Abstract object theory (AOT) is a branch of metaphysics regarding abstract objects. Originally devised by metaphysician Edward Zalta in 1981, the theory was an expansion of mathematical Platonism.

Overview

Abstract Objects: An Introduction to Axiomatic Metaphysics (1983) is the title of a publication by Edward Zalta that outlines abstract object theory.

AOT is a dual predication approach (also known as "dual copula strategy") to abstract objects influenced by the contributions of Alexius Meinong and his student Ernst Mally. On Zalta's account, there are two modes of predication: some objects (the ordinary concrete ones around us, like tables and chairs) exemplify properties, while others (abstract objects like numbers, and what others would call "nonexistent objects", like the round square and the mountain made entirely of gold) merely encode them. While the objects that exemplify properties are discovered through traditional empirical means, a simple set of axioms allows us to know about objects that encode properties. For every set of properties, there is exactly one object that encodes exactly that set of properties and no others. This allows for a formalized ontology.

A notable feature of AOT is that several notable paradoxes in naive predication theory (namely Romane Clark's paradox undermining the earliest version of Héctor-Neri Castañeda's guise theory, Alan McMichael's paradox, and Daniel Kirchner's paradox) do not arise within it. AOT employs restricted abstraction schemata to avoid such paradoxes.

In 2007, Zalta and Branden Fitelson introduced the term computational metaphysics to describe the implementation and investigation of formal, axiomatic metaphysics in an automated reasoning environment.

See also

Notes

  • Zalta, Edward N. (1983). (PDF). Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
  • Zalta, Edward N. (1988). (PDF). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press/Bradford Books.
  • Zalta, Edward N. (February 10, 1999). (PDF). Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.
  • Kirchner, Daniel; Benzmüller, Christoph; Zalta, Edward N. (March 2020). (PDF). Review of Symbolic Logic. 13 (1): 206–218.
  • Zalta, Edward N. (May 16, 2025). (PDF). Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.

Further reading

  • Kirchner, Daniel (2021). (PhD thesis). Free University of Berlin.
  • Zalta, Edward N. (May 2020). (PDF). In Falguera López, José Luis; Martínez-Vidal, Concha (eds.). . Synthese library: Studies in epistemology, logic, methodology, and philosophy of science. Vol. 422. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. pp. 59–88. doi:. ISBN 978-3-030-38241-4. OCLC .

External links

  • José L. Falguera and Concha Martínez-Vidal; based on earlier work by Gideon Rosen (August 21, 2025). . Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)