Existence – Page 3 – Maverick Philosopher

The Aporetics of Existence: Do Existing Things Have Existence?

A reader inquires,

I have been wondering about whether existing things have existence. This seems obvious to me, but Bradley's regress makes me think twice. For if existing things have existence, then given that existence exists, existence also has existence. And since this latter existence also exists, it also has existence. And so on.

What do you make of this problem?

There is a problem here, but since Bradley's regress concerns relations, we can leave Mr. Bradley out of it. And there is a problem even if there is no vicious infinite regress. (Not every infinite regress is vicious; some are, if not virtuous, at least benign.) Here is the problem as I see it. We start with a datum and we end with a paradox.

1) This table in front of me exists.

2) The table exists, but it might not have, which is to say that it exists contingently. There is no metaphysical necessity that it exist.

3) What accounts for the contingency of the thing's existence? Equivalently, what accounts for the real possibility of the thing's nonexistence? (A real possibility is one that is not epistemic or factitious.)

4) A classical answer is in terms of a distinction between the thing and its existence/existing. This distinction is not merely excogitated by us but corresponds to a difference in reality; it is therefore called a real distinction. 'Real' is from res, thing. A contingent being, then, is one in which essence and existence are really distinct in the sense that, in reality or extra-mentally, the existence/existing of the being is no part of what the thing is. A non-contingent being is one that is either impossible or necessary, and a necessary being is one whose existence is part of what the thing is. God is the prime example of a necessary being. In God essence and existence are one, which is to say: in God, there is no real distinction between essence and existence.

5) Pace Giles of Rome, however, the real distinction between a thing and its existence is not a distinction between two things metaphysically capable of independent existence. A thing metaphysically capable of independent existence is by definition a substance. Clearly, my table is not a collection of two substances, one its essence, the other its existence. Hence the distinction between a thing and its existence is not at all like the distinction between my eye glasses and my head or that between my table and the chair in front of it. They are really distinct and separable. The table and its existence are really distinct but inseparable. The latter distinction is more like the distinction between the concavity and convexity of a lens. It is a real distinction, but neither term of the distinction can exist without the other.

Therefore

6) If the individual essence of the table (its whaness or quiddity in the broad sense) is the concrete table taken in abstraction from its existence, then, pace Avicenna and his latter-day colleague Alexius von Meinong, this essence does not itself exist. The same holds for the existence of the table: it does not itself exist. What exists is the concrete table which is composed of essence and existence as mutually dependent ontological factors. If you think otherwise, and think of essence and existence as substances in their own right, then you have committed the fallacy of hypostatization or reification. (The only difference is that between Greek and Latin.)

7) If the existence of the table does not itself exist, is the existence of the table nothing at all? The existence of a thing is that in virtue of which it exists. If you say that the existence of a thing is nothing at all, then either (i) the table does not exist, contrary to fact, or (ii) the existence of the table is (identically) the table, in which case we have no account of the contingency of the thing. Argument for (i): the existence of my table is that in virtue of which my table exists; ergo, if the existence of my table is nothing at all, then my table is nothing at all and does not exist, which is contrary to our datanic starting point. Argument for (ii): For the table to be contingent, it must be really distinct from its existence: if its essence were identical to its existence it would be a necessary being. (God is a necessary being precisely because there is no distinction in him between essence and existence. Of course, we cannot think about God without distinguishing God's essence or nature and God's existence; but this distinction finds no purchase in God: it is a necessary makeshift in the sense that without it we cannot think of God.)

8) The paradox is now upon us. With respect to contingent beings, we seem forced to say that the existence of such a being both is (exists) and is not (does not exist). Both limbs of this aporetic dyad are reasonably asserted. But of course a contradiction cannot be true. Of course. That is why the dyad is an aporia, an impasse that the discursive intellect cannot negotiate. No way, man!

Limb One. To explain the contingency of the table we have to distinguish the (individual) essence of the concrete table from its existence. It would avail nothing to bring in talk of possible worlds and say that a contingent being is one that exists in some but not all possible worlds. For 'possible worlds' are merely a representational device to render graphic modal relationships. (I cannot explain this any further now. See my Modality category.) So if we want to explain the contingency of concrete particulars and not leave it unexplained, then it seems we must distinguish between the thing (or the essence of the thing) and the thing's existence. Therefore, the thing's existence/existing cannot be nothing. It must exist.

Limb Two. There are no bare existents: necessarily, whatever exists has a nature or at least some quidditative properties. So if the existence of my table itself exists, then it has a nature. The nature it would have, presumably would be that of a table, not that of a turnip or a valve-lifter. But then we have two tables, which is absurd. The pressure is on to say that the existing of the thing is nothing at all.

The paradox is that both halves of the contradiction are rationally defensible.

Is there a solution?

If there is a solution, I'd like to know what it is. Please don't say that the existence of the table is one of its properties, a property that does not exist on its own, and is therefore not a substance, but only in the table in the manner of an accident or in the manner of an immanent universal. If S is a substance, and A is an accident of S, then A cannot be the existence of S for the simple reason that S must already (logically speaking) exist if it is to support any accident, including the putative accident of existence. Similarly if you try to assay existence as an immanent first-level universal. If a property is defined as an instantiable entity, then existence cannot be understood as a property of existing particulars. This is because the particular must already exist to be in a position to instantiate any properties including the putative property of existence. (Bear in mind what I said above about Avicenna and Meinong.) Existence is not a first-level property. I have given just one argument among several.

And please don't say that existence is a property of properties, the property of being instantiated. This is the Frege-Russell theory which I have subjected to thorough critique many times on this blog and in print. Here is one very simple argument. If the existence of a concrete particular a is some property's being instantiated, the only property that could fill the bill is the haecceity property a-ness. But there are no haecceity properties. Ergo, etc.

We are stuck with our paradox: The existence/existing of an existing thing neither is (exists) nor is not (does not exist).

A bowl of menudo and a Corona if you can solve it.

Deism, Classical Theism, and Existential Inertia

On deism, God starts the universe existing, but then he takes it easy, allowing it to exist on its own in virtue of its 'existential inertia.' The latter is an analog of inertia in physics. Newton's First Law states that a body at rest or in uniform rectilinear motion continues in its state of rest or motion unless acted upon by an external force. Analogously, what could be called the First Law of Deistic Metaphysics states that an existing thing continues to exist on its own without external assistance unless acted upon by an external annihilatory force. This is but a rough and preliminary formulation of the thesis of existential inertia. Continuing to exist is the 'default.' Suppose I bring a primitive table into existence by placing a board on a stump. The thought behind 'existential inertia' is that the compound object that just came to be does not need something to keep it from blinking out of existence a nanosecond, microsecond, millisecond . . . later.

On classical theism, by contrast with deism, God is no mere cosmic starter-upper: creatures need God not only to begin to exist but to continue existing moment by moment. A defense of classical theism against deism must therefore include a rejection of existential inertia.

Steven Nemes offers a rejection of existential inertia in his article Deism, Classical Theism, and Existential Inertia. He solicits my comments. I am happy to oblige.

He defines the phrase as follows:

Let’s say that the existence of a thing is “inertial” if and only if it continues to exist over time, in the absence of annihilating factors, without the assistance of anything outside of it.

He gives the example of a cat which, "once in existence, continues to exist over time, so long as nothing intervenes to destroy it, without anything outside of the cat helping it or sustaining it in existence." But surely the cat cannot continue to exist without air, water, food, a tolerable range of temperatures, and so on, factors clearly external to the cat. Note also that Nemes' definition presupposes that only temporal items are existentially inertial which is not obvious: on a classically theistic scheme even so-called 'abstract objects' are going to have to be existentially inertial. But I won't worry this second point in this entry.

Here is a better way to convey the notion of existential inertia. Suppose a deistic god creates exactly one iron sphere and nothing else. In this world there is nothing to cause the sphere to rust or otherwise corrode away into nonexistence. Nor does it, like a living organism, require anything external to it to continue to exist. It doesn't need oxygen or water like Nemes' cat. And it has no internal mechanism to self-destruct. The sphere exists inertially iff its 'default setting' is continued existence which is to say: it has no intrinsic tendency to cease to exist.

The sphere is of course a contingent being. Hence there is no necessity that it continue to exist. But while there is no necessity that it continue to exist, it will continue to exist absent some external annihilatory force. The deistic god could zap it out of existence, but if he doesn't, it will continue to exist on its own 'steam.' He needn't do anything to keep it in existence, and of course he can't if he is truly deistic.

And the same goes for the cat, despite the cat's need for materials in its environment such as oxygen and food. It too will continue to exist if those things are supplied without the need for a special metaphysical factor to keep it from sliding into nonbeing. The critter's natural default is to existence.

Nemes's Argument against Existential Inertia

1) The real existence of the cat does not show itself as one of its properties.

2) "The real existence of the cat is thus not a part of that total complex of individuated properties which make up the particular cat which we experience. "

3) "The unexperienceable real existence of the experienceable cat must therefore be something that is somehow “outside” of the cat, and yet “pointed at it” in such a way that the cat exists."

4) "This is easy to understand if we say that the existence of the cat consists in its standing on the receiving end of an existence-endowing relation to “something else.” ". . . a “something else” that is not itself an individual thing with properties but rather pure existence itself. And this “pure existence itself,” according to classical theists, is God."

(1) is true. (2) appears merely to unpack (explicate) (1); if so, it too is true. The transition to (3), however, is a non sequitur. The real existence of the cat might be hidden within it or an empirically inaccessible feature of it. Absent further premises, one cannot conclude that the real existence is 'outside' the cat.

Of course, I am not endorsing existential inertia; I am merely pointing out that the above argument, as it stands, is invalid. Perhaps with further work it can be made valid.

Knowledge of Existence: Is Existence Hidden?

1) I see a tree, a palo verde. Conditions are optimal for veridical perception. I see that the tree is green, blooming, swaying slightly in the breeze. The tree is given to my perceptual acts as having these and other properties. Now while I do not doubt for a second the existence of the tree, let alone deny its existence, the tree is not given as existing. It is given as green, as blooming, etc., but not as existing. I see the green of the tree, but I don't see the existence of the tree. If existence is a property of the tree, it is not an observable property thereof. Whatever existence is, it is not phenomenologically accessible or empirically detectable. And yet the tree exists. We might be tempted to reason as follows:

a) The tree is not exhausted by its quiddity: it is not a mere what, but an existing what.
b) The existing/existence does not appear: only quidditative properties appear.

Therefore

c) The existing/existence of the tree is hidden.

2) Should we conclude that the existing of things is mysterious or hidden, an occult depth dimension beyond our phenomenological ken? P. Butchvarov and others would answer in the negative. And presumably anyone phenomenologically inclined would have to agree. Now there is a class of views according to which the existence of a concrete particular such as a tree is a sort of coherence of the facets, aspects, guises, noemata, intentional objects — pick your term — that are presented to us directly and in their turn present the thing itself. Following Butchvarov I will use 'object' and distinguish objects from entities. The tree itself is an entity; the various facets, aspects, guises, noemata, are objects.

For example, I am seated on my porch looking at the tree. I cannot see the whole of it, and I don't see all of the properties of the portions I do see. Seated, I enjoy a visual perception the accusative of which is (incomplete) object O1. When I stand up, still looking at the tree, I am presented with a slightly different (incomplete) object, O2. Advancing toward the tree, a series of objects come into view one after another. (This makes it sound as if the series is discrete when it is actually continuous.) Arriving at the tree, I put my hands around the trunk. The resulting object is richer than the others by the addition of tactile data, but still incomplete and therefore not identical to the completely determinate entity. But these objects all cohere and 'consubstantiate' (Castaneda) and are of one and the same entity. In their mutual cohesion, they manifest one and the same entity. They present the same infinitely-propertied entity in a manner suitable to a finite mind.

Butchvarov speaks of the material (not formal) identity of the objects. On such a scheme the existence of an entity is naturally assayed as the indefinite identifiability of its objects. Existence is indefinite identifiability. By whom? By the subject in question. We could call this a transcendentally-subjective theory of existence, although that is not what Butch calls it. We find something very similar in Husserl and Hector-Neri Castaneda. In Husserl, existence is 'constituted in consciousness.' Sein reduces to Seinsinn.

On a scheme like this, existence would not be hidden but would itself be accessible, not as a separate monadic property, but as the ongoing relational coherence of objects, noemata, guises, aspects or whatever you want to call them. It would seem that the phenomenologically inclined, those who agree with Heidegger that ontology is possible only as phenomenology, would have to subscribe to some such theory of existence.

3) On the above approach one could 'bracket' the existence in itself of the tree entity and still have available existence as indefinite identifiability. But does this 'bracketing' (Husserl's Einklammerung) merely put existence in itself out of play or does it cancel it?I suspect it is the latter.

Let's be clear about the two senses of 'exists.'

In the phenomenological sense, existence is the mutual cohesion of Butchvarov's objects, Castaneda's guises, Husserl's noemata. Existence is thus accessible from the first-person point of view. It is in the open and not hidden. The question, How do I know that the tree exists? has a ready answer. I know that the tree exists from the manifest coherence of its objects, their indefinite identifiability in Butchvarov's sense.

In the second sense, existence is such that what exists exists independently of (finite) consciousness and its synthetic activities. In this second 'realist' sense of 'exists,' things could exist even in the absence of conscious beings. Existence in this second sense is that which makes existents exist outside of their causes and outside the mind and outside of language. In the former 'idealist' sense of 'exist,' nothing could exist in the absence of consciousness.

4) One conclusion: if you deny that existence is hidden, then it looks like you will have to embrace some type of idealism, with its attendant problems.

5) How might existence be hidden? Suppose that everything apart from God is kept in existence by ongoing divine creative activity. If so, each thing apart from God is an effect of the divine cause. Its being the effect of a hidden Causa Prima is itself hidden. My tree's being maintained in existence outside of its (secondary) causes and outside the mind is not manifest to us. Perceiving the tree, I cannot 'read off' its createdness. Its createdness is its existence and both are hidden.

6) My final conclusion is that no classical theist can adopt a phenomenological theory of existence.

Existence, Unity, Possibility, and Actuality: Are There Merely Possible Individuals?

Steven Nemes by e-mail:

Here’s a question for you about existence, perhaps one you could discuss on the blog.

In your book, you argue that existence is ontological unity. I think that’s right. But a merely possible this-such is a unity as much as an actual this-such. What then distinguishes merely possible existence from actual existence?

To put it precisely, the existence of a contingent being is the contingent unity of its ontological constituents. Such a being is appropriately referred to as a this-such or as a concrete individual. I assume that existence and actuality are the same: to exist = to be actual. I also assume that existence and Being are the same: to exist = to be. Thus I reject the quasi-Meinongian thesis forwarded by Bertrand Russell in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics (449) according to which there ARE items that do not EXIST.

It follows from these two assumptions that there are no individuals that are merely possible. For if there were merely possible individuals, they would have Being, but not existence.

Objection. "This very table that I just finished building, was, before I built it, a merely possible table. One and the same table went from being merely possible to being actual. No temporal individual becomes actual unless it, that very individual, was previously possible. Now the table is actual; hence it, that very individual, had to have been previously a merely possible table. A merely possible table is a table, but one that does not exist."

Reply. "I deny that a merely possible table is a table. 'Merely possible' here functions as an alienans adjective like 'decoy' in 'decoy duck.' A decoy duck is not a duck, but a hunk of wood made to appear, to a duck, as a duck. A merely possible table is not a table, but the possibility that there come to exist a table that satisfies a certain description.

The possibility of there coming to exist a table of such-and-such a description could be understood as a set of properties, or as perhaps a big conjunctive property. Either way, the possibility would not be a possible individual.

I deny the presupposition of your question, Steven, namely, that "a merely possible this-such is a unity as much as an actual this-such." What you are assuming is that there are merely possible individuals. A merely possible individual is a nonexistent individual, and on the view I take in my existence book, there are no nonexistent individuals.

The next post — scroll up — will help you understand the subtlety of this problematic.

Can a Dead Animal be Buried?

Arguably not. Here is an argument:

1) A dead animal can be buried if and only if it is identical to its corpse.

2) A dead animal is not identical to its corpse.

Therefore

3) It is not the case that a dead animal can be buried.

Argument for (2):

4) If a dead animal is identical to its corpse, then it survives its death as a corpse.

5) No animal survives its death as a corpse.

Therefore

2) A dead animal is not identical to its corpse.

Suppose you hear that I was involved in a terrible auto accident. You ask whether I survived. You get the response, "Yes, here he is in the morgue. The good news is that he survived; the bad news is that he is dead." If you find that response absurd, then you will accept (5) and with it (3), and you will understand that a dead animal cannot be buried. You will agree that you cannot bury me, "on the lone prarie" or anywhere; you can only bury my corpse which is not me. Even if I am only a living human body, I am not identical to 'my' corpse either before death or after it.

When an animal dies, it ceases to exist, and you cannot bury what does not exist.

But intuitions differ. Suppose that a 200 lb. man dies in his bed, and that a man is just a living material thing. If the man ceased to exist at death, but the 200 lb. mass in the bed did not, then something new came into existence in the bed, a corpse. If that sounds absurd, you may be tempted to say that one and the same thing that was alive is now dead, and that that one thing will be buried. So you did bury old Uncle Joe after all and not merely his remains. And the old cowboy's request not to be buried on the lone prarie, where the coyotes howl and wind blows free, makes sense.

Welcome to the aporetics of death and burial.

The Strange Thought of Absolute Nothingness

I had the giddy thought of absolute nothingness as a boy; the old man I've become can't quite recapture in full its eldritch quality. But he can rigorously think what the boy could mainly only feel.

The boy reasoned that if God hadn't created anything, then only God would exist. But suppose no God either! And then the strangeness supervened as the boy lay in bed staring at the ceiling. There would then have been nothing, absolutely nothing! How strange!

The giddiness arose by a double subtraction. The boy subtracted creation leaving only God. Then he subtracted God leaving only nothing. The boy was innocent of philosophy and nothing from that field impeded the supervenience of strangeness as he tried to apprehend this 'nothing.'

'Necessary being' was not in the ten-year-old's vocabulary. The nonexistence of God is impossible if God is a necessary being. And surely the ens realissimum, the ens absolutum, the apha and omega of the alphabet of Being, could not be a merely contingent being. That much seems very clear to the old man.

Unfortunately, the divine necessity is not transparent to our intellects. We cannot see into the divine necessity. We have no INsight in this instance. We cannot see with indubitable evidence that God exists and cannot not exist. Why not? I conjecture that it is because of the structure of the discursive intellect.

We think in opposites. In the present case, the opposites are essence and existence. We say that in God, essence entails existence, or essence is (identically) existence, or it is the nature of God to exist. Or perhaps we say, as I recall Saint Bonaventura saying, that if God is God, then God exists: the divine self-identity entails the divine existence. But the sense of these claims rests on the logically prior distinction of essence and existence as two opposing factors that the discursive intellect must keep apart if it is to think clearly. And so the very sense of the claims militates against apodictic insight into their truth.

We cannot help but bring the distinction between essence and existence to God when we try to think about him. This distinction that we cannot help but bring prevents us from rendering the divine necessity transparent to our intellects in such a way that we cannot doubt the existence of God. The objects of the finite intellect are finitized objects in which essence and existence fall asunder. They are objects among objects subject to distinctions among distinctions. God or the ens absolutum cannot but be a finitized object to our ectypal intellects. God himself, however, is nothing finite, no object among objects, no token of a type, no instance of an eidos. We cannot get what want: objective certainty of the existence of the Absolute in which there is such a tight coalescence between the intellect and its Infinite Object that no conceivable logical wedge can be driven between intellect and Object. We want objective certainty! Husserl: Ohne Gewissheit kann ich eben nicht leben!

According to David Hume, "Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent." (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) I would put it this way, trading Latin for plain Anglo-Saxon: no matter what we think of as existing, we can just as easily think of as not existing. This includes God.

Try it for yourself. Think of God together with all his omni-attributes and then think of God as not existing. Our atheist pals have no trouble on this score. The nonexistence of God is thinkable without logical contradiction.

I grant that if God exists, then he necessarily exists. But this concession does not help. For one cannot infer from the divine modal status — necessarily existent if existent — that God exists. For God might be impossible. Necessarily existent if existent, but, contrapositively: impossibly existent if not existent. Anselm's Insight — that than which no greater can be conceived is either necessary or impossible — does not validate Anselm's Argument.

"But surely God is possible!"

How do you know that? There is no apodictic transition from conceivability by a finite mind to possibility in reality. Besides, you cannot mean by 'possible' 'merely possible,' possible but not actual. You must mean that God is possible in a sense of 'possible' that does not exclude actuality. But then your argument begs the question.

I am not maintaining that the ens necessarium (God) does not exist. I am maintaining that we have no insight into God's existence that allays all possible doubts. And so we are left with the seeming possibility of absolute nothingness, and the giddiness or (Heideggerian) Angst that it elicits in some of us.

If God almighty cannot ban the specter of absolute nothingness, or hold it at bay, can anything? Let's see.

The 'thought' that there might have been nothing at all is unthinkable. It is self-cancelling. Here is an argument:

The following are contradictory propositions:

1) Something exists.

2) Nothing exists.

(1) is plainly true. It follows that (2) is false. So much for truth value. What about modal status? Is (1) contingent or necessary? If (1) is contingent, then its negation is possible, in which case it is possible that (2) be true. If (1) is necessary, then it is not possible that (2) be true.

Is it possible that (2) be true, that nothing exist? Is it possible that there be nothing at all? Arguably not, since if there were nothing at all, that would be the case: that would be that obtaining state of affairs, in which case there would be one 'thing,' namely, that state of affairs.

Think about it, muchachos!

Therefore, it is impossible that there be nothing at all. It follows that it is necessary that something (at least one thing) exist. This of course is not a proof of God, but of something rather less impressive, a state of affairs. The state of affairs, There is something, necessarily obtains. It cannot not obtain. And it cannot obtain necessarily without existing necessarily. Not a proof of God, but a starting point for a proof of God; in any case an important result: we seem to have achieved a knock-down proof of the necessary existence of something by sheer thinking. Thought makes certain contact with reality 'by its own power' without the mediation of the senses, or anything else for that matter, including divine revelation. Parmenides vindicatus est.

If this is right, then the thought of absolute nothingness is an unthinkable thought, hence no thought at all, a product of confusion, a 'ghost' to be dispelled by clear thinking. My ten-year-0ld self was perhaps 'spooked' by an unthinkable thought. Hence, the eldritch quality, the strangeness the old man cannot forget. It was perhaps only an emotional state induced by an attempt to overstep the bounds of intelligibility. Perhaps the boy succumbed to a purely subjective emotional state bare of cognitive content, bereft of intentionality, revelatory of nothing. Hence the giddy strangeness, a close cousin to Heidegger's Angst.

Up to this point Father Parmenides would agree.

But then what of the Humean reasoning? Does it not clamor for 'equal time'? An aporia threatens:

(H) Nothing is such that its existence can be seen to be necessary by thought alone.

(P) Something is such that its existence can be seen to be necessary by thought alone.

I don't know how to resolve this contradiction. I am of two minds. Parmenides and Hume are battling for hegemony in my shallow pate.

Can I conceive (think without internal logical contradiction) the nonexistence of what is the case, or a total way things are?

The Humean-Heideggerian part of my mind says Yes: you are thinking the thought of radical contingency. Everything is contingent including there being anything at all. There really might have been nothing at all. And this real possibility is a live one, moment to moment. There is no ultimate metaphysical support anywhere. That there is anything at all is a brute fact, a fact without cause or explanation, and thus a fact wholly unintelligible, hence ab-surd, We are hanging in the Void. Ich habe Angst vor dem Nichts! Heidegger's Angst and Sartre's nausea are revelatory emotions: they reveal, respectively, the ultimate nothingness at the base of all that exists, and the ultimate absurdity or unintelligibility of the existing of what exists.

The Parmenidean part of my mind says No: Thought and Being are 'the same.' You have grasped by sheer thought alone the absolute necessity of there being a way things are, an ultimate context. And so you were indeed 'spooked' as a boy when it seemed you looked into the abyss of utter nothingness and contextlessness.

Some Responses to Tim Mosteller re: Existence

The following is from a work in progress by Tim Mosteller, posted with his permission. I thank him for his critical engagement with my work. Here are some responses. My corrections in red; my comments in blue.

Continue reading “Some Responses to Tim Mosteller re: Existence”

On J. P. Moreland’s Theory of Existence

A re-post from February of 2016 with corrections and addenda.

What follows is largely a summary and restatement of points I make in "The Moreland-Willard-Lotze Thesis on Being," Philosophia Christi, vol. 6, no. 1, 2004, pp. 27-58. It is a 'popular' or 'bloggity-blog' version of a part of that lengthy technical article. First I summarize my agreements with J. P. Moreland. Then I explain and raise two objections to his theory. The Moreland text I have under my logical microscope is pp. 134-139 of his 2001 Universals (McGill-Queen's University Press).

Common Ground with Moreland on Existence

We agree on the following five points (which is not to say that Moreland will agree with every detail of my explanation of these five points):

1) Existence is attributable to individuals. The cat that just jumped into my lap exists. This very cat, Manny, exists. Existence belongs to it and is meaningfully attributable to it. Pace Frege and Russell, 'Manny exists' is a meaningful sentence, and it is meaningful as it stands, as predicating existence of an individual. It is nothing like 'Manny is numerous.' To argue that since cats are numerous, and Manny is a cat, that therefore Manny is numerous is to commit the fallacy of division. Russell held that the same fallacy is committed by someone who thinks that since cats exist, and Manny is a cat, that therefore Manny exists. But Russell was mistaken: there is no fallacy of division; there is an equivocation on 'exists.' It has a general or second-level use and a singular or first-level use.

There are admissible first-level uses of '. . .exist(s).' It is not the case that only second-level uses are admissible. And it is only because Manny, or some other individual cat, exists that the concept cat is instantiated. The existence of an individual cannot be reduced to the being-instantiated of a property or concept. If you like, you can say that the existence of a concept is its being instantiated. We sometimes speak like that. A typical utterance of 'Beauty exists,' say, is not intended to convey that Beauty itself exists, but is intended to convey that Beauty is exemplified, that there are beautiful things. But then one is speaking of general existence, not of singular existence.

Clearly, general existence presupposes singular existence in the following sense: if a first-level concept or property is instantiated, then it is instantiated by an individual, and this individual must exist in order to stand in the instantiation nexus to a concept or property. From here on out, by 'existence' I mean 'singular existence.' There is really no need for 'general existence' inasmuch as we can speak of instantiation or of someness, as when we say that cats exist if and only something is a cat. The fundamental error of what Peter van Inwagen calls the 'thin theory' of existence is to imagine that existence can be reduced to the purely logical notion of someness. That would be to suppose, falsely, that singular existence can be dispensed with in favor of general existence. Existence is not a merely logical topic ; existence is a metaphysical topic.

2) Existence cannot be an ordinary property of individuals. While existence is attributable to individuals, it is no ordinary property of them, and if one were to define properties as instantiable entities, it is no property at all. There are several reasons for this, but I will mention only one: you cannot add to a thing's description by saying of it that it exists. Nothing is added to the description of a tomato if one adds 'exists' to its descriptors: 'red,' round,' ripe,' etc. As Kant famously observed, "Being is not a real predicate," i.e., being or existence adds nothing to the realitas or whatness of a thing. Contrary to popular scholarly opinion, Kant did not anticipate the Frege-Russell theory. He does not deny that 'exist(s)' is an admissible first-level predicate. (See my "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Novotny and Novak, eds. Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics, Routledge 2014, pp. 45-75, esp. 48-50.)

3) Existence is not a classificatory concept or property. The reason is simple: there is no logically prior domain of items classifiable as either existent or nonexistent. Pace Meinong, everything exists. There are no nonexistent items. On Meinong's view, some items actually have properties despite having no Being at all.

4) Existence makes a real difference to a thing that exists. In one sense existence adds nothing to a thing. It adds nothing quidditative. In another sense it adds everything: if a thing does not exist, it is nothing at all! To be or not to be — not just a question, but the most 'abysmal' difference conceivable. In this connection, Moreland rightly speaks of a "real difference between existence and non-existence." (137)

5) Existence itself exists. This is not the trivial claim that existing things exist. It is the momentous claim that that in virtue of which existing things exist itself exists. It is a logical consequence of (4) in conjunction with (3). As Moreland puts it, "[i]f existence itself does not exist, then nothing else could exist in virtue of having existence." (135)

The above five points are criteria of adequacy for a theory of existence: any adequate theory must include or entail each of these points. Most philosophers nowadays will not agree, but I think Moreland will. So he and I stand on common ground. I should think that the only fruitful disputes are those that play out over a large chunk of common ground.

But these criteria of adequacy also pose a problem: How can existence belong to individuals without being a property of them? Existence belongs to individuals as it would not belong to them if it were a property of properties or concepts; but it is not a property of individuals. How can we uphold both of these insights?

Moreland's Theory

Moreland's theory gets off to a good start: "existence is not a property which belongs, but is the belonging of a property." (137) This insight nicely accommodates points (1) and (2) above: existence is attributable to individuals without being an ordinary property of them. Indeed, it is not a property at all. I infer from this that existence is not the property of having properties. It is rather the mutual belongingness of a thing and its properties. Moreland continues:

Existence is the entering into the exemplification nexus . . . . In the case of Tony the tiger, the fact [that] the property of being a tiger belongs to something and that something has this property belonging to it is what confers existence. (137)

I take this to mean that existence is the mutual belonging together of individual and property. It is 'between' a thing and its properties as that which unifies them, thereby tying them into a concrete fact or state of affairs. The existence of Tony is not one of his properties; nor is the existence of Tony identical to Tony. And of course the existence of Tony is not the being-exemplified of some such haecceity property as identity-with-Tony. Rather, the existence of Tony, of that very individual, is his exemplifying of his properties. The existence of a (thick) individual in general is then the exemplification relation itself insofar as this relation actually relates (thin) individual and properties. Existence is not a first-level property, or a second-level property, but a very special relation, the exemplification relation.

Moreland implies as much. In answer to the question how existence itself exists, he explains that "The belonging-to (exemplification, predication) relation is itself exemplified . . ." (137) Thus the asymmetrical exemplification relation x exemplifies P is exemplified by Tony and the property of being a tiger (in that order). Existence itself exists because existence itself is the universal exemplification relation which is itself exemplified. It exists in that it is exemplified by a and F-ness, a and G-ness, a and H-ness, b and F-ness, b and G-ness, b and H-ness, and so on. An individual existent exists in that its ontological constituents (thin particular and properties) exemplify the dyadic exemplification relation which is existence itself.

The basic idea is this. The existence of a thick particular such as Tony, that is, a particular taken together with all its monadic properties, is the unity of its ontological constituents. (This is not just any old kind of unity, of course, but a type of unity that ties items that are not facts into a fact.) This unity is brought about by the dyadic exemplification relation within the thick particular. The terms of this relation are the thin particular on the one hand and the properties on the other.

Moreland's theory accommodates all five of the desiderata listed above which in my book is a strong point in its favor.

A Bradleyan Difficulty

A sentence such as 'Al is fat' is not a list of its constituent words. The sentence is either true or false, but neither the corresponding list, nor any item on the list, is either true or false. So there is something more to a declarative sentence than its constituent words. Something very similar holds for the fact that makes the sentence true, if it is true. I mean the extralinguistic fact of Al's being fat. The primary constituents of this fact, Al and fatness, can exist without the fact existing. The fact, therefore, cannot be identified with its primary constituents, taken either singly, or collectively. A fact is more than its primary constituents. But how are we to account for this 'more'?

On Moreland's theory, as I understand it, this problem is solved by adding a secondary constituent, the exemplification relation, call it EX, whose task is to connect the primary constituents. This relation ties the primary constituents into a fact. It is what makes a fact more than its primary constituents. Unfortunately, this proposal leads to Bradley's Regress. For if Al + fatness do not add up to the fact of Al's being fat, then Al + fatness + EX won't either. If Al and fatness can exist without forming the fact of Al's being fat, then Al and fatness and EX can all exist without forming the fact in question. How can adding a constituent to the primary constituents bring about the fact-constituting unity of all constituents? EX has not only to connect a and F-ness, but also to connect itself to a and to F-ness. How can it do the latter? The answer to this, presumably, will be that EX is a relation and the business of a relation is to relate. EX, relating itself to a and to F-ness, relates them to each other. EX is an active ingredient in the fact, not an inert ingredient. It is a relating relation, and not just one more constituent that needs relating to the others by something distinct from itself. For this reason, Bradley's regress can't get started. This is a stock response one can find in Brand Blanshard and others, but it is not a good one.

The problem is that EX can exist without relating the relata that it happens to relate in a given case. This is because EX is a universal. If it were a relation-instance as on D. W. Mertz's theory, then it would be a particular, an unrepeatable, and could not exist apart from the very items it relates. Bradley's regress could not then arise. But if EX is a universal, then it can exist without relating any specific relata that it does relate, even though, as an immanent universal, it must relate some relata or other. This implies that a relation's relating what it relates is contingent to its being the relation it is. For example, x loves y contingently relates Al and Barbara, which implies that the relation is distinct from its relating. The same goes for EX: it is distinct from its relating. It is more than just a constituent of any fact into which it enters; it is a constituent that does something to the other constituents, and in so doing does something to itself, namely, connect itself to the other constituents. Relating relations are active ingredients in facts, not inert ingredients. Or we could say that a relating relation is ontologically participial in addition to its being ontologically substantival. And since the relating is contingent in any given case, the relating in any given case requires a ground. What could this ground be?

My claim is that it cannot be any relation, including the relation, Exemplification. No relation, by itself, is ontologically participial. More generally, no constituent of a fact can serve as ontological ground of the unity of a fact's constituents. For any such putatively unifying constituent will either need a further really unifying constituent to connect it to what it connects, in which case Bradley's regress is up and running, or the unifying constituent will have to be ascribed a 'magical' power, a power no abstract object could possess, namely, the power to unify itself with what it unifies. Such an item would be a self-grounding ground: a ground of unity that grounds its unity with that which it unifies. The synthetic unity at the heart of each contingent fact needs to be grounded in an act of synthesis that cannot be brought about by any constituent of a fact, or by the fact itself.

My first objection to Moreland's theory may be put as follows. The existence of a thick particular (which we are assaying as a concrete fact along the lines of Gustav Bergmann and David Armstrong) cannot be the fact's constituents' standing in the exemplification relation. And existence itself, existence in its difference from existents, cannot be identified with the exemplification relation.

Can Existence Exist Without Being Uniquely Self-Existent?

I agree with Moreland that existence itself exists. One reason was supplied by Reinhardt Grossmann: "If existence did not exist, then nothing would exist." (Categorial Structure of the World, 405) But I have trouble with the notion that existence itself is the exemplification relation. Existence as that which is common to all that exists, and as that in virtue of which everything exists cannot be just one more thing that exists. Existence cannot be a member of an extant category that admits of multiple membership, such as the category of relations. For reasons like these such penetrating minds as Martin Heidegger, Roman Ingarden, and Panayot Butchvarov have denied that existence itself exists.

In my 2002 existence book I proposed a synthesis of these competing theses: Existence exists as a paradigm existent, one whose mode of existence is radically different from the mode of existence of the beings ontologically dependent on it. From this point of view, Moreland has a genuine insight, but he has not taken it far enough: he stops short at the dubious view that existence is the relation of exemplification. But if you drive all the way down the road with me you end up at Divine Simplicity, which Moreland has good reasons for rejecting.

The Presentism of E. J. Lowe: Summary

This entry is Part One of a multi-part attempt to understand and evaluate the late E. J. Lowe's 'untimely' version of presentism. It is 'untimely' in that he resists what he takes to be the reification of time and times, and because his presentism is very different from its contemporary competitors. I am basing my interpretation mainly on "Presentism and Relativity: No Conflict" in Ciuni, et al. eds., New Papers on the Present (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2013, 133-152) and on "How Real is Substantial Change," The Monist, vol. 89, no. 3 (2006), 275-293. Page references in parentheses refer to the first article unless otherwise noted. All emphases are in the original.

1) Lowe insists on "The ontological primacy of present reality and the objective status of temporal passage." (133) These commitments justify calling him a presentist.

2) But he "repudiates [what he takes to be] the reification of time and 'times,' including the 'present moment' . . . ." (133) To reify is to treat as real what is not real. Lowe appears to be saying that there are no such items as times, and thus no such item as the present time. If so, one cannot quantify over times. This would seem to scotch fairly standard definitions or definition-schemata of 'presentism' along the following lines:

(P1) Always, only present items exist.

That is: every time is such that only what is non-relationally present at that time exists simpliciter.

3) The focus for Lowe is not on the present moment, but on the "fundamental reality of change . . . ." (133)

4) Change, however, is in every case "existence change — that is, the coming into or going out of existence of entities of one kind or another . . . ." (133) We are being told that all change is existential or substantial change. (See The Monist article cited above.) Now one kind of change is qualitative change as when a tomato goes from being green to being red. This can be understood to be a species of existence change if properties are assayed as tropes. The greenness trope in the tomato goes out of existence and a redness trope comes into existence while the tomato stays in existence. On this way of thinking, both the coming into existence of the tomato and its change of color are existential changes.

5) Objects (individual substances) change, but there are no events in addition to these changes. We need only the object and its tropes: we need no events such as the event of a leaf's turning brown. Furthermore, there is no event of a trope's going out of existence or coming into existence. If there were, a vicious infinite regress would ensue. (150) Events are "shadows cast by language rather than fundamental ingredients of temporal reality." (151) There are changes, but no events. I take Lowe to be saying that an event is an (illicit) reification of a change. If an animal dies, there is no such event as the animal's death in addition to the dead animal. There is just the animal which ceases to exist. (137)

6) Because there are no events, change cannot be ascribed to events. Because there is no such entity as my birth, my birth has no properties such as occurring at a certain place or being past. Because there are no events, no events change in their A-determinations, their monadic (non-relational) pastness, presentness, and futurity. There is thus no event, my birth, that was once future, then present, then past, and then ever more past. To think otherwise is to confuse events with objects, which amounts to a reification of events, an illicit treatment of them as if they are objects when all they could be are changes in objects.

7) It is not just that nothing has A-determinations; there are no such determinations to be had. McTaggart's A-determinations are pseudo-properties based on a "false analogy between events and objects." (136) There are no times, no events, and no A-determinations. This puts paid to McTaggart's claim that the A-series is contradictory, which is a key lemma in his overall argument for the unreality of time. That lemma requires that there be events and A-determinations. Very roughly, what McTaggart argues is that time is unreal because (i) time requires the A-series, but (ii) said series is contradictory in that each event has all three of the A-determinations. D. H. Mellor is a contemporary philosopher of time who accepts McTaggart's argument against the A-series, but concludes, not that time is unreal, but that time is exhausted by the B-series.

8) But if there are no events, then there is no B-series either. There is no series of events ordered by the so-called B-relations, earlier than, later than, and simultaneous with. This puts paid to the view of D. H. Mellor and others that real time (to allude to the title of Mellor's book) is exhausted by the B-series. For Lowe, then, there are no times, no events, no A-series, and no B-series.

9) For Lowe, time is objectively real; it is not unreal as on McTaggart's view, nor is it in any sense transcendentally ideal (Kant) or constituted in consciousness (Husserl). But it is not real in the manner of a container or a dimension. Time is just temporal passage. Since time is objectively real, temporal passage is also objectively real and in no way mind-dependent. Temporal passage "consists in the continual coming into and going out of existence of entities . . . ." (137) Lowe is referring to temporal entities only, those that are not timeless such as propositions. He has in mind objects (individual substances) such as a cat and its properties (assayed as tropes) such as being asleep. This ceaseless existential change is what temporal passage consists in. In sum, for Lowe, time = temporal passage = the ever ongoing creation and annihilation of entities.

As I read him, Lowe is not maintaining that to exist = to be temporally present tout court, but that for temporal items, to exist = to be temporally present. This makes him an existence presentist with respect to temporalia. Recall that for Lowe, all change is existential (substantial) change. See (4) supra.

10) We tend to think of time as the dimension of change, a fourth dimension in addition to the three spatial dimensions. We tend to assume that "time is a dimension in which reality as a whole is extended." (Monist, 283) If you think that objects persist by perduring, by having different temporal parts at different times, then you are making this assumption. But most, though not all, endurantists make the same assumption when they say that an object endures by being 'wholly present' at each time at which the object exists. Lowe denies that time is a dimension. For if there are no times ordered by the B-relations, earlier and later, then time is not a dimension. Reality is not temporally extended. Lowe seeks to uphold an endurantism that does not presuppose that time is a dimension.

11) Lowe's view of time is thoroughly dynamic by contrast with the static character of time on eternalism, and with the partially static and partially dynamic theories of Growing Block and Spotlight. The reality of time "consists simply in the reality of change . . . . (140) The latter "constitutes" temporal passage. This of course implies that without change, there is no time; but we can live with that. What's more, there are no events and there are no times, and so there is no present time. Lowe concludes that we need no account of what times are, and in particular, no "ersatzist" account of time in terms of abstract objects such as propositions. He is opposing views like that of Craig Bourne, for whom "a time is a set of propositions that states the other truths about what happens at that time." (A Future for Presentism, Oxford UP, 2006, 52.)

12) The view that all change is existential change commits Lowe to the view that properties of things in time are not universals but tropes or modes (particularized properties). These are not temporal parts of objects. (141) Tropes are therefore consistent with endurantism. Suppose that a changes from being F at t1 to G at t2. "We can continue to say that a itself exists at both t1 and t2 despite having no temporal parts, thus being, in that sense, 'wholly present' at both of these times." (141) I note in passing how Lowe helps himself to talk of times.

13) The object that has tropes is neither a bundle of tropes not a bare particular or substratum that supports them. The 'relation' between an object and its tropes is left unclear. (141).

14) Objects persist through changes in intrinsic properties. How? Change in intrinsic properties occurs when "monadic tropes" successively "come into and go out of existence while it (the object) stays in existence." (142)

15) Lowe's presentism: "When 'time passes' the content of reality itself changes — entities come into and go out of existence." This is intended "literally and absolutely." Going out of existence is absolute annihilation. (146) But then coming into existence would have to be creation out of nothing, would it not?

16) Yet "some things that exist today already existed yesterday." (146) For example, the very same person who exists and is 'wholly present' now also existed and was 'wholly present' yesterday. (146)

17) Only present objects and tropes exist. The sum-total of these entities is ever changing. What ceases to be present is annihilated. But not everything that exists at present is annihilated at the same time. Suppose Elliot, who was drunk yesterday, is sober today. Elliot yesterday co-existed with a D-trope, and Elliot today co-exists with an S-trope. The tropes, however, are not coexistent with each other since the D-trope was annihilated by the passage of time while the S-trope presently exists. Lowe's presentism thus implies the non-transitivity of co-existence. It also implies that, while temporal reality is ever created and annihilated by the passage of time, not everything is annihilated or created at the same time. The annihilation of Elliot's drunkenness left Elliot the object unscathed.

Existence is Tenseless

The Ostrich inquires,

You hold that [instances of] both (1) and (2) below are true.

(1) X is no longer temporally present and (2) X exists tenselessly.

Fair enough. But what does ‘exist tenselessly’ mean?

To exist tenselessly is just to exist. To exist is to be something. More precisely, it is to be identical to something or other:

Q. Necessarily, for any x, x exists iff for some y, y = x.

For example,

a. Quine exists iff Quine = Quine.

Now is (a) true at all times, or only at some times? At all times. For at no time is Quine self-diverse. This commits me to the affirmation of permanentism and the denial of transientism:

P. It is always the case that everything in time exists at every time.

T. Sometimes something begins to exist, and sometimes something ceases to exist.

Now if nothing begins to exist and nothing ceases to exist, then the A-determinations (pastness, presentness, and futurity) are purely temporal and not at all existential. This is why, from

b. The Berlin Wall is no longer present

one cannot validly infer

c. The Berlin Wall does not exist.

Although nothing begins to exist and nothing ceases to exist, some items begin to be temporally present and some items cease to be temporally present.

Now presentism includes transientism. Having rejected transientism, I must also reject presentism, the view that it is always the case that whatever exists exists at present.

Is it a substantive metaphysical question whether permanentism or presentism is true? I should think that it is. It is a question about the nature of existence: Is existence time-independent or not?

Continuing the Discussion of Time, Tense, and Existence

This just in from London. I've intercalated my responses.

Here is another take. We agree on our disagreement about the following consequence

(A) X is no longer temporally present, therefore X has ceased to exist.

You think it is not valid, i.e. you think the antecedent could be true with the consequent false. I think it is valid.

BV: Yes. So far, so good.

However regarding

(B) X is no longer temporally present, therefore X does not still exist

we seem to agree. We both think the antecedent cannot be true with the consequent false.

BV: Right. For example, we agree BOTH that the Berlin Wall is no longer temporally present (and is therefore temporally past) AND that the Berlin Wall does not still exist. I should think that we also, as competent speakers of English, agree that locutions of the form 'X still exists' are intersubstitutable both salva veritate and salva significatione with locutions of the form 'X existed and X exists' where all of the verbs are tensed and none are tense-neutral or tenseless. Agree? My second comment has no philosophical implications. It is merely a comment on the meaning/use of a stock English locution.

My puzzle is that my reading, and I think a natural reading, is that (A) and (B) mean the same, because “X has ceased to exist” and “X does not still exist” mean the same. You clearly disagree.

BV: If we stick to tensed language, then 'X has ceased to exist' and 'X does not still exist' mean the same. So I don't disagree if we adhere to tensed language. But note that 'X has ceased to exist' is ambiguous as between

a) X has ceased to presently-exist (or present-tensedly exist)

and

b) X has ceased to be anything at all (and thus has become nothing at all).

For example, the Berlin Wall has ceased to presently-exist. But it doesn't follow that said wall has become nothing, that it is no longer a member of the totality of entities, that it has been annihilated by the mere passage of time. If you think that it is no longer a member of said totality, then you are assuming presentism and begging the question against me. You have restricted the totality of what exists to what presently exists. Note that I do not deny that one can move validly from the premise of (A) to its conclusion if one invokes presentism as an auxiliary premise. My claim is that the inference fails as a direct or immediate inference.

I think you want to argue that there is a covert tensing in “X does not still exist” which is absent in “X has ceased to exist”, which (according to you) is tenseless. But how? Doesn’t the verb ‘cease’ always imply a time at which X ceased to exist? Would it make sense to say that 2+2 has ceased to equal 4? How?

BV: In 'X does not still exist,' 'exist' is present-tensed. But 'X has ceased to exist' is ambiguous as explained above . It can be read your tensed way, but it can also be read in my tenseless way. Surely you don't want to say that 'exists' has exactly the same meaning /sense as 'exists-now' or 'exists' (present tense). We could call that semantic presentism. I don't think anyone is a semantic presentist. And for good reason. You, as a nominalist, will not countenance abstracta such as numbers and sets and the other denizens of the Platonic menagerie. But you understand what you are opposing when you oppose their admission into our ontology in the Quinean sense (our catalog by category of what there is). And so you understand the notion of tenseless existence and tenseless property possession as when a 'Platonist' says that 7 is prime. The copula is tenseless, not present-tensed.

So, in summary, my problem (and I am always seeing problems) is how you think (A) and (B) differ.

Over to you.

BV: The Boston Blizzard of '78 was one hell of a storm. When it ended, did it cease to exist? Yes of course, if we are using 'exist' in the ordinary present-tensed way. The storm because wholly past, and in becoming wholly past it stopped being presently existent. Obviously, nothing can exist at present if it is wholly past. And it is quite clear that what no longer is present is not still present, and that what no longer presently exists is not still presently existent.

So far, nothing but platitudes of ordinary usage. Nothing metaphysical.

We venture into metaphysics when we ask: Does it follow straightaway from the storm's having become wholly temporally past, that it is nothing at all? I say No. If you say Yes, then you are endorsing presentism, a controversial metaphysical theory.

You can avoid controversy if you stick to ordinary language. If you have trouble doing this, Wittgensteinian therapy may be helpful.

Time and the Existing Dead

Another round with David Brightly. My responses are in blue.

Bill says,

We don't want to say that a dead man becomes nothing after death since he remains a particular, completely determinate, dead man distinct from others. If the dead become nothing after death then all the dead would be the same. If your dead father and your dead mother are both nothing, then there is nothing to distinguish them.

It's difficult to know what to make of this. My guess is that Bill is conflating a thing with the idea of a thing.

BV: I plead innocent. I hope David doesn't think that when a person dies, that person becomes an idea. My veridical memories of my dead mother are memories of a woman not an idea.

First, 'particular' and 'completely determinate' do not denote properties of concrete objects like men. One can contrast 'I have in mind a particular man' with 'I have in mind a man' but 'particular' here qualifies not 'man' but rather the way of having in mind. 'Completely determinate' functions in a similar way. What would 'partially determinate man' denote? A partially determinate idea of a man makes sense, however; we know some of his properties but not others.

BV: I beg to differ. Granted, my idea of David is incomplete: I know some of his properties but not others. But David is not the same as my idea of him, and that's a good thing for both of us. I say that David himself is complete (completely determinate), just like everything else that exists mind-independently. It makes sense to say both that my idea of David is incomplete, and that David himself is complete. The fact that there cannot be an incomplete man cannot be used to show that 'complete' cannot be a predicate of concrete items. So why does David think that?

David may be relying on a Contrast Argument one form of which is as follows:

1) If a term T is meaningful, then there are items to which T does not apply.
2) There are no items to which T does not apply.
Ergo
3) T is not meaningful.

In the present case:

4) If 'complete' is a meaningful term, then there are concrete items to which 'complete' does not apply.
5) There are no concrete items to which 'complete' does not apply.
Ergo
6) 'Complete' is not a meaningful term.

Well, I reject Contrast Arguments. Bang on the link. Similarly with 'particular.' David appears to believe, pace Meinong, that there are no incomplete items in reality, and that all incompleteness is epistemic. I think so too. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether 'particular' and 'complete' can be predicated meaningfully of items like David and his dogs, or whether they qualify merely the way one has these things in mind. He hasn't given me a good reason to change my view.

Second, 'dead' is an alienating adjective. If a man is a living thing and 'dead' means non-living, then a 'dead man' is a somewhat contradictory conception. Better to think of 'is dead' as 'has died'. A dead man is one who has passed through that final event that all living things inevitably come to, and has ceased to be.

BV: Very tricky! No doubt there are alienans adjectives (bang on the link), but is 'dead' (juxtaposed with 'man') one of them? Clearly, a decoy duck is not a duck. But it is not clear that a dead duck is not a duck. Now the corpse of a duck is not a duck. But if your pet duck Donald dies you can still utter truths about him and have veridical memories of him. Those truths and memories are about a duck that has died, a particular duck, not a rabbit. And not about nothing. Try this triad on for size:

a) Tom Petty is a man.
b) Tom Petty is dead. (Tom Petty has died.)
c) Nothing dead is a man. (Nothing that has died is a man.)

Clearly, the singer is a man, not a duck or a valve-lifter in a '57 Chevy. And clearly, Petty is dead. It seems to follow that Petty is a dead man. So it seems we ought to reject (c) above. Is (c) not more reasonably rejected than the other two limbs of the triad? I would say so.

Granted, Petty is not the man he used to be. He no longer breathes, for example. He has lost much of the typical functionality of a man. So there is rational pressure to deny (a). There does not appear to be a clean solution to the (a)-(c) puzzle. The propositions cannot all be true. But it is not obvious which of them to reject.

David tells us that a dead man has ceased to be. (I will assume that to be = to exist.) But it is not at all clear that a dead man such as Tom Petty has ceased to exist. On one way of looking at it, Petty exists just as robustly (or as anemically) as I do. We both tenselessly exist. It is just that every moment of his existence is earlier than the present moment, whereas this is not the case for me. Petty is wholly past whereas I exist at present, and presumably also in future. But we both exist (tenselessly)! This is a possible view, and distinguished thinkers have subscribed to it, Albert Einstein to mention one. So it is not obvious, pace David, that when a man or a dog or any living thing dies, it ceases to exist. David may be assuming that only what exists (present tense), exists. But this is a miserable tautology unless David can supply a non-presentist reading of the second occurrence of 'exists.'

Third, to speak of 'becoming nothing' on death is misleading. Death is the end of all becoming. One has finally begone, as it were. [?] It's not that the dead lack something to distinguish them. Rather, they are not there to be distinguished one from another. But this is not to say that my parents were indistinguishable as objects. Nor is it to say that my thoughts about my parents are now indistinguishable. Surely I can say, My mother was short and my father was tall.

BV: David can say these things, but these past-tensed truths are (i) logically contingent and (ii) true at present. So they need truthmakers that exist at present. What might these be if only what exists at present exists? This, in nuce, is the grounding objection to presentism. I don't see that David has a good answer to it. If, however, existence is tenseless, then the truthmakers are easily supplied.

DB quoting BV: Nor do we want to say that a person who dies goes from being actual to being merely possible. There is clearly a distinction between an actual past individual and a merely possible past individual. Schopenhauer is an actual past individual; his only son Willy is a merely possible past individual

Once again I'm afraid I can't regard 'being actual' and 'being merely possible' as denoting properties of individuals. How these predications are to be understood is not an easy question. Suffice it to say that there is clearly a problem with 'Schopenhauer's only son Willy' when the philosopher's only child was a daughter.

BV: I don't get the daughter bit. But surely David is an actual individual, not a merely possible individual. I have no idea why he balks at this. He is actual, not merely possible, or necessary, or impossible. What's more, he is contingent: although he actually exists, he is possibly such that he does not exist. There is no necessity that he exist at any time at which he exists. And note that if 'actual' is true of everything, it does not follow that 'actual' is not a meaningful term.

DB quoting BV: On the 'growing block' theory, dead Petty exists. (This is obviously not a present-tensed use of 'exists.') He does not exist at present, but he exists in the sense that he belongs to the actual world. Once actual, always actual. Is this wholly clear? No, but it is tolerably clear and plausible. After all, we are making singular reference to Petty, a concrete actual individual, as we speak, and this is a good reason to hold that he exists, not at present of course, but simpliciter.

The 'growing block' theory sounds like a kind of four-dimensionalism deriving from the physicist's notion of spacetime as a four-dimensional manifold. We trace the world-lines of the particles that were ever part of Petty and we find that they form a densely packed blob within a certain spacetime region. We are tempted to identify the contents of this region with Petty himself. If we think of the ensemble of worldlines of all material particles as the actual world itself, then yes, the Petty blob seems indeed to belong to the actual world. But this is a mistake. The worldline of a particle represents not so much the particle itself but rather its history. Likewise the blob we take to be Petty represents his biography, in mind-numbing detail. We are confusing a thing with the life it lived. Of course Petty belonged to the world—I don't see quite what 'actual' adds here—it's just that he does not belong to it any more. Perhaps Bill is emphasising that Petty was a real man, not, say, a character in a fiction like Spinal Tap. There is more than a hint here that Bill is appealing to a theory of direct reference. Petty has to exist in order that we may refer to him.

BV: There are several gnarly issues that need disentangling. I'll leave that for later. David tells us that Petty was actual but is not now actual. That is true, but trivial. It may be that what David is advocating is that we simply use tensed language and not make any trouble for ourselves by asking such as questions as: what makes it true that Petty was a musician? It may be that he is a tautological presentist who maintains that whatever exists, exists, where 'exists' in both occurrences is present-tensed. It may be that he is refusing to stray from ordinary English and credit such high-flying metaphysical questions as: Is the whole of reality restricted to the present moment or not?

Rand and Peikoff on God and Existence

The following is by Leonard Peikoff, acolyte of Ayn Rand:

Every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics . . . .

Existence exists, and only existence exists. Existence is a primary: it is uncreated, indestructible, eternal. So if you are to postulate something beyond existence—some supernatural realm—you must do it by openly denying reason, dispensing with definitions, proofs, arguments, and saying flatly, “To Hell with argument, I have faith.” That, of course, is a willful rejection of reason.

Objectivism advocates reason as man’s sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to God, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that’s all.

Most professional philosophers consider Rand and Co. not worth discussing. Nihil philosophicum a nobis alienum putamus, however, is one of my mottoes (see here for explanation); so I will engage the Randian ideas to see if they generate any light. But I will try to avoid the polemical and tabloid style Rand and friends favor.

In the quotation above we meet once again our old friend 'Existence exists.' Ayn Rand & Co. use 'existence' to refer to what exists, not to something — a property perhaps — in virtue of which existents exist. Now It cannot be denied that all existing things exist, and that only existing things exist. This is entirely trivial, a logical truth. Anyone who denies it embraces the following formal-logical contradiction: There are existing things that do not exist. We should all agree, then, with the first sentence of the second paragraph. Existence exists!

So far, so good.

But then Peikoff tells us that to postulate something supernatural such as God is "to postulate something beyond existence." Now it may well be that there is no God or anything beyond nature. But how would it follow that there is something beyond existence, i.e., beyond what exists, if God exists? It may well be that everything that exists is a thing of nature. Distinguished philosophers have held that reality is exhausted by the space-time system and its contents. But the nonexistence of God or of so-called abstract objects does not follow from the triviality that everything that exists exists. Does it take a genius to see that the following argument is invalid?

1. Existence exists.

ergo

2. God does not exist.

One cannot derive a substantive metaphysical conclusion from a mere tautology. No doubt, whatever exists exists. But one cannot exclude God from the company of what exists by asserting the tautology that whatever exists exists. The above argument is a non sequitur. Here is an example of a valid argument:

3. Nothing supernatural exists.

4. God is supernatural.

ergo

5. God does not exist.

For Peikoff to get the result he wants, the nonexistence of God, from the premise 'Existence exists,' he must conflate 'existence' with 'natural existence.' Instead of saying "only existence exists," he should have said 'only natural existence exists.' But then he would lose the self-evidence of "Existence exists and only existence exists." And he would also be begging the question.

Conflating a trivial self-evident thesis with a nontrivial controversial thesis has all the advantages of theft over honest toil as Russell said in a different connection. It would take a certain amount of honest philosophical toil to construct a really good argument for the nonexistence of any and all supernatural entities. But terminological mischief is easy. What Peikoff seems to be doing above is smuggling the nonexistence of the supernatural into the term 'existence' Clearly, this is an intellectually disreputable move.

It is like a bad ontological argument in reverse. On one bad version of the ontological argument, one defines God into existence by smuggling the notion of existence into the concept of God and then announcing that since we have the concept of God, God must exist. Peikoff is doing the opposite: he defines God and the supernatural out of existence by importing their nonexistence into the term 'existence.' But you can no more define God out of existence than you can define him into existence.

An Objection and a Reply

"You are missing something important. The claim that existence exists is the claim that whatever exists, exists independently of all consciousness, including divine consciousness. It is a substantive claim, not a mere tautology. It is a claim about the nature of existence. It asserts the primacy of existence over consciousness. It is a statement of extreme metaphysical realism: to exist is to be independent of all minds and their states. This axiom implies that no existents are created or caused to exist by a mind. But then God, as the creator of everything distinct from himself, cannot exist."

Here, then, is a Rand-inspired argument for the nonexistence of God resting on Rand's axiom of existence.

1) To exist is to exist independently of all consciousness. (The notorious axiom)

2) Things other than God exist. (Obviously true)

Therefore

3) Things other than God exist independently of all consciousness. (Follows from 1 and 2)

4) If God exists, then it is not the case that everything that exists exists independently of all consciousness. (True given the classical conception of God as creator according to which whatever exists that is not God is maintained in existence moment-by-moment by God's creative power.)

Therefore

5) God does not exist. (Follows from 3 and 4 by standard logical rules including modus tollens)

This argument stands and falls with its first premise. Why should we accept it? It is not self-evident. Its negation — some items that exist depend for their existence on consciousness — is not a contradiction. Indeed, the negation is true: my current headache pain exists but it would not not exist were I not conscious of it. My felt pain depends for its existence on consciousness.

Note also that the argument can be run in reverse with no breach of logical propriety. Simply deny the conclusion and then infer the negation of the initial premise. In brief: if God exists, then Rand's existence axiom is false. This shows that the argument is not rationally compelling. Of course, the argument run in reverse is also not rationally compelling. So we have a stand-off.

We read above that existence, i.e. existents, are uncreated, indestructible, and eternal. Well, if there is no God, then existents are uncreated. But how could they be indestructible? Is the Moon indestructible? Obviously not. Is there anything in nature that is indestructible? No. So what might Rand or rather Peikoff mean by his strange assertion? Does he mean that, while each natural item is destructible, it is 'indestructible' that there be some natural items or other?

And how can natural items be eternal? What is eternal is outside of time. But everything in nature in in time. Perhaps he means that everything in nature is omnitemporal, i.e., existent at every time. But the Moon did not always exist and will not always exist.

I conclude that the Randian existence axiom does not bear up well under scrutiny. Classical theism has its own problems to which I will be returning.

(Rand below looks a little like Nancy "the Ripper" Pelosi. Both leave a lot to be desired character-wise, but Rand is sharp as a tack while Pelosi is dumb as a post.)

Defending Barry Miller against Herman Philipse: Existence as a First-Level Property, Part III

This is the third in a series. First installment, second, Philipse's review.

Herman Philipse's strongest argument against Barry Miller's claim that existence is a a first-level property, a property of individuals, is the absurdity objection.

According to this objection, if existence is an accidental real first-order property of individual entities, so must non-existence be, but this would imply an absurdity. For in order to attribute truly a real property to a specific individual, we must be able to refer successfully to that individual by using a proper name, a pronoun, or by pointing to it, etc. However, we can refer successfully to an individual only if that individual exists or at least has existed, so that non-existence cannot be a real property. Hence existence cannot be an accidental real first-level property of individuals either.

The absurdity objection can be put like this:

a) Existence is a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals if and only if nonexistence is also a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals.

b) Non-existence cannot be a property of individuals: if an individual exists, then it cannot have the property of nonexistence.

Therefore

c) Existence is not a property of individuals.

Miller must accept (b) since he does not countenance nonexistent items in the manner of Meinong. He agrees with Frege, Russell, and Quine that everything exists. If so, then non-existence cannot be a real property of individuals. Otherwise, there could be an individual x such that x both exists and does not exist. That would be absurd, i.e., logically contradictory.

Miller must therefore reject (a). Now let's hear what Philipse has to say.

Miller replies to this argument [the absurdity objection] by claiming that whereas existence is a real property of individuals, non-existence is merely a Cambridge property. He proposes the following criterion for deciding whether the lack of a real property implies the presence of a real complementary property: "Lack of a real property F would bespeak the presence of a correlative real property non-F only if F and non-F were determinates of . . . one determinable property" (p. 23, quote from Miller). Since there is no determinable of which both existence and non-existence are determinates (like red and not-red may both be determinates of the determinable colour), non-existence is not a real property, but rather a Cambridge property. Hence, Miller rejects the [major] premise of the absurdity objection.

I do not think that this refutation is convincing. Why endorse Miller's criterion? A person could just as well propose a similar criterion for deciding whether we are talking about real properties: all real properties are either determinates of determinables, or determinables of determinates. Since this is not the case for existence, existence cannot be a real property. Furthermore, non-existence cannot be a Cambridge property, contrary to what Miller claims. He defined a Cambridge property as a property the presence or absence of which does not make a real difference to the individual that has it. Is it true, or is it even meaningful to say, that it makes no real difference to the goddess Athena whether she has the property of non-existence or not? Moreover, whereas all Cambridge properties are relational (p. 29), non-existence is not relational.

Philipse makes three counter-arguments in the second of the quoted paragraphs.

The second is question-begging and is easily dismissed. Miller rejects such Meinongian objects as the goddess Athena. So no question can arise with respect to it as to whether or not it has the property of non-existence.

The third counter-argument is this: All Cambridge properties are relational; non-existence is not relational; ergo, non-existence is not a Cambridge property. This begs the question at the major premise. If Miller is right, not all Cambridge properties are relational: non-existence is a Cambridge property that is not relational.

The first-counter-argument is also question-begging. The argument is: "all real [non-Cambridge] properties are either determinates of determinables, or determinables of determinates"; existence is not a determinate of a determinable, etc; ergo, existence is not a real property. Miller will simply run this argument in reverse: because existence is a real property, the major premise is false.

What we have here is (at least) a standoff. Philipse has failed to refute Miller. Can Miller refute Philipse? Perhaps not. If so, then we have a standoff. Miller's view is a contender. It is at least as good as the Fregean and Meinongian views. But all three views are open to objections.

Defending Barry Miller against Herman Philipse: Existence as a First-Level Property, Part II

This is the second in a series. Here is the first installment. Read it for context and references. We are still examining only the first premise of Barry Miller's cosmological argument, as sketched by Philipse:

1) Existence is a real first-level accidental property of contingent individuals.

Philipse gave two arguments contra. In my first entry I refuted the weaker of the two. Philipse argued that Kant in 1781 had already put paid to the proposition that existence is a "real predicate," i.e., a real property of individuals. I showed that Philipse confuses two different senses of 'real.' When the Sage of Koenigsberg tells us that Offenbar, Sein ist kein reales Praedikat, he is telling us that it is obvious that being or existence is not a first-level quidditative determination. This is true, whether or not it is obvious. But when Miller tells us that existence is a real property of individuals, he is telling us that it is a non-Cambridge property of individuals. Philipse confuses 'real' in the sense of 'quidditative' with 'real' in the sense of 'non-Cambridge,' and on the basis of this confusion takes Kant to have refuted Miller. The ineptitude of Philipse's 'argument' takes the breath away.

The other argument Philipse gives is not so easily blown out of the water, if it can be so blown at all. He writes:

It is not necessary to discuss here all the attempted refutations Miller puts forward, for the simple reason that if he fails to refute convincingly only one plausible argument to the effect that existence is not a real predicate, his negative strategy is shipwrecked.

Let me take the so-called absurdity objection as an example (pp. 21-23). According to this objection, if existence is an accidental real first-order property of individual entities, so must non-existence be, but this would imply an absurdity. For in order to attribute truly a real property to a specific individual, we must be able to refer successfully to that individual by using a proper name, a pronoun, or by pointing to it, etc. However, we can refer successfully to an individual only if that individual exists or at least has existed, so that non-existence cannot be a real property. Hence existence cannot be an accidental real first-level property of individuals either.

The absurdity objection can be put like this:

a) Existence is a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals if and only if nonexistence is also a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals.

b) Non-existence cannot be a property of individuals: if an individual exists, then it cannot have the property of nonexistence.

Therefore

c) Existence is not a property of individuals.

This is an argument that cannot be dismissed as resting on an elementary confusion. But let's take a step back and formulate the problem as an aporetic triad or antilogism the better to reconnoiter the conceptual terrain.

a) Existence is a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals if and only if nonexistence is also a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals.

b) Non-existence cannot be a property of individuals: if an individual exists, then it cannot have the property of nonexistence.

c*) Existence is a property of individuals.

Each of these three propositions is individually plausible. And yet they cannot all be true on pain of logical contradiction. Individually plausible, but collectively inconsistent. So, if we adhere to the law of non-contradiction, one of the propositions must be rejected. Which will it be?

A. The Fregean will reject (c*). A Fregean or Fressellian for present purposes is someone who, first, holds that 'exist(s)' is univocal in sense and second, has only one admissible sense: as a second-level predicate. Thus the general existential 'Cats exist' is logically kosher because it can be read as predicating of the first-level property of being a cat the second-level property of being instantiated. But the singular existential 'Max exists' is not logically kosher and is indeed meaningless in roughly the way 'Max is numerous' is meaningless. For if 'exists' is univocal and means 'is instantiated,' then one cannot meaningfully say of Max that he exists for the simple reason that it is meaningless to say of an individual that it is instantiated. Max could conceivably have an indiscernible twin, but that would not be an instance of him. By definition, the only instantiable items are properties, concepts, and the like. Some will say that the Fregean analysis can be made to work for singular existentials if there are such haecceity properties as identity-with-Max, 'Maxity' to give it a name. Suppose that there are. Then 'Max exists' is analyzable as 'Maxity is instantiated.' But this does not alter the fact that 'exist(s)' is a second-level predicate, and existence a second-level property.

B. The Meinongian will reject (b). A Meinongian for present purposes is someone who denies that everything exists, and holds instead that some items exist and some do not. For the Meinongian, existence is a classificatory principle: it partitions a logically prior domain of items into those that exist and those that do not. For the Meinongian, both existence and non-existence are first-level properties. Existence cannot be classificatory for the Fregean because, for the Fregean, everything exists. And so for the Fregean, there cannot be a property of non-existence.

C. The Millerian — to give him a name — rejects (a). A Millerian for present purposes is one who holds, against the Meinongian, that there are no nonexistent items, and against the Fregean that existence is a genuine, non-relational property predicable of individuals. Holding that everything exists, the Millerian cannot admit that non-existence is a real (i.e., non-Cambridge) property of individuals.

In Part III of this series, I will examine Philipse's atempted rebuttal of Miller's rejection of (a). For now I will merely point out that the Meinongian and Fregean positions are open to powerful objections and therefore cannot be used to refute the Millerian view. They merely oppose it. To oppose a theory T with a questionable theory T* is not to refute T. 'Refute' is a verb of success. To refute a theory is to prove that it is untenable. Note also that the Fregean and the Meinongian are at profound loggerheads, which fact undermines both positions. After all, deep thinkers have supported each.

My point, then, is that Philipse hasn't refuted Miller; he has merely opposed him from the point of view of the Fregean theory which is fraught with difficulties. One cannot refute a theory with a theory that is itself open to powerful objections as the Fregean theory is.