Journal of the History of Philosophy

abstract:

Kant's dictum that existence "is not a real predicate that could be added to the concept of a thing" is standardly interpreted as an early variant of either the Fregean thesis that existence is a second-order property, or of the Quinean claim that existence is a property of everything. In this paper, I argue that neither of these readings can make sense of all assumptions that define Kant's notion of existence. I propose an alternative interpretation of Kant's account of the logical form, and ontological implications, of existential judgments, which is based on his distinction between "absolute and relative positing." It turns out that the least anachronistic interpretation of Kant's position understands it as a forerunner of a certain variant of Meinongianism.