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Full Idea
There's a tradition in philosophy of finding 'unexpected objects' in truth-conditions, such as countermodels, possible worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets and properties.
Gist of Idea
Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties
Source
Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §02)
Book Ref
'New Essays on the A Priori', ed/tr. Boghossian,P /Peacocke,C [OUP 2000], p.198
A Reaction
This is a very nice perspective on the whole matter of abstract objects. If we find ourselves reluctantly committed to the existence of something which is ontologically peculiar, we should go back to the philosophical drawing-board.
Related Idea
Idea 23630 Only philosophers treat ideas as objects [Reid]
| 17619 | We renounce all abstract entities [Goodman/Quine] |
| 8529 | Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong] |
| 8501 | Quineans take predication about objects as basic, not reference to properties they may have [Devitt] |
| 8858 | Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo] |
| 4478 | Nominalism needs to account for abstract singular terms like 'circularity'. [Loux] |
| 10310 | Objections to Frege: abstracta are unknowable, non-independent, unstatable, unindividuated [Hale] |
| 7971 | Real Nominalism is only committed to concrete particulars, word-tokens, and (possibly) sets [Macdonald,C] |
| 14596 | Call 'nominalism' the denial of numbers, properties, relations and sets [Dorr] |
| 19122 | Nominalists can reduce theories of properties or sets to harmless axiomatic truth theories [Halbach/Leigh] |