The Ontology of the Analytic Tradition and Its Origins ; Realism and Identity in Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine

The analytic movement advertised its 'linguistic turn' as a radical break from the two-thousand-year-old substance tradition. But this is an illusion. On the fundamental level of ontology, there is enough reformulation and presupposition of traditional 'no entity without identity' themes to analogize Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine to Aristotle as paradigmatic of modified realism. Thus the pace of ontology is glacial. Frege and Russell, not Wittgenstein and Quine, emerge as the true analytic progenitors of 'no entity without identity,' offering between them at least twenty-nine private language arguments and sixty-four 'no entity without identity' theories.

While many books discuss the individual achievements of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine, few books consider how the thought of all four thinkers bears on the fundamental questions of twentieth century philosophy.

This book is about existence-identity connections in Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine. The thesis of the book is that there is a general form of ontology, modified realism, which these great analysts share not only with each other, but with most great philosophers in the Western tradition. Modified realism is the view that in some sense there are both real identities and conceptual (or linguistic) identities. In more familiar language, it is roughly the view that there are both real distinctions and distinctions in reason (or in language). Thus in modified realism, there are some real beings which can serve as a basis for accommodating possibly huge amounts of conceptual or linguistic relativity, or objectual identities' shifting when sortal concepts or sortal terms shift. Therefore, on the fundamental level of ontology, the linguistic turn was not a radical break from traditional substance theory. Dejnozka also holds that the conflict in all four analysts between private language arguments (which imply various kinds of realism) and conceptual shifting (which suggests conceptual relativism) is best resolved by, and is in fact implicitly resolved by, their respective kinds of modified realism. Frege and Russell, not Wittgenstein and Quine, emerge as the true analytic progenitors of no entity without identity, offering between them at least twenty-nine private language arguments and fifty-eight no entity without identity theories.

The book's principal argument is that while in the analytic tradition, ontology and indeed all philosophy are held to be supervenient on language, and perhaps ultimately on logical and conceptual proposals, there is enough reformulation and presupposition of classical thought to allow analogies to basic concepts of the substance tradition. Dejnozka assimilates the analysts to Aristotle as the paradigm of modified realism, and briefly describes earlier origins in Plato and Parmenides.

About the Author:

Jan Dejnozka (pronounced Yon DAY-no-shka) was born on December 20, 1951 in Saratoga Springs, New York to Ladislav and Helen Garrett Dejnozka. He took a B.A. with Honors in philosophy from Syracuse University in 1973, writing his honors thesis on Quine on necessary truth. Dejnozka lived the next six years in Iowa City, earning his M.A. in 1976 and his Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of Iowa. His doctoral dissertation, Frege: Existence and Identity, was supervised by Panayot Butchvarov.

From 1981 to 1988, Dejnozka served his country as a U.S. Navy officer. He served on board USS CANISTEO AO-99, USS AMERICA CV-66, and USS CORONADO AGF-11. On board the aircraft carrier AMERICA for two years, he qualified as Surface Warfare Officer and Officer of the Deck Underway, earning the Navy Expeditionary Medal for service off Beirut and the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon for a six month deployment to the Indian Ocean. On board the command ship CORONADO for a fifteen month complex overhaul in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, he served as Assistant Department Head and Command Duty Officer in Port. Dejnozka then taught history and philosophy on a three year shore tour in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland as Assistant Professor of Philosophy.

In 1990 Dejnozka visited some fifty relatives and friends in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia after their liberation from Soviet domination. In 1991 he entered the University of Michigan School of Law, but took a two year leave of absence as Visiting Scholar in Philosophy in the Rackham School of Graduate Studies, the University of Michigan. In 1992 he married Chung Wha Choi, born in Seoul, South Korea. He received his J.D. in 1996. He is now a Visiting Scholar in Law and Philosophy at Michigan, and has been a Research Fellow of Union College since 1980. After serving as law clerk to the Hon. Bill Callahan, Circuit Court of Wayne County in Detroit, he became a Domestic Relations Specialist in the same court system. He is a member of the Michigan Bar and the Maryland Bar. The Dejnozkas have two daughters, Julie and Marina.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy - Wayne A. Patterson

An extensive bibliography and reasonably comprehensive index round off a fine thought-provoking piece of research.