Existence, Tense, and Presupposition

The Monist 50 (1):98-108 (1966)
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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present an argument to show both that ‘exists ’ is not a predicate of things or continuants and that ‘is present ’ is not a predicate of events or states of affairs. I shall confine my remarks to statements having a singular referring expression as their subject. My argument requires that we accept as a premiss that Strawson’s account of referring correctly depicts the working of statements containing a singular referring expression as their subject. According to the Strawsonian account, a subject–predicate sentence can be used to make a statement, that is, to say something that can be said to be true or false, only if its subject expression refers successfully. Thus the statement ‘The S is φ presupposes the existential statement ‘There is one and only one S’, such that if this latter statement is false nothing true or false has been said, but rather there has been, what Strawson calls, a spurious or incorrect use made of the sentence ‘The S is φ’.

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Tensed Sentences.Stephen Edward Braude - 1971 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst

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