Month: May 2012

Must We Stop Asking Why There’s Anything?

1. A Pseudo-Question:  How Many Things are There?

A while back, in response to a reader's question, I argued that one cannot count things as things.  I can count the cats in my house, the tiles on my roof, and 'in principle' the subterranean termites within two feet of my foundation.  What I cannot do is count things (entities, beings, existents, items, objects, etc.) as things. The reason, briefly, is that 'thing,' unlike 'cat,' is not a sortal.  It is a dummy sortal.  It is a term that functions grammatically like a sortal, and can serve as a placeholder for a sortal, but is logically unlike a sortal in that it supplies no criteria of identification and re-identification for the things to which it applies.  I can count the cats in my house because I know what it is to be a cat; I know what 'counts' as a cat and what does not 'count' as a cat: the lifespan of a cat is not a cat; the location of a cat is not a cat; the posture of a cat is not a cat; the parts of a cat are not cats; the properties and relations of a cat are not cats, etc.

But I can't count the things in my house because I don't know what all counts as a thing, and what all doesn't.  Are only middle-sized specimens of dry goods things?  Or are persons also things?  Are my cats things?  Is their blackness a thing? Everything black is colored.  So do I count the cat as one thing, its blackness as a second thing, the being colored of the cat as a third thing?  If I have a cat on my lap, do I have at least three things on my lap, or only one, or perhaps a countable or (heaven forbid) an uncountable infinity of things on my lap?  And what about the parts of the cat, and the parts of the parts, and how far do we go with that?  To the molecular level. the atomic level. the quark level?

I trust the point is clear: one cannot count things (entities, etc.) as things.  It seems to follow that the question 'How many things are there?' is a pseudo-question.  It is a pseudo-question because it is unanswerable in principle.  'Many' and 'more than one' are not answers.  A Parmenidean monist might insist that there is exactly one thing, and a nihilist that there are none.

2. Why is There Anything at All?  A Pseudo-Question?

But now a vexing question arises:  does the fact that 'thing' is a dummy sortal, hence not a sortal, constitute a reason for holding that the question 'Why is there anything (any thing) at all?' is also a pseudo-question?  Stephen Maitzen answers in the affirmative in his paper, Stop Asking Why There's Anything. (Thanks to Vlastimil Vohanka for alerting me to the article.)

Maitzen seems to be reasoning along the following lines.  We can sensibly ask why there are apples, trees, plants, living things, and sensibly expect a natural-scientific answer.  But we cannot sensibly ask why there are things (existents, beings, etc.).  The same goes for the restricted question why there are any contingent beings.  This is because 'contingent being' is just as much a dummy sortal as 'being.'   Dummy sortals are referentially indeterminate unless replaced by a genuine sortal such as 'penguin.' 

Maitzen's point could be put as follows.  There are various sorts of thing, and of each sort we can sensibly ask: why are there things of this sort?  But we cannot sensibly ask: why are there things at all, or contingent things at all?  Things that are are not a sort of thing. And the same goes for things that are contingently.

So perhaps the point is simply this.  'Why is there anything at all?' is a pseudo-question because (a)  things that are are not a sort of thing, and (b) we can sensibly ask the 'why' question only about sorts of things.

3. Tentative Evaluation

Well, I think it is perfectly clear that things that are are not a sort of thing.  Aristotle said essentially that long ago when he said that being is not a genus (Metaph. 998b22, Anal Prior. 92b10).  We could put the point in formal mode by saying that 'being,' ens, das Seiende, are not sortal expressions.  (I am thinking of Heidegger's question, Warum ist das Seiende und nicht vielmehr nichts? )  But who ever said they were?

Maitzen's explanation of why people fall for the pseudo-question 'Why is there anything at all?' is because they confuse dummy sortals with genuine sortals.  But it seems to me that we can avoid the confusion and still sensibly ask the question.

Consider the question, 'Does anything exist?'  The question makes sense and has an obvious answer: 'Yes, things exist.'  Both the question and the answer make sense despite the presence in them of the dummy sortal 'thing.'  So why shouldn't it also make sense to ask why things exist?

Maitzen mistakenly assimilates the question 'Why does anything exist?' to the obviously senseless question 'How many things exist?'  This is the central weakness of his paper.  He never adequately explains the connection between the 'how many?' question and the 'why?' question.  The former is senseless and precisely for the reason that 'thing' is not a sortal.  But from the fact that 'thing' is not a sortal, how is it supposed to follow that the 'Why?' question is also senseless? 

The Thin Theory is Circular!

London Ed demands that I reduce my circularity objection to a sound bite.  No can do.  But at least I can combat this travesty he ascribes to me:

The thin conception of 'exists' is that 'An F exists' means the same as 'The concept *F* is instantiated'
But if *F* is instantiated, then it is instantiated by an individual that exists
Therefore the thin conception of 'exists' is circular.

So let me try once more.  I will try to be succinct.  But there is no way I can get my point across in just a few sentences.  Philosophy cannot be reduced to sound bites!

1. On the thin theory, 'An F exists' means the same as 'The concept *F* is instantiated.'
2. If a first-level concept such as *F* is instantiated, then it is instantiated by an individual.
3. Let the arbitrary constant 'a' denote an individual that instantiates *F.*

We now ask whether a exists, does not exist, both, or neither.  These are the only options.

4. By LNC, a cannot both exist and not exist.
5. By LEM, a must either exist or not exist.
6. If a does not exist, i.e., if a is a Meinongian nonexistent object, then the link expressed in (1) between existence and instantiation is broken.
Therefore
7. If  *F* is instantiated, then *F* is instantiated by an individual that exists.
Therefore
8. On the thin theory, 'An F exists' means the same as 'The concept *F* is instantiated by an individual that exists.'
9. A definition (analysis, account, theory, explanation ) is circular iff the term to be defined occurs in the defining term.
10. 'Exists' occurs both in (8)'s definiendum and its definiens.
Therefore
11. The thin theory is circular.

Summary:  Our question is: What is existence?  The thin theory maintains that existence reduces to instantiation.  The whole point of the theory is that existence is in no sense a property of individuals; what it is is a property of concepts, the property of having an instance.  But if a first-level concept is instantiated, it is instantiated by an individual that exists. Therefore, the attempt to reduce existence to instantiation ends up presupposing what was to be reduced, namely existence, and is a failed theory for this reason.

Objection.  (5) is false. Individual a neither exists nor does not exist.  To exist = to be instantiatiated, and no individual is either instantiated or not instantiated. 

Reply.  This objection begs the question.  The question is whether existence can be reduced to instantiation.  One cannot just assume that it can be so reduced.  Furthermore,it is a plain fact that individuals exist.  I exist. This cat exists.  And of course the existence of this cat is not its being instantiated.  Since I exist, and my existence is not my being instantiated, existence cannot be reduced to instantiation.

The point could be put as follows.  The thin theory tries to reduce singular existence to general existence.  But general existence presupposes singular existence: there cannot exist cats in general unless this or that individual is a cat and exists.  Therefore, singular existence cannot be reduced to general existence.

It may  that what London Ed is doing is simply stipulating that 'exist(s)' shall mean 'is instantiated.'  But an arbitrary stipulation gratuitously made can be gratuitously rejected.  That individuals exist is a plain fact, innocent until proven guilty.  The question about existence cannot be answered by any mere stipulative definition.

Robert Paul Wolff: “The Left Has Had All the Good Songs”

Anarchist philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, over at The Philosopher's Stone, writes,

While I was making dinner, Susie put on a CD of Pete Seegar [sic] songs. I was struck once again by the oft-remarked fact that for half a century, the left has had all the good songs. That cannot be irrelevant.

By the way, the old commie's name is 'Seeger' not 'Seegar.'  In the ComBox, some guy confuses him with Bob Seger! The Left has had all the good songs over the last 50 years?  Nonsense.  Here are 50 counterexamples.

The really interesting case is Bob Dylan.  The Left can of course claim the early topical songs such as Only a Pawn in Their Game and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.  (Not that we contemporary conservatives don't take on board all that was good in these critiques of racism and Jim Crow.)  But it wasn't long before Dylan distanced himself from politics and leftist ideology, a distancing documented in My Back Pages.  And then came the absurdist-existentialist-surrealist phase represented by the three mid-'sixties albums, Bring It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde.  After that, the motorcycle accident and another attitude adjustment culminating in a couple of masterful albums, John Wesley Harding and New Morning, in which religious and conservative themes come to the fore.

I'll give just one example, Sign on a Window, from the October 1970 album, New Morning.  The song concludes:

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch  rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me 'Pa'
That must be what it's all about
That must be what it's all about.

To appreciate the full conservative flavor of this song, listen to it in the context of  "Masters of War" from the protest period and It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) from the absurdist-existentialist-surrealist period.

Voter Identification and Voter Suppression

Voter ID

The controversy over voter ID is a fascinating  one because it highlights the deep divide between contemporary conservatives and contemporary liberals.  That this non-issue is debated at all shows that the Left is bereft of common sense.

Anyone with common sense ought to be able to appreciate that voting must be conducted in an orderly manner, and that only citizens who have registered to vote and have satisfied the minimal requirements of age, etc., are to be allowed into the voting booth. Given the possibility of fraud, it is therefore necessary to verify the identities of those who present themselves at the polling place. To do this, voters must be required to present a government-issued photo ID card, a driver's license being only one example of such. It is a reasonable requirement and any reasonable person should be able to see it as one.

Too many liberals, however, see these common-sense requirements as acts of voter suppression, as witness this astonishing outburst from Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan:

In November, five million eligible voters will find it harder to exercise their rights in America — 150 voter suppression laws have been introduced in 30 state legislatures across the country.

The most common tactics: requiring photo ID, restricting registration drives, limiting early voting and imposing onerous residency requirements. Who do these laws most directly affect? The poor, the elderly, minorities and the young. And how do those groups typically vote? Democratic.

Let's consider photo ID.  For Granholm, requiring such ID is a form of voter suppression.  How's that for hyperbole?  Does she call it bank withdrawal suppression when check cashers are required to produce ID?  The other day I withdrew a sum of money from a checking account in excess of what is obtainable from an ATM machine.  I was asked to show my driver's license.  Was that an infringement of my right to access my own funds?  Of course not.  The demand was eminently reasonable even though I am known at the bank in question.  Similarly with the photo ID requirement at the polling place.  Examples like this can be multiplied indefinitely.  See the above graphic.

Some liberals say that voter fraud is rare.  Maybe, maybe not.  In any case, irrelevant.  There is a principle at stake.  Besides, how many people lack ID?  Without ID one simply cannot function in society.  To exploit and adapt a slogan of the Harvard logician, Willard Quine, "No [social] entity without [social] identity."  You're a nonentity without  ID.  So when a liberal says that voter fraud is rare, reply, "So is lack of ID.  Since almost everyone has it, almost no one is excluded from voting by the ID requirement."

Since liberals don't have even one cogent argument against photo ID, we are justified in psychologizing their opposition to common-sense requirements.  Their opposition is rooted in a desire to win by any means, including fraud.  As lefties, they believe the end justifies the means.  They see themselves as the noble standard-bearers of equality against their disgusting, evil, SIXHRB opponents.  (SIXHRB: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, bigoted. HT: Dennis Prager.)

By the way, Governor Granholm is now on the faculty at University of California, Berkeley.  Surprise! 

Companion post:  I Was Forced to Show My Papers!

Does My Front Page Take Too Long to Load?

A reader complains that my front page takes too long to load, on one of his machines, as long as five minutes.  That must be one Jurassic machine running some superannuated browser.  I am wondering if others are experiencing similar difficulties.  A while back I made some additions, including a Facebook button, and I am wondering if these add-ons are slowing things down.  The Facebook button, though, is a nifty utility: when conditions are right, the thing 'goes viral'  and I get an avalanche of page views.

I am open for comments regarding technical aspects of this site.  If, on the other hand, you have a beef about the content of these pages, then I invite you to fill out the following:

Complaint form

Bob Dylan Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

He deserves it for the hundreds of unforgettable songs ineliminable from the soundtrack of so many of our lives over the past 50 years: 1962-2012.

"Blowin' in the Wind" is the most famous of his anthems.  You may be surprised to learn that London Ed uploaded this outstanding rendition by Alanis Morissette.  Another of Dylan's great anthems is "Chimes of Freedom" here sung by the Byrds, and here by Dylan and Baez, or is it Dylan and Osbourne? (I say it's Baez)

And speaking of Baez, here she is singing Daddy, You've Been on My Mind. 

The man himself, She Belongs to Me.  I Want You.  I could go on, and on, and on.

More on C. J. F. Williams on Existence

I have been arguing with London Ed, a.k.a. 'Ockham,' about existence for years.  Here is part of  a post from the old blog dated 25 January 2006.  Ed has never said anything to budge me from my position.  So why continue?  One reason is to clarify and deepen one's understanding of one's own position.  I am also fascinated by the problem of disagreement in general.  Why do intelligent and sincere people disagree?  What can be done about it?  What does protracted disagreement say about us and our condition?

…………..
     
I reject nonexistent objects in Meinong's sense. (But note well: to reject Meinongian possibilia and
impossibilia is not to reject non-epistemic possibilities and impossibilities. One can be a modal realist without being a possibilist; one can be an actualist. I am an actualist.) Given my rejection of Meinongian nonexistent objects, I cannot take negative existentials at face value.

'Frictionless planes do not exist,' for example, cannot be interpreted to be about nonexistent frictionless planes; it must be interpreted in some other way. In the language of Bertrand Russell circa 1918, one might say this: The propositional function 'x is a frictionless plane' is never true. Or one could say that the concept frictionless plane has no instances. Or: the property of being a frictionless plane is not instantiated. The point here is that the property does exist, and so is there to have a property predicated of it, the second-level property of being uninstantiated.

So I agree with Williams and 'Ockham' that there are no nonexistent objects and that apparent reference to them must be paraphrased away. There is no individual of which  we can say: it does not  exist, is not actual, is not real. But why should it follow that there  is no individual of which we can say: it exists, is actual, is real?

In my book, this is a non sequitur.

Williams assumes a sort of symmetry thesis: if there are no individuals that do not exist, then there are no individuals that exist. But my A Paradigm Theory of Existence rejects this symmetry thesis (pp. 114-116). Here is the way I put it in my book:

     If an individual exists, then no doubt it instantiates properties,
     satisfies descriptions and saturates concepts. But its existence
     cannot consist in, be identical with, its doing any of those
     things. However, if a putative individual does not exist, then its
     nonexistence can easily consist in a property's being
     uninstantiated. For a nonexistent individual is not a genuine
     individual, contra Meinong, but the mere absence of something of a
     more or less complete description. Thus there is no individual
     Pegasus to lack existence or to have nonexistence. [ . . .]

     Nonexistence is therefore always general nonexistence as opposed to
     singular nonexistence. But existence is primarily singular
     existence, the existence of individuals. Thus the asymmetry of
     existence and nonexistence. There is singular existence (the
     existence of individuals) and general existence (the
     being-instantiated of concepts) which latter presupposes singular
     existence: a first-level concept cannot be instantiated unless
     there exists an individual that instantiates it. But there is no
     such thing as singular nonexistence, e.g., the nonexistence of
     Cerberus. Thereis only general nonexistence, which is a
     second-level property.

So to Williams and 'Ockham' I say: You are right that there are no nonexistent objects. But you are wrong to infer that existence cannot  belong to individuals. It is well-nigh self-evident that existence belongs to individuals and can be predicated of them, as I do when, enacting the Cartesian cogito, I conclude, sum, 'I exist.'It is therefore a mistake to think that 'exist(s)' can only be used as a second-level predicate.

'Exist(s)' has both legitimate second-level and legitimate first-level uses.  Suppose I spy a mountain lion in my back yard.  I exclaim, 'There are mountain lions around here.'  That is a general existential sentence.  I could just as well have said, 'Mountain lions exist around here.'  The latter sentence sports a second-level use of 'exist.'  The sentence is not about any particular mountain lion even though based on the observation of a particular such critter.  Suppose I dub the distinctive cat, 'Monty.'  I can then say 'Monty exists,' and if he dies, 'Monty no longer exists.'  These latter two sentences feature first-level uses of 'exists.'

The attempt to reduce all first-level uses to second-level uses is throughly wrongheaded and impossible to carry out.  For details, see C. J. F. Williams' Analysis of 'I Might Not Have Existed.'

Existence and Quantification: Does London Ed Beg the Question?

In his latest installment, London Ed writes:

Maverick argues:

Ed thinks that the assumption that the domain of quantification is a domain of existing individuals is a contingent assumption. But I didn't say that, and it is not. It is a necessary assumption if (1) [namely that ‘Island volcanos exist’ is logically equivalent to ‘Some volcano is an island.’] and sentences of the same form are to hold. [My emphasis]

But he then says that there is nothing in the nature of logic to stop us from quantifying over nonexistent individuals, which I don't follow at all. We start with the initial logical or definition[al] assumption about the meaning of the verb 'exists'.

 (1) 'A golden mountain exists' = 'Some mountain is golden.'

[. . . ]

I suppose I need to explain why there is nothing in the nature of logic to stop us from quantifying over nonexistent individuals.  There would be something to stop us if the notion of a nonexistent object were logically self-contradictory.  But I see no contradiction in it.  So let me put the question to Ed:  Do you think that the very idea of a nonexistent object is logically self-contradictory?  If you do think this, then I refer you to my November 2009 post, Is Meinong's Theory of Objects 'Obviously Self-Contradictory'? Van Inwagen Says 'Yes.'

There is also the issue of question-begging.  Ed needs to justify the slide from

a. 'A golden mountain exists' is logically equivalent to 'Some mountain is golden'

to

1. 'A golden mountain exists' = 'Some mountain is golden.'

Equivalence is not identity!  Not even logical equivalence is identity. Propositions p, q are logically equivalent iff there is no logically possible world in which p is true and q false, or vice versa.  Now Ed and I agree about (a).  But the inference from (a) to (1) is invalid.  Consider triangularity and trilaterality.  There is no logically possible world in which it is true that something is triangular but not true that something is trilateral.  So 'Something is triangular' and 'Something is trilateral' are logically equivalent.  But it doesn't follow that they express the same proposition or that the triangularity = trilaterality.

Likewise, it does not follow from (a) that existence = someness.  Every world in which cats exist is a world in which something is a cat.  No doubt.  But how is it supposed to follow that the 'property' of existence is identical to the syntactical 'property' expressed by *Some ___ is a —*?

Ed begs the question against me by simply stipulating that the meaning of the verb 'exists' shall be identical to the meaning of 'Some ___ is a –.'   That is what I deny.

‘A Pair of Pants’ and Other Quirks of English

We speak of a pair of shoes, a pair of socks, a pair of gloves. But why a pair of pants? 'He bought a new pair of pants.' 'Why, does he have four legs?' A pair of socks is two things, a pair of pants one. Raising to reflective awareness these little quirks of the mother tongue is a source of pleasure to some of us.

These are pronounced similarly: cowl, fowl, howl, jowl, owl, yowl. But 'bowl' is an exception. And note that each of the following is pronounced differently: blood, food, good. Blood is good food!

These are pronounced similarly: dour, hour, our, sour; but unlike 'four' and 'pour.' And 'tour' is pronounced differently still.

Addendum 5/28:   A reader sends us here, where we read:

According to Michael Quinoin at World Wide Words, pants are a pair because, "before the days of modern tailoring, such garments, whether underwear or outerwear, were indeed made in two parts, one for each leg. The pieces were put on each leg separately and then wrapped and tied or belted at the waist (just like cowboys’ chaps). The plural usage persisted out of habit even after the garments had become physically one piece.

With a little stretching, the explanation can be made to fit 'pair of panties' despite their not having legs.

And that reminds me of the weighty question put to Bill Clinton: boxers or briefs?   Instead of replying , as he should have, that that is not a question one asks the President of the United States, Bubba answered the question in a display of what could be called anti-gravitas.  And of course thoughts of Clinton lead on quite naturally to thoughts of  Monica Lewinksy and her thongs.  'Thong' and 'G-string' are two of the species of the genus 'panties.'  Does one speak of a pair of thongs or a pair of G-strings?  Do the English speak of a pair of knickers?  If I am not mistaken knickers are what we call panties.