President Hillary Clinton doesn’t exist, and may never exist.
But President Hillary Clinton could exist, because she could be elected President in 2016.
But I’m sure you’ve heard of abstract entities, haven’t you?
The state of affairs where Mrs. Clinton is elected President in 2016 is one type of abstract entity (and during the next presidential election cycle I suspect Democrats and Republicans will find it meaningful to discuss the properties of that particular abstract entity.)
Merely-possible individuals are another type of abstract entity.
See ou.edu/ouphil/faculty/swoyer/AbstractEntities.pdf
If johnnyparker exists, and there was a time when he didn’t exist, than even at that time (when he didn’t exist) it was possible for him to exist.
He was an abstract entity.
I believe that was the point the author of that paper was making here.
people.su.se/~folke/holtug.pdf
(Parentheses and emphasis mine.)
If you disagree with Prof. Holtug (the author of this paper), could you please show me the logical flaws in his arguments?
Also, could you please answer the following questions for me?
1.) If no state of conscious existence is any better or worse than non-existence, doesn’t it follow that eternal conscious torment is no worse than non-existence?
2.) And wouldn’t there be no logical or moral reason for a materialist (or even for most Christians, who believe that death is total extinction for an animal) to put a suffering animal out of it’s misery?
Every materialist believes that death is oblivion, and most Theists believe it is for a horse, so wouldn’t there be no reason to put a suffering horse out of it’s misery (if misery is no worse than non-existence)?
Getting back to the paper, i particularly liked the surplus of positive value argument.
people.su.se/~folke/holtug.pdf
What did you think of the surplus of positive value argument?
Did you bother to read the paper Johnny?