Incompleteness, Completeness, and the External World

David Brightly comments:

I appreciate that in discussing these epistemological issues we must use the non-question-begging, existence-neutral sense of 'see'. My point is that for the distinction between 'complete' and 'incomplete' to make any sense, the epistemological question as to whether seeing is existence-entailing has to have already been settled favourably, though with the caveat that mistakes occur sometimes. In the context of your latest aporetic tetrad,

1. If S sees x, then x exists
2. Seeing is an intentional state
3. Every intentional state is such that its intentional object is incomplete
4. Nothing that exists is incomplete,

this would rule out the escape of denying (1). Indeed, can we not replace 'see' with 'veridically see' in (1) and (2) and obtain a rather more vexing aporia?

If I understand David's point, it is that the very sense of the distinction between an incomplete and a complete object requires that in at least some (if not the vast majority) of cases, the intentional objects of (outer) perceptual experience really exist.  Equivalently, if there were no really existent (finite-mind-independent)  material meso-particulars (e.g., trees and rocks and stars), then not only would the predicate 'complete' not apply to anything, but also would be bereft of sense or meaning, and with it the distinction between incomplete and complete.

I am afraid I don't agree. 

Suppose one were to argue that the very sense of the distinction between God and creatures logically requires that God exist.  Surely that person would be wrong.  At most, the concept creature logically requires the concept God.  But while the concept God is a concept, God is not a concept, and the God concept may or may not be instantiated without prejudice to its being the very concept it is.  (Don't confuse this with the very different thesis that the essence of God may or may not be exemplified without prejudice to its being the very essence it is.)

I say, contra David, that it is is the same with incomplete and complete objects.  The sense of the distinction does not logically require that there be any complete objects of outer perception; it requires only the concept complete object.  This is a concept we form quite easily by extrapolation from the concept incomplete object.

As I always say, the more vexatious an aporetic polyad, the better.  I am ever on the hunt for insolubilia.  So I thank David for suggesting the following beefed-up tetrad:

1. If S veridically sees x, then x exists
2. Veridical seeing is an intentional state
3. Every intentional state is such that its intentional object is incomplete
4. Nothing that exists is incomplete.

This is more vexing than the original tetrad, but I think it falls short of a genuine aporia (a polyad in which the limbs are individually undeniable but jointly inconsistent).  For why can't I deny (1) by claiming that veridical seeing does not logically require the real (extramental) existence of the thing seen but only that the incomplete intentional objects cohere?  Coherence versus correspondence as the nature of truth.

Related articles

On Seeing: Intentionality without Aspectuality?

Seeing: Internalist and Externalist Perspectives

The Epistemologically Primary Sense of 'See'