Organon F

Volume 27, November 2020, Issue 4, Pages 522–538

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

Frege argues that considering Socrates as an object in the proposition “Socrates exists” raises two problems. First, this proposition would be uninformative. Second, its negation entails a contradiction. Attempting to solve these problems, Frege claims that Socrates is representing the concept of a man whose name is Socrates. Therefore, existence is a second-order concept. This paper surveys the main modern theories about the types of existence, in order to find another response to Frege’s problems. For, if Socrates’ existence differs from the type that “exists” implies, “Socrates exists” is informative and its negation is not a contradiction. At last, this paper argues for an idea, in which “existence” is not a concept or property. Existence is the principle of the objects. So, “Socrates exists” is in fact “the existence is Socrates,” and “Socrates does not exist” is “there is no existence that be Socrates.” This idea could be an alternative for responding to Frege’s problems.

Existential proposition; existence; Frege; object; concept.

Author

Siavash Asadi

Affiliation

Duquesne University

Address

601 Fisher Hall, Duquesne University, 600 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

E-mail

asadis@duq.edu

Received

11 December 2019

Accepted

24 June 2020

Published online

17 October 2020

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

APA

Asadi, S. (2020). Subject and Predicate in Existential Propositions: A Survey of Frege’s Problem and Its Solutions. Organon F, 27(4), 522–538. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2020.27407

Chicago

Asadi, Siavash. 2020. "Subject and Predicate in Existential Propositions: A Survey of Frege’s Problem and Its Solutions." Organon F 27 (4): 522–538. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2020.27407

Harvard

Asadi, S.  (2020). Subject and Predicate in Existential Propositions: A Survey of Frege’s Problem and Its Solutions. Organon F, 27(4), pp. 522–538. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2020.27407

© Siavash Asadi

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