The Roots of Reference: The Paul Carus Lectures

Arranged in three parts the specific concern of this work is a reference to concrete and abstract objects: what such reference consists of, and how we achieve it.

Part I is a statement of general psychological presumptions regarding perception and learning. The underlying notions of cause and disposition are examined in a philosophical spirit.

Part II comes firmly to grips with the nature of reification and reference. Stages of reification - rudimentary to full-fledged _are sorted out. The full phase is heralded by the use of the relative clause with its relative pronoun and subsidiary pronouns. It is these pronouns that recur in logical notation as the bound variables of quantification.

Part III concludes with a conjectural sketch of the development of reification in the race and the individual.