Existence – Page 2 – Maverick Philosopher

Memory and Existence: An Aporetic Tetrad

Try this foursome on for size:

1) Memory is a source of knowledge.

2) Whatever is known, exists.

3) Memory includes memory of wholly past individuals and events.

4) Whatever exists, is temporally present.

The limbs of the tetrad are collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true. To appreciate the logical inconsistency, note that 'exists' in (2) and in (4) have exactly the same sense, and that this is not the present-tensed sense. It is the tense-neutral and time-independent sense. Something that exists in this sense simply exists: it is one of the things listed in the ontological inventory. Hence talk in the literature of existence simpliciter. In both of its occurrences above, 'exists' means: existence simpliciter.

The limbs are individually plausible. But they are not equally plausible. (4) is the least plausible, and thus the most rejectable, i.e., the most rejection-worthy. Rejecting it, we arrive at an argument against presentism given that (4) is a version of presentism, which it is.

1*) Some of what is remembered is known.

2*) All that is known, exists.

Therefore

2.5) Some of what is remembered exists.

3*) All of what is remembered is wholly past.

Therefore

3.5) Some of what exists is wholly past.

Therefore

~4*) It is not the case that whatever exists, is temporally present. (Presentism is false.)

On whether an individual is identical to its existence

This just over the transom:

Good day Dr. Vallicella,

I was reading your book on existence, and on page 71, there is this argument for the real distinction between an individual's essence and its existence:

"[I]f in a essence and existence are identical, then a's essence entails a's existence. But that is to say that a is a necessary being… [this] implies that every individual is a necessary being, which is absurd."

I've reconstructed this as follows, and it seems one can object to premise (2):

(1) If a's existence is identical to a's essence, then a's essence entails a's existence.

(2) If a's essence entails X, then a is necessarily X.

(3) Therefore, if a's existence = a's essence, then a necessarily exists.

(4) a is a contingent being.

(5) No contingent being can exist necessarily.

(6) Therefore, a's existence is not identical to a's essence.

(2) seems ambiguous. We can say that a can be necessarily X absolutely or conditionally. Put in terms of possible worlds, a is necessarily X absolutely if a is X in all possible worlds, while a is necessarily X conditionally if a is X only in all worlds where a exists.

BV: I accept your distinction, but I would couch it in different terms, terms in keeping with standard practice. Let the free variable 'x' range over individuals. To say that x is essentially F (where 'F' is a predicate that picks out a property) is to say that x is F in every possible world in which x exists. To say that x is accidentally F is to say that x is F in some, but not all, of the possible worlds in which x exists. To say that x is necessarily F is to say that (i) x is essentially F, and that (ii) x exists in every possible world.

If we read (2) in terms of absolute necessity, then (2) is false–just because a triangle's essence entails being three-sided, it doesn't follow that triangles exist in all possible worlds.

BV: If you are talking about particular material triangles, a triangular piece of metal for example, then it it is true that they do not exist in all worlds. And this despite the fact that every triangle is essentially three-sided. But what I mean by the essence of a concrete contingent individual such as a triangular piece of metal is the whatness or quiddity of that very individual minus its existence. Recall that I distinguish between wide and narrow senses of 'essence' on p. 68:

'Essence' is here employed in a wide sense to denote the conjunction of those properties that make up what a thing is, and not in the narrow sense according to which a thing's essential (as opposed to accidental) properties are those it cannot fail to possess. Thus in the wide sense of 'essence' being sunburned now is part of my essence, even though I might not have been sunburned now. Thus [both] narrowly essential and accidental properties (whether monadic or relational) are part of my wide essence.

So consider that triangular piece of metal. It exists, and it exists contingently, which is to say — avoiding possible worlds jargon — that it is possibly such that it does not exist. It might not have existed: there is no metaphysical necessity that it exist. But if the existence of x and the wide essence of x are one and the same — as the 'no difference theory' implies — then our triangular piece of metal exists just in virtue of its being what it is. That is equivalent to saying that its possibility entails its actuality, which is the definition of a necessary being. But that piece of metal is surely no necessary being. So I conclude that there is a real distinction between wide essence and existence in it and in every contingent being. What I argue in the book is that the metaphysical contingency of a contingent being is rooted in the real distinction.

If we read (2) in terms of conditional necessity, then (2) is true–a triangle is three-sided only in worlds where it exists–but this would render (6) false, since something can exist necessarily in a conditional sense and still be a contingent being.

It is certainly true — to put it my way — that a thing can have an essential property and "still be a contingent being." But this is not relevant to what I am saying.

You must bear in mind that I deny that existence is a property where P is a property =_df P is possibly such that it is instantiated. Your argument above seems to miss this important point. You seem to be assimilating existence to a property. We rightly distinguish essential and accidental properties, but existence is neither an essential nor an accidental property.

The existence of x is just too basic to be a property of x, but not so basic as to be identical to x!

Is this a fair reconstruction of your argument, and if so, how can the above objection be addressed?

I would say that you haven't grasped by argument. Comments are enabled in case you have a rejoinder.

Thank you for your time.

Best,

M. L. Pianist

Thank you for writing, M. L.

Back to Time, Tense, and Existence

What follows is a comment by David Brightly which just came in but is buried in the comments to an old entry. I have added my responses in blue.

…………………………

I have just spotted that you quote EJL as saying,

This, of course, raises the question of how we can so much as talk about Caesar now that he no longer exists simpliciter — how we can speak about 'that which is not.'

My understanding is that 'no longer' is a marker of a tensed verb. So Lowe appears to be using 'to exist simpliciter' as if it were tensed. This leaves me somewhat confused. I'm not at all sure that 'simpliciter' adds (or subtracts) anything here. Lowe's paragraph, minus the 'simpliciter', makes sense as ordinary tensed English.

BV: As you see it, David, 'Caesar no longer exists' and 'Caesar no longer exists simpliciter' express exactly the same thought. That same thought is expressed by 'Caesar existed but Caesar does not exist (present tense). 'Simpliciter' adds nothing to 'exists.'

I suppose that you will say that the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing — how can we speak about 'that which is not' when that which is not is not 'there' to be spoken of — is a pseudo-problem, at least when raised with respect to wholly past items. I suppose that you will say that we can now refer to Caesar because he existed, and that nothing more need be said. Your view, I take it, is that Caesar can, at the present time, be an object of successful reference and a logical subject of true predications without existing simpliciter or tense-neutrally. It suffices for successful reference to Caesar who is now nothing that he was something, i.e., that he existed. You might take it a step further and argue that the Platonic pseudo-problem arises from a failure to stick to ordinary tensed English, and that the 'problem' is dissolved (as opposed to solved) by simply using the tenses of our beloved mother tongue in their ordinary work-a-day ways and not allowing language to "go on holiday" (Wittgenstein).

To put words in your mouth: you are saying that there is no genuine problem about the reality of the past; said reality consists solely in the fact that we can use the past tense to make true statements, e. g., 'Churchill smoked cigars.'

Have I understood your position? If I have, then what we are really discussing is whether the debate that divides presentists and 'eternalists' is a genuine debate or instead a pseudo-debate sired by a misuse of language.

Also, further down you say,

However things stand with respect to the future, the past surely seems to have a share in reality.

Could you not have said '…the past seems to have had a share…'? Again,

The question is whether what WAS has a share in reality as opposed to being annihilated, reduced to nothing, by the passage of time. [my emphasis]

BV: I don't say it your way because I believe that 'existence simpliciter' has a specific, non-redundant use. I believe that one can sensibly ask whether what exists (present tense) exhausts what exists simpliciter. I believe that both of the following are substantive claims:

a) Only what exists (present tense) exists!

b) It is not the case that only what exists (present tense) exists!

For me, (a) is not a tautology, and (b) is not a contradiction. Why not? Because, for me, if x exists simpliciter, it does not follow that x exists (present tense). So if (a) is true, it is true as a matter of metaphysics, not as a matter of formal logic. And if (a) is false, it is not false as a matter of formal logic but as a matter of metaphysics.

You, David, do not admit the distinction between what exists (present tense) and what exists simpliciter. For you, 'exists simpliciter' collapses into 'exists' (present tense).

You then return to the truthmaker objection. It seems to me quite natural and unproblematic to say that the past both had a share in reality and has been reduced to nothing. Problems only appear when we say the past both has a share in reality and has been reduced to nothing.

BV: But of course I don't say that. It is contradictory to say that the past has a share in reality and has been reduced to nothing. I say that there are very good reasons to hold that the past is not nothing, that is is real (actual, not merely possible; factual not fictional) but merely lacks temporal presentness.

Suppose that a certain building B has been completely demolished. On your view B has been reduced to nothing. All will agree that B is now nothing. But you want to say more. You want to say that what is now nothing is nothing sans phrase (without qualification). You want to say that what is nothing now is nothing without any temporal qualification. Can you prove that? Can you refute the view that wholly past items, which by definition are nothing now, have (tenselessly) a share in reality? Can you prove that the past — past times, past events, processes, continuants, etc. — are simply nothing as opposed to nothing now?

The past is arguably actual, not merely possible, and factual, not fictional. If so it is (tenselessly) real, and therefore not nothing. The passage of time does not consign what has become wholly past to nothingness. Can you refute this view? I grant that it has its own problems. The main problem, as it seems to me, is to specify what it means to say that a temporal item — an item in time — exists tenselessly.

My view is that these problems about the relation of time and existence are genuine but insoluble. Your view, I take it, is that the problems are pseudo-problems susceptible of easy dissolutions if we just adhere to ordinary ways of talking.

Have I located the bone of contention? Or have I 'dislocated' it? (A pun I couldn't resist.)

Among the Riddles of Existence

Among the riddles of existence are the riddles that are artifacts of the attempts of thinkers to unravel the riddle of existence. This is one way into philosophy. It is the way of G. E. Moore. What riddled him was not the world so much as the strange things philosophers such as F. H. Bradley said about it.

If the Moorean way were the only way, there would be no philosophy. Moore was very sharp but superficial. Yet you cannot ignore him if you are serious about philosophy. For you cannot ignore surfaces and seemings and the sense that is common. Bradley, perhaps not as sharp, is deep. I am of the tribe of Bradley. Temperament and sensibility play major roles in our tribal affiliation as our own William James would insist and did insist in Chapter One of his Pragmatism with his distinction between the tender-minded and the tough-minded.

The entry to which I have just linked has it that the tender-minded are dogmatic as opposed to skeptical. Bradley, though tender-minded, is not. He is avis rara, not easily pigeon-holed. He soars above the sublunary in a manner quite his own. On wings of wax like Icarus? Like Kant's dove? Said dove soars through the air and imagines it could soar higher and with less effort if there were no air to offer resistance. But the dove is mistaken. The dove on the wing does not understand the principle of the wing, Bernoulli's principle. Is the metaphysician like the dove? The dove needs the air to fly. Can the metaphysician cut loose from the sensible and sublunary and make the ascent to the Absolute?

In the face of temperament and sensibility argument comes too late.

Bradley and James seem to agree on the latterliness of argument. In the preface to Appearance and Reality, Oxford 1893, Bradley quotes from his notebook:

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct. (p. x)

But why 'bad'? If I could speak to Bradley's shade I would suggest this emendation:

Metaphysics is the finding of plausible, though not rationally compelling, reasons for what we believe upon instinct . . . .

Nietzsche too can be brought in: "Every philosophy is its author's Selbsterkenntnis, self-knowledge."

As for Moore, is he the real deal? My young self scorned him. No true philosopher! He gets his problems from books, not from the world! The young man was basically right, but extreme in the manner of the young. I have come to appreciate Moore's subtlety and workmanship.

Singular Concepts and Singular Negative Existentials

A re-post from 15 May 2012. Reproduced verbatim.

………………………………….

London Ed seems to be suggesting that we need irreducibly singular concepts (properties, propositional functions) if we are properly to analyze grammatically singular negative existence statements such as

1. Vulcan does not exist.

But why do we need to take 'Vulcan' to express a singular concept or haecceity property? Why isn't the following an adequate analysis:

1A. The concept Small, intra-Mercurial planet whose existence explains the peculiarities of Mercury's orbit is not instantiated.

Note that the concept picked out by the italicized phrase is general, not singular. It is general even though only one individual instantiates it if any does. The fact that different individuals instantiate it at different possible worlds suffices to make the concept general, not irreducibly singular.

Could Scollay Square be a Meinongian Nonexistent Object?

Bill, newly arrived in Boston, believes falsely that Scollay Square exists and he wants to visit it. Bill asks Kathleen where it is. Kathleen tells him truly that it no longer exists, and Bill believes her. Both use 'Scollay Square' to refer to the same thing, a physical place, one that does not exist. To exist is to exist in reality. 'In reality' means outside the mind; it does not mean in the physical world.

So both Bill and Kathleen use 'Scollay Square' to refer to a physical place that does not exist. The two are not using (tokens of) 'Scollay Square' to refer to Fregean senses or to any similar abstract/ideal item.* Scollay Square is not such an item. It is concrete, i.e., causally active/passive. After all, it was demolished.

Now it could be that reference is routed through sense as Frege maintained. Perhaps there is no road to Bedeutung except through Sinn. Whether or not that is so, when Bill and Kathleen think and talk about Scollay Square, they are not thinking and talking about an abstract object that mediates reference, whether it be thinking reference or linguistic reference. They are thinking and talking about a concrete, physical thing that does not exist.

We also note that Bill and Kathleen are not thinking or talking about anything immanent to consciousness such as a mental content or a mental act. They are referring to a transcendent physical thing that does not exist. Scollay Square is not in the head or in the mind; if it were, it would exist! If memory serves, it was the illustrious Kasimir Twardowski who first made this point, leastways, the first in the post-Brentano discussion.

Therefore, some transcendent physical things do not exist. Copley Square is an example of a transcendent physical thing that does exist.

But you don't buy it do you? Explain why. (I don't buy it either.)

_______________

*Anglosophers use 'abstract'; Eurosophers sometimes use 'ideal.' Same difference (as a redneck student of mine used to say.)

Relations and Nonexistents

Consider the following two sentences:

a) Lions are smaller than dragons.
b) Mice are smaller than elephants.

From this datanic base a puzzle emerges.

1) The data sentences are both true.
2) 'Smaller than' has the same sense in both (a) and (b).
3) In both (a) and (b), 'smaller than' has the same reference: it refers to a dyadic relation.
4) No relation holds or obtains unless all its relata exist.

What we have here is an aporetic tetrad. The four propositions just listed are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true. What we have, then, is a philosophical problem in what I call canonical form. Any three of the above four, taken in conjunction, entails the negation of the remaining one. Which limb of the tetrad should we reject?

One might reject (4) while upholding (1), (2), and (3). Accordingly, some relations connect existents to non-existents. It is true that lions are smaller than dragons despite it being the case that dragons do not exist. The sense of 'smaller than' is the same in both (a) and (b). And 'smaller than' picks out one and the same dyadic relation in both (a) and (b).

The idea here is that there is nothing in the nature of a relation to require that its obtaining entails the existence of all its relata. Contrast thinking about the Trevi Fountain in Rome and thinking about the Fountain of Youth. Some will say that in both cases the intentional nexus is a genuine relation since there is nothing in the nature of a relation (to be precise: a specific relatedness) to require that all of its relata exist. It is the same relation, the intentional relation, whether I think of an existing item or think of a non-existent item.

If you don't like this solution you might try rejecting (2) while upholding the remaining limbs: 'smaller than' does not have the same sense in our data sentences. Accordingly, 'are smaller than' in (b) picks out a relation that actually connects mice and elephants. But in (a), 'are smaller than' does not pick out that relation. In (a), 'is smaller than' has the sense 'would be smaller than.' We are thus to understand (a) as having the sense of 'Lions would be smaller than dragons if there were any.'

(2)-rejection arguably falls afoul of Grice's Razor, to wit: one ought not multiply senses beyond necessity. Here is what Grice himself says:

[O]ne should not suppose what a speaker would mean when he used a word in a certain range of cases to count as a special sense of the word, if it should be predictable, independently of any supposition that there is such a sense, that he would use the word (or the sentence containing it) with just that meaning. (Grice, 1989, pp. 47-48, Quoted from Andrea Marchesi, "A radical relationist solution to intentional inexistence," Synthese, 2021.)

Pick your poison.

Is Existence 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 or reality. This is entirely in the Meinong-Twardowski tradition.

In other words, existence is complete determinateness or 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. By my lights, there has to be more to existence than completeness. If I am right, existence cannot be reduced to, or identified with, completeness.

Reader Grigory Aleksin just now reports that the late Dale Jacquette to whom I pay tribute here has a similar view:

Definition of Existence:" For any object O, O exists, has being or is an entity, if and only if O has a maximally consistent property combination."

Definition of a Maximally Consistent Property Combination:" A property combination PC for any logically possible object O is maximally consistent if and only if, for any logically possible extraontological property F, either F is in PC or non-F (the complement of F) is in PC, but not both"

Thus he holds that:

" A combinatorial ontology holds that existence is nothing more or [nor] less than completeness and consistency, or what is also called maximal consistency. The definition, properly understood and applied, provides a unified analysis of the concept of being for all entities, including existent objects, actual states of affairs and the actual world. "

"An extraontological property, as the name implies, is a property that by itself does not entail anything about an object’s ontic status, and that is not instantiated unless the relevant property combination is maximally consistent. To maintain that existence does not characterize any object says, in short form, that the object’s property combination is maximally consistent with no predicational gaps only if, for any extraontological property or property complement, the combination includes either the extraontological property or its complement, but not both."

The existence-is-completeness doctrine has a interesting consequence which, to my mind, amounts to a reductio ad absurdum:

What Jacquette is telling us is that any maximally consistent combination of properties or states of affairs exists just in virtue of being maximally consistent. I see two problems with this.

The first problem is that his view entails that every possible world is actual, in which case no possible world is absolutely actual. Accordingly, every possible world is at best actual-at-itself and not actual, full stop. We end up with a view very much like David Lewis's. Why do I say this? Well, if we consider all the possible combinations of states of affairs, there will not just be one that is maximally consistent and complete and thus existent, but many.

The second problem for Jacquette is that every maximally consistent combination of states of affairs is necessarily actual. So not only is every possible world actual at itself, but every such world is necessarily actual at itself.

Are these two problems really problems? (Are they bugs or features?) They are problems for me because I have contrary intuitions. By my lights, there can be only one actual world, and that world is both absolutely actual and contingently actual. Furthermore, there is no necessity that any world be actual. There might have been no world at all as Jacquette understands 'world': Possibly, no maximally consistent combination of states of affairs exists. It might have been like this: there is God, who exists of metaphysical necessity, and an infinity of maximally consistent combinations of states of affairs, but none of these combos exists in reality outside the divine mind.

This is equivalent to saying that, while existence entails completeness, completeness does not entail existence. Something must be superadded to a maximally consistent and complete combination of extraontological properties to make it exist. That something is existence. The superaddition to a complete essence of existence is what is known in theological terms as creation, at least on one view of divine creation.

I say that there is more to existence than completeness; Jacquette denies what I affirm. Is there any way to decide this rationally?

Untangling Plato’s Beard

I was asked by a commenter what motivates the thin theory of existence. One motivation is

. . . the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor. (Willard Van Orman Quine, "On What There Is" in From a Logical Point of View, Harper Torchbook ed., 1963, pp. 1-2)

As I see it, here is how the paradox arises.

1) 'Pegasus does not exist' is true. Therefore:

2) The sentence in question has meaning. (Only meaningful sentences have a truth value.)

3) If a sentence has meaning, then so do its (sentential and sub-sentential) parts. (Compositionality of meaning.) Therefore:

4) 'Pegasus' has meaning. Therefore:

5) Something is such that 'Pegasus' refers to it. ('Pegasus' is a proper name, and the meaning of a proper name is its referent, that to which it refers.) Therefore:

6) 'Pegasus' refers to something that exists. (Everything exists; there are no nonexistent objects; one cannot refer to what does not exist for it is not there to be referred to.) Therefore:

7) Pegasus must exist for it to be true that Pegasus does not exist. Paradox!

None of the first four propositions is plausibly denied. To avoid the conclusion, we must deny either (5) or (6) and the assumptions that generate them. Now Quine is no Meinongian/Wymanian. Quine advocates a Russellian solution which amounts to rejecting (5) by rejecting the assumption that the meaning of a proper name is exhausted by its reference. For Russell, ordinary proper names are definite descriptions in disguise. This allows them to have meaning or sense without reference. Thus 'Pegasus' is elliptical for 'the winged horse of Greek mythology.' This allows the following contextual paraphrase of 'Pegasus does not exist':

It is not the case that there exists an x such x is the winged horse of Greek mythology

which is free of paradox. What the paraphrase says is that the definite description which gives the sense of 'Pegasus' is not satisfied. Equivalently, it says that the concept winged horse of Greek mythology is not instantiated. Thus the original sentence, which appeared to be about something that does not exist but which, if it existed, would be an animal, is really about about a description or concept which does exist and which is assuredly not an animal.

It is a brilliant solution, prima vista. It works for negative general existentials as well. 'Unicorns do not exist,' despite its surface grammar, cannot be about unicorns — after all, there aren't any — it is about the concept unicorn and predicates of it the property of not being instantiated. Extending the analysis to affirmative general existentials, we can say that 'Horses exist,' for example, is not about horses — after all, which horses would it be about? — it is about the concept horse and predicates of it the property of being instantiated.

What about singular affirmative existentials such as 'Harry exists'? Quine maintains that, in a pinch, one can turn a name into a verb and say, with truth, 'Nothing pegasizes' thereby avoiding both Plato's Beard and Meinong's Jungle so as to enjoy, clean-shaven, the desert landscape bathed in lambent light. So what's to stop us from saying 'Something Harry-sizes'? (Quite a bit, actually, but I won't go into that in this post, having beaten it to death in numerous other entries. Briefly, there are no haecceity-concepts: there is no such concept Harry-ness that (i) can exist uninstantiated; (ii) if instantiated is instantiated by Harry and Harry alone in the actual world; (iii) is not instantiated by anything distinct from Harry in any possible world.)

Let us now pause to appreciate what the Russellian (or rather 'Fressellian') approach accomplishes in the eyes of its advocates. It untangles Plato's Beard. It avoids Meinong's jungle. It preserves the existence-nonexistence contrast by situating it at the second level, that of descriptions, concepts, propositional functions, properties, as the contrast between satisfaction-nonsatisfaction (for descriptions), instantiation-noninstantiation (for concepts and properties), and having a value-not having a value for propositional functions, or as Russell puts it, being sometimes true or the opposite.

What's more, it diagnoses the failure of certain versions of the ontological argument. Descartes' Meditation Five version has it that God exists because God has all perfections and existence is a perfection. But if Frege and Russell are right, existence is not even a property of God let alone a perfection of him inasmuch as '. . .exist(s)' has no legitimate use as a first-level predicate and can be be properly deployed only as a second-level predicate. (God is an individual.)

Last, but not least, the Fressellian analysis consigns entire libraries of school metaphysics to he flames, the books in which drone on endlessly about Being and Existence and the distinctio realis, and the analogia entis, and ipsum esse subsistens, ad nauseam. Swept aside are all the hoary and endlessly protracted debates about the relation of essence and existence in individuals: is it a real distinction, and what could that mean? Is it a formal distinction, and what could that mean? Etc. On the Frege-Russell approach there simply is no existence of individuals.

And now you know why the thin theory is called 'thin.' It could also be called 'shallow' in that it eliminates existence as a deep and mysterious topic. The thin theory disposes of existence as a metaphysical topic, reducing it to a merely logical topic. As Quine famously says in an essay other than the one cited above, "Existence is what existential quantification expresses." Thus 'Cats exist' says no more and no less than 'For some x, x is a cat.' You will note that the analysans makes no mention of existence. It features only the word 'cat' and some logical machinery. Existence drops out as a metaphysical topic.

Of course, I don't accept the thin theory; but as you can see, I appreciate what motivates it in the minds of its adherents.

A Reader Asks about Existence and Instantiation

My responses are in blue.

Hello, Dr. Vallicella. I am a reader of your blog. I just read your article "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics (eds. Novotny and Novak, Routledge, 2014, pp. 45-75 , and I thought it was fantastic. I will have to read it again at some point. There were some parts in it that I found very interesting, and I was hoping I could ask you about. I want to focus on what you said in section 6.6, page 57. You write:

"It is clear that “Unicorns do not exist” cannot be about unicorns: There are none. So it is reasonably analysed in terms of “ The concept unicorn is not instantiated”. But then the concept must exist, and its existence cannot be its being instantiated."

The question I wanted to ask you was specifically about the final part, "But then the concept must exist, and its existence cannot be its being instantiated". I will try to keep the questions as brief as possible,

The thin theorist might not identify the existence of the concept of a unicorn with its being instantiated, but with the concept of the concept of the unicorn being instantiated, and so on . . .

1) If it were possible that there be an infinite number of concepts, would there be any problem with this view?

BV: An infinite regress would arise.

2) Clearly, we have a regress here, but is it vicious?

BV: Yes, because there would be no explanation of the existence of the first concept in the infinite series. You might reply by saying that the series is actually, as opposed to potentially, infinite. If so, then every concept in the series would have an explanation of its existence. To which my response would be: what explains the existence of the entire actually infinite series of concepts?

(An analogous situation. Suppose the universe is a beginningless actual infinity of continuum-many states with each state caused by earlier ones. If so, every state would have a causal explanation. But if every state of the universe has a causal explanation, then one might plausibly suppose that the universe has a causal explanation, one that is internal to it. Some people have maintained this with an eye toward ruling out the need for a transcendent explainer such as God. "There is no need for God because a universe with an actually infinite past has the resources to explain itself." My objection would be that this account leaves us with no explanation of why the entire series of states exists in the first place. Given that the entire series is modally contingent, and thus possibly such as not to exist at all, then any explanation of it, assuming that there is an explanation of it, could only be external or transcendent. Now back to the main thread.)

One might also question whether the concept regress could even get started. You want to say that the concept unicorn exists in virtue of its being an instance of the concept concept unicorn. But these two concepts have exactly the same content. How then do they differ? The concept unicorn is an instance of the concept concept, but I fail to see any difference between the concept unicorn and the concept concept unicorn.

3) The overall worry is that if we define x's existence in terms of instantiation, and then ask 'what are "x's"', we say things in existence, and, this is circular, but, since we are simply dealing with the analysis of terms, aren't we only dealing with semantic circularity? I am not sure that there is any problem with this sort of circularity (if there is a problem, it would be with the informativeness with the analysis rather than the accuracy).

BV: But we are not merely dealing with the analysis of terms; we are seeking to understand what it is for an individual to exist, given that the existence of a thing is extra-linguistic. Let's keep in mind what the question is. The question is whether an adequate theory of existence could treat '. . . exist(s)' as a second-level or second-order predicate only, that is, a predicate of concepts, properties, propositional functions, descriptions (definite or indefinite), or cognate items. That is the Frege-Russell theory that I have in my sights in the portion of text to which my reader refers.

Granted, it is true that Fs exist iff the concept F is instantiated. For example, it is true that cats exist iff the concept cat is instantiated. (This assumes that there is the concept cat, which is certainly true in our world if not in all possible worlds: it depends on what we take concepts to be.) But the right-hand-side (RHS) of the biconditional merely specifies a truth-condition on the semantic plane: it does not take us beyond or beneath that plane to the plane of extra-linguistic reality. The truth of the LHS requires an ontological ground, a truth-maker, not a truth-condition. For consider: if the concept cat is instantiated, then, since it is a first-order concept, and relational as opposed to monadic, it is instantiated by one or more individuals. Individuals by definition are impredicable and uninstantiable. My cat Max Black, for example, is categorially unfit to have any instances, and you can't predicate him of anything. The little rascal is unrepeatable and impredicable.

Now either the instantiating individuals exist or they do not. If they do not, then the truth of the biconditional above is not preserved. But if they do exist, then the sense in which the instances exist is toto caelo different from the sense specified by 'is instantiated.' To repeat, by definition, individuals cannot be instantiated; therefore, the existence of an individual –call it singular existence – cannot be explicated in terms of instantiation.

The instantiation account of existence either changes the subject from singular existence to general existence (instantiation) or else it moves in a circle of embarrassingly short diameter. We want to know what it is for individuals to exist, and we are told that for individuals to exist is for first-level concepts to be instantiated; but for these concepts to be instantiated, their instances must exist singularly and thus in a sense that cannot be explicated in terms of instantiation. To put it another way: the account presupposes what it is trying to get rid of. It wants to reduce singular existence to general existence, thereby eliminating singular existence, but it ends up presupposing singular existence. If you tell me that the instances neither exist nor do not exist and that this contrast first arises at the level of concepts , then I will point out that you are thereby committed to Meinongian objects, to pure Sosein without Dasein.

The circularity I allege is the circularity of ontological/metaphysical explanation. Is 'Tom exists' true because Tom exists, or does Tom exist because 'Tom exists' is true? If this question makes sense to you and you respond by opting for the former, then you understand metaphysical explanation. It is an explanation that is neither empirical nor narrowly logical. Somewhat murky it might be, but nonetheless indispensable for metaphysics. Similarly with the question: does Tom exist because some concept C is instantiated, or is C instantiated because Tom exists? The question makes sense and the answer is the latter.

I want to note that these are questions someone asked me about this view, and I wasn't sure how to respond, even though I ultimately do agree with your analysis of the thin theory. For the third problem, I would have said that that sort of response would merely ignore the fact that the question 'what is existence?' has ontological consequences, and is not merely a question of semantics. [Right!] If that is all we are concerned with (semantics), then we are concerned with something different than what most classical philosophers are concerned with when they are talking about the question 'what is existence?', which is the ontological aspect of that question, and as such, the circularity issue is a real problem. [You got it!]

BV: The problem with Frege, Russell, Quine, van Inwagen, and the rest of the 'thin crew' is that they try to reduce existence to a merely logical topic. An opposite or at least different mistake is made by the phenomenologists who (most of them, not all of them) try to reduce existence to a phenomenological topic. Heidegger, near the beginning of Sein und Zeit, opines that "Ontology is only possible as phenomenology."

So I got me a two-front war on my hands: against the nuts-and-bolts analysts to the West and against the febrile phenomenologists to the East.

Nominalism, Existence, and Subsistence

Here are five versions of nominalism by my current count:

Mad-Dog Nominalism: No word has an extra-linguistic referent, not even proper names such as 'Peter' and 'Paul.'

Extreme Nominalism: The only words that have existing referents are proper names like 'Peter' and Paul'; nothing in reality corresponds to such predicates as 'blond.' And a fortiori nothing corresponds to copulae and logically connective words such as 'and' and 'or.'

Nominalism Proper: Particulars (unrepeatables) alone exist: there are no universals (repeatables). This view allows that something in reality corresponds to predicates such as 'blond' as in 'Peter is blond.' It is just that what this predicate denotes is not a universal but a particular, a trope say, or an Aristotelian accident. What I am calling nominalism proper also allows for abstract particulars where an item is abstract just in case it is non-spatio-temporal and causally inert. Mathematical sets, for example are abstract particulars. The set: {x: x is a prime number and x is less than 1o} is abstract because it has no spatiotemporal location and is causally inert. It is particular because it is unrepeatable which is equivalent to saying that it is not possibly such as to be instantiated. Sets have members — the null set aside — but no instances. (Quiz for the reader: tell me the cardinality of the set just mentioned.)

Reistic Nominalism: Attach the codicil 'There are no abstract items' to nominalism proper and the result is reistic nominalism. On this view only particulars exist, and all particulars are concrete (non-abstract). Franz Brentano is his later years was a reist. See the SEP entry, Reism.

Methodological Nominalism: This is the view that we ought never assume that for each word there is a corresponding entity.

I hope no one is crazy enough to be a mad-dog nominalist, and that everyone is sane enough to be a methodological nominalist. The three middle positions, however, are subject to reasonable controversy. They are not obviously false and they are not obviously true. What I am calling extreme nominalism has little to recommend it, but I think nominalism proper is quite a reasonable position. As it seems to me, there has to be something extra-linguistic (and extra-mental) corresponding to the predicate in 'Peter is blond,' but it is not obvious that it must be a universal.

Thomas Beale sent me to a blog post of his that begins as follows:

Nominalism is a philosophical doctrine usually understood to entail a rejection of universals, in favour of the belief that only the concrete exists. Universals are understood as instantiable entities, i.e. something like types. Another flavour of nominalism involves rejection of abstracta, such as mathematical entities, propositions, fictional entities (including possible worlds).

I personally think that most nominalist arguments are straightforwardly wrong, but not for the usual reasons that universals and/or abstracta are said by realists to exist, but for the opposite reason: types and abstracta are just there, even if they don’t ‘exist’, in the sense of being spatio-temporally concretised. The real problem is that we misuse the word exists at least half the time in philosophy. The way we should talk is to say things like: there are universals . . . .

So that’s why nominalists are wrong. There are universals, but they don’t exist.

First of all, it is no misuse of 'exist/exists' to use these expressions interchangeably with 'is/are.' It is standard English to use them interchangeably. Examples: I am; I exist. God is; God exists. Island volcanoes exist; there are island volcanoes. Unicorns do not exist; unicorns are not; there exist no unicorns; there are no unicorns. Scollay Square once existed; Scollay Square once was. Socrates would never have come to be had his parents never met; Socrates would never have come to exist had his parents never met. And so on.

Nevertheless, we are not the slaves of ordinary language and one is free to distinguish between existence and being as Bertrand Russell did in Principles of Mathematics.

Now if existence is the mode of being enjoyed by all and only spatiotemporal items, then abstracta and transcendent universals do not exist. (A transcendent universal is one that needn't be instantiated to be. An immanent universal is one that cannot be unless it is instantiated.) If transcendent universals are, but do not exist, then they enjoy the mode of being called subsistence. This seems to be what Mr Beale is telling us.

Here is an interesting question. Suppose with David Armstrong that universals are immanent –ones-in-many, not ones-over many — and that first-order immanent universals are constituents of thick spatio-temporal particulars. Would not these universals be "spatio-temporally concretised" in Beale's words? Suppose universal U is a constituent of a, b, and c — concrete existing spatiotemporal particulars — and is wholly present in each without prejudice to its unity as a universal. Would U then not be "spatio-temporally concretised" and therefore existent?

One more question. If there were a good argument for either nominalism proper and/or reistic nominalism, would that not also be a good argument against universals and abstracta that are but do not exist? He who fights shy of multiplying entities beyond necessity does not care whether the entities exist or subsist.

Finally, aren't there good objections to the notion that there are modes of being?

Notes on Nicholas Rescher, “Nonexistents Then and Now”

0. This entry is relevant to my ongoing dialog with Dr. Novak about reference to the nonexistent. I hope he has the time and the stamina to continue the discussion. I have no doubt that he has the 'chops.' I thank him for the stimulation. We philosophize best with friends, as Aristotle says somewhere. But to the Peripatetic is also attributed the thought that amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas.

The Rescher text under scrutiny is from a chapter in his Scholastic Meditations, Catholic UP, 2005, 126-148.

1. One objection I have is that Rescher tends to conflate the epistemological with the ontological. A careful reading of the following passage shows the conflation at work. I have added comments in brackets in blue. Bolding added, italics in original.

To begin, note that a merely possible world is never given. It is not something we can possibly encounter in experience. The only world that confronts us in the actual course of things is the real world, this actual world of ours — the only world to which we gain entry effortlessly, totally free of charge. [This is practically a tautology. All Rescher is saying is that the only world we can actually experience is the actual world, merely possible worlds being, by definition, not actual.] To move from it, we must always do something, namely, make a hypothesis — assumption, supposition, postulation, or the like. The route of hypotheses affords the only cognitive access to the realm of nonexistent possibility. [Rescher's wording suggests that there is a realm of nonexistent possibility and that we can gain cognitive access to it.] For unlike the real and actual world, possible worlds never come along of themselves and become accessible to us without our actually doing something, namely, making an assumption or supposition or such-like. Any possible world with which we can possibly deal will have to be an object of our contrivance – of our making by means of some supposition or assumption. [In this last sentence Rescher clearly slides from an epistemological claim, one about how we come to know the denizens of the realm of nonexistent possibility, to an ontological claim about what merely possible worlds and their denizens ARE, namely, objects of our contrivance.](131)

Rescher wants to say about the merely possible what he says about the purely fictional, namely, that pure ficta are objects of our contrivance. But this too, it seems to me, is an illicit conflation. The purely fictional is barred from actuality by its very status as purely fictional: Sherlock Holmes cannot be actualized. What cannot be actualized is not possible; it is impossible. Sherlock Holmes is an impossible item. He is impossible because he is incomplete. Only the complete (completely determinate) is actualizable. Sherlock is incomplete because he is the creation of a finite fiction writer: Sherlock has all and only the properties ascribed to him by Conan Doyle. Not even divine power could bring about the actualization of the Sherlock of the Conan Doyle stories. What God could do is bring about the actualization of various individuals with all or some of Sherlock's properties. None of those individuals, however, would be Sherlock. Each of them would differ property-wise from Sherlock.

2. The conflation of the merely possible with the purely fictional is connected with another mistake Rescher makes. Describing the "medieval mainstream," (129) Rescher lumps mere possibilia and pure ficta together as entia rationis. For this mistake, Daniel Novotny takes him to task, explaining that "Suarez and most other Baroque scholastics considered merely possible beings to be real, and hence they were not classified as beings of reason." (Ens Rationis from Suarez to Caramuel, Fordham UP, 2013, p. 27) Entia rationis, beings of reason, are necessarily mind-dependent impossible objects. Mere possibilia are not, therefore, entia rationis.

3. As I understand it, the problem of the merely possible is something like this. Merely possible individuals and states of affairs are not nothing, nor are they fictional. And of course their possibility is not merely epistemic, or parasitic upon our ignorance. Merely possible individuals and states of affairs have some sort of mind-independent reality. But how the devil can we make sense of this mind-independent reality given that the merely possible, by definition, is not actual? Suppose we cast the puzzle in the mold of an aporetic triad:

a. The merely possible is not actual.

b. The merely possible is real (independently of finite minds).

c. Whatever is real is actual.

Clearly, the members of this trio cannot all be true. Any two of them, taken in conjunction, entails the negation of the remaining one. For example, the conjunction of the last two propositions entails the negation of the first.

What are the possible solutions given that the triad is genuinely logically inconsistent and given that the triad is soluble? I count exactly five possible solutions.

S1. Eliminativism. The limbs are individually undeniable but jointly inconsistent, which is to say: there are no mere possibilia. One could be an error theorist about mere possibilia. On this solution we deny the common presupposition of (a) and (b), namely, that there are merely possible individuals and states of affairs.

S2. Conceptualism. Deny (b) while accepting the other two limbs. There are mere possibilia, but what they are are conceptual constructions by finite minds. This is essentially Rescher's view. See his A Theory of Possibility: A Constructivistic and Conceptualistic Theory of Possible Individuals and Possible Worlds (Basil Blackwell, 1975). He could be described as an artifactualist about possibilities: "A possible individual is an intellectual artifact: the product of a projective 'construction' . . . ." (p. 61)

S3. Actualism/Ersatzism. Deny (a) while accepting the other two limbs. One looks for substitute entities — actual entities — to go proxy for the mere possibles. Thus, on one approach, the merely possible state of affairs of there being a unicorn is identified with an actual abstract entity, the property of being a unicorn. For the possibility to be actual is for the the property to be instantiated.

On this version of actualism, the mind-independent reality of the merely possible is identified with the mind-independent reality of certain actual abstract items. In this way one avoids both eliminativism and constructivism.

S4. Extreme Modal Realism. Deny (c) while accepting the other two limbs. David Lewis. There is a plurality of possible worlds conceived of as maximal merelogical sums of concreta. The worlds and their inhabitants are all equally real. But no world is absolutely actual. Each is merely actual at itself. In this world, I am a philosopher. On extreme modal realism, the possibility of my being an electrical engineer instead is understood as various counterparts of me being electrical engineers in various possible worlds.

S5. Theologism. Deny (c) while accepting the other two limbs. We bring God into the picture to secure the reality of the possibles instead of a plurality of equally real worlds. Consider the possibility of there being unicorns. This is a mere possibility since it is not actual. But the possibility is not nothing: it is a definite possibility, a real possibility that does not depend for its reality on finite minds. There aren't any unicorns, but there really could have been some, and the fact of this mere possibility has nothing to do with what we do or think or say. The content of the possibility subsists as an object of the divine intellect, and its actualizability is grounded in God's power. We could perhaps say that possibilia enjoy esse intentionale in or before the divine intellect, but lack esse reale unless the divine will actualizes them.

4. Part of Rescher's support for his constructivism/conceptualism/artifactualism is his attack on the problem of transworld identity. For Rescher, "the issue of transworld identity actually poses no real problems — a resolution is automatically available." Rescher's argument is hard to locate due to his bloated, meandering, verbose style of writing. Rescher rarely says anything in a direct and pithy way if he can pad it out with circumlocutions and high-falutin' phraseology. (I confess to sometimes being guilty of this myself.)

But basically such argument as I can discern seems to involve equivocation on such terms as 'individuation' and 'identity' as between epistemological and ontological senses. He gives essentially the following argument on p. 141. This is my reconstruction and is free of equivocation.

A. All genuine individuals are complete.

B. All merely possible individuals are complete only if completely describable by us.

C. No merely possible individuals are completely describable by us.

Therefore

D. No merely possible individuals are genuine individuals.

But why should we accept (B)? Why can't there be nonexistent individuals that are complete? Rescher just assumes that the properties of such individuals must be supplied by us. But that is to beg the question against those who believe in the reality of the merely possible. He just assumes the truth of artifactualism about the merely possible. Consider the following sentences

d. Bill Clinton is married to Hillary Rodham.

e. Bill Clinton remained single.

f. Bill Clinton married someone distinct from Hillary Rodham.

Only the first sentence is true, but, I want to say, the other two are possibly true: they pick out merely possible states of affairs. There are three possible worlds involved: the actual world and two merely possible worlds. Now does 'Bill Clinton' pick out the same individual in each of these three worlds? I am inclined to say yes, despite the fact that we cannot completely describe the world in which our boy remains single or the world in which he marries someone other than Hillary. But Rescher will have none of this because his conceptualism/constructivism/ artifactualism bars him from holding that actual individuals in merely possible worlds or merely possible individuals have properties other that those we hypothesize them as having. So, given the finitude of our hypothesizing, actual individuals in merely possible worlds, or merely possible individuals, can only be incomplete items, multiply realizable schemata, and thus not genuine individuals. But then the possible is assimilated to the fictional.

5, How solve the triad? Novak will put God to work and adopt something along the lines of (S5). I am inclined to say that the problem, while genuine, is insoluble, and that the aporetic triad is a genuine aporia.

Existence as Completeness? Gilson on Scotus, Thomas, and the Real Distinction

I composed this entry with Lukáš Novák in mind. I hope to secure his comments.

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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 or reality. This is entirely in the Meinong-Twardowski tradition.

In other words, existence is complete determinateness or 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. My intuitions on this matter are Thomistic rather than Scotistic.

According to Etienne Gilson, Duns Scotus held that actually to exist in reality = to be complete:

. . . actual existence appears only when an essence is, so to speak, bedecked with the complete series of its determinations. (Being and Some Philosophers, Pontifical Institute, Toronto, 1952, 2nd ed. , 89)

Actual existence thus appears as inseparable from the essence when essence is taken in its complete determination. (88)

An actually existing essence is, meaning by "is" that it exists, as soon as it is fully constituted by its genus, its species, its own individual "thisness," as well as all the accidents which go to make up its being. (86)

It follows that an actually existing thing is not the result of the superaddition of existence to a complete essence, but is just an essence in its completeness. This implies that there is no distinctio realis. For if an actually existing individual essence exists in virtue of being completely determinate, then there cannot be any distinction in reality between that complete essence and its existence. If Socrates is a wholly determinate essence, then, on the Scotist view as glossed by Gilson, there is no need for anything more to make him exist: nothing needs to be added ab extra.

What we have here are two very different theories of existence. For the Scotist, existence belong in the order of essence as the maximal determinateness of essence. For the Thomist, existence does not belong in the order of essence but is situated 'perpendicular' to it. Is there any way rationally to decide between these views? Could there be complete nonexistent objects? If yes, then the Scotist view would stand refuted. If no, then the Thomist view would stand refuted.

Well, 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, but 'now' is actual. The difference is not one of essence, but one of existence.

So, while existence entails completeness, why should completeness entail existence?

(Other questions arise at this point which are off-topic, for example, why Charley over Barley? Why Charley 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. But these questions are off-topic. Focus like a laser on the question about the 'nature' of existence.)

The theological imagery is supposed to help you understand the ontological point. But we needn't bring God into it. It would also not be to the point to protest that God creates out of nothing, not out of mere possibles. My concern here is with the nature of existence, not with the nature of God or of divine creation. All I need for my argument is the possibility that there be maximally determinate individual essences that do not exist. If there are, then existence is not completeness. But one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens. Can either side refute the other?

In the end the dispute may come down to a profound and irresolvable difference in intuitions.

What say you, Dr. Novak?

God and Existence: How Related?

A reader asks:

You seem to hold that, if God is identical to his existence, then God is Existence itself. Why think that? Why not think instead that, if God is identical to his existence, then he is identical to his 'parcel' of existence, as it were?

This is an entirely reasonable question. I will try to answer it.

First of all, when we say that God is identical to his existence, we mean that there is no real distinction in God between essence (nature) and existence in the way in which there is a real distinction in Socrates (our representative creature) between essence (nature) and existence. It is the real distinction in Socrates that grounds his metaphysical contingency, while it is the lack of such a distinction in God that grounds his metaphysical necessity.

This is to say that God, unlike creatures, is ontologically simple. In a slogan of St Augustine, God is what he has. Thus he has his existence by being his existence. In this one case, the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication coalesce. Why must God be simple? Because he is the absolute reality. If your god is not the absolute reality, then your god is not God but an idol. The absolute cannot depend on anything else for its nature or existence on pain of ceasing to be the absolute. It must possess aseity, from-itself-ness.

Now Existence is in some way common to everything that exists, though it is not common in the manner of a property or a concept. Thus God and Socrates have Existence in common. If God is not identical to Existence, then he is like Socrates and must depend on Existence as something other than himself to exist. But this violates the divine aseity.

Therefore, God is not only identical to his existence, he is identical to Existence itself.

Objection: "If God is identical to Existence, then God alone exists, which flies in the face of the evident fact that there is a plurality of non-divine existents."

Reply: The objection succeeds only if there are no different ways of existing. But if God exists-underivatively and creatures exist-derivatively, then God's identity with Existence does not entail that God alone exists; it entails that God alone exists-underivatively.

The picture is this. Existence is that which makes derivative existents exist. If Existence did not itself exist, then nothing would exist. So Existence itself exists. It is identical to God. God is the unsourced Source of everything distinct from God. God, as Existence itself, is the Paradigm Existent. God is at once both Existence and the prime case of Existence.

In this respect, God is like a Platonic Form in which all else participates. (It is worth recalling in this connection that Aquinas speaks of God as forma formarum, the form of all forms.) God is self-existent Existence; creatures are not self-existent, but derive their existence from self-existent Existence.

Objection: "This scheme issues in something like the dreaded Third Man Regress. If Socrates and Plato both exist by participating in Existence, which exists, then there are three things that exist, Socrates, Plato, and Existence, each of which exists by participation. If so, there must be a second Existence, Existence-2 that Socrates, Plato and Existence-1 participate in. But then an infinite regress is up and running, one that is, moreover, vicious."

Response: The Third Man Regress is easily blocked by distinguishing the way Existence exists and the way derivative existents exist. Socrates exists by participating in Existence; Existence exists, not by participation, but by being (identical to) Existence.

There is exactly one case in which existence = self-identity. This is the case of the Paradigm Existent, which is Existence itself, which is God. If God is God, then God exists. (Bonaventura) In every other case, existence is not self-identity. No doubt Socrates is self-identical; but his self-identity is not the ground of his existence.

A Contingent Self-Existent?

Tom asks,

Does it make sense to say that something could be contingently self-existent? I'm assuming that 'being self-existent' is not the same thing as 'existing necessarily', for then my question wouldn't make sense. Maybe I'm wrong to make this distinction. But if I'm not, can it be a contingent matter that x exists and has self-existence?

The answer depends on what 'self-existent' is taken to mean. If it doesn't mean necessarily existent, then the only other possibility that comes to mind is self-causing. Accordingly, if x is self-existent, then x is not caused by another to exist, but causes itself to exist. This, however, is inconceivable. For a thing cannot do any causing unless it already (logically speaking) exists. Therefore, nothing can cause its own existence. There is no 'existential bootstrapping.' Nothing can haul its (nonexistent) self out of the dreck of nonexistence by its own (nonexistent) bootstraps.

My answer, then, is that nothing is contingently self-existent.

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ADDENDUM (1/11)

After writing the above, I recalled that my late friend Quentin Smith had argued that the universe caused itself to exist, and that I responded in the pages of the British journal Philosophy 75 (2000), pp. 604-612.

ABSTRACT: This article responds to Quentin Smith's, "The Reason the Universe Exists is that it Caused Itself to Exist," Philosophy 74 (1999), 579-586. My rejoinder makes three main points. The first is that Smith's argument for a finitely old, but causally self-explanatory, universe fails from probative overkill: if sound, it also shows that all manner of paltry event-sequences are causally self-explanatory. The second point is that the refutation of Smith's argument extends to Hume's argument for an infinitely old causally self-explanatory universe, as well as to Smith's two 'causal loop' arguments. The problem with all four arguments is their reliance on Hume's principle that to explain the members of a collection is ipso facto to explain the collection. This principle succumbs to counterexamples. The third point is that, even if Hume's principle were true, Smith's argument could not succeed without the aid of a theory of causation according to which causation is production (causation of existence).

My article is here.