Reading note: Against Fantology

Barry Smith’s “Against Fantology” #CGE2NC argues that first-order predicate logic is often mistaken for a mirror of ontological structure. It traces the resulting commitments—spreadsheet-style atomism, reduction of complexity to sets, confinement of generality to predicates, bare particulars, insensitivity to time, flattening of relations, Booleanism, and failure to represent dependent continuants. Smith proposes an Aristotelian Ontological Sextet of substantial, quality, and process universals and particulars, linked by formal relations such as instantiation, exemplification, inherence, participation, and realization. His constructive alternative is an enhanced Davidsonism that separates logical from ontological form and uses names for universals rather than predicates #D6BEJX #CX2YXN