Abstract: This book discusses the nature of identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth. Its main claims are that identity, existence, and truth are logical properties, that predicates are singular terms that refer to properties, and that necessity (and other modalities) are modes of instantiation of properties by objects. The book develops a realist anti-naturalist stance on logical properties, which takes logical notions at face value, and refuses to reduce them to other notions. Two further contentions central to this work are, first, that the quantifier has been overrated as an instrument of logico-linguistic analysis; and secondly, that past attempts to define logical notions such as identity or existence have been largely unsuccessful.

Keywords: existence, Frege, identity, logic, logical properties, metaphysics, Colin McGinn, necessity, predication, Quine, realism, Russell, truth