In this paper I propose a solution to the qualitative version of David Miller's verisimilitude reversal argument. Miller (1974) shows that verisimilitude rankings are relative to language choice and hence, are not objective. My solution stems from a reply to an earlier solution proposed by Eric Barnes (1991). Barnes argues that the verisimilitude reversal problem can be solved by revealing an epistemic dimension. I show that Miller's problem cannot be solved by side-stepping foundational metaphysical claims as his epistemic solution suggests. (...) Rather, a substantive metaphysical basis grounds identity relations among properties. The problem of verisimilitude cannot be solved without embracing the fundamental metaphysical distinctions between basic and composite properties that ground the relationship of partial identity among properties. (shrink)

Identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are fundamental philosophical concerns. Colin McGinn treats them both philosophically and logically, aiming for maximum clarity and minimum pointless formalism. He contends that there are real logical properties that challenge naturalistic metaphysical outlooks. These concepts are not definable, though we can say a good deal about how they work. The aim of Logical Properties is to bring philosophy back to philosophical logic.

Physicalists about the mind are committed to claims about property identities. Following Kripke's well-known discussion, modal arguments have emerged as major threats to such claims. This paper argues that modal arguments can be resisted by adopting a counterpart theoretic account of modal claims, and in particular modal claims involving properties. Thus physicalists have a powerful motive to adopt non-Kripkean accounts of the metaphysics of modality and the semantics of modal expressions.

Identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are fundamental philosophical concerns. Colin McGinn treats them both philosophically and logically, aiming for maximum clarity and minimum pointless formalism. He contends that there are real logical properties that challenge naturalistic metaphysical outlooks. These concepts are not definable, though we can say a good deal about how they work. The aim of Logical Properties is to bring philosophy back to philosophical logic.

'There is much food for thought in McGinn's discussions and each chapter is rich with a series of considerations for thinking that the currently received views on the various topics have some serious difficulties that need confronting... For those interested in metaphysics and the philosophy of logic, this book will stimulate much further thought' -Mind 'The sweep of the book is broad and the pace is brisk... There is much material here to provide the basis for many a deep philosophical (...) discussion' -Mind 'Lucid and provocative little book... clear, direct and well argued' -Times Higher Education SupplementIdentity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are fundamental philosophical concerns. Colin McGinn treats them both philosophically and logically, aiming for maximum clarity and minimum pointless formalism. He contends that there are real logical properties that challenge naturalistic metaphysical outlooks. These concepts are not definable, though we can say a good deal about how they work. The aim of Logical Properties is to bring philosophy back to philosophical logic. (shrink)

In this essay I shall argue that the crucial assumptions of Kripke's argument, i.e. the collapse of the appearance/reality distinction in the case of phenomenal states and the idea of a qualitatively identical epistemic situation, imply an objective principle of identity for mental-state types. This principle, I shall argue, rather than being at odds with physicalism, is actually compatible with both the type-identity theory of the mind and Kripke's semantics and metaphysics. Finally, I shall sketch a version of (...) the type-identity theory. (shrink)

The permutation symmetry of quantum mechanics is widely thought to imply a sort of metaphysical underdetermination about the identity of particles. Despite claims to the contrary, this implication does not hold in the more fundamental quantum field theory, where an ontology of particles is not generally available. Although permutations are often defined as acting on particles, a more general account of permutation symmetry can be formulated using superselection theory. As a result, permutation symmetry applies even in field theories with (...) no particle interpretation. The quantum mechanical account of permutations acting on particles is recovered as a special case. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating personal identity claims. I analyze ontological and political properties of personal identity separately, arguing that their conceptual (if not practical) separation is necessary for a proper evaluation of different identity claims. I use probability theory to bypass some of the logical difficulties in conceptualizing personal identity and discuss a case of transitional identification. Finally, I outline the guidelines for a justified liberal policy of (...) recognition. (shrink)

The aim of this short book is to discuss the traditional topics of philosophical logic without the “formalistic fetishism and scholasticism” that McGinn associates with recent work in the field. The writing is indeed crisp, engaging, and free of formalisms. The book consists of five separate essays—one each on identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth—loosely united by the general theme that these “logical properties” are real and irreducible. “These concepts,” McGinn says, “form a conceptual bedrock; they stand, as (...) it were, underneath all our other concepts. They have no analysis”. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue for an account of property possession as strict, numerical identity. According to this account, for an entity to possess a property is for that entity to be numerically identical to that property.

The question of how properties are individuated is extremely important. Consider the following proposals. To be in pain is to be in a certain neurological state. To be red is to appear red to normal observers in standard conditions. To be obligatory is to maximize the good. Each makes a claim of property identity. Each is a substantive metaphysical thesis of wide interest. None can be studied with due scrutiny in the absence of a general account of property (...) identity. Here, I will survey existing accounts and suggest a new account in terms of grounding that has some advantages over the other candidates. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In ‘Properties, Propositions, and Conditionals’ Field [2021] advances further on our understanding of the logic and meaning of naive theories – theories that maintain, in the face of paradox, basic assumptions about properties and propositions. His work follows in a tradition going back over 40 years now, of using Kripke fixed-point model constructions to show how naive schemas can be (Post) consistent, as long as one embeds in a non-classical logic. A main issue in all this research (...) is the question of finding a suitable conditional for the naive schemas, an implication connective that is well-behaved enough to be useful but weak enough to maintain coherence when there are paradoxes in the surrounding aether. Field takes several cues from the exemplary work of Ross Brady. Brady's work is predominantly concerned with models for naive theories in relevant logic. Field's considered view is that ‘relevant conditionals are just the wrong tool for naive theories’ [ibid.: 140]. In this note, I reply that a relevant conditional is an indispensable tool for at least one very important job: giving identity conditions for properties. (shrink)

Properties and concepts are similar kinds of thing in so far as they are both typically understood to be whatever it is that predicates stand for. However, they are generally supposed to have different identity criteria: for example, heat is the same property as molecular kinetic energy, whereas the concept of heat is different from the concept of molecular kinetic energy. This paper examines whether this discrepancy is really defensible, and concludes that matters are more complex than is (...) generally thought. The distinction between canonical and non-canonical designators, as applied to such entities as propositions, properties and concepts, is examined, as are causal realist accounts of the semantics of such terms as ‘electricity’ and ‘mass’. (shrink)

There is an intuition, notoriously difficult to formalise, that only some predicates express real properties. J. M. Dunn formalises this intuition with relevance logic, proposing a notion of relevant predication. For each first order formula Ax, Dunn specifies another formula that is intuitively interpreted as "Ax expresses a real property". Chapter I calls such an approach an object language approach, since the claim that Ax expresses a real property is rendered as a formula in the object language. On a (...) metalanguage approach, on the other hand, the claim that Ax expresses a real property would be metalinguistic, mentioning but not using the formula Ax. ;Our Introduction begins by investigating Dunn's motivation for relevant predication, and argues that it implicitly presupposes some interpretation of identity. Indeed, part of the dissertation's work is to use relevant predication as a key to a coherent account of relevant identity. ;Chapter I re-motivates relevant predication. We consider P. Geach's distinction between real and "Cambridge" change, and suggest that there is an underlying distinction between real and Cambridge predicates. We further argue that no classical object language approach can formalise this distinction. So we turn to relevance logic, remotivating relevant predication, with Geach's distinction in mind. ;In light of this new motivation, we argue that relevant prediction relies on a logically weak notion of identity, according to which "x = y" means "x and y share all relevant properties". Identity is taken up in a more technical setting in Chapters IV and V. ;Subsequent chapters investigate technical issues that flow from Chapter I. Chapter II investigates metalinguistic grammatical characterisations of relevant predication. Chapter III concerns the semantics of first order relevance logic. Chapter IV investigates the identity in R and its relationship to relevant predication. In particular, Chapter IV argues against introducing the axiom, $\to$ Ay), in relevance logic, since the resulting systems are unstable, in a sense motivated by the notion of relevant identity underlying Dunn's notion of relevant predication. Finally Chapter V investigates the possibility of a coherent theory of identity in R's modal relatives ${\bf R}\sp\square$ and E. (shrink)

The theses and arguments with which Jaegwon Kim was most identified all crucially involve properties. Events are said to be exemplification of properties by objects at times. Supervenience, despite its many varieties, is a relation between families of properties, such that there is no difference in supervening properties without a difference in subvening, base properties. The so-called ‘supervenience’ or ‘causal exclusion’ argument is directed against nonreductive physicalism, which denies the identity of physical and mental (...) properties. It concludes that if physicalism is true, then mental properties are only causally efficacious when they are identical to physical properties. But despite all the work properties do for Kim, there is little in his writing regarding traditional ontological views about properties, and he sometimes makes claims about property identity that are puzzling and hard to square with other claims he makes. This paper probes this neglected corner of his work, especially in regard to the supervenience argument and the fate of nonreductive physicalism. (shrink)

The Materialist who interests me is the one who identifies such things as thoughts with what he speaks of with a degree of grand unspecificity [[sic]] infuriating to the physiologist as "brain processes" or "brain-states." The casual vagueness with which he invokes the brain happens not to affect the logic of his position, and it will prove more useful than to confront him with a physiologist demanding details to face him instead with a philosophical opponent, even if we must resurrect (...) one for the purpose. Let us, then, summon an Idealist from the shadows. His view, expressed equally grosso modo, is that all brain-states are thoughts. As the "is" of either position is the one of identity, the positions sound at this stage dangerously like mere commutations of one another, so in order to forestall the ignominy of saying the same thing while meaning to sound different, the opponents make sly countermoves. The Materialist says that there are brain-states—or even more unspecifically, that there are "material objects"—which are not thoughts ; and the Idealist, that there are thoughts which are not brain-states. These detrivialize [[sic]] the contest, but they equally disguise the contest’s comical ambiguities. It will appear upon analysis of the main strategies of logical offense that these traditional antagonists have been addressing themselves to different matters all along, and are saying different but quite compatible things. My chief reason for exhuming the contest is to illuminate features of Materialism which hardly can be discerned in the context of current preoccupation with predicates and language-games. Allowing myself the privileges of gross discourse which I have accorded my contestants, I shall say: the Idealist has been speaking of the content of thought, the Materialist about thoughts themselves. Let us now aim for a fraction of precision. (shrink)

Property-identical divine-command theory (PDCT) is the view that being obligatory is identical to being commanded by God in just the way that being water is identical to being H2O. If these identity statements are true, then they express necessary a posteriori truths. PDCT has been defended in Robert M. Adams (1987) and William Alston (1990). More recently Mark C. Murphy (2002) has argued that property-identical divine-command theory is inconsistent with two well-known and well-received theses: the free-command thesis and the (...) supervenience thesis. I show that Murphy's argument is vitiated by mistaken assumptions about the substitutivity of metaphysical identicals in contexts of supervenience. The free-command thesis and the supervenience thesis therefore pose no serious threat to PDCT. (Published Online August 11 2004). (shrink)

James cornman and r routley and v macrae have argued that the principle of identity (alias leibniz's law) is inconsistent with certain plausible and widely accepted identity statements; e.G., "the temperature of a gas is identical with the mean kinetic energy of the molecules of the gas." they argue on this ground that the principle of identity should be modified to remove this appearance of inconsistency. The requisite modification however, Removes whatever "metaphysical teeth" the unmodified version might (...) have had. I argue in this paper that such attacks on the principle of identity are utterly unwarranted. (shrink)

An argument to the effect that non-relativistic quantum particles can be understood as individual objects in spite of the empirical evidence seemingly lending support to the opposite conclusion. Ways to understand quantum indistinguishability and quantum statistics in terms of individuals are indicated.

This chapter defends the property dualism argument. The term “semantic premise” mentioned is used to refers to an assumption identified by Brian Loar that antiphysicalist arguments, such as the property dualism argument, tacitly assume that a statement of property identity that links conceptually independent concepts is true only if at least one concept picks out the property it refers to by connoting a contingent property of that property. It is argued that, the property that does the work in explaining (...) the possibility of a posteriori identities need not be a first-order property of the referent in question. On his view, the property dualism argument requires only a weaker semantic premise, which allows that the property in question be a higher order property. A refined version of the property dualism argument is formulated, which uses the weaker premise, and defends the argument against various objections. (shrink)

W.V.O. Quine has famously objected that (1) properties are philosophically suspect because (2) there is no entity without identity and (3) the synonymy criterion for property identity won't do because there's no such concept as synonymy. (2) and (3) may or may not be right but do not prove (1). I reply that Leiniz's Law handles property identity, as it does for everything else, then respond to a variety of objections and confusions.

The Identity Theory of properties (IDT) is an increasingly popular metaphysical view that aims to be a middle way between pure powerism and pure categoricalism. This paper’s goal is to highlight three major difficulties that IDT should address in order to be a plausible account of the nature of properties. First, although IDT needs a clear definition of the notion of qualitativity which is both adequate and compatible with the tenets of the theory, all the extant proposals (...) fail to provide such a definition. Second, the suggested definitions of qualitativity are characterised by a metaphysical ‘neutrality’ that threatens to trivialise the important metaphysical debate regarding the question whether properties confer by themselves dispositions on their bearers (and so they are inherently modal and active) or need the ‘assistance’ of laws of nature to do that. Finally, none of the extant alternative understandings of the core identity-claim of IDT can adequately meet the objection that the claim in question is unintelligible. (shrink)

The Identity Theory of properties is an increasingly popular metaphysical view that aims to be a middle way between pure powerism and pure categoricalism. This paper’s goal is to highlight three major difficulties that IDT should address in order to be a plausible account of the nature of properties. First, although IDT needs a clear definition of the notion of qualitativity which is both adequate and compatible with the tenets of the theory, all the extant proposals fail (...) to provide such a definition. Second, the suggested definitions of qualitativity are characterised by a metaphysical ‘neutrality’ that threatens to trivialise the important metaphysical debate regarding the question whether properties confer by themselves dispositions on their bearers or need the ‘assistance’ of laws of nature to do that. Finally, none of the extant alternative understandings of the core identity-claim of IDT can adequately meet the objection that the claim in question is unintelligible. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The target article uses the metaphysics of properties to make its meta-ethical claims. This comment discusses two general points in the metaphysics of properties. The first point has to do with the conditions for property identity. Philosophers who accept the existence of properties have proposed a variety of criteria for their identity. The standard Broome applies is medium coarse. Other standards for property identity could be evaluated for their appropriateness for addressing questions in (...) the metaphysics of ethics. Use of a formalized theory of properties might help in such an evaluation. The second point has to do with Broome’s suggestion of a distinction between a property and a reified property. A suggestion will be offered for a range of ways such a distinction could be filled out using the resources of a formalized theory of properties and objects. Objects will be proposed that could serve as Broome’s reified properties. (shrink)

The typical rules for truth-trees for first-order logic without functions can fail to generate finite branches for formulas that have finite models–the rule set fails to have the finite tree property. In 1984 Boolos showed that a new rule set proposed by Burgess does have this property. In this paper we address a similar problem with the typical rule set for first-order logic with identity and functions, proposing a new rule set that does have the finite tree property.

This paper is about the relation between two metaphysical topics: the nature of properties, and way the instantiation of a property is sometimes “realized in” something more fundamental. It is partly an attempt to develop further, but also to correct, my earlier treatments of these topics. In my published work on realization, including my book Physical Realization, I was at pains to insist that acceptance of my view about this does not commit one to the causal theory of (...) class='Hi'>properties I have defended in several places. I held that it commits one to the claim that within any given world, properties with the same causal profile are identical, but not to the requirement that a property must have the same causal profile in any world in which it can be instantiated. I now think that this was a mistake. There is an argument from the account of realization I have offered to the conclusion that, if physicalism is true, properties of macroscopic objects have their causal profiles essentially. In what follows I will present that argument.Along the way I will correct what now seem to me mistakes in my earlier presentationsof the account of realization. And I will conclude with an additional argument for the causal theory of properties, one that does not tie it to the assumption that physicalism is true or to my account of realization. (shrink)