On GoodnessOn Goodness attempts to answer the question "What is goodness?" It is natural to associate this question with ethics; but goodness is not confined to ethics. Water and wine, a strategy for streamlining maintenance operations, and an oil painting may all be good and in non-ethical ways. Goodness figures prominently in ethics; so the study serves ethics. But it serves other domains as well. On Goodness is a contribution to the foundations of value theory. It is also a metaphysical inquiry, for two reasons. As the examples indicate, the entity under investigation is extremely general. Goodness occurs in potables, plans, and paintings, among countless other kinds of things. Second, it is particularly obscure what sort of being the entity is. Besides the description "good," is there a single thing that good drinks, strategies, and artworks share? Is their goodness related in a more complex way? And regardless of these relations, in any instance, just what is that goodness? The question "What is goodness?" has been central to philosophy since Socrates and Plato made it their polestar. The distinctive contribution of On Goodness lies in its methodology. The method of pursuing the metaphysical question is linguistic. The basic proposal is that achieving the answer depends on clarifying the meaning and use of the words "good" and "goodness." Consequently, the study is pervasively informed by and critically engaged with contemporary linguistic theories and ideas. |
Contents
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 Ambiguity | 10 |
3 Gradability | 45 |
4 Value | 89 |
5 Dimensional Specification | 138 |
6 Adjectival Nominalization | 217 |
7 Bare Noun Phrases | 263 |
| 297 | |
| 307 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adjectival admit adverbial ambiguity theory antonym antonym pair argument basic sentence Bernie Carlson chapter Chierchia claim Compare comparison class compatibilist consider the following consists constituent context contrast count noun phrases denote determiner determiner phrase dimension-type dimension-type associated dimensional specification distinct dogs ellipsis entails entities evaluative quality existential closure explain fact following sentences function Geach gloss gradable property implicature indefinite article individuals insofar instance intensional predicate modifier interpretation kind kind-denoting lexeme lexical meaning linguistic mass nouns measure function measure phrase metaphysical moral nominal expression occurs operational Paolo is tall plural count noun polysemous precisely predicate expression principle of compositionality pro-form purpose serving quantitative trope reading relation relative gradable adjective Ronan scale semantic type semilattice sense serve a purpose serving x’s Siegel significance of degree significant degree singular count nouns standard of comparison syntactic category syntactic structure Szabó tokens transfer inference value thesis variable verb word