Single Idea 18900

[catalogued under 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism]

Full Idea

Unfortunately for the fate of realist philosophy, modern logic's treatment of 'exists' is resolutely inhospitable to facts as referents of phrases of the form 'the existence or non-existence of φ'.

Gist of Idea

Unfortunately for realists, modern logic cannot say that some fact exists

Source

Fred Sommers (Intellectual Autobiography [2005], 'Realism')

Book Reference

'The Old New Logic', ed/tr. Oderberg,David S. [MIT 2005], p.17


A Reaction

Predicate logic has to talk about objects, and then attribute predicates to them. It tends to treat a fact as 'Fa' - this object has this predicate, but that's not really how we understand facts.