Rethinking Identity and Metaphysics / David B. Haley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haley, David B., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Frege, Gottlob, 1848-1925.

Frege, Gottlob.

Russell, Bertrand, 1872-1970.

Russell, Bertrand.

Marcus, Ruth Barcan.

Identity (Philosophical concept).

Metaphysics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [1997]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this elegant book, Claire Ortiz Hill offers a sophisticated rethinking of the foundations of twentieth-century analytic philosophy. She carefully uncovers the flaws of the central analytic tenet that philosophical discourse is reducible to identities. Closely examining the writings of the analytic philosophers Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Willard Quine, she shows that the extensionalistic treatment of identity initiated by Frege and followed by the others has served as a hidden constraint on subsequent work in the mainstream of analytic philosophy. The result has been a flawed treatment of a range of philosophical problems, including necessity, objecthood, meaning, the ontology of mathematics, and Russell's paradox. Hill shows that heroic attempts by philosophers to free philosophical discourse from "intensions"-meanings, concepts, attributes-must fail. Hill's conclusions have implications not only for logicians but for all those inquiring into the "ultimate furniture of the universe." She illustrates her arguments with well-chosen examples from a variety of sources-astronomy, the Kennedy assassination, organ transplantation-and shows how lack of clarity in regard to the abstract issue of identity has consequences in such concrete areas as medical ethics and the abortion debate, and how clarity in this issue can bring a better understanding to other problems of analytic philosophy.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

1 Unfettering Reasoning

2 The Equals Sign

3 Confusing Sign and Object in Identity Statements

4 Confusing Names and Descriptions in Identity Statements

5 Confusing Concepts and Objects in Identity Statements

6 Equating Equality and Identity

7 Identity and Frege's Foundations for Arithmetic

8 Russell on the Origins of the Set-theoretical Paradoxes

9 Russell's Paradoxes and His Theory of Definite Descriptions

10 Prepositional Attitudes

11 Modalities

12 Conclusion

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780300146455

0300146450

OCLC:

1024026319