Austere Realism: Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal Ontology, by Terence Horgan and Matjaž Potrč
Name
Austere realism review.pdf
Size
214.42 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
93ad039c080e5dedc94ef2ed00d765a1
Author(s)
Khoo, Justin Donald
Date Issued
2015
Journal
Mind
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Citation
Khoo, Justin. “Austere Realism: Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal Ontology, by Terence Horgan and Matjaž Potrč.” Mind, vol. 124, no. 496, Oct. 2015, pp. 1292–99.
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
In this interesting and wide-ranging book, Horgan and Potrč (hereafter, H&P) offer a case study of how to navigate the border between philosophy of language and metaphysics. On the metaphysics side, they argue for an austere ontology (blobjectivism) according to which all that exists is just a single concrete particular, namely, the whole universe (the blobject), which has no proper parts. On the language side, they argue for a semantic
theory (contextual semantics) according to which the truth of a statement or thought just is its being semantically correct under contextually operative semantic standards. Their semantic thesis allows H&P to avoid the following inconsistent duo:
(M) There are mountains in North America.
(¬M) There are no mountains.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzv097
