Philosophy and Logic of Predication

273 Pages·2016·1.02 MB·English

by  Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.)

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ISBN 978-3-631-66920-4
Philosophy and Logic of Predication
STUPiDotIrE SSta IlNm aPsHzcIzLyOk (SeOd.P) HY

OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

Edited by Piotr Stalmaszczyk

Philosophy and Logic

VOLUME 7
of Predication

Advisory Board:

Emma Borg (Univ ersity of Reading)

Manuel García-Carpintero (University of Barcelona)
Hans-Johann Glock (University of Zurich)
Paul Livingston (University of New Mexico)
Joanna Odrow -Sypniewska (University of Warsaw)
Maciej Witek (University of Szczecin)
ąż
Marián Zouhar (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava)
Piotr Stalmaszczyk (ed.)

Philosophy and Logic
of Predication
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in
the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic
data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stalmaszczyk, Piotr, editor.
Title: Philosophy and logic of predication / [edited by] Piotr Stalmaszczyk.
Description: New York : Peter Lang, 2017. | Series: Studies in philosophy of
language and linguistics, ISSN 2363-7242 ; Vol. 7 | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016052514 | ISBN 9783631669204
Subjects: LCSH: Predicate (Logic)
Classification: LCC BC181 .P45 2017 | DDC 160--dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052514

This publication was financially supported by the Institute of English Studies
and Faculty of Philology of the University of Łód .

Cover image: © Ingae / Fotolia.com ź

ISSN 2363-7242
ISBN 978-3-631-66920-4 (Print)
E-ISBN 978-3-653-06448-3 (E-PDF)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-70654-1 (EPUB)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-70655-8 (MOBI)
DOI 10.3726/b10706
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Frankfurt am Main 2017
All rights reserved.
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Table of contents
Contributors ..................................................................................................................7
Piotr Stalmaszczyk
Predication Theory: Introduction ..............................................................................9
Part I. From Aristotle to the Future
António Pedro Mesquita
Aristotle on Predication.............................................................................................25
Nino B. Cocchiarella
On Predication, A Conceptualist View ...................................................................53
Ignacio Angelelli
The Impact of Traditional Predication Theory on the Notion of Class ...............93
Allan Bäck
The Future of Predication Theory .........................................................................101
Part II. Philosophy and Beyond
Mieszko Tałasiewicz
The Sense of a Predicate .........................................................................................129
Danny Frederick
The Unsatisfactoriness of Unsaturatedness ..........................................................145
David Liebesman
Sodium-Free Semantics: The Continuing Relevance of
The Concept Horse ..................................................................................................167
Peter Hanks
Predication and Rule-Following ............................................................................199
Bjørn Jespersen
Is Predication an Act or an Operation? ................................................................223
Jacek Paśniczek
Meinongian Predication. An Algebraic Approach ..............................................247
Index .........................................................................................................................271

Contributors
Ignacio Angelelli
The University of Texas at Austin, USA
[e-mail]
Allan Bäck
Kutztown University, Pennsylvania, USA
[e-mail]
Nino B. Cocchiarella
Indiana University, USA
[e-mail]
Danny Frederick
Slate House, Hunstan Lane, Old Leake, Boston, UK
[e-mail]
Peter Hanks
University of Minnesota, USA
[e-mail]
Bjørn Jespersen
VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic
[e-mail]
David Liebesman
University of Calgary, Canada
[e-mail]
António Pedro Mesquita
University of Lisbon, Portugal
[e-mail]
8 Contributors
Jacek Paśniczek
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland
[e-mail]
Piotr Stalmaszczyk
University of Łódź, Poland
[e-mail]
Mieszko Tałasiewicz
University of Warsaw, Poland
[e-mail]
Piotr Stalmaszczyk
University of Łódź
Predication Theory: Introduction
It is no news that a theory of predication is no sooner formulated than it generates puzzles.
Wilfrid Sellars “Towards a Theory of Predication” (1985)
1. Predication Theory
Research in linguistics, philosophy of language, ontology, metaphysics, and logic
makes ample, both explicit and implicit, use of the concept of predication. In the
words of Ignacio Angelelli predication has been and continues to be the central
topic of logic and ontology (or metaphysics) in the entire history of philosophy,
from Antiquity till now (Angelelli, this volume); whereas for Nino Cocchiarel-
la “predication has been a central, if not the central, issue in philosophy since
at least the time of Plato and Aristotle” (Cocchiarella 1989: 253), and for John
Searle, within a different theoretical and methodological frame, “predication, like
reference, is an ancient (and difficult) topic in philosophy” (Searle 1969: 97). The
following overview very briefly mentions some of the most important approaches
to predication and predication theory, especially in the context of the articles
collected in this volume.
In traditional grammar, predication is the relation between the subject and
the predicate. In logic, predication is the attributing of characteristics to a sub-
ject to produce a meaningful statement combining verbal and nominal elements.
This understanding stems from Aristotelian logic, where the term (though not
explicitly used by the philosopher) might be defined as “saying something about
something that there is”.1
In logical inquiries, this classical definition is echoed in more recent inves-
tigations by the ‘thing-property’ relation holding in appropriate propositions
(e.g. in Reichenbach 1947). According to Quine (1960), predication is the basic
combination in which general and singular terms find their contrasting roles:
1 This definition may be inferred from Aristotle’s concept of a proposition, understood as
a “statement, with meaning as to the presence of something in a subject, or its absence,
in the present, past, or future, according to the division of time” (On Interpretation,
17a23). For a discussion of predication and predication types in Aristotelian theory see
Moravcsik (1967), Lewis (1991), Bäck (2000, esp. Ch. 6), and Mesquita (this volume).