Authors
P.J.E. Dekker
Date (dd-mm-yyyy)
2025
Title
Talk About Things Non-Existent
Publication Year
2025
Number of pages
30
Publisher
ILLC prepublication
Document type
Report
Abstract
In order to make sense of talk about things non-existent philosophers and linguists tend to construe them as things more than
as non-existent. The temptation to do so is obviously strong, but it also appears wrong. This note provides a constructive
argument that we can resist this temptation. It presents a simple formal language, with a proof theory, showing that we can
make sense of talk about things non-existent without granting them existence.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/11245.1/b9b8f18d-ff39-4677-8105-7c767d5c4c38