It seems possible to see a star that no longer exists. Yet it also seems right to say that what no longer exists cannot be seen. We therefore face a puzzle, the traditional answer to which involves abandoning naïve realism in favour of a sense datum view. In this article, however, I offer a novel exploration of the puzzle within a naïve realist framework. As will emerge, the best option for naïve realists is to embrace an eternalist view of time, (...) and claim that in the relevant case, one sees a still existent star‐stage located somewhere in the distant past. (shrink)

[Draft substantially revised, September 2021] David Lewis acclimated us to talk of “nonactual concreta that exist,” regarding talking donkeys and the like. I shall argue that this was not for the best, and try to normalize a way of describing them as “actual concreta that do not exist.” The basis of this is a defense of the Meinongian thesis “there are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects,” re: fictitious and illusory objects. I first formulate (...) the problem of negative existentials in a novel way, and discuss why this new version is more forceful against anti-Meinongians. Additional data is also pressed against anti-Meinongians--e.g., the truth of ‘Pegasus is imaginary’, and a reading of ‘There actually are illusory objects’ where it comes out true. The Meinongian, in contrast, easily and uniformly explains the same data, by allowing the existence Pegasus, pink elephants, and the like. But contra Meinong, these cases suggest that the nonexistent objects are mind-dependent objects, and I clarify and defend this suggestion from several objections. The resulting Meinongianism is thus “conservative” in that it merely acknowledges the sense in which there are mind-dependent objects, imaginary and illusory objects being prime examples. Of special note, the “ideology” is conservative as well in that the typical Meinongian jargon of “nuclear” or “encoded” properties is paraphrased away. New suggestions about the ontology of abstracta, mere possibilia, and impossibilia are sketched in light of this. Comparisons are also made with Thomasson, Crane, and McGinn, among others. (shrink)

Among modal claims, claims that involve the notions of broadly logical possibility and necessity, one that seems almost trivial is this: that if some proposition is possible, then it is possibly true. However, there is an argument, due in its essentials to the medieval philosopher and logician Jean Buridan, to the effect that this seemingly trivial claim is, in fact, untrue. ;Briefly put, the argument is this. Let Q be the proposition that Quine does not exist. Since Quine's existence is (...) contingent, Q is possible. But, propositions are ontologically dependent upon their constituents, and Quine is a constituent of Q. So, necessarily, were Quine not to exist, neither would Q exist. And, a necessary condition of a proposition's being true is that it exist. Hence, there are propositions, such as Q, that are possible, but not possibly true. I call this conclusion, together with certain other similar claims, 'Buridanism'. ;My main topic is the evaluation of the argument for Buridanism, and the exploration of the consequences of Buridanism for modalist theories of possible worlds and for modal logic. I begin by examining the two crucial premises in the argument for Buridanism: N-dependency, according to which propositions expressed by sentences containing proper names are singular propositions that depend ontologically upon the referents of those names, and Buridan's Thesis, according to which a proposition can be neither necessary, nor possible, nor true, unless it exists. ;Robert Adams has argued that accepting Buridanism forces us to revise the modalist conception of possible worlds as maximal and consistent propositions or sets of propositions. I show that this is not the case, and provide an analysis of a proposition's being true relative to a world that allows us to maintain the modalist account while embracing Buridanism. ;Standard systems of quantified modal logic are prone to several related problems that I refer to as the problems of contingency. These systems often include as theorems formulas that seem to presuppose that everything that exists, exists necessarily. I develop a system of modal logic, BML, based upon Buridanism, that is able to overcome these difficulties. (shrink)