"About" Mistaken Nelson Goodman Mind, New Series, Vol. 74, No. 294. (Apr., 1965), p. 248. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423%28196504%292%3A74%3A294%3C248%3A%22M%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W Mind is currently published by Oxford University Press.
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" ABOUT " MISTAKEN PROFESSOR RESCHERcontends 1 that my definition 2 of " absolutely about " yields the anomalous result that the sentence " P a " is absolutely about all individuals. His argument is entirely specious. He begins by proposing that we adopt the postulate that there are a t least two individuals in the world. Then, he says, " P a " is by my definition absolutely about any other individual in the world, since for any such individual, say b, the statement " (3x)(x#b . Px) " follows logically from " P a ". Now the assumption that there are a t least two individuals is not very risky or restrictive. But " follows logically from " is so used in my definition of " about " that one sentence follows logically from another only if the inference holds in every non-null universe of discourse. The fact or the assumption that the world contains two or millions of individuals does not affect this usage ; and inferences depending on any assumption of more than two individuals cannot be counted as logical in determining what a sentence is absolutely about under my definition. In the second place, Professor Rescher has concealed a premiss in the words " for any other individual ". Either he must adopt some such general assumption as that no two individuals have the same name-a drastic assumption that is false for English-or he must admit " a # b " as an explicit premiss. From " P a . a # b " the statement " (3x)(x# b . Px) " does follow logically ; but this, far from showing that " P a " will be absolutely about every individual, yields only the unobjectionable result that " P a " is about b relative to the statement " a # b " ,or that " P a . a # b " is absolutely about b. University of Pennsylvania
a
NELSONGOODMAN
In " A Note on ' About' ", MIND, ~ 0 1 . 7 2(1963) pp. 268-270. In " About ",MIND, vol. 70 (1961) pp. 1-24.
