Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-Existence contains 13 new papers concerning the semantic and metaphysical issues arising from empty names, non-existence, and the nature of fiction. The contributors include some of the most important researchers working in these fields. Some of the papers develop and defend new positions on these matters, while other papers offer some important new perspectives and criticisms of the existing approaches. The book contains a comprehensive introductory essay by the editors which provides a survey of the philosophical issues concerning empty names, the various responses to these issues, and the literature to date. The book will be of interest to philosophers of language and to those interested in metaphysics and the nature of fiction.
Anthony Everett is in the Department of Philosophy at Stanford University. Thomas Hofweber is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
- Contributor
- Much Ado About Nothing
Anthony Everett and Thomas Hofweber
- I Empty Names
- 1 Pleonastic Fregeanism and Empty Names
Stephen Schiffer
- 2 Emptiness without Compromise: A Referentialist Semantics for Empty Names
Kenneth A. Taylor
- 3 Referentialism and Empty Names
Anthony Everett
- 4 On Myth
Avrom Faderman
- II Pretense
- 5 Existence as Metaphor?
Kendall Walton
- 6 ‘Disavowal Through Commitment’ Theories of Negative Existentials
Fred Kroon
- Functional Projections and Verb Movement
Dong-In Cho
- The Road Between Pretense Theory and Abstract Object Theory
Edward N. Zalta
- 8 Making up Stories
Harry Deutsch
- 9 Real People in Unreal Contexts, or Is There a Spy Among Us?
Stacie Friend
- 10 Semantic Pretense
Mark Richard
- III Ontology
- 11 Quanti_cation and Fictional Discourse
Peter van Inwagen
- 12 Quanti_cation and Non-Existent Objects
Thomas Hofweber
- 13 A Paradox of Existence
Stephen Yablo
- References
- Index
7/1/2000