Existence – Page 16 – Maverick Philosopher

Univocity, Equivocity, and the MOB Doctrine

Here is another argument that may be banging around in the back of the heads of those who are hostile to the doctrine that there are modes of being, the MOB doctrine to give it a name:

1. If there are modes of existence, then 'exist(s)' is not univocal.
2. If 'exist(s)' is not univocal, then it is equivocal.
3. If 'exists(s)' is equivocal, then existents are partitioned into separate and unrelatable domains.
4. It is not the case that existents are partitioned into separate and unrelatable domains.
Ergo
5. There are no modes of existence.

I believe that this argument can be fairly imputed to Quentin Gibson. (See The Existence Principle, Kluwer 1998, p. 26 et passim) Of course, the above is my reconstruction; he is nowhere near as clear as I am being.

The argument is seductive but unsound. (2) is false: if a term is not univocal it does not follow that it is equivocal in the sense of 'equivocal' needed to make (3) true. I believe I have already demonstrated this. 'Exists(s)' is not univocal as between

6. Jewish philosophers exist
and
7. Kripke exists.

But it doesn't follow from this lack of univocity that we have sheer equivocity of the river bank /financial bank sort. (6) makes an instantiation claim while (7) doesn't. 'Exist' in (6) is a second-level predicate while in (7) 'exists' is a first-level predicate. So the predicate is used to say different things of different things. In (6) being-instantiated, but not singular existence, is being predicated of the concept Jewish philosopher. In (7) singular exsistence, but not being-instantiated, is being predicated of Kripke.

And yet there is a systematic connection between the two sentences and the two senses of 'exist(s).' If a first-level concept 'exists,' i.e., is instantiated, then it is instantiated by an individual that exists. And if an individual exists, then there is some concept it instantiates.

Call this equivocity if you like, but it is not the sort of equivocity that has the unacceptable consequence that is recorded in the consequent of (3). It doesn't lead to a partitioning of existents into separate and unrelatable domains.

Or take the substance/accident case. Substances exist and accidents exist. If so, they exist in different ways. Or so say I. Accidents exist-in substances while substances do not. Does 'exist(s)' have two different senses as applied to substances and accidents? Yes, but they are connected senses. So it doesn't follow from this lack of univocity that substances and accidents belong in separate and unrelatable domains. Quite the contrary! It is precisely because they exist in different ways that we can render intelligible how they are related.

We are drifting in the direction of the old analogia entis. I can feel it.

Review : Modes of Being

Herewith, a little summary of part of what I have been arguing. Most analytic philosophers would accept (A) but not (B):

A. There are kinds of existent but no kinds of existence.
B. There are kinds of existent and also kinds of existence.

I have been defending the intelligibility of (B) but without committing myself to any particular MOB doctrine. I use 'modes of being' and 'kinds of existence' interchangeably. Of course I grant to Reinhardt Grossmann and others that the following inference is invalid:

1. K1 and K2 are dramatically different categories of existent
Ergo
2. Instances of K1 differ from instances of K2 in their mode of existence.

But an invalid argument can have a true conclusion. So one can cheerfully grant the invalidity of the inference from (1) to (2) while insisting that there are categories the respective members of which differ in their very mode of existence. For example, although one cannot straightaway infer from the dramatic difference between (primary) substances and accidents that substances and accidents differ in their mode of existence, it is difficult to understand how they could fail to so differ. After all, accidents depend on substances in that they cannot exist except in substances as modifications of substances, and this dependence is neither causal nor logical. So I say it is existential dependence.

Consider a bulge in a carpet. The bulge cannot exist apart from the carpet whose bulge it is, whereas the carpet can exist without any bulge. You might be tempted to say that bulge and carpet both simply exist, but that they are counterfactually related: Had the carpet not existed, the bulge would not have existed. That's true, but what makes it true? I say it is the fact of the bulge's existential dependence on the carpet. Accidents exist in a different way than substances.

You could resist this conclusion by simply denying that there are substances and accidents. Fine, but then I will shift to another example, wholes and parts, say. Do you have the chutzpah to deny that there are wholes and parts? Consider again the house made of bricks. And now try this aporetic pentad on for size:

1. The house exists.
2. The bricks exist.
3. The house is not the bricks.
4. The house is not something wholly diverse from the bricks, something in addition to it, something over and above it.
5. 'Exist(s)' is univocal.

The pentad is inconsistent: the limbs cannot all be true. So what are you going to do? Deny (1) like van Inwagen? Maybe that is not crazy, but surely it is extreme. (2), (3), and (4) are are undeniable. So I say we ought to deny (5). The house does not exist in the same way as the bricks.

More on Existence and Completeness

It is time to recommence 'hostilities' with Edward Ockham. (I do thank him for engaging my ideas.)

I lately made two claims. One is that existence entails completeness. The other is that completeness does not entail existence. In support of the second claim, I wrote:

Why can't there be complete nonexistent objects? Imagine the God of Leibniz, before the creation, contemplating an infinity of possible worlds, each of them determinate down to the last detail. None of them exists or is actual. But each of them is complete. One of them God calls 'Charley.' God says, Fiat Charley! And Charley exists. It is exactly the same world which 'before' was merely possible, only 'now' it is actual.

To this Edward responds:

I say: if the God of Leibniz is contemplating something, then there is something he is contemplating. And I say that if each of them is determinate down to the last detail, some things are equivalent to them. And if each of them is complete, at least one of them is complete. All of the consequents imply existential statements, and whatever follows from the consequent, follows from the antecedent. I may be wrong, but all of this looks like an elementary example of the quantifier shift fallacy. If it is possible that a unicorn exists, it does not follow that some unicorn is such that it possibly exists. 'Possibly Ex Fx' does not imply 'Ex possibly Fx'.

But doesn't our friend make a mistake in his very first sentence? He moves from

a. God is contemplating something
to
b. Something is such that God is contemplating it.

But in intentional contexts quantifier exportation fails. Ironically, Edward taxes me with a quantifier shift fallacy when he commits one himself!

Furthermore, Edward is insulting the divine omnipotence and omnsicience. For he is saying in effect that God cannot bring before his mind a completely determinate intentional object — an object whose mode of existence is merely intentional — without that object being actual. But surely God can do that: he can conceive of a world that is fully determinate but only possibly existent. Such a world enjoys esse intentionale only. It exists only as an accusative of the divine intellect. What then must be added to make it real or actual or existent? The theist can say that the divine will must come into play. God wills that one of the possible worlds enjoy, in addition to esse intentionale, esse reale as well. Let there be Charley!

(Other questions arise at this point which are off-topic, for example, why Charley over Barley? Why Charely over any other world? Must God have a reason? And what would it be? Would it be because Charley is the best of all possible worlds? Is there such a things as the BEST of all possible worlds? Why some world rather than no world? And so on.)

You don't have to believe in God to appreciate the point I am making. The point is that existence cannot be identified with completeness. Admittedly, everything that exists — in the mode of esse reale of course – is complete, but there is more to existence than completeness. The theological imagery is supposed to help you understand the ontological point. All I need for my argument is the conceivability of the God of Leibniz. If you can conceive such a God, then you can conceive the irreducibility of existence to completeness. And if so, you can grasp that completeness does not entail existence.

In the end the dispute may come down to a profound and irresolvable difference in intuitions. For some of us existence is a deep (thick) topic, for others it is superficial (thin). I say it is deep. Part of what that means is that it cannot be explicated in broadly logical terms: not in terms of indefinite identifiablity, or property-possession, or instantiation, or completeness, or anything else.

How Prevent a Proliferation of Modes of Being?

An astute reader comments:

Allowing for multiple modes of being may lead to too many or infinitely many modes. Using your own example and oversimplifying on purpose: if the mode of being of the house made of bricks is different from that of the bricks, what prevents us from claiming that there are different modes of being for all other structures that could be made from these bricks? I think there should be explicit arguments against this motivation.

A side note/question: "no individual can be instantiated." You state this as a self evident truth. It would help if you elaborate on this point.

I have read your blog for over a year, mostly due to my interest in identity, existence and other basic notions that I consider fundamental. I respect your intellectual honesty and find your general reflections stimulating and deep but not dry.

1. My claim is not that a house, a corral, a wall, etc. made of the same bricks each has a different mode of being. These wholes have the same mode of being as each other. The claim is rather that certain types of whole — not necessarily every type of whole — possess a different mode of being than their parts.

In the argument I gave, I made the simplifying assumption that the bricks are simples. But of course they are not and so the argument can be iterated in their case assuming that each brick is a whole of parts of the same type as the whole of bricks. Iterating the argument 'all the way down' we come finally to simples which exist-independently while all the wholes 'on the way up' exist-dependently.

My concern is to legitimate the very idea of there being modes of being as against the analytical orthodoxy according to which there cannot be any such modes. I grant, however, that if the MOB doctrine led to an endless proliferation of modes then that upshot would strongly count against it.

2. "No individual can be instantiated." This follows if you accept the following definitions.

D1. X is an individual =_df X has properties but is not itself a property.
D2. X is a property =_df X is possibly such that it is instantiated.

Since no individual is a property and only properties can be instantiated, no individual can be instantiated. To be instantiated is to have an instance.

3. "I respect your intellectual honesty and find your general reflections stimulating and deep but not dry." I shall try to live up to that comment. Thank you!

Why the Resistance to Modes of Being?

Why do so many distinguished philosophers fail to appreciate that a doctrine of modes of being (modes of existence) is a live option? Perhaps in the back of their minds is some such argument as the following:

Existence is instantiation
There are no modes of instantiation
Ergo
There are no modes of existence.

I grant that there are no modes of instantiation: either a concept is instantiated or it is not. But existence is not instantiation. I have gone over this ground many times before on this blog and in my existence book and in journal articles, so I will be very brief.

I exist. That's certain. It is also certain that I am an individual and that no individual can be instantiated. So if existence is instantiation, then there must be something distinct from me, a concept or property or cognate item, the instantiation of which is (identically) my existence. But now three points. First, there is no such concept or property. Such a property would have to be a haecceity property and there are none. Second, even if there were such a property, I wouldn't be able to grasp it. Individuum ineffabile est. Equally ineffable is a property of the form identity-with-a, where 'a' denotes an individual. Third, to account for the existence of an individual in terms of the instantiation of some concept or property is blatantly circular: if a first-level property instantiated,then it is instantiated by something that exists.

So the above argument is not sound. Let's try another:

'Exists(s)' is univocal
If there are modes of existence, then 'exist(s)' is not univocal
Ergo
There are no modes of existence.

I concede the minor, but not the major. Compare

1. Philosophers exist
2. Peter exists.

Both sentences are true, hence both are meaningful. But 'exist(s)' does not have the same meaning in both. (1) makes an instantiation claim: it says that the concept philosopher or the property of being a philosopher is instantiated. But (2), quite plainly, does NOT make an instantiation claim. So 'exist(s)' in the two sentences cannot be univocal in sense. But it is not equivocal in the way 'bank' is in

3. No Boston bank (financial instituiton) is situated on the bank of the river Charles.

We could say that the equivocity of 'exist(s)'as between (1)and (2) is a systematic equivocity in that the senses are connected. How? Well, if there are philosophers, if philosophers exist, then there must be at least one person, Peter say, who exists and who is a philosopher. And if Peter, who is a philosopher, exists, then we can straightaway infer that philosophers exist.

So is it not perfectly obvious that 'exist(s)' is not univocal? Note the ambiguity of

4. Wisdom exists.

(4) could be taken to mean that wisdom has instances, that there are wise people. But it could also be taken to mean that wisdom itself exists. So from this one example it is clear that 'exist(s)' is not univocal.

The second argument, then, is as unsound as the first. At this point the establishmentarians may try to ENFORCE univocity by stipulating that 'exist(s)' SHALL MEAN 'is instantiated.' But that has all the advantages of theft over honest toil, and besides, two can play that game. I could, with more justice, stipulate that there is no legitimate use of 'exist(s)' except as a first-level predicate.

Finally, they may argue as follows:

If there are modes of existence, then existence is a property of individuals.
Existence is not a property of individuals
Ergo
There are no modes of existence.

Whether this argument is sound depends on what is meant by 'property.' Existence is obviously not a quidditative property of any individual. And existence is not a property of individuals if that is taken to imply that existents instantiate existence. But surely existence belongs to individuals and is in this sense a property of them. Accordingly, I reject this third argument by denying the minor.

So as far as I can see the case against modes of existence is extremely weak.

Quentin Gibson (1913 – 2001)

I first became aware of the Australian philosopher Quentin Gibson when I discovered his book The Existence Principle. It was published in 1998, when Gibson was 85 years old, in the Kluwer Philosophical Studies Series, #75. My A Paradigm Theory of Existence appeared in the same series in 2002, #89. Our approaches are radically different: I maintain what he denies, for one thing, that there are modes of existence. I discuss some of his ideas on pp. 15-22 of my book.

I learned here that Gibson is the son of W. R. Boyce Gibson whose translation of Edmund Husserl's Ideen I studied as an undergraduate. Small world.

Existence and Completeness

Marco Santambrogio, "Meinongian Theories of Generality," Nous, December 1990, p. 662:

. . . I take existence to mean just this: an entity, i, exists iff there is a determinate answer to every question concerning it or in other words, for every F(x) either F[x/i] or ~F[x/i] holds. The Tertium Non Datur is the hallmark of existence of reality. This is entirely in the Meinong-Twardowski tradition.

In other words, existence is completeness: Necessarily, for any x, x exists if and only if x is complete, i.e., satisfies the property version of the Law of Excluded Middle (Tertium Non Datur). Now I have long maintained that whatever exists is complete, but I have never been tempted by the thesis that whatever is complete exists.

So why should completeness entail existence?

Wholes, Parts, and Modes of Being

Do wholes and their parts exist in different ways? The analytic establishment is hostile to modes of being, but its case is weak. Indeed some establishmentarians make no case at all; they simply bluster and asseverate and beg the question. I wonder how a member of the establishment would counter the following argument. Consider a house made of bricks and nothing but bricks, and let's list some pertinent truths and see what follows.

1. The house exists.
2. The bricks exist.
3. The house is composed of the bricks, all of them, and of nothing else, and is not something wholly distinct from them or in addition to them.
4. The bricks can exist without the house, but the house cannot exist without the bricks.
5. The relation between the house and the bricks is neither causal nor logical.
Therefore
6. The house has a dependent mode of existence unlike the bricks.

Peter van Inwagen, one of those establishmentarians who is hostile to the very idea of there being modes of being, will deny (1) as part of his general denial of artifacts. If artifacts do not exist at all, then questions about how they exist, or in what way or mode, obviously lapse. But it is evident to me that if we have to choose between denying artifacts and accepting modes of being, then we should accept modes of being!

(2) is undeniable as is (3): it would obviously be absurd to think of the house as something over and above its constituents, as if it could exist even if they didn't. The house is just the bricks arranged house-wise. This is consistent with the truth of (1). The fact that the house is just the bricks arranged house-wise does not entail that the house does not exist.

(4) is equally evident and is just a consequence of (3). I put the point modally but I could also make it temporally: before the Wise Pig assembled the bricks into a house fit to repel the huffing and puffing of the Big Bad Wolf, there was no house, but there were the bricks.

(5) is also obviously true. The bricks, taken individually or collectively, do not cause the house. Now an Aristotelian may want to speak of the bricks as the 'material cause' of the house, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether the bricks are the efficient cause of the cause. The answer to that is obviously in the negative. Nor are the bricks the cause of the house in the Humean sense of 'cause,' or in any modern sense of 'cause.' For one thing, causation is standardly taken to relate events and neither a house nor a set or sum of its constituents is an event.

Could we say that the relation between bricks and house is logical? No. Logical relations relate propositions and neither the bricks nor the house is a proposition. It is not a relation of supervenience either since supervenience relates properties and neither bricks nor house is a property.

But I hear an objection.

I agree with you that the house is not identical to the bricks and that the former depends on the latter but not vice versa. Why not just say that the two are related counterfactually? Had the bricks not existed, the house would not have existed either. Why not say that and be done with it? The house depends on the bricks but not conversely. But the dependence of one existent on another does not seem to require that there are different modes of existence.

True, had the bricks not existed, the house would not have existed. But what is the truth-maker of this counterfactual? Your objection is superficial. Obviously the house is not the bricks. Obviously the house is dependent on the bricks. I say that the house, as a whole of parts, exists-dependently. You said nothing that refutes this.

We should also ask whether it makes sense to speak of a relation between bricks and house. It is certainly not an external relation if an external relation is one whose holding is accidental to the existence of its terms. If brick A is on top of brick B, then they stand in a dyadic external relation: each can exist without standing in the relation, which is to say that their being related in this way is accidental to both of them. But a house and its bricks are not externally related: the house cannot exist apart from its 'relation' to the bricks.

The best thing to say here is that the house has a dependent mode of existence. The house exists and the bricks exist, but the house exists in a different way than the bricks do. If you deny this, then you are saying that the house and the bricks exist in the same way. And what way is that? Independently. But it is obvious that the house does not exist independently of the bricks.

I will end by suggesting that van Inwagen's strange denial of artifacts is motivated by his failure to appreciate that there are modes of being. For if there are no modes of being, and everything that exists exists in the same way, then one is forced to choose between saying either that the house exists independently of its constituent bricks or that the house does not exist at all. Since van Inwagen perceives that it is absurd to say that the house exists independently of its constituent bricks, he is forced to say that it does not exist at all.

But if there are modes of being we can maintain, rather more sensibly, both that the house exists and that it does not exist independently of its constituent bricks.

More on Modes of Being with Two Applications

Clarity will be served if we distinguish the following four questions:

Q1. What is meant by 'mode of being'?
Q2. Is the corresponding idea intelligible?
Q3. Are there (two or more) modes of being?
Q4. What are the modes of being?

So far in this series of posts I have been concerned only with the first two questions. Clearly, the first two questions are logically prior to the second two. It is possible to understand what is meant by 'mode of being' and grant that the notion is intelligible while denying that there are (two or more) modes of being. And if two philosophers agree that there are (two or more) modes of being they might yet disagree about what these modes are.

I assume that if talk of modes of being is intelligible, then there is no mistake such as Peter van Inwagen alleges, or fallacy such as Reinhardt Grossmann alleges, that is committed by partisans of any modes-of-being doctrine. Van Inwagen's claim, you will recall, is that such partisans illictly transfer what properly belongs to the nature of an F to the existence of the F. And Grossmann's claim, you will also recall, is that one cannot validly infer from a dramatic difference in properties as between two kinds of thing (concreta and abstracta, for exsample) that the two kinds of thing differ in their mode of being.

An Application to Philosophical Theology

Suppose you have two philosophers. They agree that God exists and they agree as to the nature of God. But one claims that God exists necessarily while the other claims that he exists contingently. What are they disagreeing about? That there is a being having such-and-such divine properties is not in dispute. Nor is the nature of God in dispute. It is at least arguable that the disagreement centers on God's Seinsweise, or modus essendi, or way of being, or mode of being or however you care to phrase it. The one philosopher says that God exists-necessarily while the other says that God exists-contingently. This is not a difference in nature or in properties but in mode of being.

This suggests that with respect to anything, we can ask: (i) What is it? (ii) Does it exist? (iii) How (in what way or mode) does it exist? This yields a tripartite distinction among quiddity (in a broad sense to include essential and accidental, relational and nonrelational properties), existence, and mode of existence (mode of being).

My claim, at a bare minimum, is that, contra van Inwagen, Grossmann, Dallas Willard, and a host of others, the notion that there are modes of being is intelligible and defensible, and needn't involve the making of a mistake or the commission of a fallacy. Of course I want to go beyond that and claim that a sound metaphysics cannot get by without a modes-of-being doctrine. But for now I am concerned merely to defend the minimal claim. Minimal though it is, it puts me at loggerheads with the analytic establishment. (But what did you expect for a maverick?)

A contemporary analytic philosopher who adheres to the thin conception of being according to which there are no modes of being will accommodate the difference between necessary and contingent beings by saying that a necessary being like God exists in all possible worlds whereas a contingent being like Socrates exists in some but not all possible worlds. So instead of saying that God exists in a different way than Socrates, he will say that God and Socrates exist in the same way, which is the way that everything exists, but that God exists in all worlds whereas Socrates exists only in some. But this involves quantification over possible worlds and raises difficult questions as to what possible worlds are.

(It is worth noting that a modes-of-being theorist can reap the benefits of possible worlds talk as a useful and graphic façon de parler without incurring the ontological costs. You can talk the talk without walking the walk.)

Presumably no one here will embrace the mad-dog modal realism of David Lewis, according to which all worlds are on an ontological par. So one has to take some sort of abstractist line and construe worlds as maximal abstracta of one sort or another, say, as maximal (Fregean not Russellian) propositions. But then difficult questions arise about what it is for an individual to exist in a world. What is it for Socrates to exist in a possible world if worlds are maximal (Fregean) propositions? It is to be represented as existing by that world. So Socrates exists in the actual world in that Socrates is represented as existing by the actual world which, on the abstractist aspproach, is the one true maximal proposition. (A proposition is maximal iff it entails every proposition with which it is consistent.) And God exists in all possible worlds in that all maximal propositions represent him as exsiting: no matter which one of the maximal propositions is true, that proposition represents him as existing.

But veritas sequitur esse, truth follows being, so I am inclined to say that the abstractist approach has it precisely backwards: the necessity of God's existence is the ground of each maximal proposition's representing him as existing; the necessity of God's existence cannot be grounded in the logically posterior fact that every maximal proposition represents him as existing.

The ground of the divine necessity, I say, is God's unique mode of being which is not garden-variety metaphysical necessity but aseity. God alone exists from himself and has his necessity from himself
unlike lesser necessary beings (numbers, etc) which have their necessity from God. The divine aseity is in turn grounded in the divine simplicity which latter I try to explain in my SEP article.

Summing up this difficult line of thought that I have just barely sketched: if we dig deep into the 'possible worlds' treatment of metaphysical necessity and contingency, we will be led back to an ontology that invokes modes of being.

Application to the Idealism/Realism Controversy

Consider this thing on the desk in front of me. What is it? A coffee cup with such-and-such properties both essential and accidental. For example, it is warm and full of coffee. These are accidental properties, properties the thing has now but might not have had now, properties the possession of which is not necessary for its existence. No doubt the coffee cup exists. But it is not so clear in what mode it exists. One philosopher, an idealist, says that its mode of being is purely intentional: it exists only as an intentional object, which means: it exists only relative to (transcendental) consciousness. The other philosopher, a realist, does not deny that the cup is (sometimes) an intentional object, but denies that its being is exhausted by its being an intentional object. He maintains that it exists mind-independently.

What I have just done in effect is introduce two further modes of being. We can call them esse intentionale and esse reale, purely intentional being and real being. It seems that without this distinction between modes of being we will not be able to formulate the issue that divides the idealist and the realist. No one in his right mind denies the existence of coffee cups, rocks, trees, and 'external' items generally. Thus Berkeley and Husserl and other idealists do not deny that there exist trees and such; they are making a claim about their mode of existence.

Suppose you hold to a thin conception of being, one that rules out modes of existence. On the thin conception, an item either exists or it does not and one cannot distinguish among different ways, modes, kinds, or degrees of existence. How would an adherent of the thin conception formulate the idealism/realism controversy? The idealist, again, does not deny the existence of rocks and trees. And he doesn't differe with the realist as totheir nature. Without talk of modes of being, then, no sense can be made of the idealism/realism controversy.

Reinhardt Grossmann Against Modes of Being

Here is a plausible principle: if n items stand in an n-adic relation, then all of them exist. And necessarily so. If Miami is between Superior and Globe, then all three towns exist. Combine this principle about relations with the plausible idea that the intentional nexus is a dyadic relation that relates a thinker (or a mental act of a thinker) to an object of thought. So far, so good. But what if the object of thought does not exist? Then what we have is a relation that relates an existent thinker to a nonexistent object in violation of the plausible principle about relations. The puzzle can be cast in the mold of an aporetic triad:

1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.
2. Intentionality is a relation that ties a thinker to an object of thought.
3. Every relation is such that, if it holds, then all its relata exist.

The limbs are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent.

Some will be tempted at this point to distinguish between two modes of being, a strong mode and a weak mode if you will, call them existence and subsistence. The relations principle could then be reformulated to say that if a relation R holds, then all of R's relata have being (either exist or subsist). This seems to allow a solution of our problem. When Tom thinks about a nonexistent item such as a mermaid, he does indeed stand in a relation to something, it's just that the item in question subsists rather than exists. The object of thought has being but does not exist.

Now I don't think this solution is a good one even if there are different modes of being, but at least it illustrates how one might be tempted to embrace a doctrine of modes of being. And I agree with Reinhardt Grossmann that the above is not a good argument for modes of being. But he seems to think that there are no good arguments for modes of being, and indeed that the very idea is fallacious. Grossmann writes,

Are there any other arguments for the existence of modes of being?

It seems to me that all the rest of such arguments are of the following form. One first points out that two kinds of thing are fundamentally different, that they differ 'categorially', so to speak. Then one asserts that such a tremendous difference must be a difference in their modes of being. While one kind of thing, say exists, the other kind merely subsists. [. ..]

This type of argument is obviously fallacious. From the fact that two kinds of things differ fundamentally in their properties, it simply does not follow that they must have different modes of being. Of course, they may exist in different modes, but that they do so exist cannot be shown in that way. (The Existence of the World: An Introduction to Ontology, Routledge 1992, pp. 95-96)

Grossman is making two claims here. One is about the invalidity of a form of argument whereby one infers a difference in mode of being from the fact that two kinds of thing are very different. Grossmann is right that this is a non sequitur. The other claim is that all arguments for modes of being have this fallacious form.

But this second claim is false. Earlier I argued that if there are substances and if there are accidents, then substances and accidents differ in their mode of being. My argument was not that substances and accidents are so radically different in their natures that this difference in nature entails a difference in mode of being. My argument hinged on the relation between substances and accidents. Suppose Socrates is a substance and his being sunburned is an accident inhering in him. The substance and the accident both exist and they differ in nature. But then how do we account for the fact that an accident cannot exist except as inhering in the substance whose accident it is? We cannot account for this characteristic feature of accidents by saying that both exist or that they differ in nature. We have to say that accidents and substances exist in different ways. Accidents exist in an existentially dependent way whereas substances exist in an existentially independent way.

Clearly, we have to introduce a distinction between different modes of being if we are to explain how substances and accidents are related. Now this argument I just gave does not commit the fallacy that Grossmann mentions. It does not infer a difference in mode of being from a difference in nature. So Grossmann's second claim is mistaken.

In Defense of Modes of Being: Substance and Accident

The 'thin' conception of being or existence, lately explained, entails that there are no modes of being. Most analytic philosophers accept the thin conception and reject modes of being. Flying in the face of analytic orthodoxy, I maintain that the modes-of-being doctrine is defensible. Indeed, I should like to say something stronger, namely, that it is indispensable for metaphysics.

My task in this series of posts is not to specify what the modes of being are, but the preliminary one of defending the very idea of there being different modes of being. So I plan to look at a range of examples without necessarily endorsing the modes of being they involve. Against van Inwagen (see post linked above), I maintain that no mistake is made by partisans of the thick conception. They do not, pace van Inwagen, illicitly transfer what properly belongs to the nature of a thing to its existence.

This post focuses on substances and accidents and argues that an accident and a substance of which it is the accident differ in their very mode of being, and not merely in their respective natures.

1. Intuitively, some items exist on their own while others are dependent in their existence on items that exist on their own. Smiles, grimaces, frowns, white caps, carpet bulges are items that exist, but
not on their own. They need — as a matter of metaphysical necessity — faces, waves, and carpets to exist in. This suggests some definitions:

D1. S is a (primary) substance =_df S is metaphysically capable of independent existence.

D2. A is an accident =_df A is not metaphysically capable of independent existence, but exists, if it exists, in a substance.

By 'metaphysically' I mean broadly logically in Plantinga's sense. So if a particular statue is a substance, then it is broadly logically possible that it exist even if nothing else exists. And if the smoothness or color of the statue are accidents, then it is broadly logically impossible that they exist (i) apart from some substance or other and indeed (ii) apart from the very substance of which they are the accidents.

The second point implies that accidents are particulars, not universals. Accidents cannot be shared. They are not 'repeatable' in the manner of universals. Nor can they 'migrate' from one substance to another. You can't catch my cold if my cold is an accident of me as substance. Your cold is your numerically distinct cold. Socrates' whiteness is his whiteness and is as such numerically distinct from Plato's whiteness. The connection between a substance and its accidents is an intimate one.

2. Now suppose there is a substance S and an accident A of S. I do not deny that there is a sense of 'exist' according to which both S and A exist. Suppose that S and A are the only two items that exist. Then of course there is a sense in which both items exist: each is something and not nothing. Both are there to be quantified over. We can say '(Ex)(x = S)' and '(Ex)(x = A)': 'Something is (identically) S' and 'Something is (identically) A.'

3. Now the issue is this: Does what I said in #2 exhaust what there is to be said about the being or existence of S and A? On the thin conception, that is all there is to it. To be is to be something or other. If there are substances and accidents then both are in the same sense and in the same mode. ('Sense' a semantic term; 'mode' an ontological term.) Since S and A both exist in the same way on the thin conception, they are not distinguished by their mode of being. They are distinguished by their respective natures alone.

4. In order to see what is wrong with the thin conception, let us ask how the two entities S and A are related. Indeed, can one speak of a relation at all? Traditionally, one speaks of inherence: A inheres in S. Inherence cannot be an external relation since if a and b are externally related, then a and b can each exist apart from the relation. But A cannot exist apart from the inherence 'relation' to S. On the other hand, if S and A were internally related, then neither could exist without the other. But S can exist without A. Since S can exist without A, but A cannot exist without S, A is existentially dependent on S, dependent on S for its very existence, while S is capable of independent existence. But this is just to say that A exists in a different way than S exists. Thus S and A differ in their modes of being. One cannot make sense of inherence without distinguishing substantial and accidental modes of being.

5. In sum: Talk of substances and their accidents is intelligible. But it is intelligible only if there are two modes of being, substantial and accidental. Therefore, talk of modes of being is intelligible. Since the thin conception of being entails that there cannot be modes of being, that the very idea is unintelligible, the thin conception ought to be rejected.

Thin (Analytic) and Thick (Continental) Conceptions of Being and the Question of Modes of Being

1. Peter van Inwagen maintains, quite rightly, that "One of the most important divisions between 'continental' and 'analytic' philosophy has to do with the nature of being." (Ontology, Identity, and Modality, Cambridge UP 1981, p. 4) Analysts favor a 'thin' conception while Continentals favor a 'thick' one. Although van Inwagen's claim is essentially correct, there are broadly analytic philosophers such as myself and Barry Miller who defend a 'thick' conception. In any case, let's set aside the (unprofitable) question of the difference between the two schools the better to focus on the substantive question of the nature of being or existence.

2. I sometimes refer to the thin conception as the 'Fressellian' conception. 'Fressell' is a cute amalgam of the names 'Frege' and 'Russell.' We can add Quine to the mix and speak of the deflationary account of being (existence) of Frege, Russell, and Quine. This is without a doubt the dominant 20th century analytic approach to existence. (Neo-Meinongians such as Hector-Neri Castaneda and Panayot Butchvarov suggested a theory of existence in terms of consubstantiation (HNC) and material identity (PB) but these ideas found little resonance.)

So what is the thin conception? "The thin conception of being is this: the concept of being is closely allied with the concept of number: to say that there are Xs is to say that the number of Xs is 1 or more — and to say nothing more profound, nothing more interesting, nothing more." (p. 4) Connoisseurs of this arcana will recognize it as pure Frege:

     . . . existence is analogous to number. Affirmation of existence is
     in fact nothing but denial of the number nought. (Gottlob Frege,
     Foundations of Arithmetic, 65e)

'Cats exist,' then, says that the number of cats is one or more. Equivalently, it says that the concept cat has one or more instances. Existence, as Frege puts it, is "a property of concepts." It is the property of being instantiated. Since individuals, by definition, cannot be instantiated, it follows that existence cannot be predicated of individuals. This has repercussions for some versions of the ontological argument: "Because existence is a property of concepts, the ontological argument for the existence of God breaks down." (Frege, 65e)

3. That, in a nutshell, is the 'thin' or deflationary conception of being or existence. Existence is instantiation. Variations on this theme are Russell's asseveration that existence is a property of propositional functions, and Quine's claim that existence is what existential quantification expresses. Van Inwagen says the following in defense of the thin conception:

     . . . it is possible to distinguish between the being and the
     nature of a thing — any thing; anything — and that the thick
     conception of being is founded on the mistake of transferring what
     belongs properly to the nature of a chair — or of a human being or
     of a universal or of God — to the being of the chair. To endorse
     the thick conception of being is, in fact, to make . . . the very
     mistake of which Kant accused Descartes: the mistake of treating
     being as a 'real predicate.' (pp. 4-5)

What van Inwagen is saying is that, for any x, one can distinguish between the existence of x and the nature of x, but that there is nothing one can say about the existence or being of x beyond what Frege and Co. have said. In particular, one cannot say that individuals of one sort exist in a different way than individuals of a different sort. The thin conception, in other words, allows no room for a plurality of modes of being: God, a chair, a number, a human being, a rattle snake, and a rock all are in the same sense and in the same way (mode). But it would be better to say that on the thin conception there are no modes of existence than to say that there is exactly one mode common to all. One cannot make a tripartite distinction among nature, existence, and mode of existence, but only a bipartite distinction between nature and existence.

If this is right, then Heidegger is wrong: he famously distinguishes among several modes of Being (Seinsweisen) in Being and Time, most prominently among them: Existenz, the Being of those beings that we are; Zuhandenheit, the Being of tools, and Vorhandenheit, the Being of things of nature. J-P Sartre's distinction of being in-itself and being for-itself also falls if there can be no modes of being.

Indeed, much of classical metaphysics from Plato to Bradley bites the dust without a doctrine of modes of being. We have recently observed, for example, how the Thomist theory of intentionality requires a distinction between two modes of being, esse intentionale and esse naturale. Roughly, a form that exists in a tree, say, with esse naturale also exists in a mind that knows the tree with esse intentionale.

To take another example, how are we to make sense of Aristotle's distinction between primary substances and their accidents if there are no modes of being? Substances exist in themselves while accidents exist in another, namely, in substances. These are distinct modes of being. Substances and accidents both exist, but they exist in different ways. To take yet another example, for Aquinas, essence and existence are diverse in creatures but not in God. This is a difference in mode of being. God exists a se, while creatures exist ab alio. God exists from himself while creatures exist from another, namely, God. Many other examples could be given.

4. Van Inwagen uses 'mistake' twice in the above quotation. Having made a hard-and-fast distiction between the existence of a thing and its nature, van Inwagen proclaims it to be a mistake to think that there are ways of existing. Having decided that existence is devoid of content, he asserts that it is a mistake to import any content into it. Well sure! — but that blatantly begs the question.

One should be very skeptical when one philosopher accuses another of making a 'mistake' given how easily the tables can be turned. For a defender of the thick conception could just as easily accuse Fressellians of making a mistake, the mistake of confusing general existence and singular existence.

Compare 'Philosophers exist' and 'Socrates exists.' The former makes a claim of general existence or instantiation: it is plausibly construed as expressing the instantiation of the concept philosopher, as saying that the number of philosophers is one or more. But if this is all there is to existence, if existence if just a concept's being instantiated, then existence cannot be predicated of individuals, and 'Socrates exists' becomes meaningless. This is a conclusion Frege and Russell both explicitly draw. But obviously 'Socrates exists' is not meaningless. We can and do predicate existence of individuals. When I say 'I exist,' I predicate existence of myself. If Frege's view were correct, then not only would the ontological argument "break down," the Cartesian cogito would also "break down." So there has to be something wrong with the Fresselian analysis.

There are many complicated issues here which I discuss in A Paradigm Theory of Existence (Kluwer, 2002), but at the moment I am suggesting that there is something superficial and unphilosophical about taxing the thick conception with 'mistakes' — the mistakes of importing content into being and of thinking that being can be predicated of individuals — when the thin conception can just as easily be accused of resting on 'mistakes.' Dealing as we are with two radically opposed approaches to being, it is is very strange to think that either could rest on simple 'mistakes.' "How stupid of me not to notice that existence cannot be predicated of individuals! What was I thinking?"

Note also that if a first-level concept is instantiated, then it is instantiated by an individual, and indeed by one that exists — assuming you do not want to go the route of Meinong. So we are brought right back to singular existence, the existence of individuals. How then can existence be identified with the instantiation of concepts?

And once you see that existence does belong to individuals, contra the Fressellians, the way is clear to ask how an individual is related to its existence and to distinguish between different ways of existing.

5. Now what exactly is that 'mistake' that van Inwagen accuses the modes-of-being theorists of making? It is the mistake of transferring what properly belongs to the nature of an F to the existence of an F. (See quotation above.) Compare a felt pain (of the sort caused by a stubbing of a bare toe on a large rock) and a rock. The esse of the pain is its percipi. But the esse of the rock, pace the good bishop, is not. So I say: the mode of being of the pain is different from the mode of being of the rock. Van Inwagen would have to say that I illicitly transferred what properly belongs to the nature of a particular pain to its existence. But I fail to see how it is part of the nature or qualitative character of that pain that its esse be percipi. A pleasure quale has a totally different nature and yet its mode of being is the same.

If any mistakes are being made here, they are being made by van Inwagen. There is first of all the mistake of confusing general existence (existence as instantiation) with singular existence. You could call this the mistake of failing to grasp that the Frege-Russell-Quine theory of existence is untenable. There is also the mistake of thinking that the two putative mistakes he mentions in the passage quoted are the same mistake. If it is a mistake to think that existence belongs to individuals, then surely that is a different mistake from the mistake of thinking that there are modes of existence. For one could hold that existence belongs to individuals without holding that there are different modes of singular existence.

But talk of 'mistakes' in philosophy is best avoided except in a few really clear cases which are usually of a logical sort.

A Routley/Sylvan Argument for the Utter Nonexistence of Past Individuals

Many of us are inclined to say that purely past individuals (James Dean, Scollay Square, my cat Zeno, anything that existed but does not exist now), though past, yet exist. Of course, they don't presently exist. But why should only what presently exists, exist? Why should that which loses the temporal property of presentness fall into an abyss of nonbeing? Surely that is not obvious. Presentism may be true, but it is not obviously true. Nor is it a position favored by common sense as some contemporary writers seem to think. Let me sketch a couple of anti-presentist considerations. I will not present them rigorously and I do not claim that they are absolutely compelling.

Purely past individuals are part of the actual world inasmuch as they are not merely possible. And what is actual exists. So purely past individuals exist (tenselessly). Or will you say that when Dean ceased to presently exist he underwent a transformation from an actual being to a merely possible one? How then would you distinguish between past merely possible beings and past actual beings? As far as I know Dean did not have any children. Suppose that is true. Still, he might have had a child. In the past, that was a possibility, though it is not a possibility now. Surely there is a difference between a past possible individual such as Dean's child and an actual past individual such as Dean. Dean was; his child never was.

Moreover, we refer to past individuals and we say true things about them. 'James Dean died in a car crash in 1955.' 'Dean's fame is mainly posthumous.' 'Scollay Square was located in Boston.' The subject terms of these sentences not only did refer to something, they do refer to something, something that exists, though not at present. Furthermore, whatever has properties exists. Dean has properties, ergo Dean exists. That is not to say that he presently exists, but if he didn't exist in any sense, how could he have properties? So a case can be made for the reality or existence of past individuals.

But this morning I stumbled upon an interesting argument from Richard Routley, who later in life came to call himself Sylvan. (Presumably because of an attraction to forests and jungles and an aversion to desert landscapes.) In any case, after beginning p. 361 of Meinong's Jungle and Beyond (Ridgeview 1980) with some question-begging sophistry that I won't bother to expose, he uncorks an interesting argument on the other side of the question, one that that stokes my aporetic fire:

Purely past and purely future items are, like merely possible items, not (now) determinate in all extensional respects: hence (applying the results of 1.19) they do not exist. Compare the items Aristotle and Polonious, and remember Peirce's question as to how long before Polonious died had he had a hair cut and Russell's as to the baldness of the present king of France. Well, is Aristotle bald now?If he is, how long has he been bald? If not, how long since he had a hair cut and how long is his hair? Since Aristotle has ceased to exist, it is false that Aristotle is now bald and false that he is not now bald . . . . Thus Aristotle is indeterminate in respect of the extensional property of (present) baldness. Hence he does not exist now; hence he does not exist.

The argument is short and snappy:

1. For any x, if x exists, then x is now determinate in all extensional respects.
2. It is not the case that purely past individuals are now determinate in all extensional respects.
Therefore
3. It is not the case that purely past individuals exist.

The argument is valid but why should we accept (1)? I have no problem with the following two cognate principles which I warmly embrace:

1*. For any x, if x now exists, then x is now determinate in all extensional respects.

1**. For any x, if x exists, then x is determinate in all extensional respects.

But I see no reason to accept the question-begging (1). After all, Aristotle, unlike Polonious, exists, but Aristotle — if (2) is to be believed — is not now determinate in respect of baldness or the opposite.

Suppose, however, that we accept (1). Why should we also accept (2)? Presumably because it is not now the case that Aristotle is either bald or not bald. But this far from clear. During his life, Aristotle either counted as bald or as not bald. Suppose he counted as bald. Then I say that Aristotle exists (tenselessly) and is (tenselessly) bald. So he is now determinate in respect of baldness or its opposite. He is tenselessly bald and so is now tenselessly bald.

What Routley has done in the above passage and surrounding text is merely beg the question in favor of presentism. He has given us no non-question-begging reason to accept it.

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!

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.