Getting This Existence Thing Straight

Midway through “What Lewis Carroll Says Exists That I Don’t” I put forth an example of claiming a property belongs to something which clearly doesn’t exist. The problem — and Carroll was writing this bit, in Symbolic Logic, at a time when it hadn’t reached the current conclusion — is about logical propositions. If you assert it to be true that, “All (something) have (a given property)”, are you making the assertion that the thing exists? Carroll gave the example of “All the sovereigns in that purse are made of gold” and “all the sovereigns in that purse are my property”, leading to the conclusion, “some of my property is made of gold”, and pointing out that if you put that syllogism up to anyone and asked if she thought you were asserting there were sovereigns in that purse, she’d say of course. Carroll has got the way normal people talk in normal conversations on his side here. Put that syllogism before anyone and point out that nowhere is it asserted that there are any coins in the purse and you’ll get a vaguely annoyed response, like when the last chapter of a murder cozy legalistically parses all the alibis until nothing makes sense.