Category: Existence
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Can a Thing Exist Without Existing Now?
Clearly, a thing can exist without existing here. The Washington Monument exists but not in my backyard. Accordingly, 'x exists here' can be split up as follows: 1. x exists here iff (i) x exists & (ii) x is in the vicinity of the speaker. It seems pretty obvious that existence and the indexical property…
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Scollay Square No Longer Exists
London Ed sends me a puzzle that I will formulate in my own way. 1. Boston's Scollay Square no longer exists. Hence 'Scollay Square no longer exists' is true. 2. Removing 'Scollay Square' from the closed sentence yields the open sentence, or predicate, or sentential function, '____ no longer exists.' 3. If a subject-predicate sentence…
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Being is Said in Many Ways: On the Uses of ‘Is’
Chad reports: In the opening pages of More Kinds of Being: A Further Study of Individuation, Identity, and the Logic of Sortal Terms (Blackwell, 2009), E. J. Lowe distinguishes five uses of ‘is’ as a copula: 1. The ‘is’ of attribution, as in ‘Socrates is wise’ and ‘Grass is green’.2. The ‘is’ of identity, as…
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Phenomenon and Existence
E. C. writes: In the recent post Mary Neal’s Out of Body Experiences you state: "No experience, no matter how intense or unusual or protracted, conclusively proves the veridicality of its intentional object. Phenomenology alone won't get you to metaphysics." I have been attempting to reconstruct your reasoning here, and the following is the best…
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Stanislav Sousedik’s “Towards a Thomistic Theory of Predication”
Enough of politics, back to some hard-core technical philosophy. If nothing else, the latter offers exquisite escapist pleasures not unlike those of chess. Of course I don't believe that technical philosophy is escapist; my point is a conditional one: if it is, its pleasures suffice to justify it as a form of recuperation from this all-too-oppressive world of…
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Still Trying to Understand Van Inwagen’s Half-Way Fregeanism about Existence
In section 53 of The Foundations of Arithmetic, Gottlob Frege famously maintains that . . . existence is analogous to number. Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number nought. Because existence is a property of concepts the ontological argument for the existence of God breaks down. (65) Frege is here advancing…
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More Fun With Existential Generalization
Intuitively, if something is identical to Venus, it follows that something is identical to something. In the notation of MPL, the following is a correct application of the inference rule, Existential Generalization (EG): 1. (∃x)(x = Venus)2. (∃y)(∃x)(x = y) 1, EG (1) is contingently true: true, but possibly false. (2), however, is necessarily true. Ought we…
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The Aporetics of Existence and Self-Identity
Andrew B. made some powerful objections to a recent existence post. His remarks suggest the following argument: Argument A 1. Existence is self-identity2. My existence is contingent: (∃x)(x = I) & Poss ~(∃x) (x = I)Therefore3. My self-identity is contingent: I = I & Poss ~ (I = I) Argument A may be supplemented by…
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The Modal Aporetics of Existential Generalization
Consider this trio of propositions: 1. '~(∃x)(x = Venus)' is possibly true. 2. Existential Generalization warrants the inference of '(∃y)~(∃x)(x = y)' from '~(∃x)(x = Venus).' 3. '(∃y)~(∃x)(x = y)' is logically self-contradictory, hence necessarily false. Solve the triad, either by showing that the limbs are (collectively) logically consistent or by rejecting one or more…
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Existence and Contingency
Let us return to the problem of contingency that I was belaboring in my last existence post. Consider this reasoning: 1. (x)(x = x). Principle of Identity: everything is self-identical2. Venus = Venus. From (1) by Universal Instantiation (UI)3. (∃x)(x = Venus). From (2) by Existential Generalization (EG)4. (1) is logically true, hence necessarily true.5.…
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Beating the Dead Horse of the Thin Theory Some More
It is obviously true that something exists. This is not only true, but known with certainty to be true: I think, therefore I exist, therefore something exists. That is my Grand Datum, my datanic starting point. Things exist! Now it seems perfectly clear to me that 'Something exists' cannot be translated adequately as 'Something is…
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My Argument That ‘Exist(s)’ is not Univocal Revisited: No ‘Is’ of Predication?
On August 11th I wrote: Suppose we acquiesce for the space of this post in QuineSpeak. Then 'Horses exist' says no more and no less than that 'Something is a horse.' And 'Harry exists' says no more and no less than that 'Something is Harry.' But the 'is' does not have the same sense in…
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Existentials and Their Equivalents: Aid and Comfort for the Thin Theory?
I grant that logical equivalents not containing 'exist(s)' or cognates can be supplied for all singular and general existentials. Thus, 'Socrates exists' can be translated, salva veritate, as 'Something is identical to Socrates,' or, in canonical notation, '(∃x)(x = Socrates).' Accordingly, Socrates exists =df (∃x)(x = Socrates). But if the definiens preserves the truth of the definiendum,…
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Van Inwagen on Quine on Existence
From Peter van Inwagen, "McGinn on Existence" in Modes of Existence: Papers in Ontology and Philosophical Logic, eds. Bottani et al., Ontos Verlag, 2006, p. 106: There is the theory of Quine, according to which the two oppositions [that between being and non-being and that between existence and non-existence] are not two but one. Existence…
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My Existence and My Possible Nonexistence
Leo Mollica made a good objection to my earlier argument, an objection I need to sort out. I exist, but I might not have existed. How might a thin theorist translate this truth? On the thin theory, my existence is my identity-with-something. It follows that my nonexistence is my diversity-from-everything, and my merely possible nonexistence is my diversity…