Talk (Work in Progress): Ragna Oeynhausen (MCMP)

Title:

Contingent and Necessary Existence

Abstract:

The question whether everything exists or whether there are some things that do not exist, is matter of unceasing philosophical debate. In light of the intuitive truisms that aliens, Sherlock Holmes or round squares do not exist, I will defend the plausibility of existence as a universal first-order property, i.e. a property that applies to all things whatsoever. This raises related questions about the nature of so-called empty names and about what is meant by assertions of non-existence. Kripke’s (2013) theory of names leads him to view existence as a contingent property of objects. At the same time, he holds that existence is universal. To resolve this tension, I will show that we must distinguish between two senses of “exist”, a contingent and a necessary one.

Kripke, Saul A. (2013) Reference and Existence. The John Locke Lectures. Oxford University Press.