Prospectus: How an Instance-Attribute Ontology Can Differentiate Identity from Indiscernibility and Found a Consistent Type-Free Intensional Logic
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D.W. Mertz
Abstract
Offered is a limited prospectus on how a refined ontology of attribution can properly distinguish identity from indiscernibility, and relatedly ground a proposed consistent type-free intensional predicate logic. The ontology recognizes individuated ‘instance’ attributes Fi having among themselves shared common intensions F. This instance-intension ontology has embedded in it a Particularized Predicate Logic, PPL, with the unique formal device of ‘extended-binding’. The latter consists of a two-tiered nesting of instance quantifiers and the variables they bind being both bound by, and allowed instantiations under, subsuming intension quantifiers. The logic restricted to monadic predicates, M-PPL, is outlined sufficient to demonstrate its expressive and inferential power to differentiate identity from more general indiscernibility, and to diagnose and prevent contradictions of self-attributions involve in some self-referential paradoxes. Intended is to ground a program fulfilling the desideratum of a consistent intensional predicate logic with unrestricted quantification, while adding warrant for the background instance-intension ontology.
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