Hanoch Ben-Yami

Logic & Natural Language: On Plural Reference and Its Semantic and Logical Significance - Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy Hanoch Ben-Yami

On Plural Reference and Its Semantic and Logical Significance. Freges invention of the predicate calculus has been the most influential event in the history of modern logic. The calculus place in logic is so central that many philosophers think, in fact, of it when they think of logic. This book challenges the position in contemporary logic and philosophy of language of the predicate calculus claiming that it is based on mistaken assumptions. Ben-Yami shows that the predicate calculus is different from natural language in its fundamental semantic characteristics, primarily in its treatment of reference and quantification, and that as a result