Being and Abstraction

Abstract

AbstractThere may be no satisfactory definition of ‘abstract object’, but philosophers do seem to be able to sort terms that purport to denote objects into two piles—the ‘abstract object’ and the ‘concrete objects’ piles. There may be widespread disagreement over whether ‘God’ or ‘Nessie’ or ‘Robin Hood’ denote anything, but there is no doubt that they purport to denote concreta, and no doubt that ‘1/0’ and ‘the Ricci curvature tensor’ and ‘the mixolydian mode’ purport to denote abstracta. The burden of the chapter is that those who assert the non-existence of abstract objects will find themselves contradicting themselves many times every day—and are therefore “ontologically committed” to the existence of abstract objects.