This book is both an introduction to and a research work on Meinongianism. “Meinongianism” is taken here, in accordance with the common philosophical jargon, as a general label for a set of theories of existence – probably the most basic notion of ontology. As an introduction, the book provides the first comprehensive survey and guide to Meinongianism and non-standard theories of existence in all their main forms. As a research work, the book exposes and develops the most up-to-date Meinongian theory (...) (called modal Meinongianism), applies it to specific fields, and discusses its open problems. Part I of the book provides a historical introduction to, and critical discussion of, the dominant philosophical view of existence: the “Kantian-Fregean-Quinean” perspective. Part II is the full-fledged introduction to the Meinongian theories of existence as a real property of individuals: after starting with the so-called naïve Meinongian conception and its problems, it provides a self-contained presentation of the main neo-Meinongian proposals, and a detailed discussion of their strengths and weaknesses. Part III develops a specific neo-Meinongian theory of existence employing a model-theoretic semantic framework. It discusses its application to the ontology and semantics of fictional objects, and its open problems. The methodology of the book follows the most recent trends in analytic ontology. In particular, the meta-ontological point of view is largely privileged. (shrink)

Thanks to the Inlaks Foundation in India, I was able to do my doctoral research on Our Talk About Nonexistents at Oxford in the early eighties. The two greatest philosophers of that heaven of analytical philosophy - Peter Strawson and Michael Dummett - supervised my work, reading and criticising all the fledgling philosophy that I wrote during those three years. At Sir Peter's request, Gareth Evans, shortly before his death, lent me an unpublished transcript of Kripke's John Locke Lectures. Work (...) on the Appendix about Indian Philosophy was supervised by the late Professor Bimal Krishna Matilal with whom informal but intense philosophical conversations used to spill over into dinner at his place almost every other day. It was Professor Matilal who sent me, over a summer, to study a tough Navya-Nyaya text under his own Nyaya teacher Pandit Visvabandhu Tarkatirtha at Calcutta. All four of these teachers were as kind to me as my life-long mentor in philosophy Professor Pranab Kumar Sen, whose clarity and depth remain the unreachable regu lative ideal of my intellect. When I came back to India, my life became blissfully free of the agonising anxiety to publish, until, after a conference at Jadavpur University where I gave an impromptu paper, ironically enough, on Non-doings, I met Derek Parfit. He had a six-hour conversation with me, explicitly planning my life. Five years had already elapsed since I had finished my D. Phil, but Derek read my thesis and liked it. (shrink)

Thomasson’s easy ontology approach (2015) aims at deflating existence questions through a revival of Carnap’s (1950) distinction between internal and external questions. Importantly, her account depends on an analysis of the ordinary meaning of ‘exist(s)’ as a second-order predicate. I do two things in this paper. First, I show that Thomasson’s analysis fails to do justice to the complexity of the English predicate ‘exist(s)’. Against Thomasson, I argue that there are cases in which ‘exist(s)’ functions as a first-order predicate. Because (...) these cases were first noted by P.F. Strawson (1967), I will call them ‘Strawson-cases’. Secondly, I argue that these counterexamples give some support to (i) more substantive theories about existence as well as (ii) accounts that treat ‘exist(s)’ as varying in meaning. (shrink)

A popular claim in recent philosophy of mind and action is that events only exist once they are over. This has been taken to have the consequence that many temporal phenomena cannot be understood ‘from the inside’, as they are unfolding, purely in terms of events. However, as I argue here, the claim that events exist only when over is incoherent. I consider two ways of understanding the claim and the notion of existence it involves: one that ties existence to (...) the logic of quantification, and another that assimilates the existence of an event to that of a continuant. The first of these, I argue, cannot be the right way to understand the target claim, as there are serious logical obstacles to regarding this notion of existence as temporally variable. The second, on the other hand, leaves it ultimately mysterious what the existence of an event could amount to. I close with the suggestion that the undeniable temporal asymmetries which parties to the debate are interested in are properly understood in perspectival, not ontological, terms. (shrink)

Coletânea de textos: 1.Idealismo transcendental, naturalismo e um pouco de história, Adriano Naves de Brito; 2. Ceticismo e a reconstrução de P.F. Strawson da dedução kantiana das categorias, Pedro Stepanenko; 3. Dedução Transcendental e Ceticismo, Marco Antonio Franciotti; 4. Strawson e Kant sobre a dualidade entre intuições e conceitos, Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira; 5. Princípio de significatividade em Kant e Strawson, Cristina de Moraes Nunes; 6. Strawson e Kant sobre a Liberdade, Albertinho Luiz Gallina e Cecília Rearte Terrosa; 7. (...) Argumentos Transcendentais e Metafísica Descritiva em P. F. Strawson, Itamar Luís Gelain; 8. Breve consideração sobre o problema da tese da aprioridade do espaço e do tempo, Juan Adolfo Bonaccini; 9. Os novos fundamentos da metafísica estabelecidos por Kant, Peter F. Strawson, Trad. Jaimir Conte; 10. Imaginação e percepção, Peter F. Strawson, Trad. Ítalo Lins Lemos. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between dynamic and truth conditional semantics for epistemic modals. It provides a generalization of a standard dynamic update semantics for modals. This new semantics derives a Kripke semantics for modals and a standard dynamic semantics for modals as special cases. The semantics allows for new characterizations of a variety of principles in modal logic, including the inconsistency of ‘p and might not p’. Finally, the semantics provides a construction procedure for transforming any truth conditional semantics (...) for modals into a dynamic semantics for modals with similar properties. (shrink)

Quantifier variance faces a number of difficulties. In this paper we first formulate the view as holding that the meanings of the quantifiers may vary, and that languages using different quantifiers may be charitably translated into each other. We then object to the view on the basis of four claims: (i) quantifiers cannot vary their meaning extensionally by changing the domain of quantification; (ii) quantifiers cannot vary their meaning intensionally without collapsing into logical pluralism; (iii) quantifier variance is not an (...) ontological doctrine; (iv) quantifier variance is not compatible with charitable translation and as such is internally inconsistent. In light of these troubles, we recommend the dissolution of quantifier variance and suggest that the view be laid to rest. (shrink)

Scientific realism holds that the terms in our scientific theories refer and that we should believe in their existence. This presupposes a certain understanding of quantification, namely that it is ontologically committing, which I challenge in this paper. I argue that the ontological loading of the quantifiers is smuggled in through restricting the domains of quantification, without which it is clear to see that quantifiers are ontologically neutral. Once we remove domain restrictions, domains of quantification can include non-existent things, as (...) they do in scientific theorizing. Scientific realism would therefore require redefining without presupposing a view of ontologically committing quantification. (shrink)

In his 2004 paper ‘Tensed Quantifiers’, David Lewis presented an apparently powerful case for eternalism by arguing that we cannot account for the truth-conditions of sentences like ‘There have been forty-four presidents of the United States’ and ‘There will be five more presidents of the United states’ and maintain a non-revisionary attitude towards their truth-values, without committing to the existence of ‘past’ and ‘future’ things. Related arguments can be found in works by Ted Sider, and by Zoltan Gendler Szabó. We (...) can call the fully developed form of this argument the Argument from Semantics. In this paper, I counter the AfS by showing that these truth-conditions can be captured without commitment to the existence of things—such as Socrates and Abraham Lincoln—which we take to have existed but not to exist, or things—like the par.. (shrink)

I argue that there is no straightforward inference from there being fictional characters to any interesting form of realism. One reason is that “fictional” may be an intensional operator with wide scope, depriving the quantifier of its usual force. Another is that not all uses of “there are” are ontologically committing. A realist needs to show that neither of these phenomena are present in “There are fictional characters”. Other roads to realism run into difficulties when negotiating the role that presupposition (...) plays when we make intuitive evaluations of the truth or falsehood of sentences involving fiction, for we may presuppose things we do not believe. This means that a judgment of truth, implicitly relative to a presupposition we do not believe, can be sincerely made by someone who, from a more austere perspective, would regard the judgment as false. (shrink)

La réflexion philosophique sur la non-existence est une thématique qui a été abordée au commencement même de la philosophie et qui suscite, depuis la publication en 1905 de « On Denoting » par Russell, les plus vifs débats en philosophie analytique. Cependant, le débat féroce sur la sémantique des noms propres et des descriptions définies qui surgirent suite à la publication du « On Referring » par Strawson en 1950 n’engagea pas d’étude systématique de la sémantique des fictions. En fait, (...) le développement systématique d’un lien qui articule approches logiques, philosophiques et littéraires de la fiction devait attendre les travaux de John Woods publiés en 1974 dans son livre The Logic of Fiction : A Philosophical Sounding of Deviant Logic. Un des enjeux les plus excitants du livre de Woods se situe au niveau de l’interaction entre les points de vue internalistes ou interne-à-l’histoire (principalement pragmatiques) et les points de vue externalistes ou externe-à-la-fiction (principalement sémantiques). Sur ce point, Woods fut le premier à formuler une sémantique pour l’opérateur de fiction à lire comme « selon l’histoire… » en relation à la notion logique de portée, ce qui permettait l’étude de l’internalisme et de l’externalisme. Suite au livre de Woods, loin de s’essouffler, les débats trouvaient une nouvelle impulsion. Le fait pertinent pour notre article est que la tradition phénoménologique également, l’étude de la fiction a joué un rôle central. En effet, l’une des problématiques les plus sujettes à controverses dans l’intentionnalité est celle de l’indépendance à l’existence, c’est-à-dire le fait que les actes intentionnels n’ont pas besoin d’être forcément dirigés vers un objet existant. Influencée par les travaux de Roman Ingarden (1893-1970), l’un des plus importants disciples de Husserl, Amie L. Thomasson développe le concept phénoménologique de dépendance ontologique en vue d’expliquer les processus de références inter- et transfictionnels – dans le contexte de l’interprétation littéraire par exemple. L’enjeu essentiel de cet article est de proposer une reconstruction multimodale bi-dimensionnelle de la théorie des personnages fictionnels de Ingarden-Thomasson. Cette théorie qui entend prendre au sérieux le fait que les fictions sont des créations montre la voie pour une articulation entre les approches internalistes et externalistes. Nous motivons certains changements quant à l’approche artéfactuelle - incluant une sémantique appropriée pour l’opérateur de fictionalité qui, nous l’espérons, éveillera l’intérêt des théoriciens de la littérature. L’article est à d’autres égards un panorama de la façon dont différents concepts d’intentionnalité pourraient fonder différentes sémantiques formelles pour la fictionalité. Nous proposerons enfin un cadre dialogique qui est une extension modale d’un certain système de preuve développé par Matthieu Fontaine et Juan Redmond. Le cadre dialogique développe la contrepartie inférentielle de la sémantique bi-dimensionnelle introduite par Shahid Rahman et Tero Tulenheimo dans un article récent. (shrink)

این‌ نوشتار به گزارش و بررسی یکی از مهم‌ترین دیدگاه‌ها در رد وجود محمولی، یعنی بحث اشاره‌پذیری/‌ اشاره‌ناپذیری، می‌پردازد. همچنین نشان می‌دهد اغلب ادعاهای زیر از قوت چندانی برخوردار نیستند: 1. وجود مطلقاً محمول نیست؛ 2. وجود محمول منطقی نیست؛ و حتی، از جهاتی، این ادعای معتدل‌تر که می‌گوید: 3. گرچه وجود به‌صورت موضوع ـ محمولی محمول منطقی نیست، می‌توان آن را محمول منطقی به‌شمار آورد. برای این منظور دیدگاه برگزیده به کمک تساوی وجود و اشاره‌پذیری، تحلیلی از وجود محمولی (...) در فلسفة اسلامی ارائه می‌کند و نشان می‌دهد در دو بحث نخست دیدگاه مطرح در فلسفه و منطق دورة اسلامی قابل دفاع و تقویت است و در بحث سوم نیز دیدگاه‌های رقیب در تحلیل منطقی، بر فلسفه و منطق دورة اسلامی ترجیحی ندارند. همچنین، این جستار، با اصلاح‌ مبنای فلسفة اسلامی، اشاره‌پذیری معدوم به اشارة عقلی تبعی و غیر مستقیم را می‌پذیرد. (shrink)

The problem which seems to remain with the Advaitin's non-realist account is that in giving up both the robust realist use of existenthood and the strong idealist use of cognitive verification, he seems to have weakened the connection between what must be the case and what is experienced. In explaining the nature of cognition, the realist says that existenthood (objects ontologically independent of cognition)must be the case; the idealist says that existenthoodmust not be the case. But in saying that existenthood (...) and non-existenthood are both outside the purview of the explanation of cognition, and then further, in saying that there is only a weak connection — of coherent assumption or best justification through confirmation — between objects and cognition, in other words, refusing to say whatmust be the case, is the non-realist not making his ontology acutely contingent on the current features of cognition? Is his ontology not, in this sense, provisional upon current cognition? As any reader even glancingly acquainted with Advaita would see straightaway, that understanding of ontology as aprovisional state (samv $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{r} $$ tti-sattā) is precisely what the Advaitin has striven to establish. We must leave the examination of the purpose of this effort for another occasion. (shrink)