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| Author(s): |
Renato Semaniuc Valvassori
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas |
| Defense date: | 2024-08-21 |
| Examining board members: |
Marco Ruffino;
Francesco Berto;
Italo Lins Lemos
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| Advisor: | Marco Ruffino |
| Abstract | |
The Paradox of Negative Existentials is a paradox of semantic reference with interesting metaphysical implications. How is it possible to deny the existence of an object if, in order to deny it, we need to refer to the object whose existence is denied? If Santa Claus does not really exist, how is it possible to talk about him? Complexifying this paradox even further, philosophers have also identified the so-called 'Truthmaking Problem for Negative Existentials': what kind of thing can make a negative existential like $true? An absence, the actual world, a certain state of affairs? In fact, finding the best answer to these problems is no simple task. Thus, the first objective of this dissertation is to discuss the attempted answers to the Paradox of Negative Existentials offered by different Meinongian trends, as well as to compare them with the solutions to this same problem defended by Russellian and Quinean philosophers, so that, in the end of this thesis, I can offer my own vision of the aforementioned problem. The second aim of this dissertation is to offer an original Meinongian solution to the Truthmaking Problem for Negative Existentials, which is based on a mereological principle that I call 'unrestricted radical composition'. Finally, I compare my proposed solution to the Quinean solutions available in recent philosophical literature (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 22/00112-2 - Meinongian Metaontology and the paradox of negative existentials |
| Grantee: | Renato Semaniuc Valvassori |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |