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Tropes, Bare Demonstratives, and Apparent Statements of Identity
Author(s) -
Moltmann Friederike
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
noûs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.574
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1468-0068
pISSN - 0029-4624
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2011.00844.x
Subject(s) - identity (music) , linguistics , aesthetics , psychology , epistemology , communication , philosophy
International audiencePhilosophers who accept tropes generally agree that tropes do play a role in the semantics of natural language, namely as the objects of reference of nominalizations of adjectives, such as Socrates' wisdom or the beauty of the landscape. In fact, a philosophical discussion of the ontology of tropes can hardly do without the use of such nominalizations. In this paper, I will argue that tropes play a further important role in the semantics of natural language, namely in the semantics of bare demonstratives like this and that. Like terms such as Socrates' wisdom or the beauty of the landscape, this and that can act as ordinary referential terms referring to tropes