This post consists of some notes and commentary on Section I of Pavel Tichý's "Existence and God," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. LXXVI, no. 8, August 1979. Section I of Tichý's article is about designation and existence. Section II exposes two fallacies in Descartes' ontological argument. Section III provides a valid reconstruction of Anselm's Proslogion III ontological argument. This post comments on section I only. I didn't discuss Tichý in my otherwise rather thorough book on existence, so this post is yet another postscript to A Paradigm Theory of Existence.
I think it is obvious that existence cannot be a property of individuals in exactly the same way or in exactly the same sense of 'property' that redness, ripeness, etc. are properties of individuals. Every philosopher worth his salt is alive to the distinction between what a thing is and whether it is and the equivalent distinction between describing a thing and saying that there is a thing of a certain description. This all well understood, one could still maintain that there is a sense in which existence is a property of individuals.
Tichý, however, takes a more radical tack that is very similar to the Frege-Russell line. Both Frege and Russell denied that existence is a first-level property, a property of individuals. Their view is not merely that existence is not a property that could enter into an individual's description, but that it is not a propery of individuals at all. What existence is is a second-level property, a property of concepts, properties, propositional functions, descriptions and cognate items. Thus both of these luminaries of logic deny that existence can be meaningfully attributed to individuals. One cannot meaningfully say 'Socrates exists,' for example, or 'This tomato exists.' Russell famously opines that 'Socrates exists' is on all fours with 'Socrates is numerous.' But one could meaningfully say 'Philosophers exist' or 'Tomatoes exist.' For what one is doing when one says that philosophers exist is talking about the concept philosopher and saying of it that it is instantiated. In Russellian jargon, one is saying that the propositional function x is a philosopher is sometimes true.
Tichý's doctrine of existence is essentially the Frege-Russell doctrine dressed up in different terminology. Where Frege and Russell have concepts and propositional functions, Tichý has offices a term he uses in an extended sense. Thus one can speak not only of the office of president but also of the 'office' of Richard Burton's wife, an erstwhile 'office-holder' of which was Elizabeth Taylor. "Existence is a perfectly good property, only a property instantiable not by individuals but by offices capable of being filled by individuals." (p. 407) As I see it, the difference between Frege and Tichý is merely terminological:
FREGE: Affirmative existentials affirm instantiation of concepts, and negative existentials deny instantiation of concepts.
TICHY: Affirmative existentials affirm being-filled of offices, and negative existentials deny being-filled of offices.
For Tichy, then, existence is a property all right, but it is a property of offices, not of individuals. Existence is the property of having an occupant. Accordingly, 'The U. S. president exists' affirms of the office or role of U. S. president that it has an occupant, and 'The king of France does not exist' denies of the office or role of king of France that it has an occupant. In neither case is reference made to any particular individual. So although Barack Obama is the present president of the U. S., 'The U. S. president exists' is not about him but about the role that he happens at present to occupy.
An important distinction in Frege is that between the marks (Merkmalen) of a concept (Begriff) and the properties (Eigenschaften) of a concept. To coin an example, the concept bachelor has unmarried and male among its marks just as the concept cygnet has swan among its marks. But no concept is either unmarried or male or a swan. Thus the marks of these concepts are not among their properties. Conversely, being instantiated, which is a property of both bachelor and cygnet, is not a mark of either.
Tichý makes the same distinction but couches it in different terminology. Instead of speaking of the marks of a concept, he speaks of the requisites of an office. "In general, the requisite of an office is any property such that, for any world w and time t, if x occupies the office in w at t then x instantiates the property in w at t." (408) And instead of speaking of the properties of a concept, Tichý speaks of an office instantiating a property.
FREGE: The properties of a concept are not among its marks, and the marks of a concept are not among its properties. For example, being instantiated and being immaterial are not among the marks of the concept cat, and being an animal and being four-footed are not among the properties of the concept cat. No concept is four-footed or an animal. And if being immaterial were among the marks of cat, then anything that is a cat would be immaterial, which is absurd.
TICHY: The properties of an office are not among its requisites, and the requisites of an office are not among its properties. For example, one of the requisites of the office of U. S. president is being a U. S. citizen. But the office itself is not a U. S. citizen. And the properties of the office, such as being filled or being temporarily vacant, cannot possibly be properties of any office-holder. Bush may be 'vacant,' but not in the sense here in play.
Tichy thus repackages Frege's Merkmal/Eigenschaft distinction in different terms. Applying the distinction to existence, we can say that for Tichý existence can be ascribed to an office, but it cannot be a requisite of an office. "It would be ridiculous to insist, for instance, that in order for an individual to be the U. S. president, he must, aside from being human, a U. S. citizen, etc., also exist." (409) To put this in Fregean lingo: existence can be ascribed to a concept, it can be a property of a concept, but it cannot be a mark of a concept. It would be ridiculous to insist that for an individual to instantiate the concept cat, it must, besides being four-footed, an animal, etc., also exist.
Critique
It is precisely here that I must object most strenuously to both Frege and to Tichý. Is it not the most obvious thing in the world that Bush cannot occupy any office unless he exists? Or that an individual cannot instantiate the concept cat unless the individual exists? How can it be reasonably denied that existence is a requisite or a prerequisite for any individual's falling under a concept or filling an office? It is this simple fact that Frege, Russell, Tichy, and innumerable others are blind to. Of course, if you rule that existence can only be a property of concepts, properties, propositional functions, Tichian offices, or cognate items, then you simply, by this fiat, ENFORCE the absurdity of attributions of existence to individuals. For if existence is the being-instantiated of a concept, then, from the plain fact that no individual is a concept, it straightaway follows that it is absurd, a category mistake, to attribute existence to individuals. But this enforcement move has all the advantages of theft over honest toil to cop a phrase Lord Russell himself employed in a different connection.
I am not denying that '___exist(s)' sometimes functions as a second-level predicate as in 'Philosophers exist.' My point is that it also has an irreducible first-level use as in 'Peter exists.' When I say of Peter that he exists, I am not saying of some office that it is filled by Peter. For what office would that be, even acquiescing in Tichy's extended use of 'office'? Is there a Peter-office or a Peter-role? Peter is an individual and it is not at all clear how Peter's being Peter could be an office or a role, or how his existence could be the filling of, or playing of, a role. Can any role nail down the haecceity of an individual?
Well, suppose there is a Peter-office and that Peter occupies it. Still, he must exist in order to occupy it, and thus his existence cannot be the being-occupied of the role without vicious circularity. You move in a circle of embarrassingly short diameter if you say that Peter's existence is his occupation of a role when he must exist in order to occupy any role.
More of this critique in the next installment.