Noneism, also known as modal Meinongianism (named after

Alexius Meinong Alexius Meinong Ritter von Handschuchsheim (17 July 1853 – 27 November 1920) was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology. He also made contributions to philosophy of mind and theory of value. Life Alexius Meinon ...

), is a theory in

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...

and

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

. It holds that some things do not exist. It was first coined by Richard Routley in 1980 and appropriated again in 2005 by

Graham Priest Graham Priest (born 1948) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center, as well as a regular visitor at the University of Melbourne, where he was Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy and also at the University of St And ...

Overview

Noneism holds that some things do not exist. That is, we can quantify over non-existent objects ("items") using the so-called particular quantifier (also known—misleadingly in the view of noneists—as the

existential quantifier In predicate logic, an existential quantification is a type of quantifier, a logical constant which is interpreted as "there exists", "there is at least one", or "for some". It is usually denoted by the logical operator symbol ∃, which, w ...

). They also hold that "there is" is like "exist", rather than like the particular quantifier. Thus, they deny that ''there are'' things that do not exist. On this theory, there are no

empty names In metaphysics and the philosophy of language, an empty name is a proper name that has no referent. The problem of empty names is the idea that empty names have a meaning when it seems they should not have. The name "Pegasus" is empty; there is n ...

, wherefore the "problem of empty names" that afflicts many theories about names (in particular, Millianism), is not a problem at all. While Priest also espouses dialetheism, he maintains that his dialetheism is mostly capable of being separated out from his noneism. The connection is that impossible objects may exist in impossible worlds, much as nonexistent objects may exist in possible (but not actual) worlds. Richard Routley's book, ''Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond: An Investigation of Noneism and the Theory of Items'', was published in 1980, while the first edition of Priest's book entitled ''Towards Non-Being: The Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality'' was published in 2005 (second revised edition in 2016).

References

20th-century philosophy Non-classical logic Metaphysical theories Abstract object theory {{philo-stub

Overview

See also

References