Author: Bill Vallicella

Two Motivations for a Relational Account of Intentionality (Peter Lupu)

(A guest post by Peter Lupu.  Minor edits and comments in blue by BV.)

There are at least two ways in which the relational character and object-directedness of intentional states such as beliefs, wants, desires, seekings, etc., is motivated:

A. The individuation of intentional states;

B.  Aristotle’s belief-desire model of explaining actions.

I. Motivation (A). Consider the following:

1) Jake seeks the golden mountain;

2) Jake seeks the keys to his car.

Clearly, (1) and (2) express two different intentional states of the same individual. But, in virtue of what do (1) and (2) express two different intentional states? It appears that the best and only explanation for the difference is that the two cases relate Jake to two different objects: i.e., in (1) Jake seeks the golden mountain; in (2) Jake seeks his car keys; and, of course, the golden mountain and Jake’s car keys are two distinct objects.

The point, though correct, needs to be made with a bit more exactitude. Presumably, the intentional states are numerically distinct in virtue of occurring at  different times.  If so, someone could reply that what makes the states different is their occurring at different times.  The question, however, is not what makes the states token-distinct, but what makes them type-distinct.  And the answer can only be that it is distinctness of intentional object that explains type-distinctness of states.

Continue reading “Two Motivations for a Relational Account of Intentionality (Peter Lupu)”

Intentionality and Haecceity

Steven Nemes inquires:

Do you think that your stand on intentionality not requiring the existence of the intentional object is contradictory with your argument against haecceity properties (as non-qualitative thisnesses)? You say that an individual can have the property of searching after Atlantis, let's say, even if Atlantis doesn't exist. But your argument against haecceities is that identity-with-Socrates would be nonsense if Socrates didn't exist.

How would you solve the apparent contradiction?

Let's first note an ambiguity that infects 'intentional object.' Intentionality is object-directedness.  So there is a clear sense in which every intentional mental state 'takes an accusative,' 'is of or about an object.'  That object could be called the intentional object.  Accordingly, whether I want a three-headed dog or a one-headed dog, my wanting has an intentional object.  The nonexistence of three-headed dogs does not prejudice the object-directedness of my wanting a three-headed dog.  It is equally important to note that the existence of one-headed dogs plays no role in making my wanting a one-headed dog object-directed.  This is because object-directedness is an intrinsic feature of mental acts.  To see this more clearly, suppose I want a one-headed dog that is distinct from every one-headed dog that presently exists.  This mental state is object-directed, but its object-directedness does not derive from the present existence of any one-headed dog, or anything else.

But one could also use 'intentional object' to refer to the mind-independent entity, if there is one, that satisfies the description (definite or indefinite) that expresses the content of the intentional state.  If we use the term in this second way, then my wanting a three-headed dog does not have an intentional object.

It is only in this second sense that intentionality does not require the existence of the intentional object.  It is part of the very essence of wanting as an intentional mental state that it be a wanting of something (that is an objective genitive, by the way, not a subject genitive.)  But it doesn't follow that the something exists.  Similarly for perceiving, imagining, believing, etc.

As for the haecceity-property identity-with-Socrates, it is nothing at all at times and in worlds in which Socrates doesn't exist.  I stick to that self-evident point pace Plantinga. (See A Difficulty With Haecceity Properties)

It seems to me that my line on haecceities is entirely consistent with my line on intentionality.  Socrateity (identity-with-Socrates) essentially involves Socrates himself, that very individual, in a way in which seeking Atlantis (construed as a mental state, not as a physical action or actions) does not essentially involve Atlantis itself.  And this is a good thing since there is no such island.

You seem to think that an intentional mental state acquires its object-directedness from without in virtue of the mind-independent existence of an entity that the state is directed to.  It is this misconception that suggests to you that there is a contradiction in my affirming  both

1. An haecceity H of x is nothing if x does not exist
and
2. It is not the case that a wanting W of x is nothing if x does not exist.

But note that  'H of x' is a subjective genitive whereas 'W of x' is an objective genitive.  The haecceity or nonqualitative thisness of Atlantis is nothing at all because Atlantis does not exist. There is nothing for it to be the haecceity of.   But a wanting of Atlantis is what it is whether or not Atlantis exists. 

And similarly in other cases.  An ancient Greek can be a Zeus-worshipper whether or not Zeus exists.   But the same Greek cannot own a slave unless there exists some slave he owns.  The instance of of ownership requires for its individuation the existence of both relata.  But the instance of worshipping does not require the existence of both relata.

Camus and Shestov

Albert Camus is a frustrated rationalist. He values reason and wants  the world to be rationally penetrable, but he finds that it is not. What he calls the Absurd consists in the disproportion between the human need for understanding and the world's unintelligibility, "the unreasonable silence of the world." (Myth of Sisyphus, Vintage 1955, p. 21, tr. Justin O'Brien)

Lev Shestov, on the other hand, is an irrationalist. He delights in  what he takes to be reason's impotence.

Such wild diversity in the life of the mind and spirit does not delight me, but it does fascinate me and serve as a goad to struggle on, day by day, for as much light as can be attained in these inasuspicious circumstances until the curtain falls — or lifts.

For the New Year

One of the elements in my personal liturgy is a reading of the following passage every January 1st. I must have begun the practice in the mid-70s.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book Four, #276, tr. Kaufmann:

For the new year. — I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. Today everybody permits himself the expression of his wish and his dearest thought: hence I, too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year — what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want to learn to see more and more as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all and all and on the whole: someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.

Nietzsche found it very difficult to let looking away be his only negation.  And so shall I.

Presentism Between Scylla and Charybdis

What better topic of meditation for New Year's Eve than the 'passage' of time. May the Reaper grant us all another year!

…………..

If presentism is to be a defensible thesis, a 'presentable' one if you will, then it must avoid both the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of absurdity.  Having survived these hazards, it must not perish of unclarity or inexpressibility.

Consider

1. Only what exists exists.

If 'exists' is used in the same way in both occurrences, then (1) is a miserable tautology and not possibly a bone of contention as between presentists and anti-presentists.  Note that (1) is a tautology whether 'exists' is present-tensed in both occurrences or temporally unqualified (untensed) in both.  To have a substantive thesis, the presentist must distinguish the present-tensed use of 'exist' from some other use and say something along the lines of

P. Only what exists (present tense) exists simpliciter.

This implies that what no longer exists does not exist simpliciter, and that what will exist does not exist simpliciter.  It is trivial to say that what no longer exists does not presently exist, but this is not what the presentist is saying: he is is saying that what no longer exists does not exist  period (full stop, simpliciter, at all, sans phrase, absolutely, pure and simple, etc.)

But the presentist must also, in his formulation of his thesis, avoid giving aid and comfort to the absurdity that could be called 'solipsism of the present moment.'  (I borrow the phrase from Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, Simon and Schuster 1948, p. 181.) 

SPM.  Only what exists (present tense) exists simpliciter; nothing existed and nothing will exist.

The idea behind (SPM) is decidedly counterintuitive but cannot be ruled out by logic alone.  To illustrate, consider James Dean who died on September 30th, 1955.  Presentist and anti-presentist agree that Dean existed and no longer exists.  (Alter the example to Dean's car if you hold to the immortality of the soul.)  That is, both presentist and anti-presentist maintain that there actually was this actor, that he was not a mere possibility or a fictional being.  The presentist, however, thinks that Dean does not exist at all (does not exist simpliciter) while the anti-presentist maintains that Dean does exist simpliciter, but in the past.  In contrast to both,the present-moment solipsist holds that Dean never existed and for this reason does not exist at all.  Thus there are three positions on past individuals.  The presentist says that they do not exist at all or simpliciter.  The anti-presentist says that they do exist simpliciter.  The PM-solispist says that they never existed.

Clearly, the presentist must navigate between the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of present-moment solipsism.   So what is the presentist saying?  He seems to be operating with a metaphysical picture according to which there is a Dynamic Now which is the source and locus of a ceaseless annihilation and creation: some things are ever passing out of being and other things are ever coming into being.  He is not saying that all that is in being is all there ever was in being or all there ever will be in being.  That is the lunatic thesis of the present-moment solipsist. 

The presentist can be characterized as an annihilationist-creationist in the following sense.  He is annihilationist about the past, creationist about the future.  He maintains that an item that becomes past does not lose merely the merely temporal property of presentness, but loses both presentness and existence.  And an item that becomes present does not gain merely the merely temporal property of presentness, but gains both presentness and existence.  Becoming past is a passing away, an annihilation, and becoming present is  a coming into  being, a creation out of nothing.

To many, the presentist picture seem intuitively correct, though I would not go so far as Alan Rhoda who, quoting John Bigelow, maintains that presentism is "arguably the commonsense position."  I would suggest that common sense, assuming we can agree on some non-tendentious characterization of same, takes no position on arcane metaphysical disputes such as this one.  (This is a fascinating metaphilosophical topic that cannot be addressed now.  How does the man on the street think about time?  Answer: he doesn't think about it, although he is quite adept at telling time, getting to work on time and using correctly the tenses of his mother tongue.)

So far, so good.  But there is still, to me at least, something deeply puzzling about the presentist thesis.  Consider the following two tensed sentences about the actor James Dean.  'Dean does not exist.'  'Dean did exist.'  Both tensed sentences are unproblematically true, assuming that death is annihilation.  (We can avoid this assumption by changing the example to Dean's silver Porsche.)  Because both sentences are plainly true, recording as they do Moorean facts, they are plainly logically consistent.

The presentist, however, maintains that what did exist, but  no longer exists, does not exist at all.  That is the annihilationist half of his characteristic thesis.  It is not obviously true in the way the data sentences are obviously true.  Indeed, it is not clear, to me at least, what exactly the presentist thesis MEANS.  (Evaluation of a proposition as either true or false presupposes a grasp of its sense or meaning.) When the presentist says, in the present using a present-tensed sentence,  that

1. Dean does not presently exist at all

he does not intend this to hold only at the present moment, else (1) would collapse into the trivially true present-tensed 'Dean does not exist.'  He intends something more, namely:

2. Dean does not presently exist at any time, past, present, or future.

Now what bothers me is the apparent present reference in (2) to past and future times.  How can a present-tensed sentence be used to refer to the past?  That's one problem.  A second is that (2) implies

3.  It is presently the case that there are past times at which Dean does not exist.

But (3) is inconsistent with the presentist thesis according to which only the present time and items at the present time exist.

My underlying question is whether presentism has the resources to express its own thesis. Does it make it between the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of PM-solipsism only to founder on the reef of inexpressibility?

Happy New Year!

 

On Reference: An Aporetic Septad

We can divide the following seven propositions into two groups, a  datanic triad and a theoretical tetrad. The members of the datanic  triad are just given — hence 'datanic' — and so are not up for   grabs, whence it follows that to relieve ourselves of the ensuing contradiction we must reject one of the members of the theoretical tetrad. The funs starts when we ponder which one to reject. But first  you must appreciate that the septad is indeed inconsistent.

   D1. Sam believes that Cicero is a philosopher.
   D2. Cicero is Tully.
   D3. It is not the case that Sam believes that Tully is a philosopher.

   T1. 'Cicero' and 'Tully' have the same denotation (are coreferential)
   in all of their occurrences in the datanic sentences, both in the
   direct speech and indirect speech positions.
   T2. 'Is' in (D2) expresses strict, numerical identity where this has
   the usual properties of reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity, and the
   necessity of identity (if x = y, then necessarily, x = y).
   T3. Cicero has the property of being believed by Sam to be a
   philosopher.
   T4. If x = y, then whatever is true of x is true of y, and vice versa.
   (Indiscernibility of Identicals)

Now, do you see that this septad is pregnant with contradiction? By (T3), Cicero has a certain property, the property of being believed by Sam to be a philosopher. Therefore, given the truth of (T1) and (T4), Tully has that same property. But this implies the negation of (D3).

To remove the contradiction, we must reject one of the T-propositions. The D-propositions express the data of the problem. Obviously, they can't be rejected. Of course, nothing hinges on the particular   example. There are countless examples of the same form. Someone could  believe that 3 is one of the square roots of 9 without believing that one of the square roots of 9 is a prime number, even though 3 is a  prime number.

The Fregean solution is to reject (T1). In (D1), 'Cicero' refers to  its customary sense, not its customary referent, while in (D2), 'Cicero' refers to its customary referent. This implies that the antecedent of (T4) remains unsatisfied so that one cannot conclude  that Tully has the property of being believed by Sam to be a  philosopher.

A different solution, one proposed by Hector-Neri Castaneda, is achieved by rejecting (T2) while upholding the rest of the T-propositions. The rough idea is that 'Cicero' in all its occurrences refers to a 'thin' object, an ontological guise, a sort of ontological  part of ordinary infinitely-propertied particulars. This ontological  guise is not strictly identical to the ontological guise denoted by  'Tully,' but the two are "consubstantiated" in Castaneda's jargon.

This consubstantiation is a type of contingent sameness. Since Cicero and Tully are not strictly identical, but merely consubstantiated, the fact that Cicero has the property of being believed by Sam to be a  philosopher does not entail that Tully has this property. So the  contradiction does not arise. (Cf. The Phenomeno-Logic of the I, pp. 183-186)

Both solutions invoke what our friend 'Ockham' calls 'queer entities' using 'queer' in the good old-fashioned way.  The Fregean solution requires those abstract entities called senses and the Castanedan solution posits ontological guises.  Can 'Ockham' solve the problem while satisfying all his nominalistic scruples?

Can a man in a straight-jacket do the tango?

What Is Presentism?

What is time?  Don't ask me, and I know.  Ask me, and I don't know. (Augustine).  The same goes, in my case at least, for presentism, as Peter Lupu made clear to me Christmas night.  Don't ask me what it is, and I know.  Ask me, and I don't know.

The rough idea, of course, is that the temporally present  — the present time and its contents — alone exists.  The only items (events, individuals, properties, etc.) that exist are the items that presently exist.  Past and future items do not exist.  But surely it is trivial and not disputed by any anti-presentist that the present alone now exists.  (Obviously, the past does not now exist, else it would not be past, and similarly with the future.)  If the presentist is forwarding a substantive metaphysical thesis then it cannot be this triviality that he is hawking.  So what does the thesis of presentism amount to?

It seems obvious that the presentist must invoke a use of 'exist(s)' that is not tensed in order to formulate his thesis.  For this is a rank tautology: The only items that exist (present tense) are the items that exist (present tense).  It is also tautologous to affirm that the only items that exist (present tense) are the items that presently exist. So it seems that if presentism is to be a substantive thesis of metaphysics, then it must be formulated using a temporally unqualified  use of 'exist(s).'  So I introduce 'exist(s) simpliciter.'  Accordingly:

P. The only items that  exist simpliciter are items that presently exist.

(P) is a substantive thesis.  The presentist will affirm it,  the antipresentist will deny it.  Both, of course, will agree about such Moorean facts as that James Dean existed.  But they will disagree about whether Dean exists simpliciter.  The presentist will say that he does not, while the anti-presentist will say that he does.  Again, both will agree that Dean does not exist now.  But whereas the presentist will say that he does not exist at all, the anti-presentist will say that he does exist, though not at present. The anti-presentist can  go on to say that, because Dean exists simpliciter, there is no problem about how he can stand in  relations to things that presently exist.  The presentist, however, faces the problem of how the existent can stand in relation to the nonexistent.

My mother is dead.  But I am her son.  So I stand in the son of relation to my mother.  If the dead are nonexistent, then I, who exist, stand in relation to a nonexistent object.  But how the devil can a relation obtain between two items when one of them ain't there?  This is a problem for the presentist, is it not?  But it is not a problem for the anti-presentist who maintains that present and past individuals both exist simpliciter.  For then the relation connects two existents.

The antipresentist, however, needs to tell us what exactly existence simpliciter is, and whether it is the same or different than tenseless existence (whatever that is).

But nota bene:  the presentist must also tell us what existence simpliciter is since he needs it to get his thesis (P) off the ground.

In my experience, the problems associated with time are the most difficult  in all of philosophy.

 

Tripke Joins Turnupseed

James When the young James Dean crashed his low slung silver Porsche Spyder on a lonely California highway on September 30, 1955, he catapulted a couple of unknowns into the national spotlight.  One of them was Ernie Tripke, one of two California Highway Patrol officers who arrived at the scene.  He has died at the age of 88.  But what ever happened to Donald Turnupseed, the driver who turned in front of the speeding Dean, having failed to see him coming?  His story is here. 

Is dying young a bad thing for the one who dies?  What if it makes you 'immortal' as in the case of James Dean?  More grist for the Epicurean mill.

Intentionality: Peter Lupu’s ‘Surrogate Object’ Solution

I suggest we approach the problem, or one of the problems, of intentionality via the following aporetic triad:

1. We sometimes intend the nonexistent.
2. Intentionality is a relation.
3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist.

This is a nice neat way of formulating the problem because, on the one hand, each limb is extremely plausible while, on the other hand, the limbs appear collectively inconsistent.  To solve the problem, one must either reject one of the limbs or show that the inconsistency is merely apparent.

Enter Peter Lupu's solution. He described it to me last night after Christmas dinner.  He thinks we can uphold all three propositions.  Thus his claim is that the triad is only apparently inconsistent.

Suppose Shaky Jake seeks the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine (LDM).  Now seeking things like lost gold mines typically involves all sorts of physical actions; but at the root of, and animating, these actions are various mental states many of which are intentional or objected-directed.  Believing, hoping, desiring,  fearing, planning — these are all intentional states.  Among them is the state of wanting.  To want is to want something.  Thus Jake wants, or wants to find, the LDM.  But a subject's wanting of x does not entail the existence of x in the way that a subject's owning of x does entail the existence of x.  You can't own, beat, eat, etc. what does not exist; but you can desire, imagine, think about, etc. what does not exist.  This is a crucial fact about intentionality.  Peter of course is well aware of it.

Now either the LDM exists or it does not.  If it exists, then Jake's wanting relates him (or his mind) to the LDM in a way that is consistent with the truth of both (2) and (3).  If the LDM does not exist, then Jake's wanting relates him (or his mind) to the CONTENT of Jake's mental act.  But this too is consistent with the truth of both (2) and (3). For the content exists whether or not the object exists.

In this way, Peter thinks he can uphold each of (1)-(3).  Supposing, as is overwhelmingly likely, that the LDM does not exist, (1) is true:  Jake intends (in the mode of wanting) something nonexistent.  This instance of intentionality is relational: it connects Jake's mind to a content.  (2) is thus maintained.  But so is (3): Jake's mind and the content both exist.

I will call this a 'surrogate object' solution.  It works by substituting the content for the external object when the external object does not exist.  This guarantees that there will always be an existent object, either the external object, or the surrogate object to serve as the object relatum of the intentional relation.

But isn't there an obvious objection to the 'surrogate object' solution?  Jake wants a gold mine.  He doesn't want a content.  A gold mine is a physical thing.  But whatever a content is, it is not a physical thing.  A content is either mental as a part of the intentional mental state, or it is an abstract item of some sort.  To appreciate this, let us consider more carefully what a content is.  A content is an intermediary entity, roughly analogous to a Fregean sense (Sinn), which mediates between mind and external concrete reality.  And like Fregean senses, contents do not reside in external concrete reality.  They are either immanent to consciousness like Twardowski's contents, or abstracta like Frege's senses.  And just as linguistic reference to the planet Venus is achieved via the sense of 'morning star' or via the sense of 'evening star,' mental reference to an object is achieved via a content.  To employ the old Brentano terminology of presentations (Vorstellungen), the object is that which is presented in a presentation whereas the content is that through which it is presented.

Now my point against Peter is that when I want something that doesn't exist, my wanting cannot be said to relate me  to a content.  My wanting involves a content no doubt, but the content is not the object.  Why not?  Well, if I want a flying horse, I want a physical thing, an animal; but no content is a physical thing, let alone an animal.  When Bobby Darin pined after his Dream Lover, it  was something lusciously concrete and physical that he was pining after.

Suppose I am imagining  Pegasus and thinking: Pegasus does not exist.  The imagining is an intentional state that involves a content, the mental image.  But this mental image exists.  So it cannot be the mental image that I am thinking does not exist.  It is Pegasus himself that I am thinking does not exist.  And therein lies the puzzle. 

Suppose Peter responds as follows.  "I grant you that it is not the mental image that I am thinking does not exist.  For, as you point out, the image does exist.  What I am doing is thinking that the mental image is not a mental image of anything.  So when I imagine Pegasus and think: Pegasus does not exist, the object relatum is an existent item, the Pegasus image, and what I am thinking about it is that it is not an image of anything."

But this too is problematic.  For the nonexistence of Pegasus cannot be identified with the Pegasus-images's not being an image of anything. And this for the simple reason that an objective fact such as the nonexistence of Pegasus cannot depend on the existence of mental images.  There are times and possible worlds in which there are no mental images and yet at those times and worlds Pegasus does not exist.

But Peter persists:  "Well, I can say that when I am thinking about Pegasus I am thinking about a necessarily existent conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are being a horse, having wings, etc., and when I think that Pegasus does not exist I am thinking that this conjunctive property is not instantiated.  And when I think that Pegasus is winged, I am thinking that the conjunctive property has being winged as one of its conjuncts."

This is better, but still problematic.  If Peter wants Pegasus, then presumably what he wants on his analysis is not the conjunctive property in question, but the being instantiated of this property.  Being instantiated, however, is relational not monadic:  if the conjunctive property is instantiated it is instantiated by an individual.    And which individual must it be?  Why, Pegasus!  The analysis, it appears, is viciously circular.  Let's review.

Peter wants to say that intentionality is a relation and that the holding of a relation entails the existence of all its relata.  But Pegasus does not exist.  To want Pegasus, then, cannot be to stand in relation to Pegasus, but to a surrogate object.  If you say that the surrogate object is a necessarily existent property, then the problem is that wanting Peagsus, an animal, is not wanting a causally inert abstract object.  If. on the other hand, you say that to want Pegasus is to want the being instantiated of that abstract object, then you want the being instantiated of that abstract object by existing Pegasus — in which case we have made no progress since Pegasus does not exist!