Brightly on meagre existence

David Brightly on singular existential statements here.  I liked this bit

[...]  there is an important asymmetry between singular existential assertions and denials. If the name 'Vulcan' has been properly introduced by a general existential assertion then 'Vulcan exists' tells us nothing new. In contrast, 'Vulcan doesn't exist' amounts to a denial of the general existential statement by which the name was introduced to us. On the other hand, if the name 'Vulcan' has not been properly introduced then 'Vulcan exists' is meaningless to us.

Although I'm sure I said the same thing myself somewhere :)

Singulars as universals

In the context of the present discussion there is yet another argument against the scholastic treatment of singular terms as (implicitly) quantified universal terms.  Colwyn Williamson, in the article 'traditional logic', in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy writes:

In the traditional textbooks, singulars are treated as universals, on the feeble pretext that in 'Socrates is bald' the name 'Socrates' refers to everything it can. This notion was generally expressed in technical terminology: the name was said to be 'distributed' or to 'refer to its whole extension'. These obscurities presumably reflect a disinclination to say something that is obviously absurd (that one is talking about the whole of Socrates), something that is obviously false (that only one person can be called Socrates), or something that is obviously vacuous (that the name is here meant to name everyone it is here meant to name).