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2 ideas
| 10789 | Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| Full Idea: Nominalists have the major task of explaining how predicates work. They usually construct it as a relation between individuals, or deny the referential function of predicates. | |
| From: Ruth Barcan Marcus (Nominalism and Substitutional Quantifiers [1978], p.163) |
| 8565 | If properties were just the meanings of predicates, they couldn't give predicates their meaning [Mellor] |
| Full Idea: One reason for denying that properties just are the meanings of our predicates is that, if they were, they could not give our predicates their meanings. | |
| From: D.H. Mellor (Properties and Predicates [1991], 'Props') | |
| A reaction: Neither way round sounds quite right to me. Predicate nominalism is wrong, but what is meant by a property 'giving' a predicate its meaning? It doesn't seem to allow room for error in our attempts to name the properties. |