Atomism and Adamism

Though 'atom' and 'Adam' are only coincidentally homophonic, Analytic Philosophy, and its Logic, is both Atomistic and, in a sense, 'Adamistic'. Its Atomism is rooted in Aristotelian Metaphysics which has, as the ultimate constituents of Reality, individual Substances. It is 'Adamistic', because, as was the case with Adam in Genesis, Language begins with the naming of individual creatures. Language is henceforth constructed out of such Atoms--the names of individual items combining with the names of predicates, to form Propositions, and Propositions combining with other Propositions to produce a 'World'. Both Atomism and Adamism have been widely criticized for a variety of reasons, and some specific problems with its central combinatory process, Inference, have previously been addressed here. Many have argued against its Metaphysical premises, maintaining instead that, e. g. Events are more fundamental than static Substances, or, as in Evolvementalism, that Individual Humans are cumulative processes, entailing nothing constant to which a fixed name corresponds. Others have argued against the Epistemological premise that cognition of an item occurs in isolation, e. g. Gestaltism, which shows how the perception of an item always entails a background of at least other items in its proximity. Likewise, some Philosophies of Language have noted that the objects of childhood naming are not things but situations. And others, e. g. Structuralism, insist that names, and particular words in general, are empty sounds or scrawls without reference to every other word in a language. Especially because it presents its versions of 'Philosophy' and 'Logic' as exclusive, the predominant school of Academic Philosophy, Analytic Philosophy, is that much more impoverished.