Ontology and the word 'exist': Uneasy relations

Philosophia Mathematica 18 (1):74-101 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

An extensive exploration of the special properties of ‘exist’ is here undertaken. Two of several results are: Denying that `exist’ has associated with it a set of necessary and sufficient conditions has seemed to a number of philosophers to imply metaphysical nihilism . This is because it has seemed that without such conditions the target domain of `existence’ is arbitrarily open. I show this is wrong. Second, my analysis sheds light on the puzzling question of what we are asking when we ask of something, `Does it exist?’ and mean that question in an ontically relevant way

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-02-06

Downloads
276 (#67,037)

6 months
8 (#157,827)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jody Azzouni
Tufts University

Citations of this work

Natural Objects.Joshua D. K. Brown - 2016 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (2):254-271.
Why deflationary nominalists shouldn’t be agnostics.Jody Azzouni - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (5):1143-1161.
Hobnobbing with the Nonexistent.Jody Azzouni - 2013 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 56 (4):340-358.
How to Express Ontological Commitment in the Vernacular.Jamin Asay - 2010 - Philosophia Mathematica 18 (3):293-310.

View all 9 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
Principia ethica.George Edward Moore - 1903 - Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. Edited by Thomas Baldwin.
The meaning of 'meaning'.Hilary Putnam - 1975 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193.
Individualism and the mental.Tyler Burge - 1979 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4 (1):73-122.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.

View all 37 references / Add more references