{{Short description|American philosopher (1939–2022)}} {{For|the Welsh snooker player|Terry Parsons}} {{Infobox philosopher | region = [[Western philosophy]] | era = [[Contemporary philosophy]] | name = Terence Parsons | image = | birth_name = Terence Dwight Parsons | birth_date = 1939 | birth_place = | death_date = 2022 | education = [[Stanford University]] (Ph.D., 1966) | school_tradition = [[Analytic philosophy]] | main_interests = [[Metaphysics]] | notable_ideas = [[Nonexistent object]]s<br>[[Dual property strategy]] | thesis_title = The Elimination of Individual Concepts | thesis_url = | thesis_year = 1966 | doctoral_advisor = [[Jaakko Hintikka]] | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = [[Edward N. Zalta]]<br/>[[Jim Waldo]] | notable_students = }} '''Terence Dwight Parsons''' (July 26, 1939 – 2022)<ref>[https://www.apaonline.org/news/612790/In-Memoriam-Terence-Parsons.htm In Memoriam: Terence Parsons]</ref> was an American philosopher, specializing in [[philosophy of language]] and [[metaphysics]]. He was emeritus professor of philosophy at [[UCLA]].
==Life and career== Parsons was born in [[Endicott, New York]] and graduated from the [[University of Rochester]] with a BA in physics. He received his PhD from [[Stanford University]] in 1966. He was a full-time faculty member at the [[University of Illinois at Chicago]] from 1965 to 1972, at the [[University of Massachusetts at Amherst]] from 1972 to 1979, at the [[University of California at Irvine]] from 1979 to 2000, and at the [[University of California at Los Angeles]] from 2000 to 2012.<ref>{{cite book|title=Articulating Medieval Logic: Author Information|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/articulating-medieval-logic-9780199688845?cc=us&lang=en&#|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=4 March 2018|date=10 May 2014| isbn=978-0-19-968884-5 }}</ref> In 2007, he was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Wolpert|first1=Stuart|title=Six UCLA faculty elected to academy|url=http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/070508_fellows|website=UCLA Newsroom|accessdate=4 March 2018|language=en|date=8 May 2017}}</ref>
Parsons died in 2022 at the age of 82 or 83.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ops |first=Web |date=2022-08-03 |title=In Memoriam: Terence Parsons |url=https://philosophy.ucla.edu/news/terence-parsons/ |access-date=2025-12-17 |website=Department of Philosophy - UCLA |language=en-US}}</ref>
==Philosophical work==
Parsons worked on the [[semantics]] of [[natural language]] to develop theories of truth and meaning for natural language similar to those devised for [[artificial language]]s by [[philosophical logic]]ians.<ref>{{cite web|title=Laurels to Linguists Archive|url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/laurels-linguists-archive|website=Linguistic Society of America|accessdate=4 March 2018|language=en}}</ref> Heavily influenced by [[Alexius Meinong]], he wrote ''Nonexistent Objects'' (1980), which dealt with [[possible world]] theory in order to defend the reality of [[nonexistent object]]s.
==Works== * ''Nonexistent Objects'', Yale University Press, 1980. * ''Events in the Semantics of English'', MIT Press, 1990. * ''Indeterminate Identity'', Oxford University Press, 2000. * ''Articulating Medieval Logic'', Oxford University Press, 2014.
==See also== {{Portal|Philosophy}} *[[Round square copula]]
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20220820051403/http://philosophy.ucla.edu/person/terence-parsons/ Parson's UCLA website]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Parsons, Terence}} [[Category:Analytic philosophers]] [[Category:American metaphysicians]] [[Category:Abstract object theory]] [[Category:1939 births]] [[Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty]] [[Category:UCLA Department of Philosophy faculty]] [[Category:People from Endicott, New York]] [[Category:University of Rochester alumni]] [[Category:Stanford University alumni]] [[Category:University of Illinois Chicago faculty]] [[Category:University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty]] [[Category:University of California, Irvine faculty]] [[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] [[Category:Presidents of the American Philosophical Association]] [[Category:2022 deaths]]