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Full Idea
Parmenides was correct - one cannot speak of that which is not, even to say that it is not. But one can speak of concepts and say of them that they do not correspond to anything real.
Gist of Idea
We cannot pick out a thing and deny its existence, but we can say a concept doesn't correspond
Source
C. Anthony Anderson (Identity and Existence in Logic [2014], 2.5)
Book Ref
'Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophical Logic', ed/tr. Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R [Bloomsbury 2014], p.71
A Reaction
[This summarises Alonso Church, who was developing Frege] This sounds like the right thing to say about non-existence, but then the same principle must apply to assertions of existence, which will also be about concepts and not things.
Related Idea
Idea 18767 Free logics has terms that do not designate real things, and even empty domains [Anderson,CA]
| 18763 | Basic variables in second-order logic are taken to range over subsets of the individuals [Anderson,CA] |
| 18764 | The notion of 'property' is unclear for a logical version of the Identity of Indiscernibles [Anderson,CA] |
| 18765 | Individuation was a problem for medievals, then Leibniz, then Frege, then Wittgenstein (somewhat) [Anderson,CA] |
| 18766 | 's is non-existent' cannot be said if 's' does not designate [Anderson,CA] |
| 18767 | Free logics has terms that do not designate real things, and even empty domains [Anderson,CA] |
| 18768 | We cannot pick out a thing and deny its existence, but we can say a concept doesn't correspond [Anderson,CA] |
| 18769 | Do mathematicians use 'existence' differently when they say some entity exists? [Anderson,CA] |
| 18770 | We can distinguish 'ontological' from 'existential' commitment, for different kinds of being [Anderson,CA] |
| 18771 | Stop calling ∃ the 'existential' quantifier, read it as 'there is...', and range over all entities [Anderson,CA] |