Logic and Ontology

Nino B. Cocchiarella

Abstract
A brief review of the historical relation between logic and ontology and
of the opposition between the views of logic as language and logic as calculus
is given. We argue that predication is more fundamental than membership
and that di¤erent theories of predication are based on di¤erent theories of
universals, the three most important being nominalism, conceptualism, and
realism. These theories can be formulated as formal ontologies, each with
its own logic, and compared with one another in terms of their respective
explanatory powers. After a brief survey of such a comparison, we argue
that an extended form of conceptual realism provides the most coherent
formal ontology and, as such, can be used to defend the view of logic as
language.

Logic, as Father Bochenski observed, developed originally out of dialectics,

rules for discussion and reasoning, and in particular rules for how to argue suc-
cessfully.1 Aristotle, one of the founders of logic in western philosophy, described
such rules in his Topics, where logic is presented in this way. Indeed, the idea of
logic as the art of arguing was the primary view of this subject in ancient philos-
ophy. It was defended in particular by the Stoics, who developed a formal logic
of propositions, but conceived of it only as a set of rules for arguing.2
Aristotle was the founder not only of logic in western philosophy, but of ontol-
ogy as well, which he described in his Metaphysics and the Categories as a study
of the common properties of all entities, and of the categorial aspects into which
they can be analyzed. The principal method of ontology has been one or another
form of categorial analysis, depending on whether the analysis was directed upon
the structure of reality, as in Aristotle’s case, or upon the structure of thought and
reason, as, e.g., in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Viewed in this way, the two
1
See [L&O], p. 278.
2
See, e.g., [L&O], p. 282.
subjects of logic and ontology could hardly be more di¤erent, and many schools
in the history of philosophy, such as the Stoics, saw no common ground between
them. Logic was only a system of rules for how to argue successfully, and ontol-
ogy, as a categorial analysis and general theory of what there is (in the physical
universe), was a system of categories and laws about being.
Scholastic logicians also drew a sharp distinction between logic and ontol-
ogy, taking the latter to be about “…rst intentions”(concepts abstracted directly
from physical reality), and the former about “second intentions” (concepts ab-
stracted wholly from the “material” content of …rst intentions, as well as about
such categorial concepts as individual, proposition, universal, genus, species, prop-
erty, etc., and so-called syncategorematic concepts such as negation). According
to Aquinas, second intentions have a foundation in real entities, but “exist”only
in knowledge; i.e., they do not exist in the real world but depend on the mind for
their existence— which is not say that they are subjective mental entities.3
Aristotle left us not one but two very di¤erent logics, however; namely, the
early dialectical logoi of the Topics, and the formal syllogistic logic of the Prior
Analytics, a later work, which, according to Bochenski, treats logic essentially the
way that contemporary mathematical, symbolic logic does; namely, as “dissociated
from dialectic”, i.e. not as “an art of thought”([L&O], p. 285). Indeed, according
to Bochenski, the new mathematical, symbolic logic is “a theory of a general sort
of object” (ibid.), so that “logic, as it is now conceived, has a subject matter
similar to that of ontology”(ibid., p. 288).
The idea that logic has content, and ontological content in particular, is de-
scribed today as the view of logic as language. This view is generally rejected in
favor of a view of logic as an abstract calculus that has no content of its own, and
which depends upon set theory as a background framework by which such a cal-
culus might be syntactically described and semantically interpreted.4 We brie‡y
describe the opposition between these two views of logic in section one, as well as
give some of the history of the idea of logic as language. In section two, we argue
that predication is more fundamental than membership and that di¤erent theo-
ries of predication are ontologically based on di¤erent theories of universals, the
three most prominent types being nominalism, realism, and conceptualism. These
theories of universals can be developed as alternative formal ontologies, each with
its own logic, and, in that regard, each with its own account of the view of logic
3
See [L&O], p. 283.
4
See van Heijenoort [1967] for a description of these two views of logic, and for a criticism of
the view of logic as language.

2
as language. The opposition between the views of logic as language and logic
as calculus can be mitigated in this way by using set theory as a mathematical
framework in which di¤erent formal ontologies can be described and compared
with one another in terms of their explanatory powers, even if only in terms of
a somewhat distorting external semantical representation within set theory. We
then brie‡y examine nominalism, logical realism, and conceptualism within the
framework of comparative formal ontology and argue that an extended form of
conceptual realism seems to provide the most coherent formal ontology by which
to defend the view of logic as language.

1. Logic as Language versus Logic as Calculus

The relation between logic and ontology today, according to Bochenski, is that
ontology is “a sort of prolegomenon to logic” (ibid., p. 290). That is, whereas
ontology is an intuitive, informal inquiry into the categorial aspects of entities in
general, “logic is the systematic, formal, axiomatic elaboration of this material
predigested by ontology” (ibid.). In addition to this di¤erence in method, i.e.
of ontology being intuitive and informal, and logic being formal and systematic,
there is also the di¤erence that whereas “ontology as it is usually practiced is
the most abstract theory of real entities, logic in its present state is the general
ontology of both real and ideal entities,”i.e. of abstract as well as concrete entities
(ibid.).
Bochenski’s example of the general ontology of the new logic is type theory,
which, he says, is “strikingly similar to the old ontological views about ‘being’,”
(ibid., p. 287), speci…cally that being is not a genus, because in type theory being
is not univocal but is systematically ambiguous.5 Type theory is not the dominant
paradigm of logic today, however; and, in fact, the idea of logic having any content
at all, no less as containing a general ontology, is generally rejected in favor of the
view of logic as calculus, which, as noted, is the dominant view today. Logic, on
this view, is an abstract calculus devoid of any content of its own, but which can be
given varying interpretations over varying domains of arbitrary cardinality, where
the domains and interpretations are all part of set theory. Accordingly, if ontology
really is a prolegomenon to logic, then, on this view, it can only be represented
5
It is noteworthy that Bertrand Russell, the founder (in 1908) of type theory, originally
held that being is univocal in his earlier (1903) Principles of Mathematics. For an account
of Russell’s development from a univocal to a systematically ambiguous notion of being, see
Cocchiarella [1987], chapter one.

3
as part of set theory. That is, it is only in the di¤erent set-theoretic domains
and interpretations that ontology as “a theory of a general sort of object”can be
said to be part of logic. It is not type theory, in other words, but set theory that
contains a general ontology and that represents the dominant view of logic today.
In fact, according to some proponents of this view, all philosophical analyses, and
not just those that are part of ontology, are to be carried out within de…nitional
extensions of set theory, i.e. in set theory with the possible addition of concrete
objects (urelements) and empirical predicates.6
Bochenski rejected the view of logic as calculus, i.e., of logic as “a sort of
game” the statements of which “do not and cannot pretend to be true in any
meaning of the term”(ibid., p.276). A formal system or calculus in which logical
constants are distinguished from nonlogical (descriptive) constants, and in which
logical axioms and rules are distinguished from nonlogical axioms and rules, is
not devoid of content, in other words, i.e., it is not a merely formal system,
as the view of logic as calculus would have it. Rather, it is a logistic system
in which logic is a language with content of its own. Moreover, as a general
framework by which to represent our commonsense and scienti…c understanding
of the world (through the introduction of descriptive constants and nonlogical
axioms), the logical forms of a logistic system are syntactic structures that, as it
were, carry their semantics on their sleeves. It is by assigning such logical forms to
the (declarative) sentences of a natural language or a scienti…c theory that we are
able to give logically perspicuous representations of the truth conditions of those
sentences, and thereby locate them ontologically within our general conceptual
framework. In this regard, a su¢ ciently rich formal logic is the basis of a lingua
philosophica within which conceptual and ontological analyses can be carried out,
and therefore a framework for general ontology. This approach, in contrast to the
view of logic as calculus with set theory as the framework for general ontology, is
what is meant by the view of logic as language.
The idea of a lingua philosophica goes back at least to Descartes and Leib-
niz, and perhaps even to the speculative grammarians of the 12th century who
believed that there was one grammar underlying all of the natural languages of
humanity.7 The speculative grammarians did not develop a formal logic as the ba-
sis of such a grammar, however. They believed that its structure was determined
6
See “On the nature of cetain philosophical entities” in Montague [1974] for a description
and defense of this view of set theory. Also, see Cocchiarella [1988], section 1, for a discussion
and criticism of this view.
7
Cp. Küng [1967].

4
by real things in the world and that a philosopher could discover that structure
only by considering the ontological nature of things. Descartes also believed that
underlying all languages was a lingua philosophica; but what it represented was
the form of reason and not the nature of things in the world. Such a language
would contain a mathesis universalis, but its construction must await an analysis
of all of the contents of consciousness into the simple ideas that were their ultimate
constituents.
Leibniz also thought that a universal language exists underlying all natural
languages, and that such a language represented the form of human reason. He
called the framework for such a philosophical language a characteristica univer-
salis, and took it as having three main goals.8 The …rst was that the universal
character could serve as an international auxiliary language that people of di¤er-
ent countries and cultures could use to communicate with one another. This goal
is not part of the view of logic as language today. The second and third goals,
on the other hand, are central to the idea of a logistic system. The second goal
was that the universal character was to be based on an ars combinatoria, an idio-
graphy or system of symbolization, by means of which a logical analysis could be
given of all of the actual and possible concepts that might arise in science. Such
an ars combinatoria would contain both a theory of logical form— i.e. a theory of
all of the possible forms that meaningful expressions might have— and a theory
of de…nitional forms, i.e. a theory of the operations whereby new concepts can
be constructed on the basis of given concepts. The third goal of the universal
character was that it must contain a calculus ratiocinator, a complete system of
deduction that would characterize valid argument forms, and that could be used
to study the logical consequences of what was already known. Also, once a uni-
versal character was constructed, Leibniz thought that it could be used as the
medium for a uni…ed encyclopedia of science, in which case it would then also
amount to a characteristica realis, a representational system that would enable us
to see into the inner nature of things. In this way, the universal character would
not only contain a general ontology, but also the more speci…c ontologies of each
…eld of science as well.
Though Leibniz did construct some fragments of a calculus ratiocinator, noth-
ing like an adequate system ful…lling his ideal was constructed until Frege’s (1879)
Begri¤sschrift, which Frege extended in his (1893) Grundgesetze der Arithmetik
by adding to it his theory of value-ranges (Werverläufe), or extensions of concepts
and relations, as abstract objects. This latter theory was in e¤ect a theory about
8
See Cohen [1954] for a more detailed account of Leibniz’s project.

5
how classes (Begri¤umfangen) as the extensions of the concepts that predicates
stand for in their role as predicates can be “grasped” by starting out from the
concepts themselves, namely, by nominalizing the predicates and treating them as
abstract singular terms that have the extensions of the concepts as their denotata.9
Here in Frege’s extended version of his concept-script we have a paradigm
of logic as containing a general ontology of both real and ideal objects. Indeed,
Frege himself was quite explicit in maintaining that his concept-script was “not a
mere calculus ratiocinator, but a lingua characteristica in the Leibnizian sense”.10
His goal was to construct not just an abstract calculus but “a logically perfect
language”that could be used as a general framework for science and mathematics.
It was not to serve the purposes of ordinary natural language, as Leibniz’s goal of
an international auxiliary language was, but was intended as a tool for the analysis
of concepts and the formal development of mathematical and scienti…c theories.
The relation between his concept-script and ordinary natural language, according
to Frege, was like that between a microscope and the eye. The eye is superior to
the microscope in “the range of its possible uses and the versatility with which
it can adapt to the most diverse circumstances”, but “as soon as scienti…c goals
demand great sharpness of resolution, the eye proves to be insu¢ cient”.11 In
other words, just as the microscope is a device “perfectly suited” to the demand
for great sharpness of visual resolution in science, so too the concept-script is
“a device invented for certain scienti…c purposes, and one must not condemn it
because it is not suited to others”(ibid.).
Unfortunately, Frege’s logic, as extended to include a theory of value-ranges as
abstract objects, was subject to Russell’s paradox, which involves the mechanism
of nominalization that Frege introduced to represent value-ranges as the extensions
of concepts.12 The addition of the theory of value-ranges was an important and
novel step, to be sure, because, as noted above, it was in this way that Frege
was able to explain our “grasp”of abstract objects in terms of the concepts that
predicates stand for; and that we can have such a “grasp”was essential to Frege’s
logicism, i.e. his reduction of number theory to logic. Still, it is important to note,
the theory of value-ranges was not part of Frege’s original concept-script, which
9
See Cocchiarella [1987], Chapter Two, for a detailed defense of this interpretation of Frege’s
logic.
10
Frege [1972], p. 90.
11
Frege [1879], p. 6.
12
See Cocchiarella [1987], Chapter Two, for a detailed analysis of what is involved in the
derivation of Russell’s paradox in Frege’s logic.

6
amounted in e¤ect to the …rst formulation of (a version of) standard second-order
logic.13 Frege himself was quite explicit in noting that “we can treat the principal
part of logic without speaking of classes, as I do in my Begri¤sschrift”.14
It is not necessary that a nominalized predicate denote the extension of the
concept that the predicate stands for in its role as a predicate in order to derive
Russell’s paradox. The paradox is derivable, in other words, even if, nominalized
predicates, as abstract singular terms, are taken to denote the intensions of the
concepts that predicates stand for— which, for Russell, were none other than the
concepts themselves. Russell’s way out of his paradox was the theory of types,
where predicates are divided into a hierarchy of di¤erent types, and nominalized
predicates of a given type can occur as argument expressions only of predicates of
higher types.15 It was this division of predicates and their nominalizations that
resulted in the systematic ambiguity of being in type theory, and other than as a
way of avoiding paradox, it does not seem to be based on any deep insight into
the nature of reality. For this reason, the theory of logical types is sometimes said
to be an ad hoc system of logic.
There are other problems with type theory as well. Concrete objects, for ex-
ample, are assigned only to the initial type of “individuals”, which means that
in order to construct the natural numbers (as higher-order objects) Russell had
to assume that there are in…nitely many concrete (non-abstract) “individuals”.16
This was an unwarranted ontological assumption about the physical world that
led to some dissatisfaction with the theory of types, especially among those who
viewed it as an ad hoc way to avoid the paradoxes. Also, for Russell, the “indi-
viduals” of lowest type are events, and physical objects of both the micro- and
macro-physical world are “logical constructions” from events, which means that
physical objects are abstract and not concrete entities, contrary to our normal on-
13
Here, by standard second-order logic, we mean the second-order logic that is complete with
respect to Henkin general models— not the second-order logic that is incomplete with respect to
so-called “standard”set-theoretic models. To claim that Frege’s logic is incomplete is to confuse
the (iterative) hierarchy of sets with Frege’s hierarchy of concepts where Cantor’s theorem fails
(for reasons connected with Frege’s double-correlation thesis, which we describe in section 4).
14
“Letter to Jourdain” (1910), in Bochenski [1961], p.360.
15
Russell’s division of predicates actually involves two hierarchies, one a “vertical” hierarchy
of levels, and the other a “horizontal” hierarchy in which all of the concepts on a given level
are rami…ed. See Cocchiarella [1987], Chapter One, for a description of these hierarchies and a
detailed account of Russell’s development of the theory of logical types.
16
In Russell’s earlier 1903 framework in which being is a genus, all entities are “individuals”.
It was only in his later theory of types that he used the word ‘individual’to refer to objects of
lowest type.

7
tological intuitions about the world. Other ontological assumptions, such as the
reducibility axiom and the axiom of choice, were also needed, and led to further
dissatisfaction.17 In time, the theory of types was given up by most philosophers,
as well as by mathematicians, in favor of set theory, which seems far more sim-
ple and intuitive in its assumptions about the existence of sets. The idea that
there is an in…nite set consisting, for example, of the empty set, Ø, singleton the
empty set, {Ø}, doubleton the empty set and its singleton, {Ø,{Ø}}, and so on
ad in…nitum, does not depend on there being any concrete objects at all, and the
assumption of its existence seems intuitively natural. There is no need for a re-
ducibility axiom in set theory, moreover, and, given that sets are abstract objects
that exist independently of all constructions of the mind, there seems to be no
problem with assuming an axiom of choice for sets.
Finally, the development of formal, model-theoretic semantics by Tarski and
others as a part of set theory led to many important results that …t very naturally
with the logic as calculus view.18 As a result of this type of semantics, logic, as
we have said, is generally viewed today as an abstract calculus with no content of
its own, a calculus that can be assigned di¤erent interpretations over varying set-
theoretic domains, thereby resulting in what seems to many to be a very natural,
formal explication of the important notions of logical consequence and logical
truth. Indeed, these semantical developments in set theory, which in itself is a
very powerful and useful framework for the development of mathematics, is taken
by many contemporary philosophers and logicians to be the coup de grace for the
view of logic as language.

2. Predication Versus Membership

Notwithstanding the great power and utility of set theory as a mathematical the-
ory, and of set-theoretic model theory in particular as a method for proving a
number of results in formal semantics, it is not the right sort of framework in
which to represent either a general ontology or our commonsense and scienti…c
17
The rami…cation of the di¤erent levels of type theory seemed to be nulli…ed, according
to Quine and other philosophers, by the reducibility axiom. Rami…cation also suggested that
type theory represents a constructive theory of abstract entities, and the axiom of choice seems
counter to the idea of such a constructive view.
18
See Addison, Henkin, and Tarski [1965] for a number of results in this area. Also, see
Hintikka [1988] for a discussion of how these results connect with the view of logic as calculus,
as well as a defense of this view.

8
understanding of the world. Membership, the basic notion upon which set theory
is constructed, is at best a pale shadow of predication, which, in one form or an-
other, is the basic notion upon which thought, natural language, and the logical
forms of the view of logic as language are constructed. Indeed, so basic is predica-
tion that di¤erent theories of logical form as di¤erent versions of the view of logic
as language are really based on alternative theories of predication. Traditionally,
these alternative theories have been informally described as theories of universals,
the three major types of which are nominalism, conceptualism, and realism. Here,
by a universal we mean that type of entity that can be predicated of things, which
is essentially the characterization originally given by Aristotle.19 As described by
Porphyry in his Introduction to Aristotle’s Categories, the three major types of
theories of universals are concerned either with predication in language (nominal-
ism), predication in thought (conceptualism), or predication in reality (realism).
It is, in each case, the predicable nature of a universal that constitutes its uni-
versality, its one-in-many nature, and, at least in conceptualism and realism, that
predicable nature is taken to be a mode of being that, unlike sets (of the iterative
hierarchy) is not generated by its instances, and, in that sense, does not have its
being in its instances, the way that sets have their being in their members. That
is why sets should not be confused with universals, as has become all too common
by those who take set theory as the only proper framework for philosophy.
That there are di¤erent theories of universals means, we have said, that there
are di¤erent theories of predication, and, on the view of logic as language, this
means that there can be alternative theories of logical forms— i.e. alternative
formal logics— that can be taken as formal representations of di¤erent theories
of universals, and, in that regard, as formal ontologies. Here, in the recognition
that there can be alternative formal logics in the sense of a formal ontology— i.e.
alternatives that can be compared and contrasted in various respects with one
another— we …nd a clear rejection of the idea that the views of logic as calculus
and logic as language are mutually exclusive. There is no inconsistency in the
idea that the informal, intuitive theories of universals that have been described
and proposed throughout the history of philosophy are each in its own way “the
predigested material of ontology”, and that the di¤erent versions of this material
can be systematically developed and explained in terms of the methodology of
modern symbolic logic by formulating each as a formal theory of predication that
can be taken as the basis of both a formal logic and a formal ontology. Set
theory and model-theoretic semantics, subject to the proper constraints dictated
19
See Aristotle’s De Interpretatione 17 a 39 for this acount of universals.

9
by each theory of universals, can be used as a mathematical framework by which to
construct and compare these di¤erent formal ontologies— but, and this cautionary
note is important, only in the sense of providing an external, mathematical model
of the ontology that each purports to represent in its own internal way.
Just as the construction of a particular theory of universals as a formal ontology
will lend clarity and precision to our informal ontological intuitions, so too a
framework of comparative formal ontology can be developed so as to provide clear
and precise criteria by which to judge the adequacy of a particular formal ontology,
and by which we might be guided in our comparison and evaluation of di¤erent
proposals for such systems. This is not to deny the “validity” of each formal
ontology as a correct perspective on reality, and in particular this does not mean
that the “truth”of any formal ontology is merely a “relative truth”of no objective
ontological signi…cance. Rather, it is only by constructing and comparing di¤erent
formal ontologies in the general framework of comparative formal ontology that we
can make a rational decision about which system we should ourselves ultimately
adopt.

3. The Vagaries of Nominalism

The connection between ontology and logic as a theory of logical form is stronger
and also somewhat di¤erent from that between an informal scienti…c theory (such
as, e.g., classical, or relativistic, particle mechanics) and an axiomatic version of
that scienti…c theory as an applied form of a logistic system, i.e. as an applied
theory of logical form. Ontological distinctions are not formally represented by
descriptive predicates and the axioms regarding how they relate to one another,
but by the logico-grammatical categories of a theory of logical form and the rules
and axioms governing their possible transformations. In frameworks other than
nominalism, these categories are based ultimately on an intuitive, informal dis-
tinction between modes of being. In a system in which being is not univocal
but multivalent, for example, there will be variables of di¤erent logical types cor-
responding to the logico-grammatical categories that are taken to represent the
di¤erent modes of being of that theory, and when bound by quanti…ers that are
interpreted ontologically rather than substitutionally these variables are assumed
to have the corresponding entities of that type as their values. Given our assump-
tion that a formal ontology is based on a theory of universals, which is represented
by a formal theory of predication, the two principal types of variables in question
here are predicate and individual variables. We will in general restrict ourselves

10
to considering just these types of variables and the views regarding their analyses
as ontological categories.
In nominalism, the basic ontological thesis is that there are no universals be-
yond the predicate expressions, or the tokens of such, that occur in language. This
means that either there are no predicate variables and quanti…ers binding such, or
if there are, then they must be interpreted only substitutionally, and hence that
certain constraints must be imposed on predicate quanti…ers.20 The only variables
that are allowed in nominalism to be bound by quanti…ers having an ontological
interpretation, in other words, are individual variables, which means that being, in
nominalism, is not multivalent but univocal. For nominalism, predication is just
predication in language, which, semantically, is explained as a relation between
predicate expressions and the objects they are true of (or satis…ed by). It is in
this sense that nominalism, or what Bochenski calls logical nominalism, maintains
that “logic is about language”([L&O], p. 292).
Ontological nominalism, according to Bochenski, claims that “there are no
ideal entities” (ibid.), which reduces to the claim that there are no universals
(beyond predicate expressions) if that is all that is meant by an “ideal entity”. To
be sure, the medieval form of nominalism seemed to preclude all abstract entities;
but that might be because universals were the only abstract entities that were
then at issue. In any case, let us call that type of nominalism in which ideal, or
abstract, entities of any kind are rejected traditional ontological nominalism.
In modern ontological nominalism, at least of the sort described by Nelson
Goodman, nominalism “does not involve excluding abstract entities, ... but re-
quires only that whatever be admitted as an entity at all be counted as an in-
dividual”, where for a system “to treat entities as individuals... is to take them
as variables of the lowest type in the system”.21 This, essentially, is what we de-
scribed above as logical nominalism, where only individual variables are allowed to
be bound by quanti…ers having an ontological interpretation. It is not traditional
ontological nominalism, however, because it allows ideal, or abstract, entities to
be values of the bound individual variables. Goodman himself, in The Structure of
Appearance, took qualia, which are ideal entities of a phenomenalist ontology, to
be the basic individuals of his own nominalist formal ontology. On the other hand,
Goodman does reject sets (or classes in the mathematical sense of the iterative
hierarchy) as admissible values of the individual variables of a nominalist system;
20
As shown in Cocchiarella [1989a], the constraints for nominalism turn out to be just those of
standard predicative second-order logic, which can be extended to rami…ed second-order logic.
21
Goodman [1956], p.17.

11
but that is because the generating relation of set theory, namely membership,
allows us to distinguish sets that are made up of the same urelements (or “atoms”
of the constructional system in Goodman’s terminology). For example, where a
is an urelement (or atom), i.e. an object such that nothing is a member of it, fag
and fa; fagg are di¤erent sets even though both are (2-)generated from a. For
Goodman, the nominalist’s dictum that rules this kind of ontology out is: “No
distinction of entities without distinction of content”, that is, “no two distinct
things can have the same atoms”.22 Thus, on Goodman’s explication, modern
ontological nominalism does preclude some kinds of ideal entities (e.g. sets, in
particular) other than universals, though it also allows others, such as qualia.
Quine, together with Goodman, once attempted to construct a nominalist
system that satis…ed Goodman’s nominalist dictum.23 But it was a temporary
gesture, and he returned to his preferred ontological framework of set theory— but
only as formulated within …rst-order logic, where to be is to be the value of a bound
individual variable, which Quine later preferred to call an “objectual” variable
instead. Other than violating Goodman’s dictum of “no distinction of entities
without a distinction of content,”Quine’s preferred framework of set theory comes
close to being a form of modern ontological nominalism, though Quine himself calls
his ontology platonistic and refers to sets as universals.
Quine’s understanding of his ontology as platonistic and of sets as universals is
based on a rather involuted argument, the essentials of which are as follows: if we
were to adopt platonism as a theory of universals as represented by a higher-order
logic in which predicate as well as individual variables can be bound, then (1)
predicate quanti…ers can be given a referential ontological interpretation only if
predicates are (mis)construed as singular terms (i.e. terms that can occupy the
argument or subject positions of predicates); and (2) assuming extensionality, (3)
predicates, as singular terms, can only denote sets, which (4) must then also be
the universals that are the values of the predicate variables in predicate positions;
and therefore (5) predication must be the same as membership, in which case
(6) we might as well replace predicate variables by individual variables (thereby
accepting nominalism’s exclusion of bound predicate variables) and take sets as
values of the individual variables, arriving thereby at (7) a …rst-order theory of
membership (set theory), which (8) is platonist because it has abstract entities as
22
Goodman [1956], p. 21.
23
See Goodman and Quine [1947]. This paper opens with a clear renunciation of abstract
entities altogether.

12
values of its one type of variable.24 Thus, beginning with higher-order logic with
bound predicate variables as a version of platonism, we arrive at the nominalist
position to recognize only quanti…cation with respect to individual variables (or
the subject positions of predicates), but with individual variables that can have
abstract sets as their values, which are therefore really universals (i.e. entities
that have a predicable nature).
Without going into the details here, it is noteworthy that Frege would reject
(1), accept (2), accept (3) as applied to value-ranges, and reject (4)-(7). Russell
would accept (1), reject (2) and (3), accept (4), and reject (5)-(7). Goodman, as
we have noted, would reject (8) in so far as it applies to such ideal entities as qualia.
Quine’s implicit argument, needless to say, can hardly be taken as a paradigm of
how one should view the relation between logic and ontology. Nevertheless, it
does indicate how one can adopt an ontological view of logic, and yet end up with
a system that coincides in all other respects with the view of logic as calculus.

4. The Vindication (Almost) of Logical Realism

The paradigm of a formal logic in which all logico-grammatical categories represent
ontological categories is the system of Frege’s Grundgesetze. The ontological in-
sight that is fundamental to this logic is Frege’s distinction between saturated and
unsaturated entities, where all and only saturated entities are “complete objects”
in a sense analogous to Aristotle’s notion of primary substance— though Frege’s
“complete objects”include abstract objects, such as propositions (Gedanken) and
value-ranges, as well as concrete, physical objects, whereas only physical objects
count as primary substances in Aristotle’s ontology. Unsaturated entities are func-
tions of di¤erent ontological types, depending on the types of their arguments and
the types of their values. For example, …rst-level concepts (Begri¤e), which Frege
also called properties (Eigenshaften), are functions from objects to truth values,
and second-level concepts, such as those represented, e.g., by the universal and
existential quanti…ers, are functions from …rst-level concepts to truth values.
Predication in Frege’s formal ontology is explained in terms of the unsaturated
nature of functions; that is, the nexus of predication for Frege is just a type of
functionality. This is a mathematical interpretation, not essentially di¤erent from
the set-theoretic one in terms of membership; for, whereas membership in a set can
24
See Quine [1963], p. 257, for what amounts to the essentials of these claims. Also, see
Cocchiarella [1992] for a more detailed account of these claims and their sources in Quine’s
writings, as well as of this argument that is implicit in those writings.

13
be explained in terms of functionality (i.e. in terms of the characteristic function
of a set that assigns 1 to its members and 0 to its nonmembers), functionality
can in turn be explained in terms of membership. Of course, unlike functions,
sets do not have an unsaturated nature; but then the only explanation Frege ever
gave of the unsaturated nature of a function turned on the unity of a sentence
(which is based on the unsaturated nature of a predicate expression as a linguistic
function) and the unity of the proposition (Gedanke) expressed by a sentence.
Regarding the unsaturated nature of the predicate of a sentence, for example,
Frege claimed that “this unsaturatedness ... is necessary, since otherwise the
parts [of the sentence] do not hold together” ([PW], p.177). Similarly, regarding
the unsaturated nature of the nexus of predication in a proposition, Frege claimed
that “not all parts of a thought [Gedanke] can be complete; at least one must
be ‘unsaturated’, or predicative; otherwise they would not hold together” (Frege
[1952], p. 54). Thus, although predication is explained in Frege’s ontology in
terms of functionality, functionality seems ultimately to presuppose the notion of
predication. If predication had really been taken as basic in Frege’s ontology, and
functionality explained in terms of predication, then perhaps functionality would
be essentially di¤erent from membership after all.
This, in fact, is the situation in Russell’s ontology, where functionality is ex-
plained in terms of predication and the unity of a proposition. A function, ac-
cording to Russell, is just a many-one relation, where a relation, as the nexus of
predication of a proposition— i.e. as the relating relation of that proposition, as
opposed to a relation occurring as a “term” of the proposition— is what explains
the unity of the proposition.25 What holds the constituents of a proposition to-
gether, according to Russell, is a relation relating those constituents in a certain
way, i.e. a relation as the nexus of predication of that proposition, which, because
the proposition “exists” independently of language and thought, amounts to a
form of predication in reality— but of course a reality that includes such abstract
entities as propositions.26 Unlike Frege, however, Russell (at least until 1913)
took properties and relations to be objects, i.e. entities that could themselves be
related by relations (of a higher order/type) in the nexus of predication; and, as
a result, he had to reject the idea that properties and relations are unsaturated,
25
Cp. [PoM], p. 83. See also p. 43 where the word ‘term’ is said to be synonymous with
‘individual’and ‘entity’.
26
Russellian propositions (at least after Russell dropped his 1903 theory of denoting concepts)
are sometimes also taken to be states of a¤airs, and states of a¤airs are assumed to be a
fundamental part of reality in many ontologies.

14
i.e. that the predicative nature of properties and relations consist in their having
an unsaturated nature.27 But then this leaves Russell with no ontological expla-
nation of the di¤erence between a relation occurring as the relating relation of a
proposition as opposed to its occurring merely as a “term”of that proposition— a
situation that could in principle lead to something like Bradley’s in…nite regress
argument against this kind of account of the unity of a proposition.
There is also some irony in the fact that, although Russell rejected the idea
of unsaturated concepts, the “vertical” part of his rami…ed theory of types was
initially suggested to him (and in that regard motivated) by a hierarchy of “lev-
els” of unsaturated concepts and relations that Frege was committed to in his
ontology, but which Frege did not in fact incorporate in his formal logic.28 Frege’s
commitment was clear because, as a consequence of its unsaturated nature, a func-
tion had to be of a di¤erent (and in a sense of a “higher”) ontological level, than
that of its arguments. The ground level of this ontological hierarchy consists, of
course, of all and only “complete”(saturated) objects. The …rst level “above”the
ground level then consists of all of the …rst-level concepts and relations that have
objects as their arguments; and the next level consists of all of the second-level
concepts and relations, including not only the functions from …rst-level concepts
and relations to truth values, but also unequal level relations between objects
and …rst-level concepts and relations. Third-level, fourth-level, etc., concepts and
relations similarly have objects and the concepts and relations of the preceding
levels as their arguments. The result is a hierarchy that continues on through one
ontological level after the other ad in…nitum.29
Now contrary to the way that Russell understood predication at the di¤er-
ent levels of his (vertical) hierarchy, the relation between …rst- and second-level
concepts and relations (and, in general, between the nth and (n+1)th levels of con-
cepts and relations), which Frege described as a falling within relation, is not the
same as that between objects and …rst-level concepts and relations, which Frege
27
After 1914, under the in‡uence of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Russell gave up the view of proper-
ties and relations as “objects”, i.e. entities that could be “logical subjects”of relations. Russell
did not seem to realize this meant that he had to give up the vertical hierarchy of his theory of
types and restrict himself to rami…ed second-order logic. See Cocchiarella [1987], Chapter Five,
for a detailed account of this change.
28
See Cocchiarella [1987], Chapter Two, for an account of the relation beween Russell’s theory
of types and Frege’s hierarchy of levels.
29
There are other types of functions in Frege’s ontology as well, it should be noted— such
as functions from objects to objects other than truth values, or the function from …rst-level
concepts and relations to their extensions as value-ranges.

15
described as a falling under relation. That is why, unlike Russell’s higher “level”
properties and relations, Frege’s second- and higher-level concepts and relations
are not represented by predicates but by variable-binding operators, which, unlike
predicates, can be commuted and iterated, as well as occur within the scope of one
another. This hierarchy, in fact, is not based on anything like Cantor’s power-set
theorem; and, in fact, contrary to the hierarchy of sets determined by the latter,
there are no more second-level concepts and relations in Frege’s hierarchy than
there are …rst-level concepts and relations (and, in general, no more (n+1)th-level
concepts and relations than there are nth-level concepts and relations). Of course,
given Frege’s correlation of …rst-level concepts with their value-ranges, there are
also no more …rst-level concepts and relations than there are objects.
What all this suggested to Frege was that third- and higher-level concepts and
relations could all be represented in a way by second-level concepts and relations,
and that therefore there was no need to explicitly deal with third- and higher-level
concepts and relations in his formal logic. That is why Frege saw no point in intro-
ducing quanti…ers (representing third-level concepts) for second-level concepts and
relations. Indeed, he is quite explicit in assuming (what I have elsewhere called)
a double-correlation thesis to the e¤ect that all second-level concepts and rela-
tions can be correlated with and represented by …rst-level concepts and relations,
which in turn can be correlated with and represented by their value-ranges.30 For
example, in the monadic case, the thesis can be symbolized as follows:

(8Q)(9F )(8G)[(Qx)G(x) $ F (G)];

where ‘Q’is a variable for second-level concepts, ‘F ’and ‘G’are one-place pred-
icate variables for …rst-level concepts, and the nominalization of a predicate (in
this case ‘G’) is indicated by simply deleting the parentheses (and commas in the
case of a relational predicate) that otherwise occur as part of the predicate in its
role as a predicate.31
It is by means of this double-correlation that Frege explains “the miracle of
number”, i.e. the existence of numbers as objects, denoted by numerals and other
30
See Frege’s Grundgesetze der Aritmetik, section 25, for an explicit statement of this corre-
lation. Also, see Cocchiarella [1987], Chapter Two, for a more detailed account.
31
Frege uses the smooth-breathing operator to represent the nominalization of the predicate
‘G’, as in ‘"G(")’, which in ordinary language he reads as ‘the concept G’, but which denotes the
extension of G. Frege took the longer phrase ‘the extension of the concept G’ as unnecessary
in an extensional framework. (See Cocchiarella [1987], Chapter Two, for a fuller explanation of
these issues.)

16
singular terms. As saturated abstract objects, in other words, the natural numbers
are “derived” from certain second-level unsaturated concepts, speci…cally, those
that are represented by numerical quanti…er phrases. For example, corresponding
to the second-level concept represented by the quanti…er phrase, ‘there are 4 ob-
jects x such that’, which we can symbolize as ‘94 ’, there is a …rst-level concept F
such that a …rst-level concept G falls within the second-level concept represented
by ‘94 ’if, and only if, the (extension of the) concept G falls under F ; in symbols:

(9F )(8G)[(94 x)G(x) $ F (G)]:

Note that the extension of a concept G falls under the …rst-level concept F that is
posited here if, and only if, there are four objects that have G, i.e. if, and only if,
the extension has four members; and hence F is really the concept under which all
and only four-membered classes fall. The extension of the concept F itself then
is just the class of all four-membered classes, which on Frege’s (and Russell’s)
analysis is just the number four as denoted by the numeral ‘4’.32 It is in this
way, in other words, by going through a double-correlation and representation of
second-level numerical concepts with …rst-level concepts, and similarly of …rst-level
concepts with their extensions, that we are able to “grasp” the natural numbers
as objects that can be denoted by numerals and other singular terms.
Now it is noteworthy that Frege’s double-correlation thesis indicates a way by
which Russell’s paradox can be avoided. Indeed, there are two related ways in-
volved here, and not just one. The …rst is simply to exclude from Frege’s original
ontology all unequal-level relations (such as the second-level relation of predica-
tion between an object and a …rst-level concept), which means that the resulting
hierarchy of concepts and relations must now be homogeneously strati…ed. Frege’s
double-correlation thesis, extended to apply to all higher-level concepts and rela-
tions, can then be restricted to a correlation that is homogeneously strati…ed. In
particular, using -abstracts for the generation of complex predicates, including
those in which nominalized predicates occur as abstract singular terms, we can ar-
rive at a consistent (relative to weak Zermelo set theory) reconstruction of Frege’s
logic by restricting the grammar to those -abstracts that can be homogeneously
strati…ed.33 The homogeneously strati…ed comprehension principle for …rst-level
32
Of course, on Russell’s analysis the number 4 is a higher-order “object”, and in fact there
are in…nitely many numbers 4 in Russell’s type theory, one for each level of the vertical hierarchy
greater than two.
33
A formula or -abstract ' is homogeneously strati…ed (or just h-strati…ed ) i¤ there is an
assignment t of natural numbers to the terms and predicate expressions occurring in ' (including

17
concepts and relations then has the following form,

(HSCP ) (9F n )([ x1 :::xn '] = F )

where the -abstract [ x1 :::xn '] is homogeneously strati…ed. From this (and Leib-
niz’s law) follows the weaker, but more usual, comprehension principle,

(HSCP ) (9F n )(8x1 ):::(8xn )[F (x1 ; :::; xn ) $ '];

where ' is homogeneously strati…ed (which includes all the w¤s of standard
second-order logic, i.e. w¤s in which no nominalized predicates occur as abstract
singular terms). Russell’s paradox, as represented by

(9F )(8x)(F (x) $ (9G)[x = G ^ :G(x)])

cannot be derived from this principle (despite its being well-formed and therefore
meaningful), because the comprehending formula in this case is not homogeneously
strati…ed.
The resulting system, which is obtained by extending standard second-order
logic by including nominalized predicates as abstract singular terms, is called
HST*. This system can be shown to be equiconsistent with the theory of simple
types. Unlike the latter, however, we can add an axiom of in…nity here that is
independent of how many, if any, concrete objects there are in the physical world.
The formal logic HST* can be used as a logical reconstruction of the logic
implicit in Russell’s early framework as well as of Frege’s logic, except that for
the latter we would also add a principle of extensionality:

(Extn ) (8x1 ):::(8xn )(' $ ) ! [ x1 :::xn '] = [ x1 :::xn ]:

Of course, one could also add modal operators for necessity and possibility and in
that way extend Frege’s ontology to a modal variant as well, in which case (Extn )
would not be assumed as an (onto)logical truth or law.
' itself if it is a -abstract) such that (1) for all terms a; b, if (a = b) occurs in ', then t(a) = t(b);
(2) for all n 1, all n-place predicate expressions , and all terms a1 ; :::; an , if (a1 ; :::; an ) is
a formula occurring in ', then (i) t(ai ) = t(aj ), for 1 i; j n, and (ii) t( ) = t(a1 ) + 1;
(3) for n 1, all individual variables x1 ; :::; xn , and formulas , if [ x1 :::xn ] occurs in ',
then (i) t(xi ) = t(xj ), for 1 i; j n, and (ii) t([ x1 :::xn ]) = t(x1 ) + 1; and (4) for all
formulas , if [ ] occurs in ' and a1 ; :::; ak are all of the terms or predicates occurring in ,
then t([ ]) max[t(a1 ); :::; t(ak) ].

18
 The second way of avoiding Russell’s paradox and reconstructing Frege’s logic
is not to exclude unequal-level relations, but to allow— as Frege himself noted in
an appendix to his Grundgesetze— that “there are cases where an unexceptional
concept has no class answering to it as its extension” ([G&B], p.235), i.e. that
not every predicate expression when nominalized will denote (a value of the in-
dividual variables). All -abstracts, including those that are not homogeneously
strati…ed, can be admitted as meaningful predicates that stand for a concept or
relation, in other words, but not all will also necessarily denote an object when
nominalized. This means that the …rst-order part of the logic must be “free of
existential presuppositions”, so that although we have a comprehension principle
that applies to all -abstracts,

(CP ) (9F n )([ x1 :::xn '] = F );

where [ x1 :::xn '] need not be homogeneously strati…ed, it does not follow that
we also have
(9y) ([ x1 :::xn '] = y)
where y is an individual variable (not occurring free in '). In particular, by
Russell’s argument, the Russell predicate when nominalized does not denote (a
value of the individual variables),

:(9y) ([ x(9G)(x = G ^ :G(x))] = y)

even though the same predicate, by (CP ), stands for a concept:

(9F ) ([ x(9G)(x = G ^ :G(x))] = F ) :

All of the concepts and relations that are represented in the …rst reconstruction,
HST , can be consistently assumed to have objects (e.g., extensions given (Extn ),
or intensions if (Extn ) is rejected) in this alternative reconstruction of Frege’s
logic, which (for that reason) we call HST , and which can also be shown to be
equiconsistent with HST and therefore with the theory of simple types as well.
Note, however, that although the resulting logic can be taken as a reconstruc-
tion of Frege’s logic and ontology, it cannot also be taken as a reconstruction of
Russell’s early ontology, because having rejected the notion of unsaturatedness
and taken nominalized predicates to denote as singular terms the same concepts
and relations they stand for as predicates, Russell cannot then allow that some
predicates stand for concepts but, when nominalized, denote nothing. Still, there

19
is the logical system HST , which can be taken as a reconstruction of Russell’s
early ontological framework.
The upshot, accordingly, is that logical realism is not really defunct as either
a logical or an ontological theory, and as a semantical framework for natural
language it is in many respects actually superior to set theory.34 The idea of logic
as language in the sense of logical realism is still very much alive, in other words, or
at least can be resurrected and taken as an alternative to set theory as a semantical
and ontological framework. Of course, there remains the problem in both Russell’s
and Frege’s ontology of giving a philosophically coherent and satisfying account of
predication. But then, no such account is forthcoming in set theory— unless one
adopts Quine’s mixture of nominalism and what he calls platonism. An account
is forthcoming in conceptual realism, however, which includes an intensional as
well as a natural realism as part of the ontology; and, in the intensional part,
we can achieve most of what was attempted in logical realism without either the
latter’s platonism or its problem of giving a philosophically coherent account of
predication.35 We will brie‡y review some of the main features of this third type
of formal ontology in the remainder of this paper.

5. Conceptualism Without a Transcendental Subject

The principal method of ontology, we have noted, is categorial analysis. The
major issue of such an analysis is how the di¤erent categories or modes of being …t
together. In some ontologies, this issue is resolved by taking one of the categories
or modes of being as “primary”, with the others then explained as somehow
dependent on that mode— as is the case, e.g., in Aristotle’s moderate realism with
its category of primary substances, and in Frege’s logical realism with its category
of “complete”(saturated) objects.
The di¤erent categorial analyses that have been proposed throughout the his-
tory of philosophy, we have also noted, have turned in one way or another on a
theory of universals; and, such a theory, we have said, can be developed as a the-
34
In Chierchia [1984] and [1985], HST is used as a semantical framework in Montague
grammar that, at least for the semantics of gerunds, in…nitives and other forms of nominal-
ized predicates in natural language, is actually preferable to Montague’s own type-theoretical
intensional logic.
35
See Cocchiarella [1996] for an account of conceptual realism as a formal ontology, and
Cocchiarella [1992] for a comparison of this framework with Quine’s views on set theory and the
logic of classes.

20
ory of the logical forms that perspicuously represent how the di¤erent categories
…t together in the nexus of predication. We also noted that these theories have
di¤ered on whether the analysis of the fundamental forms of predication is to be
based on the structure of reality or on the structure of thought and reason. Aris-
totle’s analysis, for example, as well as that of the speculative grammarians of the
12th century, was directed upon the structure of reality, whereas Descartes’s and
Leibniz’s analyses were directed upon the structure of thought and reason. Kant’s
analysis of the categories of his Critique of Pure Reason was similarly directed on
the structure of thought and reason, and is a paradigm of this sort of approach.
Unlike Aristotle’s categories, which were based on physical objects as primary
substances, Kant’s categories were based on the notion of a judgment, and the
di¤erent logical forms that judgments might have. There is no primary mode of
being identi…ed in this analysis, other than that of the thinking subject, whose
“synthetic unity of apperception” is what uni…es the categories in the di¤erent
possible judgments that can be made. What categories there are and how they …t
together is determined, according to Kant, by a “transcendental deduction”, and
the categories so deduced then form the basis of a transcendental logic. A similar
approach was taken by Husserl who, in his phenomenological analyses, took logic
and ontology to be based on a transcendental subjectivity. In both cases, the
result is a conceptual idealism, the categorial structure of which is based on an
assumed absolute a priori knowledge of the principles of a transcendental logic.
That a conceptual system is “transcendental” means that it is independent
of our status as biologically, culturally, and historically determined beings, and
hence independent of the laws of nature and our evolutionary history. Not all
forms of conceptualism are committed to a transcendental view, however; nor
must conceptualism in general be committed to idealism or a methodology that
purports to be based on absolute a priori knowledge. Modern forms of conceptu-
alism, for example, are usually based on a naturalized epistemology that, in one
way or another, is not supposed to depend upon either Kant’s synthetic unity of
apperception or Husserl’s transcendental subjectivity— which does not mean that
other aspects of either Kant’s or Husserl’s analyses cannot be adopted on such a
naturalized approach. Konrad Lorenz, for example, has described what might be
called a biological Kantianism where the methodology is that of the empirical sci-
ence of ethology, and where, instead of a transcendental deduction, the categories
of thought are determined by evolution, which means that the results obtained
cannot then be a form of absolute a priori knowledge.36 Similarly, Jean Piaget has
36
See, e.g., Lorenz [1962].

21
developed a genetic epistemology in which there are di¤erent stages of conceptual
development both in the individual and in the history of knowledge, stages that
are based on a “functional”, as opposed to an absolute, a priori.37 There is no
synthetic unity of apperception or transcendental subjectivity that is assumed in
either of these approaches, it must be emphasized. But then there also seems
to be no explicit account that explains the unity of thought and judgment, i.e.,
of predication in thought. A conceptual account of this unity must be given if
conceptualism without a transcendental subjectivity is to be a viable alternative
to nominalism and logical realism, especially as a basis for the view of logic as
language.
An account is forthcoming, we maintain, once we allow for something like
Frege’s notion of unsaturatedness, but modi…ed appropriately to explain the role
of concepts in judgment and other forms of thought. Here, in conceptualism,
we do not mean by a concept anything at all like what Russell or Frege meant,
and in particular we do not mean a property or relation that can exist indepen-
dently of the mind; but then neither do we mean a strictly subjective entity as
well. Rather, by a concept in conceptualism we mean a certain type of inter-
subjectively realizable— and in that sense objective— cognitive structure, and in
particular a cognitive capacity that can be exercised or realized at the same time
by di¤erent people, as well as by the same person at di¤erent times. Predicable
concepts, for example, are intersubjectively realizable cognitive capacities, or cog-
nitive structures based on such capacities, for characterizing and relating objects
in various ways. In the social context of learning a language, these capacities un-
derlie our rule-following abilities in the correct use of predicate expressions, which
means that they are the principal factors that determine the truth conditions of
those expressions. It is in this way that the exercise of a predicable concept in a
speech or mental act is what informs that act with a predicable nature.
The important point here is that as intersubjectively realizable capacities con-
cepts are not images or ideas in the sense of particular mental occurrences (events),
and in fact they are not objects of any sort at all. Rather, as cognitive capacities,
concepts have an unsaturated nature that can be exercised by di¤erent people at
the same time as well as by the same person at di¤erent times— and in fact some
concepts might never be exercised at all (as, e.g., in the case of certain numerical
concepts) without diminishing their status as capacities that could be exercised
in appropriate contexts. Concepts are not occurrent states or events, in other
words, but are rather like dispositions, except that, unlike dispositions, which
37
Cf. Piaget [1972].

22
have a “would-have”nature of being realized under suitable conditions, concepts
have a “could-have”nature of being exercised in appropriate contexts. Of course,
when exercised, concepts result in objects, namely, particular mental acts, such
as judgments, and, when expressed overtly, certain types of speech acts, such as
assertions or statements. Predicable concepts, as we have said, are what inform
those acts with a predicable nature.
Conceptual thought consists not just of predicable concepts, however, but of
referential and other types of concepts as well. Referential concepts, for example,
are cognitive capacities that underlie our ability to refer (or purport to refer) to
objects, and, as such, they too have an unsaturated cognitive structure. More
importantly, referential concepts have a structure that is complementary to that
of predicable concepts, so that each, when exercised or applied jointly in a basic
mental or speech act, mutually saturates the other, resulting thereby in an act
(event) that is informed with a referential and a predicable nature. It is the
complementarity of predicable and referential concepts as unsaturated cognitive
structures that is the basis of the unity of our thoughts and speech acts, and which
explains why a transcendental subjectivity need not be assumed as the basis of
this unity.
Every a¢ rmative assertion (speech act) that is syntactically analyzable in
terms of a noun phrase and a verb phrase (regardless of the complexity of either)
is semantically analyzable, according to the kind of conceptualism we are describ-
ing here, in terms of an overt application of a referential and a predicable concept,
and the assertion itself is the result of their mutual saturation in that joint appli-
cation. It is this sort of joint application and mutual saturation of complementary
cognitive structures that, in conceptualism, explains the nexus of predication in
both thought and language. A speech act in which ‘All swans are white’ is as-
serted, for example, is the result of jointly applying the referential concept that
‘all swans’stands for, which formally can be represented by ‘(8xSwan)’, with the
predicable concept that ‘is white’stands for, which formally can be represented
by ‘W hite( )’, or, using -abstracts, by ‘[ xW hite(x)]( )’. The assertion can
then be analyzed as having the logical form (8xSwan)W hite(x), or, equivalently,
(8xSwan)[ xW hite(x)](x), both of which perspicuously represent the cognitive
structure of the assertion as the mutual saturation of the referential and predica-
ble concepts that underlie it. Similarly, the cognitive structure of an assertion of
‘Some swans are not white’, where the negation is internal to the predicate, can
be perspicuously represented as ‘(9xSwan)[ x:W hite(x)](x).
Singular reference, as in the use of a proper name or de…nite description, is not

23
essentially di¤erent from general reference in conceptualism, which in many ways
resembles the suppositio theory of medieval logicians.38 The syntactic category of
names can in fact be taken to consist of common names and proper names as two
proper subcategories, where proper names and most common names are taken to
stand for sortal concepts.39 Sortal concepts are those cognitive capacities whose
use in thought and communication is associated with certain identity criteria,
i.e. criteria by which we are able to identify objects of the sort in question.
The common name ‘swan’, for example, stands for a sortal concept by which we
are able to identify and refer to swans, and a proper name, such as ‘Aristotle’,
stands for a sortal concept by which we are able to identify and refer to a certain
individual. In general, the use of a proper name brings with it the identity criteria
of the most speci…c sortal common name associated with that proper name.
Singular reference is not essentially di¤erent from general reference, on this
account, which means that the referential use of a proper name should also be
represented by a quanti…er phrase. This is particularly appropriate in that a
proper name can be used without, as well as with, existential presupposition,
and these di¤erent types of uses can be associated with the quanti…ers 8 and 9,
respectively. Thus, for example, ‘(9xAristotle)’can be used to represent a use of
the proper name ‘Aristotle’that is with existential presupposition— as, e.g., in an
assertion of ‘Aristotle is Greek’, symbolized as ‘(9xAristotle)Greek(x)’— whereas
‘(8xPegasus)’can represent a use of the name ‘Pegasus’that is without existential
presupposition— as, e.g. in an assertion of ‘Pegasus is winged’, symbolized as
‘(8xPegasus)Winged(x)’. The important point is that in both kinds of cases the
referential concept is an unsaturated cognitive structure and not an “idea”, image,
or mental occurrent of any type, though, when exercised, the result is a mental
occurrent (event) of some type or other. De…nite descriptions can also be used
without, as well as with, existential presuppositions; but, having explained this
di¤erence elsewhere, we will forego discussing them here.40
Referential concepts, as these examples indicate, are represented by quanti-
38
Peter Geach, in [R&G], has criticized the suppositio theory as well as other theories of
general reference. For a defense against Geach’s arguments of the kind of conceptualist theory
being proposed here, see Cocchiarella [1998].
39
Common, as well as proper, names are di¤erent from predicates in that, as Geach has noted,
they can be used “outside the context of a sentence”in “simple acts of naming”([R&G], p.52),
i.e. acts that are not assertions and that do not in that regard involve the use of a name to
refer. “Nouns in the vocative case used in greetings, and ejaculations like ‘Wolf!’ and ‘Fire!’
illustrate this independent use of names” (ibid.).
40
See, e.g., Cocchiarella [1989b] and [1996].

24
…er phrases, which formally can be symbolized as (QxS), where Q is a quanti…er
symbol (such as 8 or 9, or a quanti…er for ‘most’, ‘few’, etc.) indexed by the
(individual) variable x, and S is symbol for a common name, complex or simple.
Complex common names, at least in English, are generated from more basic com-
mon names by attaching a (de…ning) relative clause to the latter. Formally, by
adopting a new primitive operator ‘=’, we can represent the operation of attach-
ing a relative clause, represented by a formula ', to a common name S, by the
expression ‘S='’, which is read as ‘S (who, which) that is (are) '’. An assertion
of ‘Every citizen (who is) over twenty-one is eligible to vote’, for example, can be
symbolized as:
(8xCitizen=x is-over-21)[ xEligible-to-vote(x)](x):
The truth conditions for sentences with complex names can be connected to the
more usual kinds of truth conditions by such rules or meaning postulates as:
(8xS=')F (x) $ (8xS)[' ! F (x)];
(9xS=')F (x) $ (9xS)[' ^ F (x)];
and iterations of the =-operator can be reduced to simple conjunctive relative
clauses by such laws as:
(8xS='= )F (x) $ (8xS=' ^ )F (x);
(9xS='= )F (x) $ (9xS=' ^ )F (x):
The important point here is that though these various formulas are logically equiv-
alent, and therefore have the same truth conditions, they do not represent the same
cognitive structures of our speech and mental acts. In conceptualism, our concern
is not only with logical forms as perspicuous representations of the truth condi-
tions of our assertions, but also with the logical forms that represent the cognitive
structure of those assertions as well. It is this latter kind of representation that
is essential to conceptualism’s account of predication in thought and language.

6. Conceptual Natural Realism and the Analogy of Being

Between Natural and Conceptual Universals
Without some associated form of realism, conceptualism is an ontology restricted
to the conceptual realm, where it easily slips into the ontology of conceptual ideal-
ism, regardless whether or not the latter is based on a transcendental subjectivity.

25
As a socio-biological theory of the human capacity for language and thought, how-
ever, conceptualism must presuppose some form of natural realism as the causal
ground of that capacity. But then, natural realism must in turn presuppose some
form of conceptualism by which to explain our capacity for language and thought,
and in particular our capacity to form theories of the world and posit properties
and relations as part of the causal order. Conceptualism and natural realism, in
other words, presuppose each other as part of a more general ontology, namely,
one or another form of conceptual natural realism.41 The form of conceptual nat-
uralism we brie‡y describe here is itself part of a more general conceptual realism
that includes an intensional realism of abstract objects as well, which we will
describe section 7.
Aristotle and Peter Abelard were conceptual natural realists (but not inten-
sional realists), though they were not as clear as they could have been on the
distinction between concepts and natural properties and relations. Abelard, in his
Glosses on Porphyry, for example, does not distinguish the predicable concepts we
exercise in thought from the natural properties that exist as common likenesses in
things. A property (universal), according to Abelard, seems to “exist” in a dou-
ble way, …rst as a common likeness in things (prior to, and independent of, our
having any concept of that likeness), and then, through our capacity to abstract
the likeness in things from our perception of them, as a predicable concept that
“exists” somehow in our intellect. Aristotle also seems to describe natural kinds
and properties in this double way, i.e. as having a mode of being both in things
and then, through an inductive abstraction (epagoge), in the mind as well. Of
course, it is possible that the problem of this “double existence”is really not the
problem it has commonly been described to be; perhaps, for example, it is only
a problem of explaining how the same predicate can stand for, or signify, both a
concept and a natural property, where the latter only corresponds to, or is repre-
sented by, the former, i.e. where the two are not really the same universal after
all. The point in any case is that concepts cannot literally be the same as the nat-
ural properties and relations they purport to represent, and in fact some concepts
(especially for artifacts and social conventions) are not assumed to represent any
natural properties or relations at all.
The distinction between concepts in the order of conception and natural prop-
erties and relations in the order of being does not mean that there must also be a
41
Some of the di¤erences between these forms depends on whether a constructive or holistic
conceptualism is assumed, and whether the natural realism is part of an Aristotelian essentialism
or not. See Cocchiarella [1989a] for a more detailed account.

26
distinction between predicates that stand for concepts and predicates that stand
for natural properties and relations. Rather, as indicated above, it is a matter
of distinguishing between a primary and a secondary sense of signi…cation. The
same predicate, in other words, can be taken to stand for, or signify, a concept
in the primary sense, and, in a secondary, derivative sense, also to stand for, or
signify, a natural property or relation that corresponds to, or is represented by,
that concept— so that it is not the same universal that can exist in a double way
but a predicate that can signify in a double way instead. Similarly, in our theory
of logical form, the same (n-ary) predicate variables can be taken in a double way
to have both (n-place) concepts and (n-ary) natural properties and relations as
their values, so that the di¤erence is not represented by di¤erent types of predicate
variables but by the di¤erent types of predicate quanti…ers that can be a¢ xed to
predicate variables. That is, the di¤erence is a matter of the kind of second-order
reference that is made by means of predicate quanti…ers.
We can add to our conceptualist theory of logical form special quanti…ers, 8n
and 9n , accordingly, that can be a¢ xed to predicate variables, and that, when
a¢ xed, can be used to refer to natural properties and relations. Thus, for example,
a fundamental thesis of natural realism is that every (j-ary) natural universal is
causally realizable, which formally can be stated as follows:

(NR) (8n F j ) c
(9x1 ):::(9xj )F (x1 ; :::; xj );

where the modal operator c represents a causal (or natural) possibility and not
a logical or merely conceivable possibility. With the modal operator deleted, the
thesis (NR) represents a form of Aristotle’s moderate realism, which assumes that
properties and relations “exist” only in re, i.e. only in the concrete, physical
objects that have those properties and relations. With the modal operator (which
indicates what is possible in nature), (NR) represents a modal moderate realism
according to which natural properties and relations have a mode of being in the
causal structure of the world, a mode that does not depend on whether or not
there are objects having those properties and relations, and hence which is ante
rem, but not (as in logical realism) independent of whether or not there could be
such objects.42
42
Many of the natural properties and relations of atoms and compounds now in existence
were causally realizable when the universe was …rst formed but when there were no such atoms
and compounds. Similarly, some properties of possible transuranic substances might never be
realized because those kinds of atoms might never in fact exist, which is not to say that they
could not be realized and do not …gure in the causal structure of the world.

27
 Unlike concepts, which can be applied even in imaginary and …ctional contexts
that violate the laws of nature, natural properties and relations are “identical”
when they are co-extensive as a matter of causal or natural necessity, a thesis that
can be formulated as follows:

(F j =c Gj ) =df c
(8x1 ):::(8xj ) [F (x1 ; :::; xj ) $ G(x1 ; :::; xj )] :

It is “identity” in this sense that can be used to express the condition for when
a natural property or relation “exists” corresponding to a given concept, i.e. for
when the concept can be taken to represent such a property or relation. Thus,
where a concept of a given domain is represented by a -abstract, [ x1 :::xj '], we
can stipulate that there “exists”a natural property or relation corresponding to,
and in that sense represented by, that concept as follows,

(9n F j ) ([ x1 :::xj '] =c F ) :

This principle is similar to the comprehension principle, (CP ), for concepts (as
cognitive capacities), except that, instead of the strict identity, ‘=’, in (CP ),
we use the restricted identity, ‘=c ’, of having the same extension as a matter of
a natural or causal necessity. However, unlike the comprehension principle for
concepts, every instance of which is a logical or conceptual truth, an instance of
the above principle can be stipulated only as a scienti…c hypothesis, and therefore
only as an assumption that is subject to empirical con…rmation or falsi…cation.
Natural properties and relations are not intensional objects, it must be em-
phasized, nor are they objects of any other kind as well. As universals that can
be realized in di¤erent places at the same time and that might have no instances
at all in the world, natural properties and relations are not in the world the way
that concrete objects are, nor can they be considered to have an “objectual” na-
ture in any other sense as well. Rather, as causally determinate structures that
are part the causal structure of the world, natural properties and relations have
an unsaturated mode of being, which, although not the same as that of predi-
cable concepts, can nevertheless be said to be analogous. We can conceptually
grasp and understand the unsaturated mode of being of natural properties and
relations, in other words, only as somehow analogous to the mode of being of con-
cepts. Thus, just as predicable concepts do not exist independently of the human
capacity for language and concept-formation, so too natural properties and rela-
tion do not exist independently of the causal structure of the world; and just as
the laws of compositionality for concept-formation can be said to characterize the

28
logical structure of the intellect as the basis for the human capacity for language
and thought, so too the laws of nature regarding the causal connections between
natural properties and relations, especially as structural aspects of natural kinds
of things and stu¤, can be said to characterize the causal structure of the world.
The reference to natural kinds here should not be confused with a reference
to natural properties. For, in the kind of conceptual natural realism we have
in mind here, natural kinds, when they are assumed to “exist”, correspond not
to predicable concepts, but to sortal concepts, i.e. the concepts represented by
sortal common names. Here, by a natural kind we understand a type of causal
structure, or mechanism in nature, that is the basis of the powers or capacities
to behave in certain determinate ways that objects belonging to that natural
kind have. According to Aristotelian essentialism, natural kinds are in fact the
causal structures, or mechanisms in nature, that determine the natural laws of the
di¤erent kinds of things there are, or can be, in nature. As such, a natural kind is
not a “conjunction”of the natural properties and relations that objects belonging
to that kind necessarily have, but rather is the causal ground or nexus of the
events and states of a¤airs corresponding to such a conjunction. This ontological
di¤erence is analogous to the conceptual di¤erence between sortal common-name
concepts and predicable concepts and the way that referential concepts based on
the former may be saturated by the latter in particular events or states of a¤airs.
Thus, just as a referential concept based upon a sortal concept can be saturated
by a predicable concept in a speech or mental act, so too a natural kind, is an
unsaturated causal structure that, when realized by an object belonging to that
kind, is saturated by the natural properties and relations of that object, resulting
thereby in a nexus of events or states of a¤airs having that object as a constituent.
Accordingly, just as a predicate expression can signify both a predicable con-
cept and a natural property or relation, a sortal common name can also signify or
stand in a double way for both a concept and a natural kind as a causal structure,
and sortal-name variables can be given a similar double interpretation as well.
Thus, just as the quanti…ers 8n and 9n can be a¢ xed to predicate variables and
enable us to refer to natural properties and relations, so too we can introduce
special quanti…ers 8k and 9k , which, when a¢ xed to sortal-name variables, enable
us to refer to natural kinds. The logic of natural kinds can then be developed
in terms of certain fundamental laws, such as the law that an object belongs to
a natural kind only if being of that kind is essential to it, i.e. only if it must
belong to that kind whenever it exists (as a real, concrete object). Where ‘E!’is
a predicate constant for concrete existence (in an ontology where abstract objects

29
can also “be”, but not exist in this sense), this principle can formulated as follows:

(8k S)(8xS) c
[E!(x) ! (9yS)(x = y)] :

Other principles that are part of the logic of natural kinds are, e.g., a partition
principle (according to which one of any two natural kinds that are not necessar-
ily disjoint is subordinate to the other), a summum genus principle (that every
natural kind is subordinate to a natural kind that is not subordinate to any other
natural kind), an in…ma species principle (that any natural kind of object belongs
to a natural kind that is subordinate to every natural kind to which that object
belongs), and various other principles (such as that the family of natural kinds
to which an object belongs forms a chain of subordination such that each nat-
ural kind in the chain is a template structure that is causally more determinate
and …ner-grained than the natural kinds to which it subordinate). There are also
methodological principles regarding the representation of natural kinds by sortal
concepts.43
It is clear, accordingly, without going into all the details here, that conceptu-
alism can be analogically developed into a conceptual natural realism that is part
of an Aristotelian essentialism, and that in this way it can account for various
ontological categories or modes of being in the natural world of the space-time
manifold that neither conceptualism alone nor conceptual idealism can account
for.

7. Conceptual Intensional Realism

Frege’s ontological insight that, by our logical faculties, we are able to grasp “and
lay hold upon the extension of a concept by starting out from the concept”([PW],
p. 181), can be adapted to a conceptual intensional realism where, instead of ex-
tensions, we are conceptually able to grasp and lay hold upon the intensions of our
concepts by starting out from those concepts. Historically, this grasp has come
about through the evolution and institutionalization in language and culture of
the rule-based process of nominalization. Conceptually, the process represents
a kind of re‡exive abstraction in which we attempt to represent what is not an
object— e.g., an unsaturated cognitive capacity underlying our use of a predicate
expression— as if it were an object. Thus, by means of such a re‡exive abstraction,
we can transform a predicate phrase, such as ‘is wise’, ‘is triangular’, ‘is identical
43
See Cocchiarella [1995] for a brief survey of both kinds of principles.

30
with’, into an abstract singular term, such as ‘wisdom’, ‘triangularity’, and ‘iden-
tity’, by which we purport to denote the intensional content of the concept the
predicate stands for. Historically, it was Plato who …rst recognized the ontological
signi…cance of such a transformation, and who built his ontology around it.
Aristotle and Abelard, who are conceptual natural realists, rejected this kind
of hypostitization. Abelard, for example, did think that a (conceptual/natural)
universal such as being human was shared by, e.g., both Socrates and Plato,
but he rejected the idea that such a universal could itself be a “thing”, i.e. an
object; and indeed it is not an object in the conceptual natural realism described
above. The conceptual Platonist takes the opposite position, and assumes that
the nominalization of a predicate expression, as an abstract singular term, denotes
an abstract object, namely, the intensional content, or intension, of the concept
that the predicate expression stands for in its role as a predicate. Such intensional
objects are also typically called properties and relations, which of course should
not be confused with the properties and relations of natural realism, and which
should not be taken to mean that such objects have a predicable nature, which
is true of the classes of Frege’s ontology as well. Indeed, this kind of ontology
is really a conceptual counterpart to Frege’s logical realism, except that, unlike
Frege, the conceptual Platonist does not take the principle of extensionality as
a law of logic. Accordingly, our reconstruction of Frege’s logic, i.e. the logical
system HST described in section 4 above (with or without modal operators and
axioms included), can be taken as the logic of conceptual Platonism as well, which
in some ways is preferable in that Frege’s problem with predication does not apply
to conceptual Platonism.
Conceptual Platonism is not the only way that the intensional contents of
our concepts can be assumed to “exist”(or “be”the value of a bound individual
variable), however. In what I have elsewhere called conceptual intensional real-
ism, the Platonist idea that abstract objects “exist”outside of the causal order of
space, time, and the evolution of consciousness is rejected. Abstract objects, on
this account, have their being in the concepts whose intensions they are— just as
Frege’s classes are said to have their being in the concepts whose extensions they
are (cf. [PW], p. 183). In conceptual Platonism, this is strictly an epistemologi-
cal, and not an ontological, dependence. That is, it is only by starting out from
concepts as cognitive capacities that we can have knowledge of abstract objects,
i.e. knowledge of objects that, according to conceptual Platonism, “exist” in a
realm that transcends space, time and causality, and therefore that “preexist”
the evolution of consciousness and the very capacities by which they are grasped

31
and understood. In conceptual intensional realism, on the other hand, the de-
pendence is not merely epistemological but ontological as well. It is not only our
grasp and knowledge of intensional objects that has come about through the evo-
lution and development of the linguistic process of nominalization, i.e. the process
whereby predicates and other expressions are transformed into abstract singular
terms, but the very abstract being of those objects as well. It is in the evolution
and institutionalization of this process, which began with the …rst rudimentary
attempts to re‡exively abstract the intensional content of our concepts— i.e. to
reify, or “object-ify”, the rule-based cognitive capacities that underlie our use of
language— that the ultimate, explanatory ground of the mode of being of abstract
objects is to be located.
Abstract objects are not only products of cultural evolution, on this account,
but are also the means by which the further evolution of culture is possible. Thus,
in addition to the abstract objects of mathematics, which are essential for the de-
velopment of science and technology, there are also the intensional objects denoted
by nominalized sentences, such as that-clauses, namely, propositions. Propositions
are not the same as events and states of a¤airs, which are part of the causal order,
but rather make up a “bracketed world” of intensional content within which we
can freely speculate and make up theories about the natural world. Propositions
also make up the content of our myths and stories, both true and …ctional, and
they serve in this way the literary and aesthetic purposes of culture. Fictional
objects, in fact, are the intensional contents of the singular referential concepts
that occur in a …ction— that is, they are the objects obtained by the conceptual
counterpart of Frege’s double-correlation thesis applied to the singular referential
expressions that occur in …ction.44
The intensional logic, HST , supplemented with name variables and quanti…ers
restricted accordingly, can serve as the basis of a conceptual intensional realism
such as is brie‡y indicated above— a framework that retains much of Frege’s logic,
but not his ontology. We can add to it the quanti…ers 8n and 9n , as well as
8k and 9k , and the axioms and principles of natural realism and Aristotelian
essentialism. The framework then is based primarily on a conceptual theory of
predication together with a conceptual pattern of re‡exive abstraction that rei…es
the content of our concepts. Through our conceptual activity we can formulate
theories and hypothesize about whether or not there are natural properties and
relations, or natural kinds, corresponding to certain of our predicable and sortal
44
For a fuller account of the ontology of imaginary objects and …ctional discourse, see Coc-
chiarella [1989b] and [1996].

32
concepts. The general framework, which includes a conceptual intensional realism
and a conceptual natural realism, can be simply called conceptual realism.

8. Concluding Remarks
Despite our extended discussion and defense of conceptual realism, the fact re-
mains that this is a formal ontology that can be described and compared with
other formal ontologies in the set-theoretic framework of comparative formal on-
tology. Set theory, as we have said, provides a convenient mathematical medium
in which both the syntax and an extrinsic semantics of di¤erent formal ontologies
can be formulated, which then can be compared and contrasted with one another
in their logical and descriptive powers. This is the real insight behind the view of
logic as calculus. But membership is at best a pale shadow of predication, which
underlies thought, language and the di¤erent categories of reality. Set theory is
not itself an adequate framework for general ontology, in other words, unless based
on a theory of predication (as in Quine’s nominalist-platonism). Only a formal
theory of predication based on a theory of universals can be the basis of a general
ontology. This is the real insight behind the view of logic as language. But there
are alternative theories of universals, and therefore alternative formal theories of
predication, each with its own logic and theory of logical form. A rational choice
can be made only by formulating and comparing these alternatives in comparative
formal ontology, a program that can best be carried out in set theory. Among the
various alternatives that have been formulated and investigated over the years,
the choice we have made here, for the reasons given, is what we have brie‡y de-
scribed above as conceptual realism, which includes both a conceptual natural
realism and a conceptual intensional realism. Others may make a di¤erent choice.
As Rudolf Carnap once said: “Everyone is at liberty to build up his own logic, i.e.
his own form of language, as he wishes.”45 But then, at least in the construction
of a formal ontology, we all have an obligation to defend our choice and to give
reasons why we think one system is better than another. In this regard, we do
not accept Carnap’s additional injunction that “[i]n logic, there are no morals”
(ibid.).
45
Carnap [1937], §17.

33
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