Conclusion

Abstract

In discussing ‘the question of abstract entities’, I have been operating with a list, rather than a concept (either of what it is to be an abstract entity or of what it is to be an abstract term): the list being comprised of the terms ‘property’, ‘relation’, ‘fact’, ‘proposition’, ‘class’, and so forth. My positive thesis about these terms has been that they are all contextually eliminable, in the sense adumbrated in Part I. (This led me to include ‘event’ in the list.) I have also outlined how to construe various sentences beginning ‘There are F’s which/such that … ’, where ‘F’ is an abstract term: thus, for example, ‘There is a property shared by A and B’ comes out as ‘(∃F) (Fa & Fb)’, To conclude this essay, I will consider the question whether more general sentences, of the form ‘There are F’s’ (with ‘F’ an abstract term), are construable, and if so, how we should construe them. This question leads on to the question whether the very general ‘There are abstract entities’ is construable, and if so how. If we can construe this last-mentioned sentence, we may well be able to decide upon its truth-value; and once we have done this, it may well be thought that we have answered the really meaty question ‘about abstract entities’.