Paraphrase Strategies in Metaphysics

Abstract

Abstract Philosophers often aim to demonstrate that the things we ordinarily think and say can be reconciled with our considered beliefs about the world. To this end, many philosophers try to paraphrase ordinary language claims by finding equivalent sentences that are less misleading. For instance, though we know that there is no British family that is the average one, we want to say that the average British family has 1.8 children, and we might do that by paraphrasing this claim as: there are nearly twice as many British children as British families. This article aims to introduce and distinguish different paraphrase strategies, sketch their role in metaphysical debates and highlight some crucial questions that proponents of such strategies face.

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