On creeping minimalism and the nature of minimal entities

The general tendency or attitude that Dreier (2004) calls creeping minimalism is ramping up in contemporary analytic philosophy. Those who entertain this attitude take for granted a framework of defl ationary or minimal notions-principally semantical2 and ontological-by means of which to analyze problems in different philosophical fi elds-for example, the theory of truth, metaethics, philosophy of language, the debate about realism and antirealism, etc. Let us call a sweeping minimalist the philosopher affected by creeping minimalism. The framework of minimal notions that the sweeping minimalist takes for granted encompasses, for instance, the concepts of truth, reference, proposition, fact, individual, and property. Minimal notions are characterized in terms of general platitudinous principles expressed by schemata like the following (see Dreier 2004, 26):

“S” is true if and only if S;

“S” is true if and only if “S” corresponds to the facts;

a has the property of being P if and only if a is P.