Nino Cocchiarella Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Indiana University

Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...

, is best known for his work in formal logic

Formal logic

Classical or traditional system of determining the validity or invalidity of a conclusion deduced from two or more statements...

 and ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

.

Among his important articles: "Nominalism

Nominalism

Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...

 and Conceptualism

Conceptualism

Conceptualism is a philosophical theory that explains universality of particulars as conceptualized frameworks situated within the thinking mind. Intermediate between Nominalism and Realism, the conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical concept of universals from a perspective that denies...

 as Predicative Second Order Theories of Predication", Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

 Journal of Formal Logic, vol. 21(1980); "Richard Montague

Richard Montague

Richard Merett Montague was an American mathematician and philosopher.-Career:At the University of California, Berkeley, Montague earned an B.A. in Philosophy in 1950, an M.A. in Mathematics in 1953, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy 1957, the latter under the direction of the mathematician and logician...

 and the Logical Analysis of Language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

", in Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey, vol. 2, Philosophy of Language/Philosophical Logic, G. Fløistad, ed., Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

 (1981) and "The Development of the Theory of Logical Types and the Notion of a Logical Subject in Russell's

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

 Early Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

", Synthèse

Synthese

Synthese is a scholarly periodical edited by Johan van Benthem, Vincent F. Hendricks and John Symons specializing in papers in epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science...

, vol. 45 (1980).

His books include Logical Investigations of Predication Theory and the Problem of Universals (1986); Logical Studies in Early Analytic Philosophy (1987); Formal Ontology and Conceptual Realism, New York, Springer, (2007); and Modal Logic. An Introduction to its Syntax and Semantics (with Max Freund), Oxford, Oxford University Press, (2008).

External links

• The Conceptual Realism of Nino Cocchiarella