Referência identificadora e objetos materiais: o realismo metafísico de Peter Frederick Strawson

Abstract

The present dissertation purports to analyze the relationship between the notions of reference and ontology in the Peter Frederick Strawson‟s philosophy. Strawson wants to defend an ontological realism, in which the basic entities are material bodies. We have occupied ourselves with the analysis of the role of identifying reference in his argumentation. In the first Chapter, we analyze how the ontological problem is formulated by Strawson, within ordinary language. The phrase Linguistic Turn‟ is used to denote the set of issues around this topic. Our analysis concluded that ordinary language is the most general and pervasive language, which also has the means necessary for metaphysical researches. In the second Chapter, we deal with the elucidation of the conditions in which an identifying reference is successfully made. The analysis showed that, when referring to particulars, to consider the contextual requirements it is necessary to make a successfully identifying reference, which necessarily include spatio-temporal elements this condition is not necessary when we refer identifyingly to general things. Thus, we use the term spatio-temporal particulars to designate a class of items, which are, in a philosophical sense, concretes. In the Third Chapter, we examine how Strawson uses the notion of identifying reference to get the notions of independent and basic, which ought to be attached to the notion of materials bodies, if the philosopher intends to be a metaphysical realist. Through the analysis of the concept of reference, Strawson comes to the notion of a unified framework of knowledge of particulars, which is necessary for us to refer non-demonstratively to spatio-temporal particulars. However, a condition of this unity is the independent existence of spatio-temporal particulars. Although material bodies are basic in the category of spatio-temporal particulars, the identification of particulars of various subcategories rests on the identification of material objects. In the end, discuss some criticisms of Strawson‟s arguments and make another argument in support of Strawson‟s argument.