Platonism and Naturalism
Philosophy 288

Fall 1996

Professor

Edward N. Zalta, Consulting Associate Professor, Philosophy Department
Office: Cordura 202 (Campus Dr. and Panama)
Phone: 723-0488
Mailbox: Ventura Hall (Campus Dr. and Panama)
Hours: ... and by appt.
E-mail:

Class Meetings

Friday: 10:00-11:55 in Cordura 104

Required Reading

Selected Articles (see Schedule and Bibliography)
Principia Metaphysica

Course Requirements

1 term paper
1 seminar presentation

Notes

1. The seminar presentation consists of a short introduction to the readings assigned for that day.
2. Not all the works found in the Bibliography will be discussed during the seminar. However, in your term paper, it would be wise to demonstrate familiarity with those works in the Bibliography relevant to your topic (if there are such).
3. There are books on Reserve in Tanner which may prove to be useful resources.

TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE

September

27

Introduction to the Topics

October

4

Anti-Nominalism:
Burgess (1983), (1990), Rosen (1993)

11

Naturalized Platonism:
Quine (1951/1980), Maddy (1989), Armstrong (1978), Quine (1995)

18

Problems with Naturalized Platonism:
Benacerraf (1965), Benacerraf (1971), Balaguer (1994)

25

Property Theory:
Bealer (1979), Swoyer (2 forthcoming articles), Menzel (1986)

November

1

Structuralist Philosophy of Mathematics:
Resnik (1981), Resnik (1982), Shapiro (1983), Shapiro (1989)

8

Platonist Epistemologies:
Balaguer (1995), Resnik (1989)

15

Fregean Platonism:
Frege (1884), Wright (1983) (Tanner Reserve), Hale (1987) (Tanner Reserve)

22

Platonized Naturalism:
Linsky and Zalta (1995)

December

6

Nominalism Again:
selections from Burgess and Rosen (1997)

Bibliography

• Armstrong, D., Naturalism, Materialism, and First Philosophy. Philosophia 8 (November 1978): 261-276
• Balaguer, M., `Against (Maddian) Naturalized Platonism', Philosophia Mathematica 3/2, (May 1994): 97-108
• Balaguer, M., `A Platonist Epistemology', Synthese, 103/3 (June 1995): 303-325
• Bealer, G., `Theories of Properties, Relations, and Propositions,' The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1979): 643-8
• Benacerraf, P., `Mathematical Truth', The Journal of Philosophy, LXX/19 (November 1973): 661-679.
• Benacerraf, P., `What Numbers Could Not Be', Philosophical Review, 74 (1965): 47-73.
• Burgess, J., `Why I Am Not a Nominalist', Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 24 (January 1983): 93-105
• Burgess, J., `Epistemology and Nominalism', in A.~Irvine, ed., {\em Physicalism in Mathematics (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990), pp.~1-16.
• Burgess, J., and Rosen, G., A Subject With No Object, forthcoming, Oxford: OUP, 1997
• Frege, G., 1884, The Foundations of Arithmetic, J. L. Austin (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1974
• Hale, B., `Is Platonism Epistemologically Bankrupt?', Philosphical Review 103/2 (April 1994): 299-325
• Linsky, B., and Zalta, E., `In Defense of the Simplest Quantified Modal Logic', Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994): 431--58
• Linsky, B., and Zalta, E., `Naturalized Platonism vs. Platonized Naturalism', The Journal of Philosophy, XCII/10 (October 1995): 525-555
• Maddy, P., `The Roots of Contemporary Platonism', Journal of Symbolic Logic, 54/4 (December 1989): 1121-1144
• Menzel, C., `A Complete, Type-free ``Second-order'' Logic and Its Philosophical Foundations', Technical Report No. CSLI--86--40, Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications, 1986
• Rosen, G., `The Refutation of Nominalism (?)', Philosophical Topics 21/2 (Fall 1993): 149--186
• Quine, W., 1951, `On What There Is', reprinted in W. V. Quine, From a Logical Point of View, 2nd rev. ed., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980, pp.~1-19.
• Quine, W., `Naturalism; Or, Living Within One's Means', Dialectica 49/2-4 (1995): 251-261
• Resnik, M., `A Naturalized Epistemology for a Platonist Mathematical Ontology', Philosophica, 43 (1989): 7-27
• Resnik, M., `Mathematics as a Science of Patterns: Epistemology', Nous 16 (1982): 95-105
• Resnik, M., `Mathematics as a Science of Patterns: Ontology and Reference', Nous 15 (1981): 529-50
• Shapiro, S., `Structure and Ontology', Philosophical Topics, 17/2 (1989): 145-72
• Shapiro, S., `Mathematics and Reality', Philosophy of Science, 50 (1983): 523-48
• Swoyer, C., `Theories of Properties: From Plenitude to Paucity', forthcoming, Philosophical Perspectives
• Swoyer, C., `Complex Predicates and Logics for Properties and Relations', forthcoming, Journal of Philosophical Logic
• Swoyer, C., `The Metaphysics of Measurement', in J.~Forge, ed., Measurement, Realism, and Objectivity, Dordrecht: D.~Reidel, 1987
• Zalta, E., Principia Metaphysica, manuscript

Books on Reserve in Tanner Library

• Armstrong, D., Universals and Scientific Realism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978
• Bealer, G., Quality and Concept, Oxford: Clarendon, 1982
• Field, H., Realism, Mathematics, and Modality, Oxford: Blackwell, 1989
• Hale, B., Abstract Objects, Oxford: Blackwell, 1987
• Hanson, P., and Hunter, B. (eds.), Return of the A Priori, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1992 (Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 18)
• Irvine, A., ed., Physicalism in Mathematics (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990), pp.~1-16.
• Kitcher, P., The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge, Oxford: OUP, 1983.
• Kornblith, H. (ed.), Naturalizing Epistemology Cambridge: MIT, 1985
• Maddy, P., Realism in Mathematics, Oxford: Clarendon, 1990
• Papineau, D., Philosophical Naturalism, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993
• Putnam, H., Philosophy of Logic, New York: Harper and Row, 1971
• Quine, W., Theories and Things, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1981
• Villanueva, E. (ed), Naturalism and Normativity, Atascadero: Ridgeview, 1993
• Wagner, S., and Warner, R. (eds.), Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal, Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993
• Wright, C., Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1983
• Zalta, E., Abstract Objects: An Introduction to Axiomatic Metaphysics, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983
• Zalta, E., Intensional Logic and the Metaphysics of Intentionality, Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1988