Content area
Abstract
My aim is to give a philosophical analysis of mass nouns and the stuffs they pick out. Thus I (1) give an account of the meaning of mass nouns, i.e., of the systematic contribution they make to the truth-conditions of sentences; (2) assign logical forms to those sentences; (3) explain their ontological presuppositions; and (4) define and defend the entities whose existence they presuppose.
I argue that mass nouns should be uniformly analyzed as logical predicates which are satisfied by objects of a distinctive kind called quantities. I show how to define the notion of a quantity in a rigorous way by giving existence and identity conditions for quantities. I argue on those grounds, both that mass nouns are sortal (or reference-dividing) predicates, and that quantities are physical objects.
I use the notion of a quantity to state existence and identity conditions for stuffs: A stuff F exists, I claim, just in case a quantity of F exists; and F is the same stuff as G just in case (x) (x is a quantity of F iff x is a quantity of G). Thus there need by nothing above and beyond physical objects in a world in which a stuff exists.
Among the topics discussed in detail are: the concept of an amount; the notion of an extensive dimension (e. g., mass, volume, length); the 'is' of constitution; sortal predicates; and atomism.
Writers discussed are: W. V. O. Quine; Vere Chappell; Tyler Burge; Terence Parsons; Henry Laycock; and Helen Cartwright.