The Occamization of Meaning: Brentano and Ryle

To Occamize a nominal expression N is to show that, despite grammatical appearances, N does not name an entity. This paper argues that the Occamization of ‘meaning,’ which is central to Gilbert Ryle’s metaphilosophy, can be traced back to Franz Brentano. The core claim of the paper is that Brentano’s idea of higher-order judgments, although different from the idea of linguistic rules, does a similar job of eliminating expendable entities. Section 1 locates the Occamization of ‘meaning’ in the history of analytic philosophy, Section 2 spells out the Occamization program, and Section 3 compares Brentano’s account of meaning with Ryle’s.