Katherine Hong: 'A higher-order perspective on the transcendence-immanence debate'
Chair: Boaz Laan
The question whether properties are transcendent or immanent has long been contested in the traditional literature on properties. This talk argues, first, that the central notions and ideas invoked in this question, and in answer to it, have not proven theoretically useful. Second, it shows that this question does not arise in a higher-order framework – and the most salient higher-order reconstruction of this question has a simple, logical resolution. In light of recent arguments that higher-order formal languages can be used to do the traditional work of first-order property theory, the upshot of this talk is that such languages can be used, in contexts in which first-order property theory has been used, without attracting ‘noise’ from an unproductive debate which has long characterised the latter.
