Abstract

In his paper ‘On what there’s not’, Joseph Melia disavows commitment to the existence of objects like average mothers, possibilities, numbers, etc. Since quantification over such objects is at times unavoidable, Melia tries to argue that we can deny the existence of such objects despite the fact that our (true) theories of the world quantify over them. Melia calls this ‘weaseling’. In this paper, I argue that these assumptions of Melia’s render his position incoherent.