Priest, Graham
, Universities of Melbourne and St Andrews
Print publication date: 2005
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: July 2005
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-926254-0
doi:10.1093/0199262543.001.0001
Abstract:
Towards Non-Being presents an account of the semantics of intentional verbs such as ‘believes’, ‘fears’, ‘seeks’, and ‘imagines’. It tackles problems concerning intentional states which are often brushed under the carpet, such as their failure to be closed under deducibility. Drawing on the noneist work of the late Richard Routley (Sylvan), the book proceeds in terms of objects that may be existent or non-existent, at worlds that may either be possible or impossible. Since Russell, non-existent objects have had a bad press in Western philosophy. The book mounts a full-scale defence, and in the process, offers an account of both fictional and mathematical objects as non-existent.