Eternal Possibilities
A Neutral Ground for Meaning and Existence
1st Edition
Published on 14. August 2008
313 pages
978-0-8093-8706-9 (ISBN)
Description
Eternal Possibilities: A Neutral Ground for Meaning and Existence builds on David Weissman's earlier Dispositional Properties and makes a signal contribution to the study of metaphysics. Here, broadening and enriching the point of view adopted in his earlier work, Weissman cites and criticizes a large number of theories proposed by authors from Plato to Wittgenstein and others exploring language theory and metaphysics. Students of Wittgenstein will be especially interested in Mr. Weissman's critical examination of Wittgenstein's claim in the Tractatus that possibilities are the facts for logic. Weissman proposes a modal theory of properties: they exist in the first instance as possibilities. He argues that a sentence is meaningful if it signifies a property or complex of properties existing as a possible, and true if that possible is instantiated. The status of possibilities and their relation to actual states of affairs are considered in detail.
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06/1977
Southern Illinois University Press
€41.03
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Content
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Platonism in the Tractatus
- 2. Two Kinds of Possibility: Material and Eternal
- 3. Relations among Eternal Possibilities: The Nexus
- 4. Possibilities Instantiated: The Actual World
- 5. Carnap, Goodman, and Quine on the Relation of Language to the World
- 6. Meaning: The Representation of Possibilities in Language
- Index
- Author Bio
- Back Cover
