• Banno
    25k
    Hmm. It is logically possible for there to be a present King of France. That is, in some possible world there is a Present King of France.

    The trouble with "The present King of France is bald" is that given there isn't a present King of France, It's unclear what truth value the sentence has. If there is no present King of France, then he is neither bald nor hirsute.
  • litewave
    827
    It is logically possible for there to be a present King of France. That is, in some possible world there is a Present King of France.Banno

    It may be logically possible in some possible world but not in ours.

    The trouble with "The present King of France is bald" is that given there isn't a present King of France, It's unclear what truth value the sentence has. If there is no present King of France, then he is neither bald nor hirsute.Banno

    Since "the present King of France" has a logically inconsistent definition (in our world), it is not an entity but nothing. Nothing has no properties, so I would say that "The present King of France is bald" is false because it attributes the property of baldness to nothing. I am not sure about negative properties though. "The present King of France is NOT bald" rephrased as "Nothing is NOT bald" seems true because it denies the property of baldness to nothing. But does that mean that nothing has a negative property of "non-baldness"?
  • Patterner
    983
    There are different kinds of existence. The table in my dining room exists. It is a physical thing, verifiable in all the ways we can verify physical things.

    My thought of a table in my dining room exists. Thoughts exist, though not physically. But we can still discuss our thoughts. I mentioned this particular thought, and now it exists in your mind, also. Thoughts come in and out of existence. Soon, no thought of a table in my dining room will exist, in my or your mind.

    One specific type of thought is intentions. Intentions exist. We act on them. We shape the world because of them. If nobody had intended to build the Empire State Building - that is, if no intention to build it had ever existed - there wouldn't be an Empire State Building. But the intention existed, and, now, so does the ESB. The intention to build it no longer exists. The thought of that intention exists, at the moment, in my mind. And now in yours.
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