Katherine Hong

Summary of doctoral thesis: My thesis defends a ‘deflationary’ conception of a property as how a thing is by developing views on a range of traditional and more recent issues that have been raised in the literature on properties – including, for instance, issues concerning whether properties are transcendent or immanent, whether they are universal or particular, whether they conform to a non-trivial principle of individuation, and the criterion of ontological commitment. The ideas I discuss often have ancient origins or associations, and my thesis aims to be sensitive to these; a chapter of the thesis is thus devoted to a discussion of Plato’s theory of forms and its influence on contemporary discussions of properties.

Other research interests: Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Philosophical Logic, Greek Philosophy.