Substance Logic

Abstract

The system of Substance Logic we expound in this article is a logical system which includes no predicates, using only (a) terms denoting substances and (b) logical connectives. Substance Logic (henceforth, ‘SL’) is designed to be a perspicuous nominalistic system, offering the philosopher a canonical notation for an ontology (and ideology) in which one can countenance substances only. Its primitive non-logical expressions are, therefore, ‘this Socrates’, ‘that cat’, ‘this love’ and the like. This man is a substance, a thing. One must resist the temptation to regard a man as metaphysically decomposable into two components, the particular substratum and the property Manhood. ‘A man’ is to be construed as a substantive, not a predicative, expression. Thus, in SL, statements like ‘this is a man’ will be understood literally, with the ‘is’ functioning not as the ‘is’ of predication but as an identity sign. ‘X is a man’ does not say that X “exemplifies Manhood” but that he is identical with a certain man; that man.