Month: October 2021

Ontologically Serious and Unserious Uses of ‘Something’ and the Problem of Reference to the Nonexistent

If Jane is friendly, then there is something Jane is, namely, friendly. But one hesitates to infer either

1) There is (exists) such an object as friendly

which is not even well-formed, or

1*) There is (exists) such an object as friendliness

which is well-formed but offensive to the nominalist sensibility. 'Jane is friendly' commits one to Jane but not obviously to the property of being friendly. 

According to Sainsbury and Tye (Seven Puzzles of Thought and How to Solve Them, Oxford UP, 2012, p. 114), "'There is something' is not an object quantifier" in sentences like 'There is something that Jane is, namely, friendly.' In such cases, 

The 'thing' in 'something' is not ontologically serious. By contrast, expressions like 'object' and 'entity are used in philosophical discourse  to mark ontological commitment; and words like 'dagger' and 'fountain of youth' are used by everyone in that way in extensional contexts. (ibid.)

The idea is that there are two senses/uses of 'something.' One is ontologically serious because ontologically committal while the other is not.  If I kick a ball, then there is  something I kick. (Ontologically committal use of 'something' in an extensional context.) If Macbeth hallucinated a dagger, then there is something Macbeth hallucinated, namely, a dagger. (Ontologically noncommittal use of 'something' in an intensional/intentional context.)

Do we have here the makings of a solution to the ancient problem of apparent reference to the nonexistent?  I don't think so. 

Go back to Jane. Jane is friendly.  So there is something she is, namely, friendly. So far, so good. Everything is clear. But trouble starts and murk intrudes when we are told that the 'something' in play here is ontologically noncommittal: there is nothing in reality that Jane is, or is related to in virtue of which she is friendly. Thus there is no property, friendliness, that she instantiates, or any property that she has as a constituent, or anything like that. In reality there is just Jane.  But then what is the difference between Jane's being friendly and her being unfriendly?

It is evident to me that there has to be something in reality that grounds that difference. If you deny this, I will not understand you. Suppose you say  that Jane's being friendly  is just the circumstance that someone attached or applied the predicate 'is friendly' to her.  I will say: So she needs to be called friendly to BE friendly? That is absurd.  If I called her unfriendly, would she then be unfriendly? What if I called her anorexic? IS she whatever I SAY she is? Has she no properties independently of my say-so? If no one called her anything, would she have no properties at all?  Before the evolution of languages was the Earth neither spheroid nor non-spheroid?  Is there no difference between a predicate's being true of an individual and its being applied to or predicated of an individual? 

These considerations convince me that the distinction between ontologically serious and  unserious uses of 'something' has not been established.  Note that it needs to be established independently of the Macbeth problem.  To first introduce it as a solution to the Macbeth problem would be ad hoc.

There is also this question: what is the difference between saying that there is something — in the ontologically unserious sense — that Macbeth hallucinated and saying that Macbeth hallucinated a Meinongian nonexistent object?  How does the Sainsbury and Tye solution differ from a Meinongian one?

BEATific October Again

Kerouac barIt's October again, my favorite month, and Kerouac month in my personal literary liturgy.  And no better way to kick off Kerouac month than with 'sweet gone Jack'  reading from "October in Railroad Earth" from Lonesome Traveler, 1960.  Steve Allen provides the wonderful piano accompaniment.  I have the Grove Press Black Cat 1970 paperback edition. I bought it on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, 12 April 1973. I was travelling East by thumb to check out East Coast graduate schools where I had been accepted, but mostly  I 'rode the dog' (Greyhound bus), a mode of transport I wouldn't put up with today: two guys behind me chain-smoked  and talked all the way from Los Angeles to Phoenix.  New Orleans proved to be memorable, including the flophouse on Carondelet I stayed in for $2.  It was there that Lonesome  Traveler joined On the Road in my rucksack. 

I never before had seen Tabasco bottles so big as on the tables of the Bourbon Street bars and eateries.  Exulting in the beat quiddity of the scene, I couldn't help but share my enthusiasm for Nawlins with a lady of the evening, not sampling her wares, but just talking to her on the street, she thinking me naive, and I was. 

Here is a long  excerpt (7:10), which contains the whole of the first two sections of "October in Railroad Earth," pp. 37-40, of the Black Cat edition.

You don't know jack about Jack if you don't know that he was deeply conservative despite his excesses.  The aficionados will enjoy The Conservative Kerouac.

And a tip of the hat to old college buddy and Kerouac and jazz aficionado 'Monterey Tom' Coleman who will enjoy Jack and Frank.

Polarization and Flotation in Politics

Can we avoid both polarization and a noncommittal floating above the fray that does not commit to one side or the other? I fear not. Politics is war. You must take a side. You can't play the philosopher on the battlefield.  A warrior at war cannot be "a spectator of all time and existence," as noble as such spectatorship is.   A warrior who is fully human, however, will know when to put aside his weapons and take up his pen.  He will know that, in the end, "The pen is mightier than the sword." But only in the end. Now you are in the field. If you don't survive the fight, there will be no time left for 'penmanship.'

Opponents or Enemies?

If you shrink back from regarding your political opponents as enemies, you do not appreciate the threat they pose. You are not taking them seriously enough. They pose an existential threat. Such a threat is not merely a threat to one's physical existence; it is a threat to one's way of life, to one's cultural and spiritual traditions and heritage.   Human life is not merely biological.