Plantinga, Alvin Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame
Print publication date: 1978 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-824414-1







doi:10.1093/0198244142.003.0007

Alvin Plantinga
Abstract: Chapter 7 explores the question: Are there or could there be, possible but non-existent objects? In the first half of the chapter, I critically assess the claim that an applied semantics for modal logic commits us to the claim that there are non-existent possible objects. I conclude that it does commit us to there being some possible world distinct from the actual world that contains some object distinct from anything that exists in the actual world; but it does not, however, commit us to the claim that there really are some things that do not exist. In the second half of the chapter, I develop a historically based argument for the conclusion that there are non-existent possible objects, which I call the Classical Argument. Importantly, the Classical Argument presupposes that singular negative existentials are possible. I end the chapter by showing that certain objections to the possibility of singular negative existentials fail, and that such existentials are indeed possible.

Keywords: actual, existence, modal logic, possible, possible object, possible worlds, proposition, singular existential,

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