Renato Semaniuc Valvassori

This paper aims to demonstrate that contemporary Meinongian tools and theories can be employed to address the Platonic puzzles of non-being presented in the Sophist. First, we will (i) reconstruct the three aporias regarding non-being, focusing on how the Eleatic Visitor introduces and explores these problems, particularly the challenge of expressing what is not; secondly, (ii) we will briefly present what the three main neo-Meinongian trends are — the Nuclear, the Dual-Copula, and the Modal Meinongian trends; then, (iii) we will show how these three Meinongian perspectives can answer the Platonic aporias; and finally (iv), we will see which lessons we can learn from what we argued for, specifically in terms of the role of working on history of philosophy if you are an analytic philosopher.

Truthmaking (2023), by Jamin Asay, is part of the “Elements in Metaphysics” series, published by the Cambridge University Press. The book is an excellent brief introduction to truthmaking theory: accessible, clear, and enjoyable, covering the most fundamental problems of the field. One of the highlights of the book is the chapter on truthmakers for truths concerning social constructions. It successfully shows that truthmaking theory is not only related to abstract metaphysical problems but is also tied to central puzzles in ethics and political philosophy (more specifically philosophies of race and gender).

This article proposes a reading of quantum metaphysical indeterminacy from the perspective of Parsons' Nuclear Meinongianism. In doing so, we identify a fundamental incompatibility between a key feature of Parsons' theory and standard quantum mechanics. Our approach interprets quantum indeterminacy as property incompleteness. However, this move, when combined with Parsons' framework, leads to what we term the ``Incompleteness-Entails-Nonexistence Principle'' (IENP), which implausibly entails the nonexistence of quantum objects. For Meinongianism to be a suitable tool for the metaphysics of quantum mechanics, this principle must be addressed. We argue for dropping the IENP and discuss the resulting metaphysical and metametaphysical consequences.