Existence – Page 5 – Maverick Philosopher

Is God Beyond All Being?

This is a redacted re-posting of an entry that first appeared in these pages on 8 May 2015. It answers a question Fr. Kimel poses in the comments to Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse.

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Fr. Aidan Kimel writes,

Reading through Vallicella’s article, I kept asking myself, Would Mascall agree with the proposition “existence exists”? I find the proposition odd. [. . .] What about the assertion of Pseudo-Dionysius that God is beyond all Being? Aquinas would certainly agree that the Creator transcends created being; but I suspect that Dionysius is trying to say something more. I wonder what the Maverick Philosopher thinks about “beyond Being” language (I can pretty much guess what Tuggy thinks about it).

I plan to discuss the strange question whether existence exists in a separate post. Here I will say something about whether God is beyond all Being.

Well, what would it be for God to be beyond Being? What could that mean?

First we must distinguish between Being and beings, esse and ens, das Sein und das Seiende. It is absolutely essential to observe this distinction and to mark it linguistically by a proper choice of terms. If we do so, then we see right away that Kimel's question is ambiguous. Is he asking whether God is beyond all beings or beyond all Being? Big difference! (Heidegger calls it the Ontological Difference.)

I think what Kimel means to ask is whether God is beyond all beings. A being is anything at all that is or exists, of whatever category, and of whatever nature. Being, on the other hand, majuscule Being, is that which makes beings be. Now one of the vexing questions here is whether Being itself is, whether that which makes beings be is itself a being or else the paradigmatic being. Heidegger and Pseudo-Dionysius say No! Aquinas says Yes! (That is, Aquinas says that Being is the paradigmatic being from which every other being has its being.) Dale Tuggy would presumably dismiss the question by maintaining that there just is no Being, there are only beings; hence the question lapses, resting as it does (according to Tuggy) on a false presupposition.

Now distinguish three positions. (A) God is a being among beings. (B) God is not a being among beings, but self-subsistent Being itself. (C) God is neither a being among beings, nor self-subsistent Being itself, but beyond every being. Tuggy, Aquinas, Pseudo-Dionysius. (You're in good company, Dale!)

I have already explained what it means to say that God is a being among beings. But to repeat myself, it it to say that the very same general-metaphysical scheme, the very same scheme of metaphysica generalis, that applies to creatures applies also to God. This implies, among other things, that God and Socrates (Socrates standing in for any creature whatsoever) exist in the same way. It implies that there are not two modes of Being, one pertaining to God alone, the other pertaining to Socrates. If, on the other hand, one maintains that God is not a being among beings, then one is maintaining, among other things, that God and Socrates exist in different ways. The difference can be put by saying that God is (identically) his existence and existence itself while this is surely not the case for Socrates: he has existence but he doesn't have it by being it. In God there is no real distinction, no distinctio realis, between essence and existence while in Socrates there is a real distinction between essence and existence.

Equivalently, if God is a being among beings, then God is one member of a totality of beings each of which exists in the very same sense of 'exists' and has properties in the very same sense of 'has properties.' But if God is not a being among beings, then there is no such totality of beings each of which exists in the very same sense of 'exists' and has properties in the very same sense of 'has properties' such that both God and Socrates are members of it.

How does (B) differ from (C)? On (B) God is (identical to) Being but also is. God is not a being, but the being that is identical to Being itself. (C) is a more radical view. It is the view that God is so radically transcendent of creatures that he is not! This is exactly what pseudo-Dionysius says in The Divine Names (Complete Works, p. 98) It is the view that God is other than every being. But if God is other than every being, then God in no way is.

This can also be explained in terms of univocity, analogicity, and equivocity. For Tuggy & Co. 'exists' in 'God exists' and 'Socrates exists' has exactly the same sense. The predicate is univocal across these two occurrences. For Aquinas, the predicate is being used analogously, which implies that while God and Socrates both are, they are in different ways or modes. But for Pseudo-Dionysius the predicate is equivocal.

Fr. Kimel suspects that Pseudo-Dionysius is saying more than that God transcends every creature. The suspicion is correct. Whereas Aquinas is saying that God is, but transcends every creature in respect of his very mode of Being, Pseudo-Dionysius is saying more , namely that God is so transcendent that he is not.

My question for Fr. Kimel: Do you side with the doctor angelicus, or do you go all the way into the night of negative theology with Pseudo-Dionysus?

Puzzling Over Presentism

Presentism in the philosophy of time is the thesis that only the (temporally) present exists. This is not the tautology that only present items (times, individuals, events . . .) exist at present; it is the substantive metaphysical thesis that only present items exist simpliciter. So if something no longer exists, it does not exist at all.

But what could this mean? It is counterintuitive and, contrary to what prominent presentists claim, not commonsensical. After all, the past is not nothing. It was and it actually was. When Boston's Scollay Square ceased to exist, it did not quit the actual world and become a merely possible object. It became a past actual object.

There are those who remember Scollay Square. Some of their memories are veridical and some are not. How is this possible if there is nothing that they are remembering? What makes the veridical memories veridical? I will assume that we do not want to say that the past exists only in the flickering memories of mortals. However things stand with the future, the reality of the past is near-datanic.

Historians of Boston study Scollay Square making use of various physical remnants, documents such as newspaper stories, photographs and whatnot. Are these historians writing fiction or speculating about possibilities? No, they are faithfully trying to record reality, past reality. So again, what no longer exists cannot be nothing. What is no longer temporally present retains some sort of ontological status.

These datanic points do not of course refute the presentist, but they present (pun intended!) a serious challenge to him, namely the challenge of accounting for them while holding fast to the thesis that only what presently exists exists simpliciter. Past-tensed contingent truths about Scollay Square — 'During the War Scollay Square was where sailors on shore leave in Boston went for girls and tattoos' — presumably need truthmakers; on presentism these will have to exist at present. What sort of item presently existing could do the job? Several suggestions have been made, none of them satisfactory.

Here is a related datum, a given, a Moorean deliverance that I think most would be loath to deny:

DATUM: if it is true that a was F, or that a F'ed, then it was true that a is F, or that a Fs.

For example, if it is true that John F. Kennedy was in Dallas on 22 November 1963, then it was true on that date that he is in Dallas on that date. For a second example, if it is true that Socrates drank hemlock, then it was true that Socrates drinks hemlock.

It seems to follow that the present present cannot be the only present: there had to have been past presents, past times that were once present. For example there was the present when JFK was assassinated. That is a past present. Only what was once present could now be past. Suppose you deny this. Then are you saying that there are past items that were never present. But that cannot be right. For the past is the present that has passed away.

So what is the presentist maintaining? He cannot be maintaining

P-Taut: Only present items presently exist

for this is not a substantive metaphysical claim contradicted by the eternalist's equally substantive denial, but a mere tautology. Nor can he be telling us that

P-Solip: Only presently present items exist simpliciter

for this is solipsism of the present moment, a lunatic thesis. It amounts to the claim that all that ever existed, exists, and will exist exists now, where 'now' is a rigid designator of the present moment. If our presentist pals cannot be saying that only what exists at the present present exists simpliciter, then they they must be telling us that only what exists at a given present (whether past, present, or future) exists. Thus

P-Cont: At every time t, only what is present at t, exists simpliciter.

But this seems contradictory: it implies that at each time there are no non-present times and that at each time there are non-present times. For if one quantifies over all times, then one quantifies over present and non-present times in which case there are all these times including non-present times. But the bit following the quantifier in (P-Cont) takes this back by stating that only what is present at a given time exists simpliciter.

It is obvious that (P-Taut) and (P-Solip) are nonstarters. So we were driven to (P-Cont). But it is contradictory. The presentist wants to limit the ontological inventory, the catalog of what exists, to temporally present items. To avoid both tautology and the solipsism of the present moment, however, he is forced to admit that what exists cannot be limited to the present. For he is forced to admit that there are times that are not present.

My interim conclusion is that presentism makes no clear sense. This does not support eternalism, however, for it has its own problems.

The Multiverse Idea: Does it Help with the Question ‘Why Something Rather than Nothing?’

If 'universe' refers to the totality of what exists in space-time, then there can be only one universe. Call that the ontological use of 'universe.' On that use, which accords with etymology and common sense, there cannot be multiple universes or parallel universes. But if 'universe' refers to the totality of what we can 'see' (empirically detect) with our best telescopes in all directions out to around 14 billion light-years — call that the epistemological use of the term — then it is a reasonable speculation that there are many such universes.

After all, it is epistemically possible — possible for all we know — that there are other self-contained spatio-temporal regions beyond our current ken. Let's run with the speculation.

These many universes would then make up the one actual universe (in the ontological sense) which we can now call the multiverse: one universe with many spatio-temporally disconnected regions each with its origin in its own big bang.

Some journalists succumb to the conflation of the MODAL notion of possible worlds with the COSMOLOGICAL notion of a multiplicity of universes. These need to be kept distinct.

If there are many physical universes, as some cosmologists speculate, they are parts of total physical reality, albeit spatio-temporally disconnected parts thereof, and therefore parts of the total way things are, using 'are' tenselessly. But the total way things are is just what we mean by the actual world. To invoke the Tractarian Wittgenstein, "The [actual] world is all that is the case." "The [actual] world is the totality of facts not of things." The actual world is the total (maximal) way things are, and merely possible worlds are total ways things could have been. Therefore, if there are many physical universes, they are all 'located within' the actual world in the sense that they are all parts of what is actually the case.

In other words, each universe in the multiverse is a huge chunk of actuality; universes other than ours are not merely possible. They are actually out there beyond our ken. So it is a mistake to refer to the universes in the multiverse as possible worlds. This should be obvious from the fact that there is a possible world in which there are no universes beyond the one we 'see.' Obviously, this possible world is not identical to a physical universe beyond the reach of our telescopes.

Now suppose we want an answer to the question, Why is there anything physical at all, and not rather nothing physical at all? Does the multiverse idea help with this question?

Not in the least.

First of all, we can ask the same question about the multiverse that we asked about the plain old universe prior to the popularity of the multiverse theory. We can ask: why does the multiverse exist? After all, it is just as modally contingent as 'our' universe, the one we 'see.' Even if there are infinitely many universes in the multiverse, there might not have been any. What then explains the existence of the multiverse?

If I want to know why 'our' universe exists, it does no good to say that it is one of the universes in the multiverse, for that simply invites the question: why does the multiverse exist?

You might say, "The multiverse contains every possible universe, and therefore, necessarily, it contains ours." This is not a good answer because the ensemble of universes — the multiverse — might not have existence at all. Surely there is a possible world in which nothing physical exists.

Let us also not forget that the multiplicity of universes comes into existence. So there is need of a multiverse-generating mechanism which will have to operate on some pre-given stuff according to laws of nature. Even if different universes have different laws, there is need for meta-laws to explain how the base-level laws come to be. According to Paul Davies, as paraphrased and quoted here,

. . .to get a multiverse, you need a universe-generating mechanism, "something that's going to make all those Big Bangs go bang. You're going to need some laws of physics. All theories of the multiverse assume quantum physics to provide the element of spontaneity, to make the bangs happen. They assume pre-existing space and time. They assume the normal notion of causality, a whole host of pre-existing conditions." Davies said there are about "10 different basic assumptions" of physical laws that are required "to get the multiverse theory to work."

Davies then made his deep point. "OK, where did those laws all come from? What about those meta-laws that generate all the universes in the first place? Where did they come from? Then what about the laws or meta-laws that impose diverse local laws upon each individual universe? How do they work? What is the distribution mechanism?" Davies argues that the only thing the multiverse theory does is shift the problem of existence up from the level of one universe to the level of multiple universes. "But you haven't explained it," Davies asserted.

Davies dismissed the idea that "any universe you like is out there somewhere. I think such an idea is just ridiculous and it explains nothing. Having all possible universes is not an explanation, because by invoking everything, you explain nothing."

Here Davies may be going too far. If you want to explain why the physical constants are so finely tuned as to allow the emergence of life and consciousness and the minds of physicists, then it does seem to be a good explanation to say that there are all the possible universes there might have been; it would then be no surprise that in our universe physics exists. It had to exist in at least one! One would not then need God to do the fine-tuning or to actualize a life-supporting universe. But this still leaves unexplained why there is the ensemble of universes in the first place.

Davies' critique of the multiverse goes deeper. To explain the universe, he rejects "outside explanations," he said.

"I suppose, for me, the main problem [with a multiverse] is that what we're trying to do is explain why the universe is as it is by appealing to something outside of it," Davies told me. "In this case, an infinite number of multiple universes outside of our universe is used as the explanation for our universe."

Then Davies makes his damning comparison. "To me, multiverse explanations are no better than traditional religion, which appeals to an unseen, unexplained God — a God that is outside of the universe — to explain the universe. In fact, I think both explanations — multiverse and God — are pretty much equivalent." To Davies, this equivalence is not a compliment.

I don't see the damnation nor the equivalency. The appeal to God is the appeal to a necessary being about which it make no sense to ask: But why does it exist? The crucial difference between appealing to God and appealing to the multiverse is that the former is a necessary being while the second is not.

I grant, though, that the idea of a necessary being is a very difficult one!

Presentism and the Existence Requirement

Why do some find the Existence Requirement self-evident? Could it be because of a (tacit) commitment to presentism?

Here again is the Existence Requirement:

(ER) In order for something to be bad for somebody, that person must exist at the time it is bad for him. (D. Benatar, The Human Predicament, 111,115)

Assuming mortalism, after death a person no longer exists. It is easy to see that mortalism in conjunction with the Existence Requirement entails that being dead is not bad for the person who dies. (of course it might be bad for others, but this is not the issue.) Our Czech colleague Vlastimil V., though he is not a mortalist, accepts this line of reasoning. For he finds (ER) to be well-nigh self-evident. Vlastimil's view, then, is that if one is a mortalist, then then one ought to hold that the dead are not in a bad way; they are not, for example, deprived of the goods they would have had had they been alive.

Initially, I thought along the same lines. But now it seems less clear to me. For now I suspect that a tacit or explicit commitment to the questionable doctrine of presentism is what is driving the sense that (ER) is self-evident. Let's think about this.

At a first approximation, presentism is the ontological thesis that only present items exist. But 'present' has several senses, so we'd better say that on presentism, only temporally present items exist. If so, then what is wholly past does not exist, and likewise for what is wholly future. But let's not worry about future items. And to avoid questions about so-called abstract objects, which either exist at all times or else timelessly, let us restrict ourselves to concreta. So for present purposes, pun intended,

P. Presentism is the ontological thesis that, for concrete items, only temporally present items exist.

Note that 'exist' in (P) cannot be present-tensed on pain of siring the tautology, Only what exists now exists now. The idea is rather that only what exists now exists simpliciter.

Consider Tom Petty who died recently. On mortalism, he no longer exists. On presentism, what no longer exists (i.e., what existed but does not now exist) does not exist at all. So on presentism, Petty does not exist at all. If so, dead Petty cannot be subject to harms or deprivations.

It is beginning to look as if presentism is what is driving the Existence Requirement. For if presentism is true it is impossible that a person be subject to a harm or deprivation at a time at which he does not presently exist. For a time at which he does not presently exist is a time at which he does not exist at all. And if he does not exist at all, then he cannot be subject to harm or deprivation.

What if presentism is false? One way for it to be false is if the 'growing block' theory is true. We could also call it past-and-presentism. On this theory past and present items exist, but no future items exist.

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.

But what does this mean? It is not easy to explain. But if we don't have a notion of existence simpliciter, then we won't be able to make any of of the following substantive (non-tautological) claims:

A. Presentism: Only what exists now exists simpliciter.

B. Past-and-Presentism: Only what exists now and what did exist exists simpliciter.

C. Futurism: Only what exists in the future exists simpliciter.

D. Eternalism: All past, present, and future items exist simpliciter.

We understand these theories, more or less despite the questions they raise; we understand how the theories differ, and we understand that (C) is absurd. So we have an understanding of existence simpliciter. Perhaps we could say that x exists simpliciter just in case x is actual as opposed to merely possible.

I consider (B) preferable to (A).

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. I am assuming the reality of the past. The assumption is not obvious. An anti-realist about the past might say that the past exists only in memory and thus not in reality. But that strains credulity unless you bring God into the picture and put him to work, as presentist Alan Rhoda does in Presentism, Truthmakers, and God.

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.

Now suppose that something like the 'growing block' theory is true. Then one would have reason to reject the Existence Requirement. One would have reason to reject the claim that a thing can be a subject of harm/deprivation only when it exists (present tense). One could hold that Petty is deprived of musical pleasure on the strength of his having existed. Having existed, he exists simpliciter. Existing simpliciter, he is available to be the subject of harms, deprivations, awards, posthumous fame, and what all else.

Summary

If I am on the right track, one who subscribes to the Existence Requirement must also subscribe to presentism. But presentism is by no means self-evident. (ER) inherits this lack of self-evidence. This supports my earlier claim that the following aporetic triad is rationally insoluble:

1) Mortalism: Death ends a person's existence.

2) Existence Requirement: For something to be bad for somebody, he must exist at the time it is bad for him.

3) Badness of Death: Being dead is bad for the one who dies.

The Epicurean denies (3) and accepts (1) and (2). Benatar denies (2) and accepts (1) and (3). I say we have no rationally compelling reason to go either way.

Benatar on Annihilation and the Existence Requirement

Herewith, the eighth installment in a series on David Benatar's The Human Predicament (Oxford UP, 2017). We are still in the juicy and technically rich Chapter 5 entitled "Death." This entry covers pp. 102-118. People who dismiss this book unread are missing out on a lot of good philosophy. You are no philosopher if you refuse to examine arguments the conclusions of which adversely affect your doxastic complacency.

Epicurus, you will recall, is the presiding shade. His core idea, presented very simply, is that death can be nothing to us since when we are, it is not, and when it is, we are not. How then can death be bad for the person who dies? But for Benatar, being dead is bad, objectively bad, and for all. So our man faces an Epicurean challenge. I concluded a few entries back that he met the challenge in its Hedonist Variant.

If the only intrinsic goods and bads are conscious or experiential states, then being dead can't be bad since the dead don't experience anything. But there are intrinsic goods and bads that are not experiential. If so, then being dead can be bad in virtue of depriving the decedent of goods that would otherwise have accrued to him. A good or a bad can accrue to one even if it cannot be experienced by the one to whom it accrues.* That, roughly, is the Deprivation Response to the Epicurean challenge.

Benatar supplements it with the Annihilation Response: death is bad for the person who dies because it annihilates or obliterates him, whether or not it deprives him of future goods that he would otherwise have had. (102-103) One has an interest not only in future goods, but also an "independent interest" in continued existence.

The Existence Requirement

One fairly intuitive objection to the Deprivation Response, even when supplemented by the Annihilation Response, runs as follows. How can a person be deprived of anything, whether positive feelings or non-experiential goods, if he does not exist at the time the deprivation occurs? The Existence Requirement, then, is this:

ER. In order for something to be bad or good for somebody, that being must actually exist at the time at which the bad occurs. (111, 115)

It is not enough for the person to exist; the person must exist at the time at which the bad occurs. But when a person is dead, he is no more, so when is the badness of death upon him? Not when he is dead, given the truth of (ER). Recoiling from "Subsequentism," some have adopted "Priorism," the view that death is bad before the person dies. But how can being dead be bad for me if I am alive and kicking? Benatar goes on to consider three other unlikely views. But brevity is the soul of blog, and so I will ignore this discussion and jump to what I consider the heart of the matter.

The Aporetics of Being Dead

I lay it down that a philosophical problem is in canonical form when it is expressed as an aporetic polyad. When the problem before us is poured into the mold of an inconsistent triad, it fairly jumps out at us:

1) Mortalism: Death ends a person's existence.

2) Existence Requirement: For something to be bad for somebody, he must exist at the time it is bad for him.

3) Badness of Death: Being dead is bad for the one who dies.

The limbs of the triad are collectively inconsistent: they cannot (logically) all be true. Any two of the above propositions, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one. For example, the conjunction of (1) and (2) entails the negation of (3). And yet each of the propositions makes a strong claim on our acceptance.

How do we solve this bad boy? Given that logically inconsistent propositions cannot all be true. we need to reject one of the propositions. Which one?

The Epicurean denies (3) and accepts (1) and (2). Benatar denies (2) and accepts (1) and (3). Benatar

. . . see[s] no reason why we should treat the existence requirement as a requirement. To insist that the badness of death must be analyzed in exactly the same way as other bad things that do not have the distinctive feature of death is to be insensitive to a complexity in the way the world is. (115)

Now is there any way to decide rationally between the two positions? I don't see a way.

I was initially inclined to hold that the Existence Requirement holds across the board, even for the 'state' of being dead. To put it rhetorically, how can it be bad for me to be dead when there is no 'me' at the times I am dead? It seems self-evident! Epicurus vindicatus est. But what is the source of the self-evidence?

The source seems to be the assumption that the 'state' of being dead and the state of having a broken leg are states in exactly the same sense of the term. If they are, then (ER) follows. But Benatar has brought me to see that it is not obvious that being dead is a state like any other.

The bad of a broken leg is had by me only at times at which I exist. This makes it natural to think that the bad of being dead, if a bad it is, is had by me only when I exist, which implies that being dead is not bad. But death is very different from other bad things. (115) Perhaps we can say that the bad of death is sui generis. If so, then we ought not expect it to satisfy the Existence Requirement.

We seem to be at an impasse. On the one hand we have the strong intuition that death is bad for the one who dies in that it (a) deprives the person of the goods he would otherwise have enjoyed or had non-experientially, and (b) annihilates the person. This is part of the explanation why Epicurean reasoning smacks of sophistry to so many. On he other hand, The Existence Requirement obtrudes itself upon the mind with no little force and vivacity. Our Czech colleague Vlastimil V finds it self-evident.

Benatar, however, thinks it merely "clever" to adopt the Existence Requirement, but "wise" to recognize that death is different from other bad things. (115-116) The wise course is to "respond to difference with difference and to complexity with nuance." (116)

Given my aporetic bent, I am inclined to say that the triad is rationally insoluble. I see no compelling reason to take either the side of Benatar or that of Epicurus.

What say you, Vlastimil?

________________

*The following example, mine, not Benatar's, might show this to be the case. A philosopher is holed up, totally incommunicado, in a hermitage at a remote monastery in the high desert of New Mexico. While there, the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft awards him its coveted Pessimist of the Year Award which brings with it a subtantial emolument. Unfortunately, our philosopher dies at the very instant the award is made. Not only does he not become aware of the award; he cannot become aware of it. And yet something good happened to him. Therefore, not everything good that happens to one need be something of which one is aware or even can be aware. And the same goes for the the bad.

The Two Opposites of ‘Nothing’ and the Logical Irreducibility of Being (2018 Version)

This entry is part of the ongoing debate with the Opponent a. k. a. the Dark Ostrich.

It is interesting that 'nothing' has two opposites. One is 'something.' Call it the logical opposite. The other is 'being.' Call it the ontological opposite. Logically, 'nothing' and 'something' are interdefinable quantifiers:

D1. Nothing is F =_df it is not the case that something is F.

D2. Something is F =_df it is not the case that nothing is F.

These definitions, which are part of the articulation of the Discursive Framework (DF), give us no reason to think of one term as more basic than the other. Logically, 'nothing' and 'something' are on a par. Logically, they are polar opposites. Anything you can say with the one you can say with the other, and vice versa.

We also note that as quantifiers, as terms expressing logical quantity, 'nothing' and 'something' are not names or referring expressions.

So far I have said nothing controversial.

Ontologically, however, being and nothing are not on a par. They are not polar opposites. Being is primary, and nothing is derivative. (Note the ambiguity of 'Nothing is derivative' as between 'It is not the case that something is derivative' and 'Nothingness is derivative.' The second is meant.)

Now we enter the arena of controversy. For it might be maintained that there are no ontological uses of 'being,' and 'nothing,' that talk of being and nothing is replaceable without remainder by use of the quantifiers defined in (D1) and (D2).

Quine said that "Existence is what existential quantification expresses." (Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, p. 97)I deny it: there is more to existence than what the existential quantifier expresses. Quine's is a thin theory of existence; mine is a thick theory. Metaphorically, existence possesses an ontological thickness. This is very important for metaphysics if true.

I won't be able to prove my point because nothing in philosophy can be proven. But I can argue for my point in a fallacy-free manner. I am justified in holding my view so long as no one can convict me of a clear-cut error.

Suppose we try to define the existential 'is' in terms of the misnamed because question-begging 'existential' quantifier. (The proper moniker is 'particular quantifier.') This is standardly done as follows.

D3. y is/exists =_df for some x, y = x.

In plain English, for y to be or exist is for y to be identical to something. For Quine to be or exist is for Quine to be identical to something. In general, to be is to be identical to something, not some one thing of course, but something or other. This thing, however, must exist, and in a sense not captured by (D3). Thus

Quine exists =_df Quine is identical to something that exists

and

Pegasus does not exist =_df nothing that exists is such that Pegasus is identical to it

Pegasus is diverse from everything that exists.

The point, which many find elusive, is that the items in the domain of quantification must be there to be quantified over, where 'there' has not a locative but an existential sense. For if the domain includes nonexistent objects, then, contrary to fact, Pegasus would exist in virtue of being identical to an item in this widened domain, namely, Pegasus.

The conclusion is (to me!) obvious: one cannot explicate the existential 'is' in terms of the particular quantifier without circularity, without presupposing that things exist in a sense of 'exist' that is not captured by (D3).

Mere logicians won't accept or perhaps even understand this since existence is "odious to the logician" as George Santayana observes. (Scepticism and Animal Faith, Dover, 1955, p. 48, orig. publ. 1923.) You have to have metaphysical aptitude to understand it. (But now I am tending toward the tendentious.)

Intellectual honesty requires that I admit that I am basing myself on an intuition, what J. Maritain calls the intuition of Being. I find it self-evident that the existence of a concrete individual is an intrinsic determination that makes it be as opposed to not be. This implies a real distinction between x and the existence of x. Accordingly, the existence of an individual cannot be reduced to its self-identity: the existence of Quine does not reduce to Quine's being (identical to) Quine, as on the thin theory. And the nonexistence of Pegasus does not reduce to its being diverse from everything. (If to be is to be identical to something, then not to be is to be diverse from everything.)

The Opponent does not share my intuition. In the past I have berated him for being 'existence-blind' but he might plausibly return the 'compliment' by accusing me of double vision: I see Socrates but I also 'see' the existence of Socrates when there is no such 'thing.'

So far, not good: I can't refute the Opponent but he can't refute me. Stand-off. Impasse, a-poria.

Let me try a different tack. Does the Opponent accept

ENN. Ex nihilo nihil fit?

Out of nothing nothing comes. Note that 'nothing' is used here in two different ways, ontologically and logically/quantificationally. For what the hallowed dictum states is that it is not the case that something arises from nothing/Nothingness.

Now if the Opponent accepts the truth or even just the meaningfulness of (ENN), then he must (!) admit that there are two senses of 'nothing,' the logical and the ontological, and correspondingly, two senses of 'something.' If so, then being and nothing cannot be exhaustively understood in terms of logical quantifiers and propositional negation, and then the thin theory bites the dust.

But if the thin theory succumbs, then there is more to existence than can be captured within the Discursive Framework.

Singular Existence and Quantification

For Tim M. who wants to discuss this topic with me. ComBox open.

…………………….

Singular existence is the existence of particular individuals. It is the existence attributed by a use of a singular sentence such as 'Max exists,' where 'Max' is a proper name.

A standard way to conceptualize singular existence, deriving from Quine and endorsed by Peter van Inwagen, is in terms of the 'existential' — I prefer to say 'particular' — quantifier of standard predicate logic. Thus,

Max exists =_df for some x, x = Max.

In general,

x exists =_df for some y, x = y.

In the standard notation of modern predicate logic with identity,

x exists =_df (∃y)(x = y).

What the latter two formulae express is that an individual exists if and only if it is identical to something. Assuming that there are no nonexistent objects in the domain of quantification, these biconditionals are undoubtedly true, and indeed necessarily true. Meinongians reject the assumption but it is quite reasonable, so let it stand. Even so, I cannot see that the biconditionals just listed sanction the reduction of existence to identity-to-something.

Those of a deflationary bent would welcome such a reduction. For it would allow the elimination of existence as a topic of metaphysical investigation in favor of the sober logic of 'exists.' You will notice that on the left-hand side of the biconditionals there is the apparently non-logical, content-rich word 'exists' whereas on the right-hand side all the symbols are logical. If we can get rid of the word 'exists,' then perhaps we can get rid of the temptation to ask about Existence and Being. Aquinas, for example, tells us that God is not an ens among entia, but esse, Being or To Be: Deus est ipsum esse subsistens. This presupposes that there is such a 'thing' as Being. If the deflationary account is correct, there isn't.

So my question is this: is the deflationary account adequate? Or is there more to existence than can be captured by the so-called 'existential' quantifier of modern predicate logic?

An Argument Against Reduction

If Max is identical to something, then this thing can only be Max. The upshot is that the existence of Max is his self-identity. But note that whereas my cat Max, being a contingent being, might not have existed, it is not the case that Max might not have been self-identical. It is true that Max might not have existed, but it is false that Max might not have been Max. So existence cannot be reduced to self-identity. This holds for all contingent beings. Only a necessary being such as God could be such that existence and self-identity are one and the same. The argument, then, is this:

P1. Every contingent existent is possibly nonexistent
P2. No contingent existent is possibly non-self-identical
————
C1. No contingent existent is such that its possible nonexistence = its possible non-self-identity
————
C2. No contingent existent is such that its existence = its self-identity.

It follows that there is more to existence than what is captured by our Quinean biconditionals.

An Objection

Is the above argument decisive? A Quinean might respond by denying (P2) and running the argument in reverse. Insisting that to exist = to be self-identical, he argues that if a thing is contingent (possibly nonexistent), then it is possibly non-self-identical. If Max is contingent, then there is a possible world W in which he doesn't exist. Since Max does not exist in W, he has no properties there. Hence he is neither self-identical nor non-self-identical in W.

Is this objection any good?

Why Existence is Neither a First-Level Nor a Second-Level Concept

There are many beings or existents, but they have something in common: they exist. Call what they have in common 'existence.' Now what is existence? And does existence itself exist in reality outside the mind?

For me, existence is that which makes concrete things be, outside their causes, outside the mind, outside of language and its logic, outside of the realm of mere possibility, and outside of nothing. Existence or Being is what makes beings be. I take this to imply that existence cannot be a concept under which existents fall or a property they instantiate.

For some, however, existence is a subjective concept, a concept dependent on minds such as ours. If so, the relation between the Moon, say, and existence is one of falling-under: the Moon falls under the subjective concept, existence, and the Moon exists in virtue of falling under this concept.

There are two obvious problems with this. The first is that the existence of the Moon cannot depend on the existence of minds like ours. The Moon existed before we existed, and were we not to exist, the Moon would still exist. The first point is temporal, the second modal: not every possible world in which the Moon exists is a world in which there are beings who deploy concepts. This two-pronged objection could be circumvented by maintaining that existence is an objective concept, or a property, one that does not depend on minds like ours. But then a different problem arises.

The problem is one of explanatory circularity. An individual x cannot fall under a concept C unless x exists. Thus the Moon falls under the concept natural satellite only if the Moon exists. The relation falling-under cannot obtain unless both of its relata exist. No problem arises in the case of the Moon's falling under natural satellite. But a problem arises if we suppose that existence is a first-level concept. One moves in an explanatory circle if one maintains both that (a) the Moon exists because it falls under the concept, existence, and (b) the concept, existence, has the Moon as an instance because the Moon exists. This objection is fatal to every theory of existence that conceives existence as abstractly common to existing things. The very existence of a thing cannot be its having a property or falling under a concept since it wouldn't be there at all if it didn't already (logically speaking) exist.

So I say: existence cannot be a first-level subjective or objective concept.

Followers of Frege appreciate that existence cannot be a first-level concept, but they make the mistake of conceiving of it as a second-level concept. They think of existence as a property of concepts, the property of being instantiated. Thus existence is not a property of cats, but a property of the concept cat, the property of being instantiated. This highly influential theory gets one thing right: it accommodates the insight that existence is no part of what a thing is. This insight is of course an old one. One finds it in Kant and before him in Aquinas, and before him in Avicenna to mention only three luminaries.

Kant made it clear that there is no quidditative difference – no difference as to quiddity or whatness – between a merely possible hundred dollars and an actually existing hundred dollars. And Aquinas was quite clear as to the difference between the questions Quid est? (What is it?) and An est? (Is it?) and the irreducibility of the latter to the former. Frege and his followers can be read as agreeing with Aquinas and Kant as to the negative thesis that existence is no part of what anything is. But there are serious problems with Frege's positive thesis that existence is a second-level concept. The positive thesis has the intolerable consequence of divorcing existence from the very things that primarily exist, namely, concrete individuals.

So I say: existence can be neither a first-level nor a second-level concept.

If you grasp this, then you are ready to tackle the problem of existence. If not, not.

Creation, Existence, and Extreme Metaphysical Realism

This entry is a continuation of the ruminations in The Ultimate Paradox of Divine Creation.

Recapitulation

Divine creation ex nihilo is a spiritual/mental 'process' whereby an object of the divine consciousness is posited as non-object, as more than a merely intentional object, and thus as a transcendent reality. By 'transcendent reality' I mean an item that is not immanent to consciousness, whether human or divine, but exists on its own. And by 'consciousness' in this discussion I mean intentional (object-directed) consciousness.

(I deny that every instance of consciousness is a consciousness of something: there are, I claim in agreement with Searle, non-intentional conscious states, states not directed upon an object. See Searle on Non-Intentional Mental States and the good ComBox discussion to which Harry Binswanger and David Gordon contribute. Objectivist Binswanger disagrees with Searle and me. And even if every consciousness is a consciousness of something, it does not follow that every consciousness is a conscious of something that exists.)

So God creates independent reals. What he creates exists on its own, independently, an sich. At the same time, however, what he creates he sustains moment-by-moment. At every moment of its existence the creature depends on the Creator for the whole of its Being, for its existence, its nature, as well as for such transcendental determinations as its intelligibility and goodness. Ens et verum convertuntur is grounded in God's being the ultimate source of all truth,and ens et bonum convertuntur is grounded in God's being The Good itself and thus the ultimate source of all goodness in creatures.

Creatures, then, depend for their whole Being on the Creator according to the classical conception of divine creation that involves both an original bringing-into-existence (creatio originans) and an ongoing conservation of what has been brought into existence (creatio continuans). And yet creatures exist on their own, independently. As I emphasized in the earlier post, finite persons are the prime examples of this independence. And yet how is such independence possible given divine conservation? It appears to issue in a contradiction: the creature exists both independently and dependently.

Does it follow that a creator God does not exist? (It would take a separate post to show that a God worth his salt cannot be conceived along deistic lines.)

Rand to the Rescue?

Thinking about this I recalled Ayn Rand and her notorious axiom, "Existence exists." On a charitable reading it is not the tautology that whatever exists, exists, but expresses an extreme metaphysical realism: whatever exists exists independently of all consciousness, including divine consciousness. But then it follows that God cannot exist, and our problem dissolves. 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)

Therefore

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

Is there any good reason not to accept the above argument?

The Ultimate Paradox of Divine Creation

God freely creates beings that are both (i) wholly dependent on God's creative activity at every moment for their existence, and yet (ii) beings in their own own right, not merely intentional objects of the divine mind. The extreme case of this is God's free creation of finite minds, finite subjects, finite unities of consciousness and self-consciousness, finite centers of inviolable inwardness, finite free agents, finite free agents with the power to refuse their own good, their own happiness, and to defy the nature of reality. God creates potential rebels. He creates Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus. He creates Lucifer the light bearer who, blinded by his own light, refuses to acknowledge the source of his light, and would be that source even though the project of becoming the source of his own light is doomed to failure, and he knows it, but pursues it anyway. Lucifer as the father of all perversity.

God creates and sustains, moment by moment, other minds, like unto his own, made in his image, who are yet radically other in their inwardness and freedom. He creates subjects who exist in their own right and not merely as objects of divine thought. How is this conceivable?

We are not mere objects for the divine subject, but subjects in our own right. How can we understand creation ex nihilo, together with moment by moment conservation, of a genuine subject, a genuine mind with intellect and free will and autonomy and the power of self-determination even unto rebellion?

This is a mystery of divine creation. It is is above my pay grade. And yours too.

God can do it but we can't. We can't even understand how God could do it. A double infirmity. An infirmity that sires a doubt: Perhaps it can't be done, even by God. Perhaps the whole notion is incoherent and God does not exist. Perhaps it is not a mystery but an impossibility. Perhaps Christian creation is an Unbegriff.

Joseph Ratzinger accurately explains the Christian metaphysical position, and in so doing approaches what I am calling the ultimate paradox of divine creation, but he fails to confront, let alone solve, the problem:

The Christian belief in God is not completely identical with either of these two solutions [materialism and idealism]. To be sure, it, too, will say, being is being-thought. Matter itself points beyond itself to thinking as the earlier and more original factor. But in opposition to idealism, which makes all being into moments of an all-embracing consciousness, the Christian belief in God will say: Being is being-thought — yet not in such a way that it remains only thought and that the appearance of independence proves to be mere appearance to anyone who looks more closely.

On the contrary, Christian belief in God means that things are the being-thought of a creative consciousness, a creative freedom, and that the creative consciousness that bears up all things has released what has been thought into the freedom of its own, independent existence. In this it goes beyond any mere idealism. While the latter , as we have just established, explains everything real as the content of a single consciousness, in the Christian view what supports it all is a creative freedom that sets what has been thought in the freedom of its own being, so that, on the one hand, it is the being-thought of a consciousness and yet, on the other hand, is true being itself. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, German original 1968, latest English version Ignatius Press, 2004, p. 157)

And that is where the good Cardinal (later Pope Benedict the XVI) leaves it. He then glides off onto another topic. Not satisfactory! What's the solution to the paradox?

If you tell me that God creates other minds, and then somehow releases them into ontological independence, my reply will be that makes hash of the doctrine of creatio continuans, moment-by-moment conservation. The Christian God is no mere cosmic starter-upper of what exists; his creating is ongoing. In fact, if the universe always existed, then all creation would be creatio continuans, and there would be no starting-up at all.

On Christian metaphysics, "The world is objective mind . . . ." (155) This is what makes it intelligible. This intelligibility has its source in subjective mind: "Credo in Deum expresses the conviction that objective mind is the oproduct of subjective mind . . . ." (Ibid.) So what I call onto-theological idealism gets the nod. You don't understand classical theism unless you understand it to be a form of idealism. But creatures, and in particular other minds, exist on their own, in themselves, and their Being cannot be reduced to their Being-for-God. Therein lies the difficulty.

Is divine creation a mystery or an impossibility?

Why Something rather than Nothing? The ‘Why not?’ Response

According to a presumably apocryphal story, Martin Heidegger asked G. E. Moore, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Moore replied, "Why not?" A reader finds the 'Moorean' response cheap and unphilosophical. Let's think about this.

Suppose we ask a related but more tractable question: Why does the universe exist? and we get the response: Why not? Why shouldn't it exist? Charitably interpreted, the response amounts to the suggestion that the question is gratuitous or unmotivated or unnecessary in the sense of unneeded.

Some explanation-seeking why-questions are gratuitous. (It is worth noting that grammatically interrogative formulations such as 'Why does anything at all exist?' might be used merely as expressions of wonder that the, or a, universe exists, and not as requests for an explanation. Here we are concerned with ultimate explanations.)

Suppose it is 110 degrees Fahrenheit. I walk into your house where the temperature is a pleasant 80 degrees. If I were to ask why the air conditioning is on, you would be puzzled. "Why shouldn't it be on?"

But if your house were a miserable 95 degrees and I asked why the air conditioning was not on, or why it was so bloody hot in there, you would give some such answer as: "My A.C. unit is on the fritz; the repairman should be here in a couple of hours."

My first question is gratuitous; my second question is not. Some things need explaining; other things don't need explaining.

Perhaps it is like that with the universe. Why should anyone think that it needs an explanation in terms of some item transcendent of it such as the One of Plotinus or the God of Aquinas?

I assume, quite reasonably, that the universe U is modally contingent. Thus it does not exist of metaphysical necessity, the way God exists if he exists; nor is U's existence metaphysically impossible. U exists, but it might not have: its nonexistence is possible. That is to say: U exists, but its nonexistence is not ruled out by the laws of logic or the laws of metaphysics. It exists, but its nonexistence is neither logically nor metaphysically impossible.

But if x is modally contingent, 'contingent' for short, it does not straightaway follow that x depends for its existence on something. It is a mistake to conflate modal contingency with contingency-on-something. That is an important conceptual/semantic point.

So it might be like this: U exists, and exists contingently, but it exists without cause or reason or explanation. If this is the case, then we say that the universe exists as a matter of brute fact. The factuality of the fact resides in its existence; the 'brutality' in (a) its contingency and (b) its lacking a ground, cause, reason, explanation.

I conclude that one cannot argue a contingentia mundi to a prima causa without a preliminary demonstration that our ultimate explanation-seeking why-question is not gratuitous. Before one can mount a cosmological argument from a contingent universe to a transcendent Cause, one must show or at least give a good reason to think that the universe needs an explanation.

In my published work on this topic I argue that contingent particulars, taken by themselves as "independent reals" are contradictory structures. But they patently exist, and nothing can exist that is self-contradictory. So there must be something transcending th realm of contingent particulars to remove the contradiction. Now I cannot go into the many details here and fill in the steps in the argument, but the main point I want to make, in answer to my reader's query, is that it is not unphilosophical to take seriously the 'Why not?' response.

One needs to be able to show that the question, Why does the universe exist? is not gratuitous.

Is It Epistemically Certain that Whatever Begins to Exist is Caused?

I wrote that

1) Whatever begins to exist is caused

is not epistemically certain. I don't deny that (1) is true; I deny that it can be known with certainty. (As I explained earlier, truth and certainty are different properties.) And then I wrote that

If an argument is presented for (1), then I will show that the premises of that argument are not, all of them, certain.

That is to say: if you try to show that (1) is certain by producing a valid deductive argument all of the premises of which are certain, an argument that transmits the certainty of its premises to its conclusion, then I will show that the premises of that argument are not, all of them, certain. I am using 'certain' as short for 'epistemically certain.'

Lukas Novak responded:

Let us play that game. I believe I have an argument to prove (1) that can be reduced exclusively to obvious conceptual truths. Let's go step by step; you say which premise you doubt and I will produce an argument for it.

My kick-off:

(1.1) Whatever does not have a cause and yet exists, exists necessarily.
(1.2) Whatever begins to exist never exists necessarily.
Ergo etc.

Which one do you doubt?

I have no problem with (1.2). I would say, however, that (1.1) is not certain. The negation of (1.1) is: Something exists contingently without cause. This is not a formally self-contradictory proposition. So we cannot rule it out on formal-logical grounds alone the way we can rule out Something exists that does not exist. It is therefore logically possible (narrowly logically possible) that (1.1) be false.

Is (1.1) a conceptual truth as Lukas appears to be maintaining? Well, can we know it to be true by sheer analysis of the concept uncaused existent? Not as far as I can see. Analyzing that concept, all I get is: existent that is not the effect of any cause or causes. That every EFFECT has a cause is a conceptual truth, but not that every EVENT has a cause, or that every EXISTENT has a cause.

If Lukas is right, then it is epistemically certain that the physical universe, which is modally contingent (i.e., not necessary and not impossible) cannot be a brute fact. So if Lukas is right, then it is epistemically certain that the physical universe cannot exist both contingently and without a cause.

Here is where I disagree. I believe that the physical universe (together with finite minds) exists, exists contingently, and is caused. But I don't believe that we can know this to be the case with certainty.

It may be that Lukas is thinking along the lines of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.

Garrigou-Lagrange thinks that one violates the Law of Non-Contradiction if one says of a contingent thing that it is both contingent and uncaused. He thinks this is equivalent to saying:

A thing may exist of itself and simultaneously not exist of itself. Existence of itself would belong to it, both necessarily and impossibly. Existence would be an inseparable predicate of a being which can be separated from existence. All this is absurd, unintelligible. (Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, tr. Patrick Cummins, O. S. B., Ex Fontibus 2012, p. 65)

Suppose that a contingent existent is one that is caused to exist by a self-existent existent. If one then went on to say that such an existent is both contingent and uncaused, then one would embrace a logical contradiction. But this presupposes that contingency implies causal dependency.

And therein lies the rub. That the universe is contingent I grant. But how does one get from modal contingency to the universe's causal dependence on a causa prima? If one simply packs dependency into contingency then one begs the question. What is contingent needn't be contingent upon anything.

Existence: A Challenge from a Reader

Tim Mosteller writes,

On page 2 of A Paradigm Theory of Existence when you state the "gist" of PT [The Paradigm Theory] you say,

"(PT) Necessarily, for any contingent individual x, x exists if and only if (i) there is a necessary y such that y is the paradigm existent, and (ii) y, as the external unifier of x's ontological constituents, directly produces the unity/existence of x." (p. 2).

I can't seem to square this with something that you say in chapter 2,

“Socrates cannot instantiate any property unless he is an existent, self-identical individual … Socrates must antecedently exist to instantiate the property of existence” (p. 48)

My question is this:

Q: If x must antecedently exist in order x to instantiate the property of existence (the instantiation relation) (see p. 48), musn't x exist in order for x to stand in any sort of relation (unifier relation, production relation) to a paradigm existent? (see p. 2)

At any rate, I'm not sure I'm understanding how these passages fit together, and hence my question.

The question is reasonable and worthy of a response.

First of all, I deny that existence is a property. It is neither a first-level property nor a higher-level property, pace Frege, Russell, and their numerous acolytes and fellow-travellers. Properties are instantiable items on my definition of 'property,' and I argue that it makes no sense to hold that an individual exists in virtue of instantiating existence. But it is nonetheless a datum, a Moorean fact, that individuals exist. Socrates, then, exists, but he does not exist in virtue of instantiating a supposed property of existence. This motivates one of the tasks of the book: to explain how existence can belong to a concrete, contingent individual without being a property of it.

My answer, roughly, is that the existence of an individual is a kind of unity of its ontological constituents. This of course assumes that some entities have ontological constituents. It assumes 'constituent ontology.' The latter profits from the liabilities of 'non-constituent ontology,' or what Nicholas Wolterstorff unhelpfully calls 'relation ontology.' But I cheerfully grant that constituent ontology has its own liabilities.

The existence of Socrates, then, is the unity or togetherness of his ontological constituents, but not their compresence as on a bundle theory. My version of constituent ontology in PTE is factualist, with roots in Gustav Bergmann, David M. Armstrong, and Armstrong's teacher, John Anderson. So the unity I am speaking of is the unity of the constituents of a concrete fact or state of affairs. It is a kind of unity that makes of non-truth-making items a truth-maker.

In sum, individuals exist pace the 'Fressellians.' But they don't exist in virtue of instantiating any property. (For example, it would be absurd to say that S. exists in virtue of instantiating (the property of) humanity. Exercise for the reader: explain why.) So I propose that for an individual to exist is for its ontological 'parts' to be unified in the fact-constituting and truth-making way.

But what about this unity or togetherness of constituents? Is it a further constituent? No, on pain of (something like) Bradley's Regress. Is it just the individual itself such that there is no difference between the existing of x and x? No, for reasons an entire chapter lays out.

And then, by reasoning whose complexity does not allow for quick summarization, I argue that concrete individuals would be contradictory structures were it not for a Unifier 'responsible' for the unity/existence of each contingent concretum. That is, the truth-making unity of each set of fact-friendly and compossible constituents derives from the Paradigm Existent, the Unifier. This external unifier is the ultimate ground of the existence of each contingent concretum.

Now what is Professor Mosteller's objection? I think what he is saying is something like the following:

On your scheme there is the manifold of unities and the one Unifier that serves as the metaphysical cause of the unity of each unity of constituents. But then the Unifier or Paradigm Existent is related to each contingent existent. Now if x stands in relation R to y, then both x and y exist. So if the Paradigm Existence stands in the unifying relation to each existent, then each existent must 'already' (logically if not temporally) exist in order to stand in the relation the standing in whcih is supposed to confer existence in the first place!

You're moving in a circle of embarrassingly diameter. In fact, you a doing what you said could not be done when you said that existence cannot be a property of individuals. One of your arguments was that, if existence were a property, then an existing individual would have 'already' to exist in order to to stand in the instantiation relation to the property, and that this circularity shows that the explanation of existence in terms of instantiation is bogus.

My response is that the the Unifier is not related to what it unifies. Equivalently, metaphysical production/causation/unification is not a relation. The Unifier's unifying is sui generis, as sui generis as the Unifier itself. The category of relations is an extant category. Neither the Unifier nor its activity of unifying are members of any extant category. Categores are the categories of beings. The Unifier is not a being among beings, but Being itself. And its activity is not an activity among activities in the world, but the Activity that makes there be a world in the first place. This Making, clearly, is itself sui generis. The Paradigm Existent is the Maker of those entities that serve as the truth-makers of truth-bearers or truth-vehicles.

I think we are standing on familiar theological ground. Is God related to creatures? What could that mean? If creation is a relation, then both God and Socrates would both have to exist for the relation to hold. That is absurd in that God creates Socrates ex nihilo. Divine creating is not an acting upon something that already exists. The Absolute Reality cannot be a demiurge.

Similarly with the Unifier; it is the metaphysical cause of the existence of contingent concreta when 'before' (logically speaking) they did not exist. It therefore cannot be related to them.

Now what I say in PTE is problematic in various ways. But I see no inconsistency in what Tim quotes me as saying.

Luke 2:21: Can the Not-Yet-Existent be Named?

Luke 2:21 (NIV): On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. (emphasis added)

This New Testament passage implies that before a certain human individual came into existence, he was named, and therefore could be named. The implication is that before an individual comes into existence, that very individual can be an object of irreducibly singular reference by a logically proper name. That is by no means obvious as I shall now argue.

To simplify the discussion let us revert to a mundane example, Socrates, to keep the particulars of Christian incarnational theology from clouding the issue. We will have enough on our plates even with this simplification. At the end of this entry I will return to the theological question.

A Remarkable Prophecy

Suppose there had been a prophet among the ancient Athenians who prophesied the birth among them of a most remarkable man, a man having the properties we associate with Socrates, including the property of being named 'Socrates.' Suppose this prophet, now exceedingly old, is asked after having followed Socrates' career and having witnessed his execution: Was that the man you prophesied?

Does this question make sense? Suppose the prophet had answered, "Yes, that very man, the one who just now drank the hemlock, is the very man whose birth I prophesied long ago before he was born!" Does this answer make sense?

An Assumption

To focus the question, let us assume that there is no pre-existence of the souls of creatures. Let us assume that Socrates, body and soul, comes into existence at or near the time of his conception. For our problem is not whether we can name something that already exists, but whether we can name something that does not yet exist.

Thesis

I say that neither the question nor the answer make sense. (Of course they both make semantic sense; my claim is that they make no metaphysical or broadly logical sense.) What the prophet prophesied was the coming of some man with the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess. What he could not have prophesied was the very man that subsequently came to possess the properties in question.

What the prophet prophesied was general, not singular: he prophesied that a certain definite description would come to be satisfied by some man or other. Equivalently, what the prophet prophesied was that a certain conjunctive property would come in the fullness of time to be instantiated, a property among whose conjuncts are such properties as being snubnosed, being married to a shrewish woman, being a master dialectician, being accused of being a corrupter of youth, etc. Even if the prophet had been omniscient and had been operating with a complete description, a description such that only one person in the actual world satisfies it if anything satisfies it, the prophecy would still be general.

Why would the complete description, satisfied uniquely if satisfied at all, still be general? Because of the possibility that some other individual, call him 'Schmocrates,' satisfy the description. For such a complete description, uniquely satisfied if satisfied at all, could not capture the very haecceity and ipseity and identity of a concrete individual.

We can call this view I am espousing anti-haecceitist: the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual cannot antedate the individual's existence. Opposing this view is that of the haecceitist who holds that temporally prior to the coming into existence of a concrete individual such as Socrates, the non-qualitative thisness of the individual is already part of the furniture of the universe.

My terminology is perhaps not felicitous. I am not denying that concrete individuals possess haecceity. I grant that haecceity is a factor in an individual's ontological 'assay' or analysis. What I am denying is that the haecceity of an individual can exist apart from the individual whose haecceity it is. From this it follows that the haecceity of an individual cannot exist before the individual exists.

But how could the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual be thought to antedate the individual whose thisness it is? We might try transforming the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual into an abstract object, a property that exists in every possible world, and thus at every time in those worlds having time.

Consider the putative property, identity-with-Socrates. Call it Socrateity. Suppose our Athenian prophet has the power to 'grasp' (conceive, understand) this non-qualitative property long before it is instantiated. Suppose he can grasp it just as well as he can grasp the conjunctive property mentioned above. Then, in prophesying the coming of Socrates, the prophet would be prophesying the coming of Socrates himself. His prophecy would be singular, or, if you prefer, de re: it would involve Socrates himself.

What do I mean by "involve Socrates himself"? Before Socrates comes to be there is no Socrates. But there is, on the haecceitist view I reject, Socrateity. This property 'deputizes' for Socrates at times and in possible worlds at which our man does not exist. It cannot be instantiated without being instantiated by Socrates. And it cannot be instantiated by anything other than Socrates in the actual world or in any possible world. By conceiving of Socrateity before Socrates comes to be, the Athenian prophet is conceiving of Socrates before he comes to be, Socrates himself, not a mere instance of a conjunctive property or a mere satisfier of a description. Our Athenian prophet is mentally grabbing onto the very haecceity or thisness of Socrates which is unique to him and 'incommunicable' (as a Medieval philosopher might say) to any other in the actual world or in any possible world.

But what do I mean by "a mere instance" or a "mere satisfier"?

Let us say that the conjunctive property of Socrates mentioned above is a qualitative essence of Socrates if it entails every qualitative or pure property of Socrates whether essential, accidental, monadic, or relational. If Socrates has an indiscernible twin, Schmocrates, then both individuals instantiate the same qualitative essence. It follows that, qua instances of this qualitative essence, they are indistinguishable. This implies that, if the prophet thinks of Socrates in terms of his qualitative essence, then his prophetic thought does not reach Socrates himself, but only a mere instance of his qualitative essence.

My claim, then, is that one cannot conceive of an individual that has not yet come into existence. For until an individual comes into existence it is not a genuine individual. Before Socrates came into existence, there was no possibility that he, that very man, come into existence. (In general, there are no de re possibilities involving future, not-yet-existent, individuals.) At best there was the possibility that some man or other come into existence possessing the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess. To conceive of some man or other is to think a general thought: it is not to think a singular thought that somehow reaches an individual in its individuality.

To conceive of a complete description's being satisfied uniquely by some individual or other it not to conceive of a particular individual that satisfies it. If this is right, then one cannot name an individual before it exists.

Back to Theology

Could an angel have named Jesus before he was conceived? If I am right, no angel, nor even God, could name Socrates before he came to be. But the case is different for Jesus on classical Trinitarian theology. For while there is on Christian doctrine no pre-existence of the souls of creatures, there is on Christian doctrine the pre-existence of the Word or Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. So one could possibly say that the angel named the pre-existent Word 'Jesus.'

On the Expressibility of ‘Something Exists’

I am trying to soften up the Opponent for the Inexpressible. Here is another attempt.

……………………..

Surely this is a valid and sound argument:

1. Stromboli exists.
Ergo
2. Something exists.

Both sentences are true; both are meaningful; and the second follows from the first. How do we translate the argument into the notation of standard first-order predicate logic with identity? Taking a cue from Quine we may formulate (1) as

1*. For some x, x = Stromboli. In English:

1**. Stromboli is identical with something.

But how do we render (2)? Surely not as 'For some x, x exists' since there is no first-level predicate of existence in standard logic. And surely no ordinary predicate will do. Not horse, mammal, animal, living thing, material thing, or any other predicate reachable by climbing the tree of Porphyry. Existence is not a summum genus. (Aristotle, Met. 998b22, AnPr. 92b14) What is left but self-identity? Cf. Frege's dialog with Puenjer.

So we try,

2*. For some x, x = x. In plain English:

2**. Something is self-identical.

So our original argument becomes:

1**. Stromboli is identical with something.
Ergo
2**. Something is self-identical.

But what (2**) says is not what (2) says. The result is a murky travesty of the original luminous argument.

What I am getting at is that standard logic cannot state its own presuppositions. It presupposes that everything exists (that there are no nonexistent objects) and that something exists. But it lacks the expressive resources to state these presuppositions. The attempt to state them results either in nonsense — e.g. 'for some x, x' — or a proposition other than the one that needs expressing.

It is true that something exists, and I am certain that it is true: it follows immediately from the fact that I exist. But it cannot be said in standard predicate logic.

What should we conclude? That standard logic is defective in its treatment of existence or that there are things that can be SHOWN but not SAID? In April 1914. G.E. Moore travelled to Norway and paid a visit to Wittgenstein where the latter dictated some notes to him. Here is one:

In order that you should have a language which can express or say everything that can be said, this language must have certain properties; and when this is the case, that it has them can no longer be said in that language or any language. (Notebooks 1914-1916, p. 107)

Applied to the present example: A language that can SAY that e.g. island volcanos exist by saying that some islands are volcanos or that Stromboli exists by saying that Stromboli is identical to something must have certain properties. One of these is that the domain of quantification contains only existents and no Meinongian nonexistents. But THAT the language has this property cannot be said in it or in any language. Hence it cannot be said in the language of standard logic that the domain of quantification is a domain of existents or that something exists or that everything exists or that it is not the case that something does not exist.

Well then, so much the worse for the language of standard logic! That's one response. But can some other logic do better? Or should we say, with the early Wittgenstein, that there is indeed the Inexpressible, the Unsayable, the Unspeakable, the Mystical? And that it shows itself?

Es gibt allerdings Unaussprechliches. Dies zeigt sich, es ist das Mystische. (Tractatus Logico-Philosphicus 6.522)