Week 1 Nathan Salmons Nonexistence Office Hours When: Wednesdays, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Week 1

Nathan Salmon’s “Nonexistence”

—Office Hours

When: Wednesdays, 11am—1pm Where: Starbucks (Student Center)

—Class Resources

I’ll be putting PDFs of the handouts and slides online at: louisdoulas.info/uci-teaching

—Preliminaries

• Nonreferring and referring names
• Millianism and Descriptivism
• Existential Quantification

—Preliminaries Nonreferring names

Names that don’t refer to anything (e.g., because the thing talked about doesn’t exist).

Referring names

Names that refer to something that exists (e.g., person, place, thing)

—Preliminaries Millianism

The semantic contribution of proper names is just what a name refers to. Names are “tags” of sorts.

Descriptivism

The semantic contribution of proper names is just the cluster of descriptions that are associated with that name. Names are clusters of descriptions.

—Preliminaries

Quantification

• “∃” is called the existential quantifier.
• “∃” should be read as “there exists.”
• E.g., Example: “(∃x)(Cx)” should be read as “There exists at least one x such that x

is C.” Suppose now that x is a singular term denoting “Pebbles” (my dog) and “” is the property is cute. Then, we’d interpret the formula above as: There exists an x such that x is cute. In other words: Pebbles is cute.

—Preliminaries Quantification

∃

—Preliminaries Quantification

∀

—The Puzzle of Negative Existentials (0) Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist.

(0) seems true—it’s true that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist. But it seems that we presuppose the existence of the very thing we’re denying existence too! In other words, it seems like we’re saying:

(0)* There exists something, Sherlock Holmes, such that it doesn’t exist.

But that’s a contradiction!

—A Detour: Russell’s Way (1) The present King of France is bald.

(1) seems false—it’s false because the present King of France doesn’t exist. But if (1) is false, then surely its negation is true:

(2) The present King of France is not bald.

But (2) isn’t true. So we have a problem.

—Russell’s Solution to (1) Russell’s solution is to argue that (2) is ambiguous—there are two readings of (2):

• Narrow-scope
• Wide-scope

“Scope” here refers to the scope of negation.

—Russell’s Solution to (1) Narrow-scope There exists some x such that x is the PKOF and x is not bald. Wide-scope It is not the case that there exists some x such that x is the PKOF and x is bald.

—Russell’s Solution to (1)

What’s the idea here? The idea is that the negation is no longer modifying the verb “is bald” (which gives rise to the initial puzzle). Take another look: Narrow-scope There exists some x such that x is the PKOF and x is not bald. Wide-scope It is not the case that there exists some x such that x is the PKOF and x is bald.

—Russell’s Solution to (1) So (2):

• The present King of France is not

bald should be understood as (2’):

• It is not the case that the present

King of France is not bald.

—Extending Russell’s Solution to (0) Consider again: (0) Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist. How does Russell solve this negative existential?

—Extending Russell’s Solution to (0)

First Move: The name “Sherlock Holmes” abbreviates a description.

• E.g., the brilliant but eccentric late 19th

century British detective who, inter alia, performed such-and-such exploits. (Or just the Holmesesque detective.) Second Move: Adopt the wide-scope strategy.

• E.g., It is not the case that there exists a

Holmesesque detective.