Acquaintance, Ontology, and Knowledge: Collected Essays in Ontology

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These essays bring together forty years of work in ontology. Intentionality, negation, universals, bare particulars, tropes, general facts, relations, the "myth of the given," are among the topics covered. Bergmann, Quine, Sellars, Russell, Wittgenstein, Hume, Bradley, Hochberg, Dummett, Frege, and Plato, are among the philosophers discussed. The essays criticize non-Humean notions of cause; they criticize the notion that besides simple atomic facts there are also negative facts and general facts. They defend a realism of properties as universals, against nominalism; bare particulars; a (qualified) realism with regard to logical form; a Russellian account of relations; and an account of minds and intentionality, which is opposed to materialism, but is also a form of (methodological) behaviorism. In general, the ontology is one of logical atomism and empiricist throughout, rooted in a Principle of Acquaintance. Fred Wilson is a Canadian philosopher, who recently retired from the University of Toronto (Canada). One: Acquaintance, Ontology, and Knowledge I Two: II III IV Appendix One: The Mythology of the Myth of the Given: the Holism of Wilfrid Sellars Appendix Two: Things Seen and the Seeing of Them Appendix Three: How Not to Lose Your Mind Hume and Derrida on Language and Meaning Three: Empiricism: Principles and Problems Four: On the Hausmans’ “New Approach to Berkeley’s Ideal Reality” Five: Bradley’s Account of Relations and Its Impact on Empiricism (I) The Earlier Empiricism (a) Relations (b) The Argument against Necessary Connections (II) Bradley’s Critique of Empiricism (a) Relations (b) Bradley’s Alternative (III) Russell’s Reply to Bradley (a) Russell’s Account of Relations (b) Russell’s Criticisms of Bradley (c) Empiricism and Necessary Connections Once Again (IV) Bradley vs. Russell (V) Conclusion Six: Moore’s Refutation of Idealism Seven: Burgersdijck, Coleridge, Bradley, Russell, Bergmann, Hochberg: Six Philosophers on the Ontology of Relations 1. Burgersdijck and the Logic of Relations: The Tradition 2. Colerdige on Relations 3. Bradley and Russell against the Tradition 4. Russell's Second Argument against the Tradition 5. Bradley’s Alternative to the Tradition 6. Russell’s Criticism of Bradley 7. Russell’s Account of Relations 8. Bergmann’s New Account of Relations 9. The Russell-Hochberg Emendation Eight: Bareness, as in ‘Bare Particular’: Its Ubiquity I II III IV V VI VII VIII Conclusion Nine: Universals, Bare Particulars and Tropes: The Role of a Principle of Acquaintance in Ontology A. Some Terminology B. Two Philosophical Problems C. How to Answer Philosophical Problems D. PA and the Problem of Sameness E. PA and Nominalism F. PA and the Problem of Difference G. Tropes and Blobs H. Particulars Presented Ten: The World and Reality in the Tractatus Eleven: Grossmann on the Categorial Structure of the World Twelve: Bergmann’s Hidden Aristotelianism Thirteen: Human Action and a Natural Science of Human Being Fourteen: Marras on Sellars on Thought and Language Fifteen: Effability, Ontology, and Method: Themes from Bergmann’s Ontology Sixteen: The Aboutness of Thought Seventeen: Language and (Other ? ) Abstract Objects Appendix I II III IV V VI Implicit Definition Once Again I II Appendix I II III Eighteen: IV Nineteen: Dummett’s History: Critical Review of Michael Dummett’s Origins of Analytical Philosophy