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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Singular propositions about non-existent past individuals are problematic because the proposition's constituent would need to have determinate properties (age, position) that are absurd to attribute to an abstract constituent

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.A singular proposition contains the individual itself as a constituent
      ?

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    • 2.Socrates is dead and no longer exists
      ?

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    • 3.If Socrates is a constituent of the proposition 'Socrates died', then Socrates must be a determinate age and in a determinate position
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.On Russellian singular propositions, the constituent IS the individual, not a mode of presentation, so all of the individual's intrinsic properties travel with it.
      ?

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    • 2.Concrete individuals necessarily instantiate spatiotemporal properties like age and location as part of their fundamental ontological constitution (per four-dimensionalist metaphysics).
      ?

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    • 3.An abstract propositional slot cannot coherently inherit spatiotemporal determinations from a concrete entity without generating a category error that undermines the proposition's truth conditions.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Frege's insight that reference requires a 'mode of presentation' implies that purely constituent-based singular propositions lack the descriptive apparatus needed to fix reference for non-existents.
      ?

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    • 2.Without a mediating sense or description, the bare constituent of a past individual is ontologically inert and cannot ground the proposition's directedness toward that individual.
      ?

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