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14Speculative Metaphysics with Applications: A Whiteheadian Way ForwardIn Michel Weber (ed.), Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, De Gruyter. pp. 303-314. 2008.
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4Review: Michael Dummett, Frege. Philosophy of Mathematics (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 61 (4): 1389-1391. 1996.
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25Bolzano sur les nombresPhilosophiques 30 (1): 127-135. 2003.Dans cet article, l’auteur présente la théorie bolzanienne du nombre. Il établit, sur la base d’une comparaison avec Frege, que la conception bolzanienne rencontre toutes les exigences d’une telle théorie tout en présentant plusieurs traits originaux, comme par exemple le fait qu’elle s’articule sur la base d’une théorie des « collections » , qui lui confèrent un intérêt philosophique certain. Tout en indiquant au passage un problème inhérent à la notion bolzanienne de Reihe, l’auteur présente l…Read more
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Logic in the Brentano SchoolIn Liliana Albertazzi, Massimo Libardi & Roberto Poli (eds.), The School of Franz Brentano, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1996.
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1Part/whole II: Mereology since 1900In Hans Burkhardt & Barry Smith (eds.), Handbook of metaphysics and ontology, Philosophia Verlag. pp. 672--675. 1991.
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80Who's Afraid of Higher-Order Logic?Grazer Philosophische Studien 44 (1): 253-264. 1993.Suppose you hold the following opinions in the philosophy of logic. First-order predicate logic is expressively inadequate to regiment concepts of mathematic and natural language; logicism is plausible and attractive; set theory as an adjunct to logic is unnatural and ontologically extravagant; humanly usable languages are finite in lexicon and syntax; it is worth striving for a Tarskian semantics for mathematics; there are no Platonic abstract objects. Then you are probably already in cognitive…Read more
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132How to Exist at a Time When You Have No Temporal PartsThe Monist 83 (3): 419-436. 2000.Occurrents are entities that exist in time and, with few or no exceptions, extend over time as well, that is, they have parts corresponding to the different times at which they exist. This makes it very easy to say what makes it true that they exist at the times at which they do. Singular existential propositions, being contingent, positive and arguably atomic, stand in need of truth-makers, entities in virtue of whose existence they are true. The obvious candidate for what makes it true that To…Read more
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13Existential PropositionsGrazer Philosophische Studien 42 (1): 229-259. 1992.By considering a wide and expressly classified range of examples from natural and logical languages, the attempt is made to isolate from other concomitants the features of existential sentences which make them existential. One such concomitant is the imputation of singularity. There are many ways to say something exists, and their relationships are charted. It is denied that there is anything in reality called existence, or any special existential facts.
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130Modes of Extension: Comments on Kit Fine's ‘In Defence of Three-Dimensionalism’Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 62 17-21. 2008.The debate between 3- and 4-dimensionalists is one of the most lively and pervasive in current metaphysics. At stake is a glittering prize: the correct metaphysical analysis of material things and other objects commonly thought to persist in time by enduring. Since we count ourselves among such objects the outcome of the debate is of more than merely academic interest to us. Obviously the ramifications of the debate, even of the points raised by Kit Fine, go far beyond what I can discuss here, s…Read more
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135The Four Phases of PhilosophyThe Monist 83 (1): 68-88. 2000.From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present day, philosophy in Austria has progressed through four phases. Theparticularities of the first three of these phases have prompted a number of commentators rightly to distinguish a characteristic Austrian, as distinct from German, way of doing philosophy. The main figure of the second phase was Franz Brentano, and his distinctive theory of the four-phase cycle of philosophical development is outlined, and critically compared to other vi…Read more
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305Real wholes, real parts: Mereology without algebraJournal of Philosophy 103 (12): 597-613. 2006.
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51Continuants and OccurrentsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 74 59-92. 2000.Commonsense ontology contains both continuants and occurrents, but are continuants necessary? I argue that they are neither occurrents nor easily replaceable by them. The worst problem for continuants is the question in virtue of what a given continuant exists at a given time. For such truthmakers we must have recourse to occurrents, those vital to the continuant at that time. Continuants are, like abstract objects, invariants under equivalences over occurrents. But they are not abstract, and th…Read more
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59Rafał Urbaniak. Leśniewski’s Systems of Logic and Foundations of MathematicsPhilosophia Mathematica. forthcoming.
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12Languages with Variable-Binding Operators: Categorial Syntax and Combinatorial SemanticsPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 89 239. 2006.
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40A Semantics for OntologyDialectica 39 (3): 193-215. 1985.SummaryLeśniewski presented his logical systems in a way which conformed to his nominalism, so the question arises whether Leśniewski's logic can be given a natural formal semantics which, unlike current versions, avoids commitment to abstract entities. Building on hints in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, I develop the idea of a way of meaning which is the basis for what I call combinatorial semantics. I then consider whether this commits us to abstract objects or an intensional metalogic
Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland