Acquaintance, Ontology, and Knowledge

These essays bring together forty years of work in ontology. Intentionality, negation, universals, bare particulars, tropes, general facts, relations, the myth of the 'myth of the given', are among the topics covered. Bergmann, Quine, Sellars, Russell, Wittgenstein, Hume, Bradley, Hochberg, Dummett, Frege, Plato, are among the philosophers discussed. The essays criticize non-Humean notions of cause; they criticize the notion that besides simple atomic facts there are also negative facts and general facts. They defend a realism of properties as universals, against nominalism; bare particulars; a (qualified) realism with regard to logical form; a Russellian account of relations; and an account of minds and intentionality, which is opposed to materialism, but is also a form of (methodological) behaviourism. In general, the ontology is one of logical atomism and empiricist throughout, rooted in a Principle of Acquaintance.

1;Preface;6 2;Acknowledgments;18 3;TABLE OF CONTENTS;21 4;One Acquaintance, Ontology and Knowledge*;24 4.1;Appendix OneThe Mythology of the Myth of the Given: the Holism of Wilfrid Sellars;66 4.2;Appendix ThreeHow Not to Lose Your Mind;96 5;TwoHume and Derridaon Language and Meaning*;132 6;ThreeEmpiricism: Principles and Problems*;153 7;FourOn the HausmansNew Approach to BerkeleysIdeal Reality*;192 8;FiveBradleys Account of Relations and ItsImpact on Empiricism*;219 9;SixMoores Refutation of Idealism*;249 10;SevenBurgersdijck, Coleridge, Bradley, Russell,Bergmann, Hochberg:Six Philosophers on the Ontology ofRelations*;299 11;EightBareness, as in Bare Particular:Its Ubiquity*;353 12;NINEUNIVERSALS, BARE PARTICULARSAND TROPES:THE ROLE OF A PRINCIPLE OFACQUAINTANCE IN ONTOLOGY;387 13;TenThe World and Reality in the Tractatus;423 14;ElevenGrossmann on theCategorial Structure of the World*;437 15;TwelveBergmanns Hidden Aristotelianism*;467 16;ThirteenHuman Action and a Natural Science ofHuman Being*;521 17;FourteenMarras on Sellarson Thought and Language*;543 18;FifteenEffability, Ontology and Method:Themes from Bergmanns Ontology*;561 19;SixteenThe Aboutness of Thought*;617 20;SeventeenLanguage and (Other ? ) Abstract Objects*;633 21;EighteenImplicit Definition Once Again*;677 22;NineteenDummetts History:Critical Review of Michael DummettsOrigins of Analytical Philosophy *;707