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Full Idea
Identity is sometimes read so that 'Pegasus is Pegasus' expresses a truth, the non-existence of any winged horse notwithstanding.
Clarification
Pegasus is a mythical winged horse
Gist of Idea
The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence
Source
B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §5)
Book Ref
'Metametaphysics', ed/tr. Chalmers/Manley/Wasserman [OUP 2009], p.187
A Reaction
This would give you ontological commitment to truth, without commitment to existence. It undercuts the use of identity statements as the basis of existence claims, which was Frege's strategy.
| 12223 | It is a fallacy to explain the obscure with the even more obscure [Hale/Wright] |
| 12224 | Are neo-Fregeans 'maximalists' - that everything which can exist does exist? [Hale/Wright] |
| 12225 | Neo-Fregeanism might be better with truth-makers, rather than quantifier commitment [Hale/Wright] |
| 12226 | The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence [Hale/Wright] |
| 12227 | Abstractionism needs existential commitment and uniform truth-conditions [Hale/Wright] |
| 12228 | Equivalence abstraction refers to objects otherwise beyond our grasp [Hale/Wright] |
| 12231 | Reference needs truth as well as sense [Hale/Wright] |
| 12230 | Singular terms refer if they make certain atomic statements true [Hale/Wright] |
| 12229 | Maybe we have abundant properties for semantics, and sparse properties for ontology [Hale/Wright] |
| 18443 | A successful predicate guarantees the existence of a property - the way of being it expresses [Hale/Wright] |