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12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
Full Idea: People say 'exist' is ambiguous, because of the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers is strikingly like the difference between chairs and numbers. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: To say 'numbers are objects which exist' is, to me, either a funny use of 'exist' or a funny use of 'object'. I think I will now vote for the latter. Just as 'real number' was a funny use of 'number', but we seem to have got used to it. |