Art and Experience, Utrecht, © 1996. All rights reserved

Extensionalism understands the meaning of a term as its extension class: the meaning of 'red' is not some inconceivable, universal intension like 'redness', but: 'all red things'. Extensionalism forms the semantic theory connected with nominalism, which consists of the ontological thesis that there are no properties in the world but only individual things and their parts. So-called properties come into being by our attributing predicates to individuals. Extensionalism and nominalism, especially in Goodman's variety, are unduly restrictive, as is illustrated by his treatment of representation, expression, exemplification, and the arts as consisting of symbol systems. (I)