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The ontology of words: Realism, nominalism, and eliminativism
Author(s) -
Miller J. T. M.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/phc3.12691
Subject(s) - nominalism , ontology , eliminative materialism , focus (optics) , security token , computer science , realism , word (group theory) , epistemology , philosophy , linguistics , natural language processing , computer security , optics , physics
What are words? What makes two token words tokens of the same word‐type? Are words abstract entities, or are they (merely) collections of tokens? The ontology of words tries to provide answers to these, and related questions. This article provides an overview of some of the most prominent views proposed in the literature, with a particular focus on the debate between type‐realist, nominalist, and eliminativist ontologies of words.