Abstract

This is a forthright and refreshing book. It aims to bring the clarifying power of analytic philosophy to the luxuriant variety in one part of Meinong's ontology. Parson's title is meant to be read literally: it is not propositions, numbers, universals or sets, but only particular objects whose nonexistence concerns him. Parsons gives two reasons for believing that there are nonexistent objects. First, we match objects against the sets of their properties. When every existing object has been listed, we carry on making sets of properties. These additional sets correlate with nonexistent objects, e.g., the golden mountain. Second, there are the many occasions when we use names or definite descriptions to characterize truly such nonexistent objects as Pegasus and Sherlock Holmes. There is, says Parsons, no satisfactory reason for rephrasing these sentences when we refuse to paraphrase sentences of the same form having existing objects as their referents.