Some man is white

The discussion at BV's on the 'thin' conception of existence seems to be approaching a denouement. I've been following its twists and turns and excursions down blind alleys for about five years. But in his latest post Bill states that he holds that 'some man is white' and 'a white man exists' have different meanings. The latter is
richer in meaning than the some-sentence. It makes explicit that the item that is both human and white exists, is not nothing, is mind-independently real -- however you want to put it.
Hence it makes sense to say that 'a white man exists' can metaphysically ground or explain 'some man is white.' And it also makes sense to say with Meinong that 'some item does not exist' is not a narrowly logical contradiction, though Bill agrees that it is false. This strikes me as a very narrow place to stand indeed, but my impression is that much flows from it in Bill's philosophy.  It's like bestriding a watershed.  One might have hoped that where one ends up would not be so critically dependent on one's starting point, but perhaps this is the nature of the subject.  I can't see where the discussion can go from here, but at least we have isolated our differences.

One last point.  Bill says,
The substantive question is: What is the nature of existence? If the thin theory is worth discussing it is the theory that "existence is what existential quantification expresses" (Quine), that existence is wholly understandable in terms of such purely logical notions as the particular quantifier and identity. Thus Quine explicates 'a exists' in terms of '(∃x)(x = a).' That existence is a purely logical notion is what I most strenuously deny.
I think Quine says this somewhere in Word and Object. I don't have the book to hand, but  I don't recall that Quine was attempting a theory of existence in this passage. Rather, he is somewhat wearily accommodating those who would wish to find in his regimented language an expression of the singular existential 'a exists'. He says that his formula '(∃x)(x=a)' works rather nicely, or turns out well, or some other throwaway phrase which suggests he doesn't regard this as terribly significant.

We 'thins' don't have a theory of existence---that's much too hard.  We just think existence can be expressed by 'some'.

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