Surrogate acquaintance
Halimi, Brice
Surrogate acquaintance - 2019.
52
Is the acquaintance of an attribute of the same nature as that of an individual? Of course, the reduction of attributes to universals, and thus to objects, leads one to an immediate positive answer. But what about attributes in predicate positions? This article aims to argue in favor of the univocity of acquaintance, by showing that acquaintance of predicates is, despite significant differences, similar to acquaintance of individuals. To do so, the issue will be tackled from a negative angle, namely through the consideration of how, in each case, a lacking acquaintance comes to be replaced. Using an epistemic interpretation of the theory along the lines of those in Principia Mathematica that are justified for independent reasons, this perspective leads us to understand the axiom of reducibility as a principle of surrogate acquaintance for predicates, a principle whose epistemic and logical scheme is shared by Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions of individuals.
Surrogate acquaintance - 2019.
52
Is the acquaintance of an attribute of the same nature as that of an individual? Of course, the reduction of attributes to universals, and thus to objects, leads one to an immediate positive answer. But what about attributes in predicate positions? This article aims to argue in favor of the univocity of acquaintance, by showing that acquaintance of predicates is, despite significant differences, similar to acquaintance of individuals. To do so, the issue will be tackled from a negative angle, namely through the consideration of how, in each case, a lacking acquaintance comes to be replaced. Using an epistemic interpretation of the theory along the lines of those in Principia Mathematica that are justified for independent reasons, this perspective leads us to understand the axiom of reducibility as a principle of surrogate acquaintance for predicates, a principle whose epistemic and logical scheme is shared by Russell’s analysis of definite descriptions of individuals.
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