La Problematique de l' Unite de la Science, Les Belles Lettres, Paris,
1962, p.217.
9 Ibidem, p.223.
10 Ibidem, p.220.
11 E. Gilson, La Philosophie au Moyen Age, p.529.
12 Ibidem, p.649: "TI y aura donc chez lui un sentiment tres vif de l'independance absolue
du philosophe en tant que tel et une tendance extremement accusee a releguer tout Ie
metaphysique dans Ie domaine du theologique, et un sentiment, non moins vif, de
I'independance du theologien, qui, sur les verites de la foi, se passe aisement du secours
caduc de la metaphysique".
13 G. Leff, William of Ockham. The Metamorphosis of Scholastic Discourse,
Manchester University Press I Rowman and Littlefield, Manchester, Totowa 1975,
p.322: "Ockham, it seemed, did not write his projected commentary on the Metaphysics
of Aristotle and he left no other work on this subject. His references to metaphysics in
the Ordinatio and the Logic, particularly as they concern the notion of being, present a
NOTES 213
very incomplete picture. Before, however, we are led to conclude that the absence of
any developed theory of metaphysics leaves a gap in Ockham's system, it is as well to
examine what he does say and whether he has any place for a full-fledged independent
metaphysics. If we begin with his view of being it may be recalled that he treated the
concept of being on the one hand as a transcendental term which when understood
univocally was the most universal of all concepts; as such it had no real signification
since it refers to nothing in particular. On the other hand, being could be predicated
equivocally of real individuals by means of the ten categories; it was then signified by
the ten different ways in which individual beings could be denoted".
14W.V.O. Quine, The Ways a/Paradox, Random House, New York, 1966.
15 Carnap, The Logical Structure a/the World, p.295, § 182.
16 Quine, Ibidem.
17 W.V.O. Quine, "On Carnap's Views on Ontology", in: Quine, The Ways o/Paradox,
p.127.
18 W.V.o. Quine, From a Logical Point a/View, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1964, p.l.
19 W.V.O. Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia Univ. Press, N.Y.
and London, 1969, p.5l.
20 W.v.O. Quine, Word and Object, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1960,
p.233.
21 Quine, Ontological Relativity, p.49.
22 Quine, The Ways a/Paradox, p.128.
23 Ibidem, p.128.
24 Quine, Word and Object, p.VII.
25 Carnap, The Logical Structure o/the World, p.49 § 27.
26 Ibidem, p.50, § 27.
CHAPTER 3
1 Largeault, Enquete sur le nominalisme, p.290.
2 Ibidem, p.329.
3 "On Sense and reference", in: Translations from the Philosophical Writings o/Gottlob
Frege, Eds. P. Geach, M. Black, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1966, p.57.
4 D. Pears, Bertrand Russell and the British Tradition in Philosophy, Fontana/Collins,
London, 1967, p.13.
5 Cf. B. Russell, My Philosophical Development, Unwin Books, London, 1959, p.118.
6 D. Pears,BertrandRussell, p.14.
7 Ibidem.
8 A. Ayer, Russell, Collins, London, 1972, Prisma, Antwerp, Utrecht, 1974, p.54-55.
9 J. Hintikka, Models/or Modalities, Reidel, Dordrecht, Boston, 1969, p.27.
214 NOTES
10 Ibidem, p.26.
11 Ibidem.
12 Ibidem.
13 Ibidem, p.29.
14 Ibidem, p.23.
15 Ibidem, p.24.
16 Ibidem, p.27.
17 W.V.O. Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", in: From a Logical Point of View,
1964, p.20-46.
18 Cf. G.1. Taylor, Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc., 15, 1909, p.114. Cf. R.L. Phleegor, L.
Mandel, Physic. Review, 159, 1967, p.1048.
19 R.H. Severens, "Channelling Commitments", Franciscan Studies, 1962, p.1-21.
20 Ibidem, p.3.
21 Ibidem, p.12.
22 P.F. Strawson, "On Referring", Mind, LIX, Nr. 235, 1950.
23 Ibidem, p.325
24 Ibidem, p.337.
25 Ibidem, p.337-338.
26 Cf. D. Batens, "Meaning, Acceptance and Dialectics", Proceedings of the 4th
International Union o/History and Philosophy o/Science, edited by Joseph Pitt, Reidel,
Dordrecht, 1985.
27 Pears, Bertrand Russell and the British Tradition in Philosophy p.56: "So his main
point about existence can be put by saying that in the proposition that Sir Walter Scott
exists, it cannot be the case that the ordinary proper name is being used as a logical
proper name. If it were being so used, it would derive its meaning directly from its
denotation without intervention of any descriptions, and in that case the proposition
would be meaningless if the denotation did not exist. But that is absurd, since the
proposition clearly has meaning even if the man does not and never did exist. Therefore
it must be the case that his existence is being afftnned through some property".
28 B. Russell, My Philosophical Development, p.126.
29 Cf. M.J. Loux, Universals and Particulars. Readings in Ontology, Anchor Books
New York, 1970, p.202.
30 Cf. Chapter 6.
31 Russell, My Philosophical Development, p.117.
32 Ibidem, p.127.
33 Ibidem, p.127.
34 Cf. Largeault, EnquCte sur Ie nominalisme, p.352-355 and N. Goodman, Of Mind
and Other Matters, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, p.l30.
35 Cf. Largeault, Enquete sur le Nominalisme, p.347.
NOTES 215
36 N. Goodman and W.V.O. Quine, "Steps Towards a Constructive Nominalism",

Journal ofSymbolic Logic, Vol. 12, Nr. 4,1947, p.105, footnote 2.
37 Cf. Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", p.20-46.
38 Quine, From a Logical Point of View, p.102-129.
39 Ibidem, p.129.
40 Quine, Word and Object.
41 Quine, The Ways ofParadox.
42 W. V.O. Quine, The Roots ofReference, Open Court, La Salle, lllinois, 1973, p.138.
43 Ibidem.
44 N. Goodman, The Structure of Appearance, Bobbs-Merill Co., Indianapolis, New
York, Kansas City, 1951.
45 N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis,
N.Y., 1965, frrst edition, 1955, p.59.
46 Ibidem, p.119.
47 N. Goodman, Languages ofArt, Hackett, Indianapolis, 1976.
48 N. Goodman, Ways ofWorldmaking, Harvester, Indianapolis, 1978.
49 N. Goodman, Of Mind and Other Matters, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, London, 1984.
CHAPTER 4
1 W.V.O. Quine, "Designation and Existence", The Journal ojPhilosophy, Vol. 36, n
26, 1939, p.708 : "As a thesis in the philosophy of scien~e, nominalism can be
formulated thus: it is possible to set up a nominalistic language in which all of natural
science can be expressed".
2 G. Frege, "On Sense and Reference", in: Translationsfrom the Philosophical Writings
of Gottlob Frege, 1966, p.57.
3 G. Frege, "On Concept and Object", Ibidem, p.42-55.
4 Frege, "On Sense and Reference", p.57.
5 Ibidem, p.70.
6 Ibidem, p.70.
7 Cf. G. Frege, "ll1ustrative extracts", in: Translations from the Writings of Gottlob
Frege, p.84. Abstraction is founded on oblivion of details. Commenting on Husseri's
views on the subject he says: "Inattention is a very strong lie; it must be applied at not
too great concentration, so that everything does not dissolve, and likewise not too
dilute, so that it effects sufficient change in the things. Thus it is a question of getting
the right degree of dilution; this is difficult to manage and I at any rate never succeeded".
8 Ibidem, p.85.
9 Frege, "On Concept and Object", p.43.
216 NOlES
10 There are objections to this theory though, but we shall discuss them, in chapter 7,
on "Particular and General" .
11 Ibidem, p.SS.
12 Ibidem, p.43-44.
13 Quine, "Designation and Existence", p.704: "What is left is but a bandying of empty
honorifics and pejoratives - "existent" and "non-existent", "real" and "unreal"".
14 Ibidem, p.70S.
15 Ibidem, p.707.
16 Frege, The Foundations ofArithmetics, transl. IL. Austin, Basil Blackwell, Oxford,
19S0, p.60e_61 e.
17 Ibidem, p.61 e.
18 William Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, Franciscan Institute Publications, Saint
Bonaventure, N.Y. and E. Nauwelaerts, Louvain, Belgium, 1951, Cap. 1 urn, (De
termino in generali), p.8.
Cf. Ockham's Theory ofTerms, Part I of the Summa Logicae, translated and introduced
by M.J. Loux, University of Notre Dame Presse, Notre Dame, London, 1974, chapter
1, p.49.
19 Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, Cap 1 urn, p.9.
Cf. Loux, Ockham's Theory of Terms, Part I, chapter 1, p.50.
20 Ibidem.
21 Leff, William ofOckham, 1975, p.25. (In this work a more comprehensive exposition
of Ockham's theory of signification and supposition can be found and many useful
bibliographical data).
22 Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, Cap. 3 urn, (De correspondentia inter terminos vocales
et mentales), p.12.
Cf. Loux, Ockham's Theory of Terms, Part I of the Summa Logicae, chapter 3, p.52.
23 Cf. L. Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillaume d' Ockham, Lethellieux, Paris,
1957, p.259.
24 Loux, Ockham's Theory ofTerms, Part I of the Summa Logicae, introductory article:
"The Ontology of William of Ockham", p.2.
25 Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillaume d' Ockham, p.2S9.
26 Frege, "On Sense and Reference", p.58.
27 Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillame d'Ockham, p.259.
28 William Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, Cap. 70, p.190.
Loux, Ockhams Theory of Terms, Part 1 of the Summa Logicae, Cap. 70, p.200.
29 Loux, Ockham Theory of Terms, Part 1 of the Summa Logicae, Cap. 70, p.20l.
William Ockham, Summa Logicae I, Cap. 40, p.190-19l.
30 Ibidem, p.20l. William Ockham, Summa Logicae I, Cap. 70, p.191.
31 Ph. Boehner, "Ockham's Theory of Supposition and the Notion of Truth"" ,Francis-
can Studies, 1962, ,p.266.
32 N. Goodman, "On Likeness of Meaning", Analysis, 10, 1949, p.l.
NOTES 217
33 N. Goodman, "On Some Differences About Meaning", Analysis, 13, 1952, p.90-96.
34 Ibidem, p.3.
35 Ibidem.
36 G.W.F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, Felix Meiner, Hamburg, 1963, p.74.
371. Kant, Kritik der reinen VernunJt, Atlas, KOln, s.d., p.347.
38 R. Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, The Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago and
London, 1956, p.112 e.g.
39 U. Eco, Einfilhrung in die Semiotik, Fink, Mtinchen, 1972, p.72.
40 Cf. Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, p.234.
CHAPTERS
1 Cf. M. Gosselin, "Concerning Apes, Deaf Children and Humanists", Communication
and Cognition, Vol. 12, nr. 2,1979, p.163-165.
2 Quine, Word and Object, p.17 § 5.
3 Ibidem, p.26.
4 Ibidem, p.12, footnote.
5Cf. U.Eco, "LatratusCanis",TijdschriftvoorFilosofie,47,nr.l,March, 1985,p.1-14.
6 Quine, Word and Object, p.3.
7 Leff, William ofOckham, p.l00: If, he (Ockham) says, two things suffice to verify a
proposition, a third is superfluous; but all agree that propositions such as "Man is
known", "Man is a subject", "Man is a species", which contain a mental object (esse
fictum) are verified of real things and so must be true; for if knowledge of a man is
posited in the intellect, the proposition "Man is known" cannot be false (... ) Nor is a
fictum to be posited as the condition of a subject and predicate in a universal proposition.
An act of knowing suffices for that, because an individual known both in itself and as
a representation by afictum is also known by an act; otherwise afictum could be known
independently of an act knowing it as an object of thought, which is impossible (... )
This shows clearly the distinction between the presence in the mind officta as objects
of thought, which Ockham never denied, and their directly representational character,
which Ockham did now deny".
For a broad discussion of this intricate problem see also M. Mc Cord Adams, William
ofOckham, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1987, Vol. I, p.84-107.
8 Ibidem, p.102.
9 Ibidem, p.102-103.
10 Ibidem, p.103.
11 K. Lorenz, "Gestaltwahrnehmung als Quelle wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis", in: Yom
Weltbild des Verhaltensforschers, Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Miinchen, 1984,
p.106.
218 NOlES
12 Configurationalism has been the base of the more recent developments in the
psychology of perception, such as the ecological approach of perception by 1.1. Gibson
and the recent work ofD. Marr.
13 Ibidem, p.118. .
14 Cf. M. Gosselin, "Conventionalism versus Realism. Are perceptions basically
particular or general?", Communication and Cognition, Vol. 17, Nr. 1, p.77, ff..
15 Lorenz, "Gestaltwahmehmung als QueUe wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis", p.128.
16 K. Lorenz, Die Ruckseite des Spiegels, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Miinchen,
1980, p.154.
17 Lorenz, "Gestaltwahmehmung als QueUe wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis", p.128-
129.
18 Quine, Word and Object, p.123 ff. S.
19 Lorenz, "Gestaltwahrnehmung als QueUe wissenschaftlicher Erkenntniss", p.105.
20 Cl. Uvi-Strauss, La Pensee Sauvage, PIon, Paris, 1962, p.62-63.
CHAPTER 6
1 G. Leff, Medieval Thought. Saint Augustine to Ockham, Quadrangle, Books, Chicago,
1958, p.282.
2 K. Munitz, Existence and Logic, New York, University Press, New York, 1974, p.45.
3 Ibidem, p.46.
4 Aristotle's Metaphysics, transl. by H.G. Apostle, Indiana Univ. Press, Bloomington
and London, 1966, Book Z, 4,1030 a, 1030 b, p.112-113.
5 Aristote, La Metaphysique, transl. and commentaries by I. Tricot, Vrin, Paris, 1970,
p.439, footnote 2.
6 Ibidem.
7 Aristotle's Metaphysics, (Apostle), Book Z 11,20-30, p.126-127.
8 Chapter 5, 3., Evolution, cognitivism and the notion of conceptual scheme.
9 Aristote, La Meraphysique, (Tricot), p.441.
10 Aristotle's Metaphysics, (Apostle), Book Z 15, 1040 a 30, p.133.
11 The species speciallissima expresses the similarity of individuals of the same nature
and is therefore an important concept, the rejection of which is revolutionary.
12 Leff, William ofOckham, p.62.
14 William Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, Cap. XIX, De Individuo, p.59, Cf. M.J. Loux,
Ockham's Theory ofTerms, Summa Logicae, Part. 1, Chapter 19, p.90-91.
15 Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillaume d' Ockham, p.117 -118.
17 Weinberg, Abstraction, Relation and Induction, p.46.
NOTES 219
18 William Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, Cap. xvm, De quinque universalibus in

generale, p.51. Cf. Loux, Ockham's Theory o/Terms, Part I o/the Summa Logicae,
chapter 18, p.88.
19 Goodman and Quine, "Steps Towards a Constructive Nominalism", p.105.
20 N. Goodman, "A world of Individuals", in: J.M. Bochenski, The Problem 0/
Universals, A Symposium, Notre Dame University Press, Notre Dame, 1956, p.19.
21 Ibidem, p.21-22.
22
Cf. Chapter 4, 1.
23 Goodman, The Structure 0/ Appearance, p.4.
24 Ibidem, p.13.
25 Ibidem, p.4-5, (my italics).
26 Ibidem, p.26.
27 Ibidem, p.6.
28 Cf. Chapter 3.
29 E. Luschei, The Logical Systems o/Lesniewski, North Holland Publishing Company,
Amsterdam, 1962, p.149.
30 Ibidem, p.10.
31 Ibidem, p.10.
32 Ibidem, p.30.
33 N. Goodman, "Appendix to "A World of Individuals"", in: Philosophy 0/ Mathe-
matics, Eds. P. Bemacerraf andH. Putnam. Prentice hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,
1964.
35 Ibidem, p.36.
36
Cf. Chapter 6, 6.3.2.
37 For more details: MJ. Loux, Universals and Particulars, Doubleday, New York,
1910, p.196-203.
39 Ibidem, p.156-151.
40 Ibidem.
41 H.S. Leonard and N. Goodman, "The Calculus ofIndividuals and its Uses", Journal
o/Symbolic Logic, Vol. 5, Nr. 2,1940, p.51.
42 Ibidem, p.52.
43 Ibidem, p.52.
44 Luschei, The Logical Systems 0/ Lesniewski, p.35-36. "Except for its principle of
hierarchical stratification, constructive relativity and other characteristics (... ),
Lesniewski's grammar of semantic categories formally resembles simple theories of
types devised ad hoc to preclude familiar paradoxes. But in grammatical conception
and scope, it has greater intuitive affinity with the tradition of Aristotle's categories,
220 NOlES
Husserl 's Bedeutungskategorien, and the grammar of parts of speech in Indo-European

languages".
45 Leonard and Goodman, "The Calculus of Individuals", p.45.
46 Ibidem, p.45.
47 Ibidem.
48 Luschei, Lesniewsld's Logical Systems, p.151.
49 Ibidem.
50 William of Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, Cap. XXXV, De toto, p.91, Cf. Loux,
Ockham's Theory of Terms, Part 1 of the Summa Logicae, chapter. 35, p.116.
51 Cf. Luschei, The Logical Systems ofLesniewski, p.ll.
52 Goodman, The Structure ofAppearance, p.53.
53 Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillaume d'Ockham, p.188.
54 Luschei, The Logical Systems of Lesniewski, p.lO, and also p.150: "Since any sole
ingredient of any individual is the totality of ingredients of that individual and any
totality of ingredients of any individual is the same individual, it follows that any sole
ingredient of any individual is the same individual; i.e., any individual ("collective
singular class") having just one ingredient is identical with that sole ingredient (... )".
55 Goodman, The Structure ofAppearance, p.128-129.
56 Ibidem, p.53.
57 Ibidem, p.244. See for this problem also: Hao Wang, "What is an Individual?", Philos.
Review, 61, 1953, pp.413-420.
CHAPTER 7
1 Goodman, The Structure of Appearance, p.194.
2 Cf. Ibidem, p.193.
3 Ibidem, p.133.
4 Ibidem, p.132.
5 Ibidem, p.135.
6 Ibidem, p.249.
7 Ibidem.
8 Quine, The Roots ofReference, Open Court, La Salle, 1974.
9 Ibidem, p.2.
10
Cf. Chapter 5, 1.
11 Ibidem, p.52-53.
12 Ibidem, p.66.
13 Ibidem, p.82.
14 Ibidem, p.84.
15 Ibidem, p.85.
NOlES 221
16 Ibidem.
17 Ibidem.
18 Ibidem, p.87.
19 Ibidem, p.88.
20 Ibidem, p.89.
21 Ibidem, p.93.
22 Ibidem, p.95, vice = the Latin vice "more anglico".
23 Ibidem, p.95.
24 Ibidem, p.96.
25 Ibidem, p.100.
26 Quine, "Identity, Ostension and Hypostasis" in: From a Logical Point ofView, p.70.
27 P.F. Strawson, Individuals. An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics, Methuen, London,
1961, p.203-204.
28 Ibidem, p.168.
29 Ibidem, p.207.
30 Ibidem, p.208.
31 Ibidem, p.218.
32 Ibidem, p.222.
33 Ibidem, p.222.
34 Ibidem, p.225.
35 CF. M. Gosselin, "Realism versus Conventionalism. Are Perceptions Particular or
General?", Communication and Cognition, Vol. 17, N 1, pp.57-88.
36 E. Tronick, "Infant Communicative Intent. The Infant's Reference to Social Interac-
tion", in: R.E. Stark, ed., Language Behaviour in Infancy and Early Childhood,
Elsevier/North Holland, New York, Amsterdam, Oxford, 1981, p.5.
37 Ibidem, p.6.
38 Ibidem, p.13.
39 Ibidem, p.14.
40 Ibidem, pA.
41 Ibidem, p.87.
42 Lois Bloom, One Word at a Time, Mouton, The Hague, 1973, p.65.
43 Ibidem, p.67.
44 Ibidem, p.70.
45 Ibidem, p.67-68.
46 Ibidem, p.71.
47 Ibidem, p.72.
48 Ibidem, p.75.
49 Ibidem, p.139.
50 Ibidem, p.133.
222 NOTES
51 Ibidem, p.133 and p.136.

52 Ibidem, p.I41.
53 I.W. Schlesinger, Steps to Language, Laurence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey,
London, 1982, p.I45.
CHAPTER 8
1 Ockham, Summa Logicae, I, cap. 14, p.43-45. Cf. M.J. Loux, Ockham's Theory of
Terms, Part 1 of the Summa Logicae, p.77-79.
2 Ibidem.
3 Leff, William of Ockham, p.I23 (quotation from W. of Ockham, Ordinatio, Opera
Omnia, ed. luntina & Venice, 1574, p.252-253).
4 Loux, Ockham's Theory of Terms, Part 1 of the Summa Logicae, § 14, p.79.
5
Cf. Chapter 4, 2.
6 J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Everyman's Library, London,
1961, Vol. II, p.Il.
7 Ibidem, p.12.
8 Ibidem, Vol. 2, p.13, "( ... ) it is perverting the use of words, and brings unavoidable
obscurity and confusion into their signification, whenever we make them stand for
anything but those ideas we have in our own minds".
9 Ibidem, p.I6.
10 Ibidem.
11 Ibidem, Vol. 2, p.I7.
13 Ibidem.
15 Ibidem, Vol. I, p.116.
16 Ibidem, Vol. I, p.119.
17 D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Everyman's Library, Londen, New York,
1964. Vol. 1, p.I7l.
18 Cf. E. Brehier, Histoire de la Philosophie, Tome IT, Fascicule 2, PUP, Paris, 1950,
p.406.
Hume,A Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. I, p.I7.
19 C. Blakemore, Mechanics of the Mind, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1977,
p.I6-17.
20 Leff, William of Ockham, p.60.
21 Ibidem, p.56.
22 Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World, p.316.
23 Ibidem.
24 Ibidem, p.317.
NOTES 223
25 Ibidem, e.g. p.36.

26 Blakemore, Mechanics of the Mind, p.63.
27 P. Changeux, L' Homme Neuronal, Fayard, Paris, 1983, p.82.
28 Ibidem, p.69, Fig. 16.
29 Ibidem, p.89.
30 B.F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior, Appleton-Century Crofts, New York, 1957, p.6:
"There is obviously something suspicious in the ease with which we discover in a set
of ideas precisely these properties needed to account for the behaviour which expresses
them. We evidently construct the ideas at will from the behaviour to be explained (...)".
31 Cf. Quotation ofG. Wallas, in: G. Blakemore, Mechanics of the Mind, p.131.
32 Quine, The Roots ofReference, p.35. See also: Word and Object, p.208, e.g..
33 Goodman, Of Mind and Other Matters, p.14-15. "Shouldn't I remind Gardner that
tracing nerve impulses from receptors to parts of the brain does not help us at all in
explaining consciousness, and protest that loss of a skill when a certain part of the brain
is damaged tells us no more about the nature of that skill than the fact that loss of an
eye causes blindness tells us about vision?".
34 J. Piaget, Le langage et les operations intellectuelles, PUF, Paris, 1963, p.58.
35 J. Piaget, "Le langage et la pensee du point de vue genetique", in: Thinking and
Speaking, North Holland Publications, Amsterdam, 1954, p.146.
36 H. Furth, Thought Without Language. Psychological Implications of Deafness,
New-York, Collier-Mac Millan, London, 1976, p.12.
37 Cf. P. Oleron, Language and Mental Development, Laurence Erlbaum, Hillsdale,
New Jersey, 1977.
38 Furth, Thought Without Language, p.228.
39 Quine, From a Logical Point of View, p.61.
40 Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, 1970, p.64.
41 N. Chomsky, "A Review ofB.F. Skinner's "Verbal Behavior'''', in: J.A. Fodor, J.J.
Katz, The Structure of Language, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1964,
p~.547-549.
4 Ibidem, p.575.
43 Ibidem.
44 Chomsky, "Current Issues in Linguistic Theory", in: Fodor, Katz (eds.), The Structure
of Language, p.79.
45 Ibidem, p.81.
46 Ibidem.
47 Cf. J. Lyon, Chomsky, Fontana, London, p.97.
48 Ibidem.
49 N. Chomsky, Aspects ofthe Theory ofSyntax, MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts,
1965, p.206.
50 J.A. Fodor, "The Mind-Body Problem", Scientific American, 1981, Vol. 244, n. 1,
p.114-123.
224 NOTES
51 J.A. Fodor, The Language of Thought, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts, 1979.
52 Ibidem, p.34 and 35.
53 Ibidem, p.52.
54 Ibidem, p.56.
55 Ibidem, p.77.
56 Ibidem, p.96.
57 Ibidem, p.96-97.
58 Ibidem, p.123.
59 Ibidem, p.125.
60 Ibidem, p.148.
61 Ibidem, p.149-150.
62 Ibidem, p.156.
63 Ibidem, p.I72.
64 Ibidem, p.20l.
65 G.D. Wassennann,Neurobiological Theory ofPsychological Phenomena, Macmil-
lan Press, London and Basingstoke, 1978, p.l.
66 Fodor, The Language of Thought, p.25.
67 Cf. J.L. Schnopf, D.A. Baylor, "How Photoreceptor Cells Respond to Light",
Scientific American, April 1987, Vol. 256, Nr. 4, p.32-39.
L. Stryer, "The Molecules of Visual Excitation", Scientific American, July 1987, vol.
257, Nr. 1, p.32-4l.
M. S. Livingstone, "Art, lllusion and the Visual System", Scientific American, January
1988, Vol. 258, Nr. 1, p.68-75.
68 Wassermann, Neurobiological Theory of Psychological Phenomena, p.l.
69 Fodor, The Language of Thought, p.20l.
70 Changeux, L' Homme Neuronal, p.336.
As most (up to 95 % or more) of the DNA is "useless" or "nonsense" DNA, itis possible,
however, that an important part of the "useful" DNA of humans is different from the
"useful" DNA of chimps. (This remark was made by Prof. D. Roggen, biologist, VUB,
Brussels).
71 Ibidem, p.72: "Non seulement les categories de cellules pyramidales et etoilees sont
les memes de la souris aI'homme, mais Ie nombre total de ces cellules par echantillon
de surface constante ne vane pas au cours de l'evolution des mammiferes. Les donnees
de la microscopie quantitative du cortex s'accordent avec celles de l'anatomie
comparee: I' evolution du cortex chez les mammiferes porte avant tout sur sa surface".
72 In many cases much more connections are made than necessary. Useless connections
are unmade and wrongly connected neurons die. (Remark by D. Roggen, biologist,
VUB, Brussels).
NOTES 225
73 F. Vester, Denken, Lernen, Vergessen, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, p.31-35.

The research in the field of the influence of stimuli on the growth of nerve connections
by N. Wiesel and D.H. Hubel is most famous.
74 W.R. Uttal, The Psychobiology o/Mind, Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey,
1978, p.682.
75 Changeux, L' Homme Neuronal, p.219-227.
76 Changeux, L' Homme Neuronal, p.I72: "La comparaison avec l' ordinateur - machine
cybernetique - aete utile pourintroduire la notion de "codage interne" du comportement.
Elle presente toutefois I 'inconvenient de laisser implicitement supposer que Ie cerveau
fonctionne comme un ordinateur. L'analogie est trompeuse. Un des traits
characteristiques de la machine cerebrale est d'abord que Ie codage interne fait inter-
venir, ala fois, nous l'avons vu, un codage topologique de connexions decrit par un
graphe neuronique et un codage d'impulsions electriques ou de signaux chimiques. lei
la distinction c1assique "hardware - software" ne tient pas. D'autre part il est evident
que Ie cerveau de l'homme est capable de developper des strategies de maniere
autonome".
77 Wassermann, Neurobiological theory 0/ Psychological Phenomena, p.209: "The
possibility that many human cognitive performances of great complexity can actually
or potentially be simulated by computers does not imply that brains, when performing
similar tasks, operate like the machinery of digital computers. For instance, computers
are far more sensitive than brains to the destructive results of sizeable circuit defects
(... ). Above all, creative thinking has so far defied description in terms of Boolean
Algebra ...... Cf. also W.R. Uttal, The Psychobiology o/Mind, p.274, F. Vester, Denken,
Lernen, Vergessen, 1978, p.82.
78 Changeux, L' Homme Neuronal, p.188.
79 Uttal, The Psychobiology o/the Mind, p.672-674.
80 Ibidem, p.614.
81 Ibidem, p.618.
82 Ibidem, p.634: "Each synapse is but one of a myriad of similar structures contributing
to the global response. In the realm of learning as in the realm of perception it is
extremely difficult to understand how any individual synapse could be essential to any
molar mental act. It seems far more likely that the relevance of the synapses is
meaningful only in the statistical or probabilistic sense (... )".
83 Cf. Vester, Denken, Lernen und Vergessen, p.30-31. "Lauft nun eine elektrische
Erregung durch das Axon bis in die Synapsen dann platzen die Blaschen und geben die
Transmittersubstanz frei. Sie wandert in den Spalt und erhoht in der gegeniiberliegenden
Wand der Nervenzelle oder einer ihrer Verzweigungen die Durchlassigkeit flir bestim-
rnte lonen. Die Transmitterstoffe der erregten Synapse bewirken so zum Beispiel den
Einstrom von Natrium-Ionen und den Ausstrom von Kalium-Ionen. So ensteht zwis-
chen der Synapse und der angrenzenden Nervenzelle ein Strom der sich dort als
elektrochemischer Impuls fortpflanzt. Der Kontakt wird geschlossen und die Informa-
tion kan weiterlaufen. Bei hemmende Synapsen ist es umgekehrt (... ). Ein standiger
Nachschub von Transmittersubstanz ist also erforderlich".
226 N01ES
84 Wassennann, Neurobiological Theory of Psychological Phenomena, p.148.

85 F. Basar, H. Flohr, H. Baken, A.J. Mandell, (eds.), Synergetics of the Brains,
Springer, Berlin, 1983, p.6.
87 Ibidem, p.5.
88 Ibidem, p.6.
89 Ibidem, p.6: "these cables or channels as I prefer to call them, are postulated to be
actual message encoders and carriers, a message being encoded and transmitted along
a channel in the fonn of an electrical excitation wave and each channel is
chemospecific" .
90 Ibidem, p.24-25.
91 a. Ibidem, p.29. A method for testing the existence of those labels is to verify whether
the cells that are supposed to be differentiated are "allergic" to one another and produce
antigens when contacting each other.
92 G. Wassennann, Neurobiological Theory of Psychological Phenomena, p.101.
93 Ibidem, p.28.
94 Ibidem, p.93.
95 Ibidem, p.100.
96 Ibidem.
97 Ibidem, p.100-101.
99 L.A. Cooper, R.N. Shepard, "Turning Something Over in the Mind", Scientific
American, Dec. 1984, Vol. 251, Number 6, p.l06.
100 Wassennann, Neurobiological Theory of Psychological Phenomena, p.58-59.
101 Ibidem, p.6.
102 Ibidem, p.lO.
103 Ibidem.
104 Ibidem, p.12.
105 Ibidem, p.160.
106 Ibidem, p.7, fig. 1.1.
107 The biochemical details and experimental clues of the theory can be found in the
second chapter of Wassermann's Neurobiological Theory of Psychological
Phenomena, in casu, p.62.
108 Ibidem, p.1l8.
109 Frank R. Vellutino, "Dyslexia",ScientijicAmerican, March 1987, Vol. 256,Number
3,p.20.
110 Wassennann, Neurobiological Theory of Psychological Phenomena, p.171.
111 Ibidem, p.175.
112 Ibidem, p.176.
113 Ibidem, p.l77.
N01ES 227
114 ibidem, p.178.

115 Ibidem, p.179.
116 Ibidem, p.l64.
117 For example Changeux, in L' Homme Neuronal, sketches the outlines of a theory of
"mental objects", cf. p.17l-228.
118 Wassermann, Neurobiological Theory of Psychological Phenomena, p.179.
CHAPTER 9
1 O. Leff, The Dissolution of the Medieval Outlook, Harper and Row, New York,
London, 1976.
2 Ibidem, p.9.
3 Ibidem, p.ll, "From the time of Ockham, questions were treated less for their own
immediate import than to exhibit their logical, epistemological and theological implica-
tions. Understanding and knowledge were thus subordinated to, or more properly,
subsumed under the formal requisites of meaning and evidence".
4 Ibidem, p.12.
5 Ibidem, p.12.
6 Ibidem, p.12 and 13..
7 Ibidem, p.14 and 15.
8 Ibidem, p.19.
9 L. Alanen, S. Knuuttila, "Modality in Descartes and his Predecessors", in: Modern
Modalities, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1988, p.30.
10 Ibidem, p.30.
11 Ibidem, p.34.
12 Ibidem, p.35.
13 Ibidem.
14 Weinberg, Abstraction, Relations and Induction, p.l06 "(...) Ockham's main con-
tribution is that relational concepts signify many things (i.e. two or more) taken
conjunctively. This seems to be sound or at least, a more correct view than the prevailing
doctrine that relational concepts refer to peculiar referring accidents inhering in one
term and depending in some way also upon the other term to which the accident inhering
in the one term refers".
15 A summary of the most common accusations formulated against Ockham can be
found in: F. Rapp, "Le proces du nominalisme", in: L' eglise et la vie religieuse en
Occident alafin du moyen age, Nouvelle Clio, 1971, p.332-345.
16 Cf. M. MCCord Adams, William Ockham, Vol. 1, p.588-594.
17 T.K. Scott, "Ockham on Evidence, Necessity and Intuition", Journal of the History
of Philosophy, VII, 1969, 1, pp.27-49.
18 Ibidem, p.27.
228 NOTES
19 Ibidem, p.28.
20 Risible has to be understood as "can laugh".
21 Ibidem, p.34.
22 Ibidem, p.35.
23 a. Baudry, Lexiquephilosophique de Guillaume d'Ockham, p.189.
24 a. Leff, William ofOckham, p.305.
25 Ibidem, p.309.
26 Scott, "Ockham on Evidence, Necessity and Intuition", p.38.
27 Cf. Willem van Ockham, Evidente kennis en theologische waarheden, vertaald en
geannoteerd door Dr. E.P. Bos, Het Wereldvenster, Weesp, 1984, p.15.
R.C.Richards, "OckhamandScepticism",TheNewScholasticism, 1968,42,p.352-353.
Leff, WilliamofOckham, p.21.
MCCord Adams, William of Ockham, Vol. 1, p.594-601. Contains an interesting
discussion of Ockham's view on Academic certainty.
28 Scott, "Ockham on Evidence, Necessity and Intuition", p.46.
29 Ibidem, p.47.
30 Leff, William of Ockham, p.14.
31 Richards, "Ockham and Scepticism", p.359.
32 Leff, William of Ockham, p.28-29.
33 Ibidem, p.29.
34 Ibidem, p.313-314.
35 Ibidem, p.314.
36 Ibidem, p.167.
37 Ibidem, p.167, footnote 192.
38 Ibidem, p.578.
39 Ibidem, p.583.
40 N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, p.61.
41 Ibidem, p.62.
42 Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. 1, p.26.
43 Ibidem, p.27.
44 Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, p.64.
45 Ibidem, p.64.
46 Ibidem, p.66.
47 Ibidem, p.68.
48 Ibidem, p.74.
49 Ibidem, p.85: "The fact is that whenever we set about determining the validity of a
given projection from a given base, we have and use a good deal of other relevant
knowledge".
50 Ibidem, p.94.
NOlES 229
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56 The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Minerals and Rocks, Artia, Prague, 1977, p.272.
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58 N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast, p.40.
59 D.M. Armstrong, A Theory of Universals, Cambridge University Press, London,
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60 M. Blarney, R. Fitter, Wild Flowers, Collins Gem Guide, Collins, London and
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62 J. Powers, Philosophy and the New Physics, Methuen, London & New York, 1982,
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63 Ibidem.
64 J. De Witte, De Functie van de Taal in het Denken, Prisma, Aula, Utrecht, Antwerp,
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66 Jean Piaget, Le Structuralisme, PUF, 1968, Paris.
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68 Ibidem, p.15 ..
69 Ibidem, p.124.
70 I. Hacking, Representing and Intervening, Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of
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71 Ibidem, p.24.
72 Ibidem, p.26.
73 Ibidem, p.108.
74 Goodman, Of Mind and Other Matters, p.35.
75 I. Hacking, Representing and Intervening, p.108-l09.
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INDEX
Abailard,6 Being,S - 6,12,15,80- 81, 86, 94,184,

Absolute power (of God), 1, 83, 184 - 193; as being, 13; of being, 12
186, 189 Belief, 80; See also Faith
Abstraction, 7 - 8,14,23,40,43,47,56, Bergmann, G., 193
73, 80,98, 118, 140, 181, 183, 190, Berkeley, G., 7,113
193, 205; abstract elements, 116; Beth, E.W., 36
abstract entity, 22, 36, 38; abstract Blakemore, c., 143
object, 9; abstract singular, 119; the Bloom, L., 129 - 131, 136, 148
abstract, 61 Body, 113 - 114, 116, 118 - 119, 130
Accident, 86, 109, 187 Boehner, Ph., 52
Act of the mind, 134, 140, 179 Boethius, 65
Alanen, L., 185 Bonaventura, 183
Albert The Great, 183 Brain(s), 21, 60 - 61, 72,140 - 145,147,
Aldrich, W.V., 64 150,153,162,164 - 166, 177, 179;
Analyticity, 11, 18,43,53,115, 181 processes, 139
Animal, 60, 64, 70 - 71, 74, 125, 133, Brown, R., 131
136, 138 - 139,146,154,162, 176, Calculus of classes, 36,99,103,105; of
198,203,206,211; species, 69 individuals, 3,98, 103
Aquinas, Thomas, 12,79, 183 Cantor, 23, 36,94
Aristotle, 1,5 - 7, 12 - 14, 16 - 18,21 - Carnap, R., 1- 2,8 -11,14- 15, 17 - 18,
22,30 - 31, 35, 40 - 41, 64 - 65, 79- 20, 22 - 24, 26, 40, 46, 57, 90, 97 -
86,94,182,184,186,192-194,207, 99, 142 - 144, 149, 151 - 152, 157,
219 181
Armstrong, D.M., 202 Cassirer, E., 149, 176
Attribute, 187 - 189, 204; functional, Categoremata, 49
130; universal, 5 Category, 5,12, 15, 17 - 18,27,32,48,
Autopsychological,9, 142 81, 116, 119, 157
Avenarius, R., 142 Causality, 184, 193 - 195, 197, 203;
Avicenna, 140 - 141 causal connection, 198,202
Axon, 143, 162 Cause; efficient, 193 - 194; final, 193 -
Ayer, A.J., 25, 107 194; formal, 193; material, 193
Bacon, R., 65 Changeux, P., 168
Basic elements, 3, 18,22,36,95 Chomsky, A.N., 150 - 151, 155, 175,
Baudry, L., 48 208
Behaviourism, 4, 46, 53, 59, 61 - 62, 67, Class, (collection), 17, 22, 31, 36, 38,
70,77,113-114,133,141-142,144 88,93 - 94, 96 - 97, 103,105; con-
- 146, 149 - 150, 152, 160, 175 cept, 94; individual, 101, 103; logic,
100,105; mereological, 93
244 INDEX
Cognitive, 74, 147, 156; operations, tural community, 19, 66, 77, 149,
172; processes, 160; psychology, 176,179,200,205
158, 162 Deaf-mute, 60, 147 - 148
Cognitivism, 4, 39, 133, 141, 146, 154 Deflllition,33,82,84,89,92,107,157,
Common sense, 16,21,27,39, 71, 75 - 186, 188, 195, 199 - 200, 204 - 205;
76,81, 100, 105, 107, 119, 138 nominal, 52 - 53; real, 52
Communication, 127, 156 Demonstration, 6, 12 - 13,81, 186, 191
Complex, See Whole - 193
Computer, 152 - 154, 156, 158, 160, Dendrite, 162
165, 172 Denotation, 24
Concept, 4, 23, 25, 40, 42 - 43, 47 - 48, Descartes, R., 141 - 142
50,56, 59, 68 - 70, 77, 79, 90 - 91, Scientific description, 1,43
125, 135, 137 - 140, 146, 164, 173, Determinism, 1, 80, 184, 189
178, 190, 192, 198 - 200, 205; Disjunction, 51
"grandmother concept", 4; abstract, Displacement, 66 - 67
176; central, 175, 178; conceptual Disposition, 28, 187, 195; linguistic,
content, 20; conceptual scheme, 21, 152
60,62 - 63, 66 - 67,70,74 -75,115, Division, 101-102, 105,107 -108,110;
210; general (universal), 7, 44, 46, indivisible, 9
109,137; logical, 101; objective, 46; Dogma, 1
conceptual system, 155 Duhem, P., 19,37
Conceptualism, 5, 23, 112 Duns Scotus, 7, 12,80,83,85,96, 185
Conceptualization, 68,76,83,210 - 186, 189
Concrete, 88, 112 - 113, 207; general, Eco, U., 57, 64 - 65
119 Economy, 3,17 - 18,62,68
Conjunctive, 51 Einstein, A., 29, 75
Connections, 163 Empiricism, 1,4,7,10-11,14-15,19,
Constant, 103, 107 23 - 25, 36, 38, 40, 46, 56, 58, 62 -
Construction, 110 64,79,82,90, 113, 118, 124, 133,
Constructivism, 1,3, 7, 19,21 - 22, 28, 135 - 136, 140, 144, 150, 152, 163,
40, 79, 81, 88,92, 116 - 117, 119, 178, 181,205,209; empirical facts,
142,144,181,206 121, 124; logical, 1, 10 - 11
constructivistic system, 40 Empiriocriticism, 8, 10, 70
nominalistic, 209 Encoding, 164, 167
Context, 33 - 34, 93, 156 Engram, 173 - 174,177
Contingency, 1, 6, 21, 84, 183 - 184, Entity, 45; abstract, 194; theoretical,
186, 189, 191 - 193, 195 208 - 209
Continuity, 35, 102, 106, 114 Entrenchment, 38
Conventionalism, 4, 18 - 19,32 - 33, 38 Epistemology, 1,5,7,19,39, 100, 112,
- 39, 48 - 49,65,72 - 73, 76 - 77,82, 151, 181 - 183, 189, 191 - 192;
94, 107, 115, 134, 177, 181 - 182, nominalistic, 186
184, 190,205 - 208,210 - 211 Erlebs, 11, 18, 40, 97 - 98; See also
Copula, 31,44 Experience (elementary)
Culture, 39, 59 - 63, 65 - 66, 70 - 76, Essence, 1 - 2, 6,12 - 13, 19,82,84 - 85,
133, 136, 150, 164, 205, 210; cul- 186,189,193,203
INDEX 245
Essentialism, 1 Frege, G., 22, 25, 36, 42 - 46, 49 - 50,

Evidence, 27, 186 - 187, 189 - 191; 52,89
intuitive, 184; statement, 197 French conventialists, 70
Evolutionism, 138 Functionalism, 4, 152,159
Evolutionist, 71, 73, 76 - 77 Furth, H., 147
Existence, 23, 26, 28 - 29, 31, 34, 45, 49 Galen of Pergamon, 140 - 141
- 50, 53, 56 - 57,74,80,84 - 85, 109, Gardner, A. and B., 66
113, 183, 191, 193,210; existential Genealogy, 40; of knowledge, 9,18 - 19,
generalisation, 45; existential entry , 36, 181
44; existential generalization, 95; The General, 1,3,6 - 7, 9, 12, 14,23,
existential implication, 52; existen- 26,30,35 - 36, 46, 61, 79, 84 - 85,
tial import, 51,52; existential 97, 109, 118 - 119, 123, 125, 140,
presupposition, 26, 29 - 30, 43 - 45; 163,186,194,198,206;generalob-
of God, 12 - 13; of the value of a jects, 8 - 9
variable, 17; See also Ontology Generalization, 15, 130, 178, 194-195,
Existents, 81; non-existents, 28 197 - 199,206; existential, 45
Experience, 4,7,9,34 - 35, 74,138,142, Generation of entities, 89,96
160, 177 - 178, 196, 200, 205; Genus, 5, 12,81,83,87, 188,192
elementary,9; pure, 206; sensorial, Gestaltpsychology, 9, 73, 171, 189, 199
179, 190;See also Erlebs Gibson, J.J., 72, 125, 211,218
Experiment, 4, 29, 140,209 - 210; ex- Gilson, E., 12
perimental evidence, 4 God, 1, 12 - 13,83, 138, 183, 185, 189,
Extension, 17, 20, 27, 56, 58, 84, 88, 90 191 - 192
- 93, 96, 103, 115, 118, 122, 149, Goodman, N., 1 - 4, 7 - 8, 10 - 12, 14,
179,200, 205; extensional isomor- 18 - 24, 26 - 29, 34 - 38, 46, 53 - 54,
phism, 90 - 92; primary, 54; secon- 56,72-73,78,88 - 89,91-101,104,
dary, 54 - 55 107, 109 - 112,119 - 120, 123 - 124,
Extensionalism, 20, 38,46,56,59,61, 146, 181 - 182, 194 - 197, 199,202
88 - 89, 94,146 - 203, 206 - 207, 209 - 211
External, 23; question, 17 Grammar, 43, 95,117,119,127
Faith, 13; See also Belief Habit, 69, 190, 194,206; of the mind,
Feyerabend, K., 27 195
Fictum,69,140 Hacking, 1, 4, 209 - 210
First Cause, 13, 184 Haken, H., 168
First philosophy, 16, 18,21,81 Hardware, 160, 165, 171
First science, 27 Hebb, D.O., 166
Fodor, J.A., 152 - 153, 155 - 157, 159, Hegel, G.W.F., 56
161 - 163, 175 Heidegger, M., 15
Fogel, A., 128 Hempel, C.G., 196
Form, 83 - 85,97, 193; abstract, 193; Henry of Ghent, 183, 185
formal distinction, 96 - 97; formal Hintikka, J., 26 - 30
system, 11 Hologram, 165
Free will, 184 Homogeneous, 102
Free will, freedom (of God), 1,83 Hubel, D.H., 225
246 INDEX
Hume, D., 7 - 8, 82, 113, 124, 135, 139, Intensionalism, 4, 20, 59, 89
163, 194 - 195 Intention, 48 - 49, 61, 65, 67, 92, 133,
HusserI, E., 43, 203, 215 156 - 157; first, 49; second,49
Hyden, H., 167 Internal, 23; question, 17
Hypostasis, 14,30,61, 118, 139 - 140, Intervention, 209 - 211
185 Introspection, 67
Hypothesis, 197,201; lawlike, 196 Intuition, 2,6,12,17,23,47,69,73,80,
Platonic idea, 5,16,22,53,80,94,109, 83, 151, 190, 192; intuitive cogni-
111 tion, 191; philosophical, 36,40,44;
Idealism, 5, 11,24,45,76,210; objec- speculative, 21
tive, 203 Invariant, 72, 102
Identification, 110 - 112, 121 - 124; of Johanson, Don, 29
the individual, 29 John of Salisbury, 6
Identity,44, 107, 114, 139 Kant, I., 21, 57, 75
Ideology, 3, 79,81,107 Katz, IJ., 175
Imposition; first, 49; second, 49 Kind(s), 20, 45 - 46, 188; natural, 210-
Indentity, 87 211; of entity, 31; of individuals, 26;
Individual(s), 3, 9, 20, 26, 28 - 30, 32, of things, 14 -16,18,27 - 28, 73,85,
34 - 36,40,46 - 47, 50 - 51, 56,73, 199 - 200, 203
79 - 80, 82 - 83, 85 - 86, 89,93,96, Knuuttila, S., 185
98, 100, 102, 105 - 106, 108, 111 - Kuhn, Th., 27
113, 117, 121, 137, 183 - 186, 189, Lamettrie, J.O., 141
193 - 194, 206 - 207, 210; calculus Language, 5,16,44,47,59,62 - 64, 66,
of, 94; epistemological primacy of 68-69,71,74-77,82,113,123,132
the, 79; general, 110; individual - 133, 135, 145 - 146, 150 - 151, 162
thing(s), 1,8,13; logical, 38; non-in- - 163, 174 - 177, 183 - 184, 199;
dividual, 207; primacy of the, 206 animal, 65; artificial, 133; body, 64;
Individuation, 3, 7, 32, 35, 84,106,111 constructivistic, 20; daily, 81;
- 112, 115, 117, 123, 129,206; in- everyday, 21; formal, 27; gesture,
dividuative force, 114 66; ideal, 109; internal, 155; learn-
Indivisible, 5 ing of, 113, 115, 118,119, 126, 129,
Induction, 38, 194 - 195, 197 - 199 132, 136, 148, 155, 164, 174, 178;
Infinity, 17,22 - 23, 40,107,149 -150; logical, 34; mental, 163; natural, 49,
infinite regress, 13, 16 62, 155, 157; of thought, 154, 156 -
Ingredient, 105, 107; sole, 105 157, 162 - 163; ordinary, 3, 34, 40-
Innate, 137 - 138, 146 43,76,95,100,102,109,116,154,
Instantiation, 85 - 86, 111 - 112, 187, 203; pre-linguistic, 61; production,
193, 196 - 197,206; particular, 130 152; sign, 148; symbolic, 66; use
Instinct, 62, 70, 74,125,127,146 (common of), 197; verbal, 61, 147;
Instrumentalism, 207 word,64
Intellect, 85, 134 Largeault, J., 24
Intension, 4, 20, 26 - 27, 46, 49, 53, 55 Lashly, K., 150
- 58, 61, 66 - 68, 84, 88,90 - 91, 94, Lateral information, 63, 66
118, 122, 140, 149, 151 - 152, 161, Latin Averroists, 182, 184
179 Laudan, L., 27
INDEX 247
Law, 30, 189; laws of logic, 1,45,83; theory of, 156, 177; postulates, 157;
laws of nature, 1; of the U nifonnity stimulus, 151
of Nature, 194 - 195, 198 Mental, 50, 139, 141, 144, 146, 152,
Learning, 114, 116 - 117, 125 - 126, 174; act, 69; entity, 53, 159; object,
164; concept, 154; perceptual, 154; 168; process, 152, 161; quality, 69;
process, 77,146 states, 145, 149, 153, 164
Leff. 0 .. 47. 69. 86. J82 - 183. J89 - 193 Mentalism. J13
Leibniz, G.W., 97 Mereology, 93, 101; mereological set,
Leonard, H.S., 93 - 94, 99 - 100 96
Leonardo da Vinci, 140 Metaphysics, 10 - 15,21,83, 142, 183
Lesniewski, S., 93 - 94, 96, 100 - 101, Methodology of science, 40
103 - 105, 107,219 Miller, J.G., 75
Levi-Strauss, Cl., 77 Modality, 52, 184 - 187
Lewis, c.1., 111, 149 Mode; formal, 10 - 11; material, 10
Locke, J., 135 - 139, 163 Munitz, K., 80
Logic, 6, 8, 11,22,32 - 34, 40 - 41, 43, Name, 25,42,45,90 - 91,137; general,
56,64,81,83,94-95,100,116,138, 17, 46, 50, 87, 95 - 96, 136; logical,
146, 151, 157, 183 - 184, 191, 195, 42 - 44, 49; of person, 130; par-
200, 206; dialectical, 34; formal, 36, ticular, 50, 136; proper, 17, 20, 25,
41; logical abstraction, 91; logical 33,42 - 46, 49, 51, 95,117
type, 99 - 100; modal, 26; nominalis- Nature, 2, 12 - 13, 87,206
tic, 41; of "Principia Mathematica", Necessity, 1, 84, 183 - 189, 191 - 192,
14, 17, 22, 26, 36; of classes, 36; of 194 - 195; logical, 186, 192, 201;
wholes and parts, 36; paraconsistent, natural, 192; necessary connection,
34; See also Logical language 206
Logical empiricism, 19, 21 - 22, 181, Nervous System, 72, 142, 150,169
207,209 Neurobiology, 152, 157 - 158, 160 -
Lorenz, K., 71 - 76,206 161,164,175; neurobiological map-
Loux, MJ., 48 ping, 169; neurobiological model,
Luschei, E.C., 93, 95, 100 159, 161, 168; See also Neuropsy-
Mach, E., 142 chology
Malpighi, M., 141 Neuron, 4, 143 - 145, 153, 161, 163 -
Map, 39, 110, 123 - 124, 173 - 174 164,166; grandmother, 161
Marr, D., 218 Neutrality; ontological, 10, 12
Materialism, 142 Nominalism, 1,4 - 8, 11- 12, 14, 19,22
Materiality, 121, 141 - 24, 26, 28, 34, 36, 39 - 40, 53, 82,
Mathematics, 24, 36, 45, 116; 88,93 - 94, 96 - 97, 112, 124, 133,
philosophy of mathematics, 23 139, 173, 181 - 182, 195,207,210;
Matter, 82, 84, 129, 193; masses, 114; constructivistic, 1; contemporary, 1,
stuff,116 61,77,85,181,194,205; medieval,
Meaning, 19 - 20, 22, 24 - 25, 33, 41 - 59, 79; nominalistic system, 3, 11;
42,44,48 - 49, 53 - 57, 59, 61 - 64, nominalistic tradition, 10; tradition-
67,77,92,132,136,150,157,173, al, 1,4,7,19 - 20, 24, 27,39,61,77,
175 -176,178-179, 183; dictionary 181,205 - 206, 210; transcendental,
210
248 INDEX
Numerically one, 5,86 - 87, 97, 134 Pears, D., 25

Object, 23, 25, 40, 44, 48, 129, 139 - Perception, 4, 6, 34, 39, 72 - 74, 80, 83,
140; abstract, 88; defmite, 45 - 46; 85, 124 - 125, 129, 132, 134 - 135,
indefinite, 45, 46; of the mind, 69; 137 - 138, 158, 173, 190 - 191,211;
physical, 116, 119 pure, 196
Observation, 4,6, 10,29,63, 114, 149, Phenomenalism, 3, 109
181,209 - 211; of the individual, 29 Physicalism, 3, 152
Ockham's razor, 61 Piaget,1., 146 - 147,208
Ockham, William of, 1,4,7,10,12 -14, Pike, K.L., 63
35,47,49 - 52, 61, 68 - 69,73,80, Place, 3, 28, 35, 106, 110 - 112, 123 -
83 - 85, 87 - 88,95 - 97, 101, 104, 124, 206; place-time, 3
109, 124, 134 - 137, 140,156, 179, Plato, 5,14,16,79,109,111,207
182 - 194, 196,201 - 202, 206, 212 Platonism, 89, 112, 184
- 213, 216 - 217, 227, 229 Porphyry, 6 - 7, 56
Oleron, P., 148 Port Royal logicians, 90
Omnipotence, 80 Positivism, 36, 39; See also Neo-
TheOne, 5 positivism
Ontology, 1,3 - 6, 12, 14 - 18,21,27 - Possible, 28, 52 - 53, 90,149,187 - 188,
28, 40 - 41, 45, 53, 71, 75 - 76, 81, 195; divine possibility, 185; logical
83,94,97,100,110,115 - 116, 119, possibility, 185; natural possibility,
192, 194, 207; minimal, 35; on- 185; non-possibles, 28; possible en-
tological assumptions, 8, 10; on- titity,28,30; possibles, 28; world,
tological commitment, 11, 14 - 15, 185
23, 25, 31 - 32, 95; ontological Potentiality, 83, 184, 187,202
criterion, 15,23, 31 - 32, 85; on- Powers, J., 205
tological implications, 15, 17, 20, Pre-conceptual, 70, 73, 76
24,79; ontological import, 13,43,44; Pre-cultural,70
ontological neutrality, 8,11,21,24; Pre-linguistic, 4, 60,68,70 - 71, 74, 76
ontological presupposition, 4, 16,28 - 77,113,127,129, 132, 137, 146,
Operationalism, 207 154 - 155, 173, 176, 198 - 199
Ordained power (of God), 185 Predicate, 3, 5, 26, 31, 38,44 - 45, 48 -
Ostension, 58, 114; ostensive defini- 50, 81, 88,95, 120, 188, 197, 199,
tion,9 203; accidental, 187 - 188; attribu-
Paradox, 18,22,36, 117 tive, 186 - 188; causal, 201 - 203;
Parmenides, 80 collective, 94; distributive, 94; es-
Pan, 35 - 36, 88, 94,101,103,105 -106, sential, 186,201; impure, 106,112;
206; individual, 105 of existence, 185;
Particular(s), singular(s), 3, 5 - 9, 13 - Prediction, 30, 38, 194, 197, 199,201 -
14,23,26,30,35 - 36, 84 - 86,109, 202
118 - 126, 136, 163, 195,206 - 207; Premiss, 6, 191 - 192
bare, 84; (epistemological) primacy Pribram, K., 165
of the particular, 14,26,46; pre-par- Principle of the identity of indiscer-
ticular, 120 nables, 96,97,104,111; of the pri-
Particularistic, 112 macy of the particular/individual, 2,
Pavlow, I.P., 62 186, 192; of verifiability, 10
INDEX 249
Probability, 195 Reference, 17,23,26,31,33,42 - 43,

Product of the mind, 83,109,135,194, 48 - 49, 51 - 52, 55, 63, 92, 113, 115,
206 117, 155; objective, 119
Projection, 197 - 199,201 Regularity, 38
Property, 22 - 23, 25, 28, 34 - 35, 48,85 Relation, 7, 25,42, 89,98, 185 - 186;
- 87,91,96 - 97, 104 multigrade, 99
Proposition, 10, 19, 48, 50 - 51, 120; Relative clause, 117
causal, 194, 199 Relativism, 38 - 39, 107, 109 - 110,208
Putnam, H., 210 Repeatable, 34 - 36, 111, 120, 140, 181,
Qualia, 3, 38, 107 - 108, 110 - 112, 119, 206
123,181,206 Representation, 158 -159,165,174,178
Quality, 18,25,34 - 36, 58, 73,86 - 87, - 179,209 - 211; internal, 158; men-
90, 98, 118, 199, 206; accidental, tal, 172; pictorial, 158
189,199 - 201, 203; essential, 6,186 Richards, R.C., 190
- 189, 193, 199 - 200, 203 - 204; RNAt,167
general, 206; necessary, 200 - 201, Rocci, G., 211
204 Roggen, D., 224
Quantification, 14, 17,25,29, 38,45, Roscelinus of Compiegne, 6, 61
49, 116 - 117; objectual, 117 - 118; Russell, B., 2, 14, 17,22 - 26, 32, 34 -
substitutional, 38, 117 - 118 35,43 - 44,95,117,214
Quantity, 103, 105 - 106 Saint Anselm, 6
Quasi; analysis, 9,97 - 98; constituents, Saint Augustine, 79, 183, 191
9 Saint Thomas, 80, 83, 85
object, 8 - 9, 20; Scepticism, 4, 17,39,82, 144, 181 - 184,
Quidditas, 6, 81 - 82, 84 186 - 187, 189 - 192,206
Quine, W.V.O., 1 - 4, 7 - 8, 10 - 12, 14 Schlesinger, I.M., 132
- 24, 26 - 32, 34 - 37, 43 - 46, 49, 53, Schopenhauer, A., 74, 203
61 - 64, 67 - 69, 71, 74 - 79, 83, 88, Science, 9 - 10, 12 - 13, 15,27,29 - 30,
94 - 95, 97,100 - 101,112 - 114, 116 32 - 33,40,42,49,71,75 - 76, 82-
- 121, 123, 126, 129 - 130, 132, 145, 84, 110, 142 - 143, 159, 187 - 189,
149 - 151, 161, 176, 181- 182, 188, 191, 196, 199,203,205,207 - 209,
196,198 - 199,202- 203, 206 - 207, 211; actual, 83; first, 6, 12; scientific
209 - 210 theory, 16, 116, 146, 151,205
Radical translation, 63, 67, 151, 176, Scientist, 28
210 Scott, T.K., 187 - 190
Ramuz, G.-F., 161 Semantics, 19 - 20, 41, 43, 47,50,64,
Ratiomorph, 72 - 73, 125, 206 67,146,151,175,178; linguistic, 3;
Rational, 73 - 74 logical, 3, 42, 49, 53
Rationalism, 5,132, 139, 196 Sensation, 7, 138 - 140; sense organ, 137
Realism, 4, 11,24, 76, 112, 181 - 182, Sense, 42,49, 56, 85, 190
186,202,209 Sentence; observation, 63 - 64, 67; oc-
Reality, 5, 109 - 110,210 casion, 67; standing, 63; stimulus
Reason, 80, 146 analytic, 64
Reductionism, 152, 156, 159 Severens, R.H., 30 - 31
Siger of Brabant, 12, 184
250 INDEX
Sign, 20, 42, 44, 47,49,65; convention- connotative, 52; conventional, 47 -

al, 47, 64; linguistic, 50; mental, 50; 48,69; discrete, 51, 86; disposition,
natural, 49 - 50, 64, 69; pictorial, 65; 202; general, 3,17,20,24,42,44-
verbal, 50 45, 51, 56, 87,91, 112, 115 - 117,
Signal, 67 120, 123, 129, 134, 140; individua-
Signification, 33, 48, 50 - 53, 55, 65, 87 tive, 116; linguistic, 44; mass, 3,116
Similarity, 138 - 139, 198,200 -117,126; mental, 48, 69, 205; mid-
Skinner, B.P., 144, 150 dle, 192,201; natural, 47; particular,
Software, 160, 165, 171 3,24,42,45,51,56 - 57,91, 112,
Space, 103, 120 115, 117, 120, 123, 134 - 135; rela-
Speaker, native, 32, 50,62, 68, 149; tional, 3; singular, 26, 29, 49, 116,
Species, 5, 12, 14,30, 74, 83, 85, 188; 118; sortal, 3; univocal, 48; vocal, 69
genera of, 96; infima, 84; specialis- Terminist,7
sima, 83, 85, 87,96, 192; Theology, 12 - 13,80,83,182, 184, 190
Spike-train, 167 Theory, 181, 209; linguistic, 64; of
Spiritualism, 142 description, 17,23,25; oflanguage
Stem, D., 128 learning, 3; of quantification, 23, 25
Strawson, P.P., 3, 21, 32 - 33, 48, 92, - 26, 28, 30, 32; of signification, 24,
111, 120 - 124 48 - 49; of supposition, 24, 48 - 49,
Stuff, 206; See also matter 68; of the double truth, 182; of the
Subject, 44, 48 - 50,81 name relation, 22, 46; of types, 18
Substance, 2, 16,35,52,81 - 83, 187 - Thing, 80 - 81, 102, 178; concrete, 206;
188, 193; first, 35, 86 - 87; primary, individual, 199
81; second, 86, 88; secondary, 81, Thought, 5 - 6, 47, 60, 69, 74 -75,135,
121 139, 144, 147 - 148, 153, 158, 163 -
Sums, 57, 94 - 95, 99, 105, 108, 119, 164; levels of, 71
122, 206; of classes, 103; of in- Time, 3, 28, 35, 103, 106, 110 - 112,
dividuals, 1; of qualities, 36; of their 120, 123 - 124,206; place-time, 120
parts, 97,101 - 104, 120 Transcendence, 10, 14,80
Supposition, 33, 50, 86; common, 52; Tricot, J., 82 - 83
confused, 51 - 52; determinate, 51 - Tronick, E., 127
52; discrete, 52; distributive, 51 - 52; Truth value, 53 - 54
general, 51; material, 50, 53, 135; Ullian, J.S., 198,202
particular, 51; personal, 50 - 53,135; Universal(s), 3, 6 -7,19,23 - 24, 35, 61,
simple, 50, 135 82 - 83, 86, 94, 115, 123 - 124, 134
Syllogism, 191 - 135, 139 - 140, 183 - 184, 193 -
Symptom, 65, 67 194, 206; characterizing, 88, 120 -
Synaps, 166; theory, 166 121, 199, 206; feature, 120 - 122;
Syncategoremata, 49 sortal, 88, 120 - 122, 199,206
Synergetics, 168 Uttal, W.R., 164, 167
Syntax, 157, 175, 178 Van Leeuwenhoek, A., 141
Synthetic, 11, 18,43,53 Variable, 14, 17 - 18, 31, 36, 85, 88, 108,
Term, 19, 33, 47, 50; absolute, 52; 116, 118; bound, 31 - 32; free, 49;
abstract, 92,116; categorematic, 24, quantifiable, 28; value of, 3, 14,45,
55; characterizing, 3; common, 51; 88,95
INDEX 251
Verbum; mentis, 4, 47, 49, 53, 69, 77, Whole, totality, 35 - 36,100,102 - 103,
134,140,154,179;oris,4,47,134- 105, 107, 114
135, 140, 179 Whorf, B.L., 149, 176
Verifiability, 145, 151,207,209 - 210 Wiener Kreis, 8
Verification, 4; See also Theory of Wiesel, N., 225
Vesalius, 140 Willis, Th., 141
Vester, E, 163 Word, 73, 178; first, 129; general, 126;
Vicious circle, 6, 31,144, 190, 195 spoken, 65
von Neurath, 0., 19 World, 39, 43, 60, 110, 181
Wallace, G., 77 Worldview, 38,71, 183
Wasserman, G.D., 159, 164, 168 - 169, Wren, ehr., 141
171 - 173, 175 - 178
Weinberg, J.R., 2, 7, 87
Whitehead, A.N., 14,23
SYNTHESE LffiRARY
41. Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Pragmatics of Natural Languages. 1971

ISBN 90-277-0194-6; Pb 90-277-0599-2
42. S. Stenlund, Combinators, 'A.-Terms and Proof Theory. 1972 ISBN 90-277-0305-1
43. M. Strauss, Modern Physics and Its Philosophy. Selected Paper in the Logic,
History, and Philosophy of Science. 1972 ISBN 90-277-0230-6
44. M. Bunge, Method, Model and Matter. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0252-7
45. M. Bunge, Philosophy of Physics. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0253-5
46. A. A. Zihov'ev, Foundations of the Logical Theory of Scientific Knowledge
(Complex Logic). Revised and enlarged English edition with an appendix by G. A.
Smimov, E. A. Sidorenka, A. M. Fedina and L. A. Bobrova. [Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, Vol. IX] 1973 ISBN 90-277-0193-8; Pb 90-277-0324-8
47. L. Tondl, Scientific Procedures. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
Vol. X] 1973 ISBN 90-277-0147-4; Pb 90-277-0323-X
48. N. R. Hanson, Constellations and Conjectures. Ed. by W. C. Humphreys, Jr. 1973
ISBN 90-277-0192-X
49. K. J. J. Hintikka, J. M. E. Moravcsik and P. Suppes (eds.), Approaches to Natural
Language. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0220-9; Pb 90-277-0233-0
50. M. Bunge (ed.), Exact Philosophy. Problems, Tools and Goals. 1973
ISBN 90-277-0251-9
51. R. J. Bogdan and I. Niiniluoto (eds.), Logic, Language and Probability. 1973
ISBN 90-277-0312-4
52. G. Pearce and P. Maynard (eds.), Conceptual Change. 1973
ISBN 90-277-0287-X; Pb 90-277-0339-6
53. I. Niiniluoto and R. Tuomela, Theoretical Concepts and Hypothetico-inductive
Inference. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0343-4
54. R. Fraisse, Course of Mathematical Logic - Volume 1: Relation and Logical
Formula. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0268-3; Pb 90-277-0403-1
(For Volume 2 see under Nr. 69).
55. A. Griinbaum, Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. 2nd enlarged ed. [Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XII] 1973
ISBN 90-277-0357-4; Pb 90-277-0358-2
56. P. Suppes (ed.), Space, Time and Geometry. 1973
ISBN 90-277-0386-8; Pb 90-277-0442-2
57. H. Kelsen, Essays in Legal and Moral Philosophy. Selected and introduced by O.
Weinberger. 1973 ISBN 90-277-0388-4
58. R. J. Seeger and R. S. Cohen (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of Science. [Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XI] 1974
ISBN 90-277-0390-6; Pb 90-277-0376-0
59. R. S. Cohen and M. W. Wartofsky (eds.), Logical and Epistemological Studies in
Contemporary Physics. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XIII]
1973 ISBN 90-277-0391-4; Pb 90-277-0377-9
60. R. S. Cohen and M. W. Wartofsky (eds.), Methodological and Historical Essays in
the Natural and Social Sciences. Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the
Philosophy of Science, 1969-1972. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
Vol. XIV] 1974 ISBN 90-277-0392-2; Pb 90-277-0378-7
61. R. S. Cohen, J. J. Stachel and M. W. Wartofsky (eds.), For Dirk Struik. Scientific,
Historical and Political Essays. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
Vol. XV] 1974 ISBN 90-277-0393-0; Pb 90-277-0379-5
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62. K. Ajdukiewicz, Pragmatic Logic. Transl. from Polish by O. Wojtasiewicz. 1974

ISBN 90-277-0326-4
63. S. Stenlund (ed.), Logical Theory and Semantic Analysis. Essays dedicated to Stig
Kanger on His 50th Birthday. 1974 ISBN 90-277-0438-4
64. K. F. Schaffner and R. S. Cohen (eds.), PSA 1972. Proceedings of the Third
Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. [Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, Vol. XX] 1974 ISBN 90-277-0408-2; Ph 90-277-0409-0
65. H. E. Kyburg, Jr., The Logical Foundations of Statistical Inference. 1974
ISBN 90-277-0330-2; Ph 90-277-0430-9
66. M. Grene, The Understanding of Nature. Essays in the Philosophy of Biology.
[Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXIII] 1974
ISBN 90-277-0462-7; Pb 90-277-0463-5
67. J. M. Broekman, Structuralism: Moscow, Prague, Paris. 1974
ISBN 90-277-0478-3
68. N. Geschwind, Selected Papers on Language and the Brain. [Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, Vol. XVI] 1974 ISBN 90-277-0262-4; Ph 90-277-0263-2
69. R. Fraisse, Course of Mathematical Logic - Volume 2: Model Theory. 1974
ISBN 90-277-0269-1; Pb 90-277-0510-0
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70. A. Grzegorczyk, An Outline of Mathematical Logic. Fundamental Results and
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71. F. von Kutschera, Philosophy of Language. 1975 ISBN 90-277-0591-7
72. J. Manninen and R. Tuomela (eds.), Essays on Explanation and Understanding.
Studies in the Foundations of Humanities and Social Sciences. 1976
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73. J. Hintikka (ed.), Rudolf Carnap, Logical Empiricist. Materials and Perspectives.
1975 ISBN 90-277-0583-6
74. M. Capek (ed.), The Concepts of Space and Time. Their Structure and Their
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75. J. Hintikka and U. Remes, The Method of Analysis. Its Geometrical Origin and Its
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1974 ISBN 90-277-0532-1; Pb 90-277-0543-7
76. J. E. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla (eds.), The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning.
[Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXVI] 1975
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77. S. Amsterdamski, Between Experience and Metaphysics. Philosophical Problems of
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Vol. XXXV] 1975 ISBN 90-277-0568-2; Ph 90-277-0580-1
78. P. Suppes (ed.), Logic and Probability in Quantum Mechanics. 1976
ISBN 90-277-0570-4
79. H. von Helmholtz: Epistemological Writings. The Paul Hertz/Moritz Schlick
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translated by M. F. Lowe. Edited, with an Introduction and Bibliography, by R. S.
Cohen and Y. Elkana. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXXVm
1975 ISBN 90-277-0290-X; Ph 90-277-0582-8
80. J. Agassi, Science in Flux. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
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81. S. G. Harding (ed.), Can Theories Be Refuted? Essays on the Duhem-Quine Thesis.
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82. S. Nowak, Methodology of Sociological Research. General Problems. 1977
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83. J. Piaget, J.-B. Grize, A. Szemiriska, and V. Bang, Epistemology and Psychology of
Functions. 1977 ISBN 90-277-0804-5
84. M. Grene and E. Mendelsohn (eds.), Topics in the Philosophy of Biology. [Boston
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ISBN 90-277-0595-X; Pb 90-277-0596-8
85. E. Fischbein, The Intuitive Sources of Probabilistic Thinking in Children. 1975
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86. E. W. Adams, The Logic of Conditionals. An Application of Probability to
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87. M. Przelec;;ki and R. W6jcicki (eds.), Twenty-Five Years of Logical Methodology in
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88. J. Topolski, The Methodology of History. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0550-X
89. A. Kasher (ed.), Language in Focus: Foundations, Methods and Systems. Essays
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90. J. Hintikka, The Intentions of Intentionality and Other New Models for Modalities.
1975 ISBN 90-277-0633-6; Pb 90-277-0634-4
91. W. StegmiiIler, Collected Papers on Epistemology, Philosophy of Science and
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92. D. M. Gabbay, Investigations in Modal and Tense Logics with Applications to
Problems in Philosophy and Linguistics. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0656-5
93. R. J. Bogdan, Local Induction. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0649-2
94. S. NOWak, Understanding and Prediction. Essays in the Methodology of Social and
Behavioral Theories. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0558-5
95. P. Mittelstaedt, Philosophical Problems of Modern Physics. [Boston Studies in the
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96. G. Holton and W. A. Blanpied (eds.), Science and Its Public: The Changing
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ISBN 90-277-0657-3; Pb 90-277-0658-1
97. M. Brand and D. Walton (eds.), Action Theory. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0671-9
98. P. Gochet, Outline of a Nominalist Theory of Proposition. An Essay in the Theory of
Meaning. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1031-7
99. R. S. Cohen, P. K. Peyerabend, and M. W. Wartofsky (eds.), Essays in Memory of
Imre Lakatos. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXXIX] 1976
ISBN 90-277-0654-9; Pb 90-277-0655-7
100. R. S. Cohen and J. J. Stachel (eds.), Selected Papers of Leon Rosenfield. [Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXI] 1979
ISBN 90-277-0651-4; Pb 90-277-0652-2
101. R. S. Cohen, C. A. Hooker, A. C. Michalos and J. W. van Evra (eds.), PSA 1974.
Proceedings of the 1974 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association.
[Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXXII] 1976
ISBN 90-277-0647-6; Pb 90-277-0648-4
102. Y. Fried and J. Agassi, Paranoia. A Study in Diagnosis. [Boston Studies in the
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103. M. Przele«ki, K. Szaniawski and R. Wojcicki (eds.), Formal Methods in the

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104. J. M. Vickers, Belief and Probability. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0744-8
105. K. H. Wolff, Surrender and Catch. Experience and Inquiry Today. [Boston Studies
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106. K. Kosik, Dialectics of the Concrete. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
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107. N. Goodman, The Structure of Appearance. 3rd ed., 1977 [Boston Studies in the
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108. Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, The Scientific World-Perspective and Other Essays, 1931-
1963. Edited and with an Introduction by J. Giedymin. 1978 ISBN 90-277-0527-5
109. R. L. Causey, Unity of Science. 1977 ISBN 90-277-0779-0
110. R. E. Grandy, Advanced Logic for Applications. 1977 ISBN 90-277-0781-2
111. R. P. McArthur, Tense Logic. 1976 ISBN 90-277-0697-2
112. L. Lindahl, Position and Change. A Study in Law and Logic. 1977
ISBN 90-277-0787-1
113. R. Tuomela, Dispositions. 1978. ISBN 90-277-081O-X
114. H. A. Simon, Models of Discovery and Other Topics in the Methods of Science.
[Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. LIV] 1977
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115. R. D. Rosenkrantz, Inference, Method and Decision. Towards a Bayesian
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116. R. Tuomela, Human Action and Its Explanation. A Study on the Philosophical
Foundations of Psychology. 1977 ISBN 90-277-0824-X
117. M. Lazerowitz, The Language of Philosophy. Freud and Wittgenstein. [Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. LV]. 1977
ISBN 90-277-0826-6; Pb 90-277-0862-2
118. Not published
119. J. Pelc, Semiotics in Poland, 1894-1969. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0811-8
120. I. Porn, Action Theory and Social Science. Some Formal Models. 1977
ISBN 90-277-0846-0
121. J. Margolis, Persons and Mind. The Prospects of Nonreductive Materialism. [Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. LVII]. 1977
ISBN 90-277-0854-1; Ph 90-277-0863-0
122. 1. Hintikka, I. Niiniluoto, and E. Saarinen (eds.), Essays on Mathematical and
Philosophical Logic. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0879-7
123. T. A. F. Kuipers, Studies in Inductive Probability and Rational Expectation. 1978
ISBN 90-277-0882-7
124. E. Saarinen, R. Hilpinen, I. Niiniluoto and M. P. Hintikka (eds.), Essays in Honour
oflaakko Hintikka on the Occasion of His 50th Birthday. 1979
ISBN 90-277-0916-5
125. G. Radnitzky and G. Andersson (eds.), Progress and Rationality in Science. [Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. LVIII] 1978
ISBN 90-277-0921-1; Pb 90-277-0922-X
126. P. Mittelstaedt, Quantum Logic. 1978 ISBN 90-277-0925-4
127. K. A. Bowen, Model Theory for Modal Logic. Kripke Models for Modal Predicate
Calculi. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0929-7
SYNTHESE LffiRARY
128. H. A. Bursen, Dismantling the Memory Machine. A Philosophical Investigation of

Machine Theories of Memory. 1978 ISBN 90-277-0933-5
129. M. W. Wartofsky, Models, Representation and the Scientific Understanding.
[Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XLVIII.] 1979
ISBN 90-277-0736-7; Pb 90-277-0947-5
130. D. Ibde, Technics and Praxis. A Philosophy of Technology. [Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXIV] 1979 ISBN 90-277-0953-X; Ph 90-277-0954-8
131. J. J. Wiatr (ed.), Polish Essays in the Methodology of the Social Sciences. [Boston
Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXIX] 1979
ISBN 90-277-0723-5; Ph 90-277-0956-4
132. W. C. Salmon (ed.), Hans Reichenbach: Logical Empiricist. 1979
ISBN 90-277-0958-0
133. P. Bieri, R.-P. Horstmann and L. Kruger (eds.), Transcendental Arguments in
Science. Essays in Epistemology. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0963-7; Pb 90-277-0964-5
134. M. Markovic and G. Petrovic (eds.), Praxis. Yugoslav Essays in the Philosophy and
Methodology of the Social Sciences. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
Vol. XXXVI]. 1979 ISBN 90-277-0727-8; Ph 90-277-0968-8
135. R. W6jcicki, Topics in the Formal Methodology of Empirical Sciences. 1979
ISBN 90-277-1004-X
136. G. Radnitzky and G. Andersson (eds.), The Structure and Development of Science.
[Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. LIX] 1979
ISBN 90-277-0994-7; Ph 90-277-0995-5
137. J. C. Webb, Mechanism, Mentalism and Metamathematics. An Essay on Finitism.
1980 ISBN 90-277-1046-5
138. D. F. Gustafson and B. L. Tapscott (eds.), Body, Mind and Method. Essays in Honor
of Virgil C. Aldrich. 1979 ISBN 90-277-1013-9
139. L. Nowak, The Structure of Idealization. Towards a Systematic Interpretation of the
Marxian Idea of Science. 1980 ISBN 90-277-1014-7
140. C. Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities. Essays on Rhetoric and Its
Applications. 1979 ISBN 90-277-1018-X; Pb 90-277-1019-8
141. W. Rabinowicz, Universalizability. A Study in Morals and Metaphysics. 1979
ISBN 90-277-1020-2
142. C. Perelman, Justice, Law and Argument. Essays on Moral and Legal Reasoning.
1980 ISBN 90-277-1089-9; Pb 90-277-1090-2
143. S. Kanger and S. Ohman (eds.), Philosophy and Grammar. Papers on the Occasion
of the Quincentennial of Uppsala University. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1091-0
144. T. Pawlowski, Concept Formation in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. 1980
ISBN 90-277-1096-1
145. J. Hintikka, D. Gruender and E. Agazzi (eds.), Theory Change, Ancient Axiomatics
and Galileo's Methodology.
Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science,
Volume I. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1126-7
146. J. Hintikka, D. Gruender and E. Agazzi (eds.), Probabilistic Thinking, Ther-
modynamics, and the Interaction of the History and Philosophy of Science.
Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science,
Volume II. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1127-5
147. U. Monnich (ed.), Aspects of Philosophical Logic. Some Logical Forays into Central
Notions of Linguistics and Philosophy. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1201-8
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148. D. M. Gabbay, Semantical Investigations in Heyting's Intuitionistic Logic. 1981

ISBN 90-277-1202-6
149. E. Agazzi (ed.), Modern Logic-A Survey. Historical, Philosophical, and Mathemati-
cal Aspects of Modern Logic and Its Applications. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1137-2
150. A. F. Parker-Rhodes, The Theory of Indistinguishables. A Search for Explanatory
Principles below the Level of Physics. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1214-X
151. J. C. Pitt, Pictures, Images, and Conceptual Change. An Analysis of Wilfrid Sellars'
Philosophy of Science. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1276-X; Pb 90-277-1277-8
152. R. Hilpinen (ed.), New Studies in Deontic Logic. Norms, Actions, and the Founda-
tions of Ethics. 1981 ISBN 90-277-1278-6; Ph 90-277-1346-4
153. C. Dilworth, Scientific Progress. A Study Concerning the Nature of the Relation
between Successive Scientific Theories. 2nd, rev. and augmented ed., 1986
ISBN 90-277-2215-3; Ph 90-277-2216-1
154. D. W. Smith and R. McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality. A Study of Mind,
Meaning, and Language. 1982 ISBN 90-277-1392-8; Pb 90-277-1730-3
155. R. J. Nelson, The Logic of Mind. 2nd. ed., 1989
ISBN 90-277-2819-4; Pb 90-277-2822-4
156. J. F. A. K. van Benthem, The Logic of Time. A Model-Theoretic Investigation into
the Varieties of Temporal Ontology, and Temporal Discourse. 1983
ISBN 90-277-1421-5
157. R. Swinburne (ed.), Space, Time and Causality. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1437-1
158. E. T. Jaynes, Papers on Probability, Statistics and Statistical Physics. Ed. by R. D.
Rozenkrantz.1983 ISBN 90-277-1448-7; Pb (1989) 0-7923-0213-3
159. T. Chapman, Time: A Philosophical Analysis. 1982 ISBN 90-277-1465-7
160. E. N. Zalta, Abstract Objects. An Introduction to Axiomatic Metaphysics. 1983
ISBN 90-277-1474-6
161. S. Harding and M. B. Hintikka (eds.), Discovering Reality. Feminist Perspectives on
Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science. 1983
ISBN 90-277-1496-7; Pb 90-277-1538-6
162. M. A. Stewart (ed.), Law, Morality and Rights. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1519-X
163. D. Mayr and G. Siissmann (eds.), Space, Time, and Mechanics. Basic Structures of a
Physical Theory. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1525-4
164. D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic. Vol. I:
Elements of Classical Logic. 1983 ISBN 90-277-1542-4
165. D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic. Vol. II:
Extensions of Classical Logic. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1604-8
166. D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic. Vol. III:
Alternative to Classical Logic. 1986 ISBN 90-277-1605-6
167. D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic. Vol. IV:
Topics in the Philosophy of Language. 1989 ISBN 90-277-1606-4
168. A. J. I. Jones, Communication and Meaning. An Essay in Applied Modal Logic.
1983 ISBN 90-277-1543-2
169. M. Fitting, Proof Methods for Modal and Intuitionistic Logics. 1983
ISBN 90-277-1573-4
170. J. Margolis, Culture and Cultural Entities. Toward a New Unity of Science. 1984
ISBN 90-277-1574-2
171. R. Tuomela, A Theory of Social Action. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1703-6
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
172. J. J. E. Gracia, E. Rabossi, E. Villanueva and M. Dascal (eds.), Philosophical

Analysis in Latin America. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1749-4
173. P. Ziff, Epistemic Analysis. A Coherence Theory of Knowledge. 1984
ISBN 90-277-1751-7
174. P. Ziff,Antiaesthetics. An Appreciation of the Cow with the Subtile Nose. 1984
ISBN 90-277-1773-7
175. W. Balzer, D. A. Pearce, and H.-J. Schmidt (eds.), Reduction in Science. Structure,
Examples, Philosophical Problems. 1984 ISBN 90-277-1811-3
176. A. Peczenik, L. Lindahl and B. van Roermund (eds.), Theory of Legal Science.
Proceedings of the Conference on Legal Theory and Philosophy of Science, Lund,
Sweden, 11-14 December 1983.1984 ISBN 90-277-1834-2
177. I. Niiniluoto, Is Science Progressive? 1984 ISBN 90-277-1835-0
178. B. K. Matilal and J. L. Shaw (eds.), Analytical Philosophy in Comparative
Perspective. Exploratory Essays in Current Theories and Classical Indian Theories
of Meaning and Reference. 1985 ISBN 90-277-1870-9
179. P. Kroes, Time: Its Structure and Role in Physical Theories. 1985
ISBN 90-277-1894-6
180. J. H. Fetzer, Sociobiology and Epistemology. 1985
ISBN 90-277-2005-3; Pb 90-277-2006-1
181. L. Haaparanta and J. Hintikka, Frege Synthesized. Essays on the Philosophical and
Foundational Work of Gottlob Frege. 1986 ISBN 90-277-2126-2
182. M. Detlefsen, Hilbert's Program. An Essay on Mathematical Instrumentalism. 1986
ISBN 90-277-2151-3
183. J. L. Golden and J. J. Pilotta (eds.), Practical Reasoning in Human Affairs. Studies
in Honor of Chaim Perelman. 1986 ISBN 90-277-2255-2
184. H. Zandvoort, Models of Scientific Development and the Case of Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance. 1986 ISBN 90-277-2351-6
185. I. Niiniluoto, Truthlikeness. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2354-0
186. W. Balzer, C. U. Moulines and J. D. Sneed, An Architectonic for Science. The
Structuralist Program. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2403-2
187. D. Pearce, Roads to Commensurability. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2414-8
188. L. M. Vaina, Matters of Intelligence. Conceptual Structures in Cognitive Neuro-
science. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2460-1
189. H. Siegel, Relativism Refuted. A Critique of Contemporary Epistemological
Relativism. 1987 ISBN 90-277-2469-5
190. W. Callebaut and R. Pinxten, Evolutionary Epistemology. A Multiparadigm
Program, with a Complete Evolutionary Epistemology Bibliograph. 1987
ISBN 90-277-2582-9
191. J. Kmita, Problems in Historical Epistemology. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2199-8
192. J. H. Fetzer (ed.), Probability and Causality. Essays in Honor of Wesley C. Salmon.
1988 ISBN 90-277-2607-8; Pb 1-5560-8052-2
193. A. Donovan, L. Laudan and R. Laudan (eds.), Scrutinizing Science. Empirical
Studies of Scientific Change. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2608-6
194. H.R. Otto and lA. Tuedio (eds.), Perspectives on Mind. 1988
ISBN 90-277-264O-X
195. D. Batens and J.P. van Bendegem (eds.), Theory and Experiment. Recent Insights
and New Perspectives on Their Relation. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2645-0
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196. J. Osterberg, Self and Others. A Study of Ethical Egoism. 1988

ISBN 90-277-2648-5
197. D.H. Helman (ed.), Analogical Reasoning. Perspectives of Artificial Intelligence,
Cognitive Science, and Philosophy. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2711-2
198. J. Wolenski, Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School. 1989
ISBN 90-277-2749-X
199. R. W6jjcicki, Theory of Logical Calculi. Basic Theory of Consequence Operations.
1988 ISBN 90-277-2785-6
200. J. Hintikka and M.B. Hintikka, The Logic of Epistemology and the Epistemology of
Logic. Selected Essays. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0040-8; Pb 0-7923-0041-6
201. E. Agazzi (ed.), Probability in the Sciences. 1988 ISBN 90-277-2808-9
202. M. Meyer (ed.), From Metaphysics to Rhetoric. 1989 ISBN 90-277-2814-3
203. RL Tieszen, Mathematical Intuition. Phenomenology and Mathematical
Knowledge. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0131-5
204. A. Melnick, Space, Time, and Thought in Kant. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0135-8
205. D.W. Smith, The Circle of Acquaintance. Perception, Consciousness, and Empathy.
1989 ISBN 0-7923-0252-4
206. M.H. Salmon (ed.), The Philosophy of Logical Mechanism. Essays in Honor of
Arthur W. Burks. With his Responses, and with a Bibliography of Burk's Work.
1990 ISBN 0-7923-0325-3
207. M. Kusch, Language as Calculus vs. Language as Universal Medium. A Study in
HusserI, Heidegger, and Gadamer. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0333-4
208. T.C. Meyering, Historical Roots of Cognitive Science. The Rise of a Cognitive
Theory of Perception from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. 1989
ISBN 0-7923-0349-0
209. P. Kosso, Observability and Observation in Physical Science. 1989
ISBN 0-7923-0389-X
210. J. Kmita, Essays on the Theory of Scientific Cognition. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0441-1
211. W. Sieg (ed.), Acting and Reflecting. The Interdisciplinary Turn in Philosophy. 1990
ISBN 0-7923-0512-4
212. J. Karpinski, Causality in Sociological Research. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0546-9
213. H.A. Lewis (ed.), Peter Geach: Philosophical Encounters. 1990
ISBN 0-7923-0823-9
214. M. Ter Hark, Beyond the Inner and the Outer. Wittgenstein's Philosophy of
Psychology. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0850-6
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LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University

DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

1. Nominallsm. 2. Empiricism. 3. Quine, W. V. (Willard Van

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,

Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates

Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada

In all other countries, sold and distributed

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved

No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or

Though the subject of this work, "nominalism and contemporary nom-

CHAPTER 2 NOMINALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM 5

CHAPTER 3 ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY

CHAPTER 4 LOGICAL SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGY 40

CHAPTER 6 THE INDNIDUAL

CHAPTER 7 PARTICULAR AND GENERAL 109

CHAPTER 8 THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE

CHAPTER 9 NOMINALISM, EMPIRICISM AND

My subject is nominalism in general and contemporary nominalism in

Ockham's epistemology is based on the principle of the primacy of the

of extensionalism. Both authors have adopted a behaviouristically inspired

Extensionalism is considered to be the core of nominalism, because it

NOMINALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM

1. SOME OF THE MAIN PROBLEMS IN HISTORICAL

unavoidable. Still, we can be certain that, as an empiricist, he thought of

2. ANTI-METAPHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS, OR FROM

Carnap was a notorious anti-metaphysicist and herein he was very close to

distinguish them from other philosophical conceptions, which can be

3. A MINIMALlS TIC ONTOLOGICAL PROGRAM

That the principle of ontological neutrality has been renounced by

studied in the different sciences. Metaphysics is reduced, in this interpreta-

4. GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE NEW ONTOLOGY

Carnap, however, thought, as he explained in The Logical Structure of the

distinction between internal and external questions can be easily rendered

In conclusion a few words on the philosophy of everyday language and

ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY

I.ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT AND EMPIRISTIC

all undesirable ontological implications, to declare that mathematics is

Russell thought of names, whether general or particular, as denoting

2. "WOVON MAN NICHT SPRECHEN KANN, DAROBER MUSS

The theory of description and the theory of quantification have been

laakko Hintikka has devoted several articles to existential presupposi-

whereas in the system of Quine and Goodman it is only possible to speak

to an actually existing individual. Empty singular terms are excluded from

3. SCIENCE IS OF THE GENERAL

As previously mentioned, Jaakko Hintikka draws our attention to the lack

findings belong to historical times. When archaeologists found bones they

is not to be understood as what it logically entails, but what it suggests, what

tions, hypotheses, interpretations, beliefs, ontologies. That these elements

4. THINGS ARE SUMS OF QUALITIES

ligible, must both be regarded either as bundles of qualities and relations

5. EVOLUTION TOWARD CONVENTIONALISM

A nominalistic ontology, derived from logical and epistemological con-

whether it is possible to describe the world in terms of particulars. Whether

description of the world is a way of making a world. 48 This leads us to his

LOGICAL SEMANTICS AND ONTOLOGY

statements by correct reasoning. The statements were formulated in ordi-

ordinary language, the question remains whether scientific research and

1. GENERAL OUTLINE OF SOME BASIC PROBLEMS OF

shall be introduced as a proper name without being secured a reference".5