Abstract

Chapters 1-5 develop and criticize a solution to the paradox of analysis based on some recent work in the theory of reference and the analysis of propositional attitudes. This solution holds that the analysandum and analysans in a true analysis are the same property, and that sentences like: being a male sibling analyzes being a brother; and being a brother analyzes being a brother, express the same proposition. It holds that the property referent of "being a brother" and "being a male sibling" is a constituent of this proposition, and that "grasping an analysis" is not simply grasping such a proposition, but grasping it in a particular way. This solution suggests that the philosophically interesting information associated with the proposition expressed by a sentence like is information about the logical structure of its property constituent. It locates this information "outside" the proposition such a sentence expresses in a propositional guise, a "way of grasping" that proposition. These propositional guises are built up out of property "aspects" constructed in the manner proposed by Ernest Sosa in "Classical Analysis." I argue that while such an approach shows promise, it fails to yield a satisfactory account of the nature of analysis. I then suggest an alternate solution, based on the work of Roderick Chisholm. This solution maintains that analysandum and analysans in a true analysis are nonidentical. It focuses on the idea that an analysans is "conceptually richer" than what it analyzes and tries to say what this richness is by appealing to a kind of property called a "determining property."