Objects and Attitudes

Objects and Attitudes develops a radically novel semantics of attitude reports, modal sentences, and quotation based on an ontology of attitudinal, modal, and phatic objects, entities such as claims, thoughts, intentions, desires, requests, utterances, as well as needs, obligations, permissions, offers, and abilities. It systematically pursues a methodology of descriptive metaphysics-specifically, natural language ontology-and argues that natural language reflects an ontology of attitudinal and modal objects rather than an ontology of abstract propositions.