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What Do We Talk About?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Pavel Tichý
Pavel Tichý*
Affiliation:
University of Otago
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Extract

By observing a black swan, one ascertains an interesting zoological fact. The fact involves two items, a specific object and the property of being a black swan, and consists in the former instantiating the latter. The object is in itself of little interest. Our environment abounds in objects, and knowledge is hardly enhanced by one of them being merely picked out for consideration. The same goes for the property. Properties are at least as plentiful as objects and one does not get to know anything by merely focussing attention upon one of them. What is of interest is the combination of the two items, i.e. the circumstance that the object instantiates the property. And this is what the said fact consists in.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 80 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

REFERENCES

Goodman, N. “About.” Mind, LXX (1961): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. “Anselm and Actuality.” Noûs 4 (1970): 175–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. “Formalization of the Concept ‘About’.” Philosophy of Science XXV (1958): 125–130.Google Scholar