Abstract
The first two chapters examine Aristotle’s notion of existence and the allegation that he understood is to intrinsically involve ambiguity. Hintikka insists “that Aristotle may have been the only early philosopher who consciously considered the ambiguity thesis,” yet “he, too, rejected it”. Moreover, uncritical acceptance of the Frege-Russell view, which emphasizes inherent ambiguity in the is of predication, identity, existence, and class-inclusion in natural and most philosophical discourse, not only was unanticipated in any interesting manner by Kant, but has led prominent scholars toward unhistorical interpretations of Plato and Aristotle. Hintikka’s engagement with analytic approaches lends authority to his judgment that “there is no simple way of expressing Aristotelian existential assumptions in a modern logical notation,” and that “ambiguity is relative to a semantical framework”.