Objects are characterised by their properties. If an object is a red postbox, then it has the property of being red, and the property of being a postbox. This thesis is an attack on a particular view of the metaphysics of properties, according to which some properties are privileged over others. The most well-known theories of privileged properties are Armstrong’s theory of sparse immanent universals (1979b) and Lewis’ natural properties (1983). According to their supporters, only privileged properties perform certain jobs, such as featuring in laws of nature, or grounding similarity between objects. Metaphysical posits are theoretically virtuous if they can account for a range of different phenomena in a relatively parsimonious manner. The ability of privileged properties to perform a range of worthwhile ‘work’, therefore, is what justifies a belief in them. The conclusion I reach is that a single group of properties is not capable of satisfying the key roles commonly attributed to the privileged properties. Without satisfying these roles in concert, a belief in mainstream versions of privileged properties is not justified. The first part of this thesis is devoted to an explication of privilege and the roles which privileged properties are taken to perform. I conclude that three roles in particular, Supervenience, Similarity and Magnetism are key roles for mainstream theories of privilege. In part two, I show that the properties which satisfy the Supervenience role are not the same as those which satisfy the Similarity and Magnetism roles. In the final chapter of this thesis I discuss the implications of my findings for support for theories of privilege.

[pt] Na filosofia analítica, os filósofos utilizaram por diversas vezes a palavra intuição. Ao estar diante de alegações como uma coisa é idêntica a si mesma e o bem não é o mal, um filósofo analítico provavelmente diz que elas parecem ser o caso, que são óbvias como ver a verdade diante de si, mas sem usar os olhos. Isto é, não parecemos usar de maneira relevante a percepção, o raciocínio ou a memória para obter conhecimento sobre tais alegações. Parece que usamos algo além. Diante disso, diversos filósofos analíticos optaram por dizer que obtemos conhecimento de tais fatos por meio da intuição. Mais recentemente, filósofos analíticos investigaram o que são intuições, se são confiáveis e se realmente possuem papel na atividade filosófica. Nesta dissertação, avalio o debate desses filósofos em busca de uma resposta para tais problemas, estruturando seus argumentos, esclarecendo suas evidências e as confrontando. Diante disso, chego a uma conclusão autoral quanto a tais problemas, fornecendo contribuições para trabalhos futuros sobre o tema. / [en] In analytic philosophy, philosophers have used the word intuition several times. Faced with claims like A thing is identical with itself and Good is not evil, an analytic philosopher is likely to say that they seem to be the case, that they are obvious as seeing the truth in front of you, but without use your eyes. That is, we do not seem to make relevant use of perception, reasoning, or memory to get knowledge about such claims. Looks like we used something else. Given this, several analytic philosophers have chosen to say that we get knowledge of such facts through intuition. More recently, analytic philosophers have investigated what intuitions are, whether they are reliable, and whether they actually play a role in philosophical activity. In this dissertation, I evaluate the debate of these philosophers in search of an answer to such problems, structuring their arguments, clarifying their evidence and confronting them. Therefore, I reach an authorial conclusion regarding such problems, providing contributions for future work on the subject.

In broadest terms, this thesis is concerned to answer the question of whether the view that arithmetic is analytic can be maintained consistently. Lest there be much suspense, I will conclude that it can. Those who disagree claim that accounts which defend the analyticity of arithmetic are either unable to give a satisfactory account of the foundations of mathematics due to the incompleteness theorems, or, if steps are taken to mitigate incompleteness, then the view loses the ability to account for the applicability of mathematics in the sciences. I will show that this criticism is not successful against every view whereby arithmetic is analytic by showing that the brand of "conventionalism" about mathematics that Rudolf Carnap advocated in the 1930s, especially in Logical Syntax of Language, does not suffer from these difficulties. There, Carnap develops an account of logic and mathematics that ensures the analyticity of both. It is based on his famous "Principle of Tolerance", and so the major focus of this thesis will to defend this principle from certain criticisms that have arisen in the 80 years since the book was published. I claim that these criticisms all share certain misunderstandings of the principle, and, because my diagnosis of the critiques is that they misunderstand Carnap, the defense I will give is of a primarily historical and exegetical nature. Again speaking broadly, the defense will be split into two parts: one primarily historical and the other argumentative. The historical section concerns the development of Carnap's views on logic and mathematics, from their beginnings in Frege's lectures up through the publication of Logical Syntax. Though this material is well-trod ground, it is necessary background for the second part. In part two we shift gears, and leave aside the historical development of Carnap's views to examine a certain family of critiques of it. We focus on the version due to Kurt Gödel, but also explore four others found in the literature. In the final chapter, I develop a reading of Carnap's Principle - the `wide' reading. It is one whereby there are no antecedent constraints on the construction of linguistic frameworks. I argue that this reading of the principle resolves the purported problems. Though this thesis is not a vindication of Carnap's view of logic and mathematics tout court, it does show that the view has more plausibility than is commonly thought.

La métaphysique comme branche de la littérature fantastique : une lecture wittgensteinienne de Borges. L'une des formules de Borges tient que la "métaphysique" n'est qu'une branche de la littérature fantastique. Caractérisant la logique borgésienne d'une "ludique" herméneutique - celle de lire les textes philosophiques à partir des narrativités qu'ils autorisent- cette remarque semble pourtant soulever une question proprement philosophique : celle du statut de notre concept ordinaire d'objet. D'après la proposition wittgensteinienne, notre concept d'objet physique n'est qu'un concept "logique". La question demeure ainsi de savoir si nos jeux de langage ordinaire épuisent sa grammaire, et dans quelle mesure les fictions et les essais de Borges, qui jouent avec celle-ci, devraient être considérés comme un élargissement, ou bien comme une distorsion de la grammaire ordinaire de l'objet. Il s'agira ainsi d'interroger, d'un côté, si les textes borgésiens tolèrent une lecture analytique ; d'un autre, de démontrer comment la fiction, en recadrant à chaque fois le partage entre dire et montrer, permet d'en détourner, ou bien d'en dépasser la "logique". / Metaphysics as a branch of fantastic literature: a Wittgensteinian reading of Borges. One of Borges' slogans holds that "metaphysics" is only a branch of fantastic literature. Characterizing the Borgesian logic behind a playful hermeneutics -i.e., the possibility to read philosophy througout the narrativities it authorizes- this remark seems to raise a strictly philosophical question, namely that of the status of our ordinary concept of object. According to Wittgenstein, our concept of physical object is just a "logical" concept. The question thus remains whether our ordinary language games exhaust its grammar, and to what extent Borges' fictions and essays, as an attemp to play with it, should be regarded as an extension, or rather as a distortion of the ordinary grammar of the object. It will thus be necessary to inquiry, on the one hand, whether the Borgean texts tolerate an analytic reading; on the other, to show how each fiction, by reframing all over again the split between saying and showing, makes it possible to divert or rather to go beyond its "logic".

No form of philosophy is without literary style. This is not always appreciated and opponents of style within philosophy often seem to be unaware of the role of style. Arguments that style is bad, good, or that diversity of styles is good needs to be investigated so that the underlying presuppositions and the meaning of different literary styles becomes clear. This thesis examines three arguments for and against style within philosophy and the relevance of literary style for the philosophical method. I investigate what arguments and fundamental assumptions about language that underlies the judgments that literary style in philosophy is either 1.) bad, 2.) good or, 3.) both bad and good (a diversity position). An analysis of three different positions to the question of the relevance of style will be performed. The analysis focuses on the basic understandings of what language is and does and reveals the underlying presuppositions of the attitudes towards style in philosophy. Only then can the different positions and attitudes towards style be defended and examined in an interesting and relevant way. The debate about philosophical style often misses a significant point because many are unaware of the philosophical presuppositions behind the arguments, and the argumentation risks to be flawed in relation to this. Firstly, a presentation of three different attitudes towards the relevance of style to the philosophical method is outlined. The approaches are represented by a reading of philosophers who either describe the relevance of literary style as 1.) bad, or not important for the method, 2.) important/necessary for the method, or 3.) that diversity is good for philosophy. Secondly, I examine how these three approaches are affected by the underlying philosophy of language with a focus on theories of metaphor. Depending on how one believes that language is related to reality and ourselves, one will assess style as a more, or less, relevant and contributing aspect of the philosophical work and method. The analysis shows that metaphors and other literary stylistic tools might sometimes be necessary and mediate something that cannot be expressed in another way: language can never capture the full potential of reality.

O presente trabalho visa entender como o rádio se distingue dos demais sons do mundo. A hipótese aqui formulada é a de que o rádio, em sua definição, é uma linguagem, e não um aparelho. Dessa maneira, há a busca por uma caracterização da linguagem radiofônica seguindo as ideias implicadas em uma Estética da Linguagem (Derrida e antiessencialistas como Ziff, Weitz e Kennick). Com isso, há um estudo detalhado do rádio em seu jogo de linguagem (Wittgenstein) e em seus diferendos (Lyotard), considerados aqui enquanto parergon e ergon, ou seja, enquanto recorte e modelo operacional da linguagem em sua intersecção com o mundo. Para a investigação do jogo de linguagem, foram utilizados conteúdos relacionados à Filosofia Analítica, à Lógica Algébrica e à Teoria dos Jogos para desenvolver um método analítico denonimado Jogo Lógico, voltado para o estudo de jogos de linguagem comunicacionais. Já para a investigação dos diferendos, foram utilizadas as ideias pragmáticas acerca da performatividade e da lógica ilocucionária (Austin e Searle) para analisar os gêneros radiofônicos (a saber: musical, radiojornalismo, esportivo, variedades [talk radio], humorístico, ficção e publicidade). Essas duas investigações formam aquilo que é chamado aqui de Gramática do Rádio - considerando o conceito wittgensteiniano de gramática -, o ponto nodal que nos permite caracterizar o rádio enquanto linguagem. / The present work aims to understand how the radio distinguishes itself from other sounds of the world. The hypothesis formulated here is that the radio, in its definition, is a language, not a machine. Thus, there is the search for a characterization of radio\'s language following the ideas involved in an Aesthetics of Language (Derrida and anti-essentialists like Ziff, Weitz and Kennick). Here, there is a detailed study of the radio in its language-game (Wittgenstein) and their differends (Lyotard), considered in this work as parergon and ergon, i.e. as the cut and the operational model of language in its intersection with the world. For the investigation of the language-game, we used content related to Analytic Philosophy, to Algebraic Logic, and to Game Theory to develop an analytical method called Logic Game, dedicated to the communicative language-games\' study. As for the investigation of differends, we used the pragmatic concepts about the performative and illocutionary logic (Searle and Austin) to analyze the radio genres (ie: music, radio journalism, sports, talk radio, humor, fiction and advertising). These two studies form what is called here the Radio Grammar - considering the Wittgensteinian concept of grammar - the key point that allows us to characterize the radio as a language.

A pesquisa que ora se apresenta consiste em uma investigação sobre o recente trabalho de reavaliação das obras de membros do chamado Círculo de Viena, que foi o primeiro e principal grupo representativo da perspectiva filosófica conhecida como positivismo lógico. Nossa pesquisa compreende três partes: a primeira parte voltada para a reconstrução histórico-conceitual do período entre o alvorecer das idéias neopositivistas e os primeiros momentos posteriores à recepção norte-americana da imigração intelectual vienense; na segunda parte do trabalho, por sua vez, lançaremos luz propriamente à natureza de tal perspectiva contemporânea, a partir de uma descrição sobre o método e o escopo temático de tal projeto revisionista; à terceira parte, por fim, além de tecer uma avaliação geral sobre o que foi feito nas duas partes que a antecedem, coube conjecturar as possibilidades de se encontrar em tal trabalho uma agenda filosófica e política própria. / The present work consists on an inquiry concerning the recent re-evaluation in the works of members of the so-called Vienna Circle, which became the first and main representative of the philosophical movement known as Logical Positivism. Our research comprises three parts: the first one is devoted to a historical-conceptual reconstruction of the period between the uprising of the first Neopositivist ideas and the years immediately following the North-American reception of the intellectual immigration from Vienna; the second part of the work concerns the nature of such contemporary reappraisal researches on the positivists legacy, through a description of the method and scope of such re-evaluation project; finally, the third part comprises a general review of the previous parts, and was worked out in order to conceive conjectures about the possibility of finding out in this re-evaluation project a philosophical and political agenda of its own.

Cette thèse de doctorat est consacrée à la pensée du philosophe américain Nelson Goodman (1906-1998). Nous y défendons, à l’encontre de la plus grande partie de la critique, une lecture métaphysicienne de son œuvre. Il est démontré que Goodman, dans tous ses travaux, développe une métaphysique technique et méconnue, dont les piliers sont le nominalisme, le pluralisme, le perdurantisme, l’actualisme, et l’universalisme méréologique. Cette lecture permet de réévaluer l’ensemble de la pensée goodmanienne. Elle établit aussi ses liens insoupçonnés avec la métaphysique analytique contemporaine / This PhD dissertation is dedicated to the philosophy of Nelson Goodman (1906-1998). We defend, against most critics, a metaphysical interpretation of Goodman’s works. It will be shown that the latter developed a technical and often overlooked metaphysics, whose pillars are nominalism, pluralism, perdurantism, actualism, and mereological universalism. This reading allows for a critical reevaluation of Goodman’s views. It also brings to light his unexpected links with contemporary analytic metaphysics

A pesquisa que ora se apresenta consiste em uma investigação sobre o recente trabalho de reavaliação das obras de membros do chamado Círculo de Viena, que foi o primeiro e principal grupo representativo da perspectiva filosófica conhecida como positivismo lógico. Nossa pesquisa compreende três partes: a primeira parte voltada para a reconstrução histórico-conceitual do período entre o alvorecer das idéias neopositivistas e os primeiros momentos posteriores à recepção norte-americana da imigração intelectual vienense; na segunda parte do trabalho, por sua vez, lançaremos luz propriamente à natureza de tal perspectiva contemporânea, a partir de uma descrição sobre o método e o escopo temático de tal projeto revisionista; à terceira parte, por fim, além de tecer uma avaliação geral sobre o que foi feito nas duas partes que a antecedem, coube conjecturar as possibilidades de se encontrar em tal trabalho uma agenda filosófica e política própria. / The present work consists on an inquiry concerning the recent re-evaluation in the works of members of the so-called Vienna Circle, which became the first and main representative of the philosophical movement known as Logical Positivism. Our research comprises three parts: the first one is devoted to a historical-conceptual reconstruction of the period between the uprising of the first Neopositivist ideas and the years immediately following the North-American reception of the intellectual immigration from Vienna; the second part of the work concerns the nature of such contemporary reappraisal researches on the positivists legacy, through a description of the method and scope of such re-evaluation project; finally, the third part comprises a general review of the previous parts, and was worked out in order to conceive conjectures about the possibility of finding out in this re-evaluation project a philosophical and political agenda of its own.

O presente trabalho visa entender como o rádio se distingue dos demais sons do mundo. A hipótese aqui formulada é a de que o rádio, em sua definição, é uma linguagem, e não um aparelho. Dessa maneira, há a busca por uma caracterização da linguagem radiofônica seguindo as ideias implicadas em uma Estética da Linguagem (Derrida e antiessencialistas como Ziff, Weitz e Kennick). Com isso, há um estudo detalhado do rádio em seu jogo de linguagem (Wittgenstein) e em seus diferendos (Lyotard), considerados aqui enquanto parergon e ergon, ou seja, enquanto recorte e modelo operacional da linguagem em sua intersecção com o mundo. Para a investigação do jogo de linguagem, foram utilizados conteúdos relacionados à Filosofia Analítica, à Lógica Algébrica e à Teoria dos Jogos para desenvolver um método analítico denonimado Jogo Lógico, voltado para o estudo de jogos de linguagem comunicacionais. Já para a investigação dos diferendos, foram utilizadas as ideias pragmáticas acerca da performatividade e da lógica ilocucionária (Austin e Searle) para analisar os gêneros radiofônicos (a saber: musical, radiojornalismo, esportivo, variedades [talk radio], humorístico, ficção e publicidade). Essas duas investigações formam aquilo que é chamado aqui de Gramática do Rádio - considerando o conceito wittgensteiniano de gramática -, o ponto nodal que nos permite caracterizar o rádio enquanto linguagem. / The present work aims to understand how the radio distinguishes itself from other sounds of the world. The hypothesis formulated here is that the radio, in its definition, is a language, not a machine. Thus, there is the search for a characterization of radio\'s language following the ideas involved in an Aesthetics of Language (Derrida and anti-essentialists like Ziff, Weitz and Kennick). Here, there is a detailed study of the radio in its language-game (Wittgenstein) and their differends (Lyotard), considered in this work as parergon and ergon, i.e. as the cut and the operational model of language in its intersection with the world. For the investigation of the language-game, we used content related to Analytic Philosophy, to Algebraic Logic, and to Game Theory to develop an analytical method called Logic Game, dedicated to the communicative language-games\' study. As for the investigation of differends, we used the pragmatic concepts about the performative and illocutionary logic (Searle and Austin) to analyze the radio genres (ie: music, radio journalism, sports, talk radio, humor, fiction and advertising). These two studies form what is called here the Radio Grammar - considering the Wittgensteinian concept of grammar - the key point that allows us to characterize the radio as a language.