The Logic of being : historical studies
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Bibliographic Information
The Logic of being : historical studies
（Synthese historical library, v. 28）
D. Reidel , Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, c1986
- : pbk
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Includes bibliographies and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
ISBN 9789027720191
Description
The last twenty years have seen remarkable developments in our understanding of how the ancient Greek thinkers handled the general concept of being and its several varieties. The most general examination of the meaning of the Greek verb 'esti'/'einai'/'on' both in common usage and in the philosophical literature has been presented by Charles H. Kahn, most extensively in his 1973 book The Verb 'Be' in Ancient Greek. These discussions are summarized in Kahn's contribution to this volume. By and large, they show that conceptual schemes by means of which philosophers have recently approached Greek thought have not been very well suited to the way the concept of being was actually used by the ancients. For one thing, being in the sense of existence played a very small role in Greek thinking according to Kahn. Even more importantly, Kahn has argued that Frege and Russell's thesis that verbs for being, such as 'esti', are multiply ambiguous is ill suited for the purpose of appreciating the actual conceptual assumptions of the Greek thinkers. Frege and Russell claimed that a verb like 'is' or'esti' is ambiguous between the 'is' of identity, the 'is' of existence, the copulative 'is', and the generic 'is' (the 'is' of class-inclusion). At least a couple of generations of scholars have relied on this thesis and fre quently criticized sundry ancients for confusing these different senses of 'esti' with each other."
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9789027723710
Description
The last twenty years have seen remarkable developments in our understanding of how the ancient Greek thinkers handled the general concept of being and its several varieties. The most general examination of the meaning of the Greek verb 'esti'/'einai'/'on' both in common usage and in the philosophical literature has been presented by Charles H. Kahn, most extensively in his 1973 book The Verb 'Be' in Ancient Greek. These discussions are summarized in Kahn's contribution to this volume. By and large, they show that conceptual schemes by means of which philosophers have recently approached Greek thought have not been very well suited to the way the concept of being was actually used by the ancients. For one thing, being in the sense of existence played a very small role in Greek thinking according to Kahn. Even more importantly, Kahn has argued that Frege and Russell's thesis that verbs for being, such as 'esti', are multiply ambiguous is ill suited for the purpose of appreciating the actual conceptual assumptions of the Greek thinkers. Frege and Russell claimed that a verb like 'is' or'esti' is ambiguous between the 'is' of identity, the 'is' of existence, the copulative 'is', and the generic 'is' (the 'is' of class-inclusion). At least a couple of generations of scholars have relied on this thesis and fre quently criticized sundry ancients for confusing these different senses of 'esti' with each other.
Table of Contents
Retrospect on the Verb 'To Be' and the Concept of Being.- Identity and Predication in Plato.- Aristotle and Existence.- The Varieties of Being in Aristotle.- The Chimera's Diary.- Peter Abelard's Investigations into the Meaning and Functions of the Speech Sign 'Est'.- The Logic of Being in Thomas Aquinas.- Being qua Being in Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus.- On Descartes's Argument for Dualism and the Distinction Between Different Kinds of Beings.- Kant on Existence, Predication, and the Ontological Argument.- On Frege's Concept of Being.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.
by "Nielsen BookData"
