Actual Realism

This is a project in the field of analytical ontology. Its subjects are a number of mutually related questions on intentionality and reference, philosophy of logic and ontology, which are in the centre of a good deal of contemporary philosophical research. The aim is to develop and defend a position which, for want of a better name, is called "actual realism". This position includes an ontological commitment to abstract universals (more exactly: types), but not an ontological commitment to merely possible (not actual) objects and to past and future objects. Starting point of the investigation are well entrenched and commonly accepted beliefs from all fields of everyday life and the sciences. The guiding methodological assumption is that one may arrive at the right ontology by means of an examination of those existential assumptions that are implied by well-entrenched everyday and scientific beliefs. The project consists of four major parts: In the first part, methodological and logical foundations shall be developed. Thereby, the concept of ontological commitment shall be clarified and various familiar strategies for the avoidance of ontological commitments shall be critically examined, among them: the paraphrase strategy, the distinction of various modes of beings, ontologically neutral interpretations of quantification, and non-referential theories of truth. In the second part, the assumption of abstract universals (types) shall be defended. First, it is argued that this assumption is part and parcel of common everyday and scientific beliefs (in particular, in the fields of art and of culture in general, but maybe also in the field of mathematics). Next, a type ontology shall be developed in detail. Thereby, types are distinguished from properties, and the relation between types and their "instances" is clarified. For the latter aim, elements of Meinongian semantics are used - although in a novel interpretation, which does not involve the assumption of properties. The Meinongian "principle of independence of so-being from being" (and, related to that, the assumption of nonbeing objects) is not accepted. The third part deals with the question of whether the assumption of merely possible objects is necessary for an account of modal discourse and to resolve the problem of intentionality. The hypothesis is that this is not the case. In the fourth and last part, the position of presentism shall be discussed. The hypothesis is that the assumption of past and future objects is not necessary for a semantics of discourse on the past and the future.