Language, Truth and Ontology

The fathers of analytic philosophy - Moore and Russell - were in no doubt that ontology or metaphysics as well as the topics oflanguage, truth and logic constituted the core subject-matter of their "analytic realism", 1 for the task of metaphysics as they conceived things was the description of 2 the world. "What is there?". Although the question is not a new one in philosophy, analytical philosophers after Frege, Russell and Moore preferred for a long time to address it only indirectly, if at all. The philosophical analysis of language, truth and logic would, it was thought, provide the answer to the central question of ontology, or even replace it. But over the last 20 years, this question has come increasingly to be addressed directly, often under the heading "analytic metaphysics". This volyme brings together new investigations of the ontological credentials of such entities as Things, Events, States of Affairs, Variable and Non-Existent Objects, Properties, Tropes, and Tendencies, by a number of leading philosophers. The variety of ontological categories explored and the discussion of the consequences for theories of language, representation and truth of different ontological commitments are the two most novel features of this collection.