The question may seem an odd one. If read as asking “Do there exist any objects that do not exist?” the answer is obviously No because the question presupposes a contradiction. But there is another way of reading the question that can be gotten at if we reflect on the relation between actuals, possibles that are not actual, and impossibles. Here are some uncontroversial examples of each:<\/p>\n
Actuals:<\/span> dogs, cats, grass, the Eiffel Tower, the Sun, etc. Now, in one sense of the word, to say something “exists” is to say that it is actual or real. But that can’t be the sense implied when we say that something “is” possible but non-actual or that something “is” impossible because both of those categories exclude<\/span> actuality. So we have to recognize at least one additional sense of “exists” besides “is actual”. What could that sense be?<\/p>\n We can begin by noticing that the class of non-actual possibles and the class of impossibles are both non-empty<\/span>. This fits nicely with Frege’s claim that “affirmation of existence is … denial of the number nought.” Following Peter Geach, I’ll call this the “there is” sense of “exists”. This is the sense being used in a sentence like “There is<\/span> a possible world in which JFK dies a natural death.” Obviously, this is not saying that such a world is actual, but only that the class of possible worlds includes at least one<\/span> in which JFK dies a natural death. In other words, the class of possible worlds in which JFK dies a natural death is non-empty<\/span>.<\/p>\n With this distinction between the “actuality” and the “there is” senses of “exists” we can now read the opening question as follows: “Is the class of non-actual objects non-empty?” In light of the examples of impossibles and non-actual possibles above, the answer to this question would appear to be Yes.<\/p>\n This raises an interesting question: What is the ontological status of non-actual (or “mere”) possibles and of impossibles? On the one hand, we don’t want to reify them \u00e0 la Meinong into quasi-actual entities that have a sort of independent existence [Addendum: Bill Vallicella<\/a> informs me that this is not an accurate statement of Meinong’s view.]. On the other hand, we don’t want to dismiss them as irrelevant. Practically speaking, it makes a difference whether the things we attempt are really<\/span> possible or not. My offhand thought is that to avoid both extremes we need to say that possibility and impossibility are parasitic on actuality–something is really<\/span> possible iff what is actual does not preclude it and really<\/span> impossible iff what is actual does preclude it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The question may seem an odd one. If read as asking “Do there exist any objects that do not exist?” the answer is obviously No because the question presupposes a contradiction. But there is another way of reading the question that can be gotten at if we reflect on the relation between actuals, possibles that\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Non-Actual Possibles:<\/span> unicorns, the twin towers of the World Trade Center (they were actual, but are no longer), dinosaurs, etc.
Impossibles:<\/span> Square circles, married bachelors, four-sided triangles, etc.<\/p>\n