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On the Reality of Existence and Identity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
Ian Hacking's [6] is a spirited romp though a broad field of metaphysics, touching on a variety of important questions, and appealing to deep results in mathematical logic while remaining free of logical pedantry. Philosophical journals might be more fun to read if others could write in his style. It is an essay in applying the theory of logic expounded in more detail in his very interesting [7]. (Goran Sundholm, in [15], has raised grave difficulties for Hacking's notion of a ‘do-it-yourself’ semantics, but the overall project remains attractive. In particular, I find Hacking's contention that he has captured the notion of logic that Whitehead and Russell were working with both convincing and intriguing.) Unfortunately, despite my sympathy for his project, I have a number of criticisms to make of his argument. Some of them are picky logical points, but the major conclusions of [6] are affected.
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