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Ideas for 'Exigency to Exist in Essences', 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology' and 'Abstract Objects'

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2 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 2. Possibility of Metaphysics

13939	No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap]
	Full Idea: I cannot think of any possible evidence that would be regarded as relevant by both nominalists and realists about numbers, and would decide the controversy, or make one side more probable. Hence I regard the external questions as pseudo-questions.
	From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 4)

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis

10308	Questions about objects are questions about certain non-vacuous singular terms [Hale]
	Full Idea: I understand questions about the Fregean notion of an object to be inseparable from questions in the philosophy of language - questions of the existence of objects are tantamount to questions about non-vacuous singular terms of a certain kind.
	From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.1)
	A reaction: This view hovers somewhere between Quine and J.L. Austin, and Dummett is its originator. I am instinctively deeply opposed to the identification of metaphysics with semantics.