Against Existential Presuppositions

It is widely assumed that uses of singular terms carry existential presuppositions; that is, they presuppose that their referent exists. First, I will discuss the motivations for this view in the work of Frege, Russell, Strawson and Evans. I will then argue that the only way of working out the logic underlying this view collapses emptiness and meaninglessness. I will conclude by looking at the linguistic data existential presuppositions are expected to explain, and will propose an alternative, pragmatic explanation for it.