The ontological basis of the saturation and insaturation of the linguistic expressions in Peter Strawson

• Grant number: 11/09175-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2011
• End date: October 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Lucas Angioni
• Grantee: Filipe Martone de Faria
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The famous fregean metaphors of "saturation" and "insaturation" have a fundamental role in Strawson's thought for understanding the differences between referential expressions and predicative expressions. In general, the first are "saturated" or complete in themselves in any kind of sentence, whereas the latter are "insaturated" or incomplete and must be joined with a referential expression in order to reach the necessary completude. But what are the grounds for these differences? Are they purely grammatical differences, derived from a mere linguistic convention? Strawson's answer is negative. The grammatical differences between referential expressions and predicative expressions are symptom of something prior: they merely reflect the traditional ontological division between particulars and universals. The existence of these two categories of entities, for Strawson, is necessary condition of the predication and must be de starting point for any satisfactory explanation of the phenomena observed in assertive sentences. Consequentially, we need to investigate how Strawson explain, starting from our capacity of introducing particulars and universals in the discourse and from the categorial difference between such entities, the "saturation" of referential expressions and the "insaturation" of predicative expressions.