La seconde séance du séminaire "Metametaphysics and the sciences" intitulée "Global Expressivism and Second-Order Nihilismaura" lieu le 01/12/23 [post-posé au 26 janvier 2024]
Résumé
I sketch a metasemantic approach to language that I call global expressivism (GE). GE is a specific kind of generalization to ethical expressivism to all sectors of discourse. I argue that acceptance of GE has metaontological consequences. It implies a view about reality that is fundamentally non-ontological, which is 2nd-order nihilism. This is nihilism about real definition or ultimate nature of things, the very thing that ontological theories seek to uncover. 2nd-order nihilists accept that composite things exist, as do values, numbers, facts, properties, etc, and they affirm that, as it seems, there are non-existent entities that we talk about. It just denies that they have any ultimate nature: we reject all real definitions of such entities, including that they are primitive beings.
