Noneism, in this context, holds that some things do not exist or have no being. There are a few controversial entities in philosophy that, according to noneism philosophy, do not exist: past and future entities, which entails any entity that no longer exists or will exist in the future; people or living things that are deceased; unactualized possibila, which are objects that have the potential to exist but do not yet exist;
universals, being characteristics shared by a multiplicity of entities; numbers and numerical entities; classes, meaning groups of entities that share common characteristics; and Meinongian entities, which include incomplete or inconsistent objects. These entities are considered controversial because philosophers debate their existence, and they are often central to philosophical theorization. Also, there are critiques that say noneists focus heavily on the literality of objects rather than what is implied or interpreted, which creates disagreements about an existence theory. Frederick Kroon, a philosopher at the
University of Auckland, mentions that
Gandalf, a fictional character from
The Lord of the Rings, is honored for his positive character traits, but that noneists would say that these claims of honor are false, because Gandalf is a nonexistent entity. To add, while Priest also espouses
dialetheism, he maintains that his dialetheism is mostly capable of being separated from his noneism. The connection between noneism and dialetheism is that impossible objects may exist in impossible worlds, much as
nonexistent objects may exist in possible, but not actual, worlds.
Sylvan and Priest Noneism started to gain traction when Richard Sylvan's book, ''Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond: An Investigation of Noneism and the Theory of Items'', was published in 1980, and the theory was further added to in Graham Priest's book entitled
Towards Non-Being: The Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality, which was published in 2005 (second revised edition in 2016). == Religious context ==