Existence - Modern Approaches

Modern Approaches

According to Bertrand Russell's Theory of Descriptions, the negation operator in a singular sentence can take either wide or narrow scope: we distinguish between "some S is not P" (where negation takes "narrow scope") and "it is not the case that 'some S is P'" (where negation takes "wide scope"). The problem with this view is that there appears to be no such scope distinction in the case of proper names. The sentences "Socrates is not bald" and "it is not the case that Socrates is bald" both appear to have the same meaning, and they both appear to assert or presuppose the existence of someone (Socrates) who is not bald, so that negation takes narrow scope. However, Russell's theory analyses proper names into a logical structure which makes sense of this problem. According to Russell Socrates can be analysed into the form 'The Philosopher of Greece.' In the wide scope this would then read: It is not the case that there existed a philosopher of Greece who was bald. In the narrow scope it would read the Philosopher of Greece was not bald.

According to the direct-reference view, an early version of which was originally proposed by Bertrand Russell, and perhaps earlier by Gottlob Frege, a proper name strictly has no meaning when there is no object to which it refers. This view relies on the argument that the semantic function of a proper name is to tell us which object bears the name, and thus to identify some object. But no object can be identified if none exists. Thus, a proper name must have a bearer if it is to be meaningful.

Existence cannot be subject to "creation" AND also be eternal. All experiments favor eternal, as does the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. Arguing "creation" goes against the accepted definition of time as a statistic. One can talk of a unit for matter, like an atom or apple, and quantify how much potential and kinetic energy it has, but space and time have no unit - no identity.