Existence – Page 5 – Maverick Philosopher

Existence and Exemplification: Some Problems

For Francesco Orilia

1) 'Cats exist' is an example of an affirmative general existential sentence. 'Max exists' is an example of an affirmative singular existential sentence. 'Max' names a cat of my acquaintance. The problem that concerns me is whether there is an adequate analysis that does justice to both types of existential sentence, one that preserves the contingency of both and their semantic connection.

2) 'Cats exist' is contingently true. Its negation is possible. 'Cats do not exist' could have been true. There is no metaphysical (broadly logical) necessity that there be cats. The same holds for negative general existentials. 'Gryphons do not exist' is contingently true, which implies that its negation, 'Gryphons exist,' could have been true.

3) The surface grammar of 'Cats exist' suggests that it is about cats and predicates existence of them. This surface construal has long been recognized as problematic. For example, is the sentence about all cats or some cats? Presumably all. But 'All cats exist' cannot accommodate the contingency of 'Cats exist.' The latter is contingent if and only if its negation is possible. Now the negation of 'All cats exist' is 'Some cats do not exist' which is not possible, but self-contradictory. To be explicit, it is self-contradictory on the extremely plausible anti-Meinongian assumption that there are no nonexistent objects. Plausible or not, I assume it here. Everything exists.

4) How must we construe 'Cats exist' so that it and its negation both come out contingent? The contingency is easily captured if we take 'Cats exist' to predicate instantiation or exemplification of the concept cat or the property of being a cat. Accordingly, 'Cats exist' is not about cats at all, but about the property of being a cat and predicates of this first-level property the second-level property of being exemplified or having one or more instances. 'Cats exist' expresses the (true, but possibly false) proposition that felinity is exemplified and 'Cats do not exist' expresses the (false, but possibly true) proposition that felinity is not exemplified. If existence is exemplification, we seem to get what we want: a meaningful contrast between existence and nonexistence that accommodates the contingency of contingent general existentials, whether affirmative or negative.

The exemplification account of existence also provides a neat solution to the ancient problem of negative existentials. Given that 'Unicorns do not exist' is true, the sentence cannot be about unicorns. What then is it about? It is about the concept unicorn and predicates of this concept the property of having no instances. The theory is easily extended to cover singular negative existentials if we think of proper names in a Russellian way as definite descriptions in disguise as opposed to thinking of them in a Kripkean way as rigid designators. Charitably understood, when an atheist denies the existence of God, he is not presupposing God's existence; he is denying that the divine attributes are jointly instantiated. He is denying that the concept God is exemplified.

This approach to existence could be called 'Fressellian.' It is essentially the tack that Frege and Russell take if we lump them together and ignore certain differences between the two logicians. For both of these luminaries, existence is a property of concepts/properties only, and cannot be predicated meaningfully of objects or individuals. As Saul Kripke explains,

To deny that it [existence] is a first-level concept is to deny that there is a meaningful existence predicate that can apply to objects or particulars. One cannot, according to Frege and Russell, say of an object that it exists or not because, so they argued, everything exists: how can one then divide up the objects in the world into those which exist and those which don't? (Reference and Existence: The John Locke Lectures, Oxford UP, 2013, p. 6)

At the level of individuals there is no meaningful contrast between existence and non-existence because, pace Meinong, everything exists. At the level of individuals, existence is not classificatory: it does not divide items into the existents and the nonexistents, the entities and the nonentities. But when existence is 'kicked upstairs' and construed as exemplification, it becomes classificatory: it divides first-level properties into those that have instances and those that do not.

Russell goes so far as to liken existence to numerousness. Men are numerous, and Socrates is a man; it does not follow, however, that Socrates is numerous. To think otherwise would be to embrace the fallacy of division. In this case, what can be predicated of the class cannot be predicated of its members. Similarly, men exist, and Socrates is a man; it does not follow, however, that Socrates exists. Not only does it not follow, it is meaningless to say of Socrates that he exists or that he does not exist. Or so maintains Russell. For if existence is exemplification, then of course individuals or objects such as Socrates can neither exist nor not exist because they can neither be exemplified nor the opposite. If existence is exemplification, then it would be something like a Rylean category mistake to think of objects or individuals as either existing or not existing.

Characteristic of the Fressellian approach is the radical separation of existence from individuals. Well-motivated as it is, it leads to trouble.

If existence = exemplification, and thus a property of properties only, then there is no such 'property' as singular existence. A highly counter-intuitive result! For if a first-level concept/property is exemplified, then it is exemplified by at least one individual. How could that individual not exist? If it didn't exist it would either be nothing at all, or it would be a Meinongian nonexistent item, an option we have already excluded. (If there are no nonexistent items, then everything exists, including all individuals.) Suppose the concept cat is exemplified by Max. How could Max fail to exist? If exemplification is a relation, then, for the relation to hold, both relata must exist, the property and the individual.The attempt to reduce existence to exemplification fails. For we are left with the singular existence of the individuals that exemplify first-level properties.

At this point one might object that the existence of Max just is the being-exemplified of the concept cat. But this can't be right. For one thing, the concept could be exemplified even if Max does not exemplify it. 'Cats exist' does not entail 'Max exists.' Therefore, the existence of Max cannot be identified with the being-exemplified of the concept cat. Even if it makes sense to say that the existence of a property is its being exemplified, which I rather doubt, it makes no sense to say that the existence of Max, that very cat, is the being-exemplified of the concept cat. This is also clear from the fact that Manny, Mungo, and Maya are also cats, and their singular existence is different from that of Max. Each individual has its own existence, and each differs from every other one in its existence. The concept cat, however, cannot serve to individuate/differentiate the various individuals falling under the concept. If the existence of Max = the being-exemplified of the concept cat, then there could only be one cat and Manny, Mungo,and Maya would be out in the cold.

In sum, if cat is exemplified, then cats exist, and if cats exist, then cat is exemplified. This is necessarily true but it remains on the plane of general existence. Cats cannot exist, however, unless one or more individual cats exist, and the singular existence of these individuals cannot be the exemplification of the property of being a cat. One cannot therefore identify existence with exemplification; the most one can do is identify general existence with exemplification.

5) At this point one might try an eliminativist move and deny that there is singular existence. This is what the Fressellian approach implies. For Frege and Russell, first-level predications of existence are meaningless: '___exist(s)' is not an admissible first-level predicate. But this flies in the face of what seems obvious, namely, that sentences like 'Max exists' are true, and are true as predicating existence of the referents of their subject terms. But if true, then meaningful. Something similar holds for 'Max does not exist' when embedded in such sentences as 'Possibly, Max does not exist' and 'It will be the case that Max does not exist.' The embedded sentences are meaningful. Existence can be meaningfully affirmed and denied of individuals.

Whether or not we say that existence is a property of individuals in any usual sense of 'property,' it is a datum that existence belongs to individuals in a way that would be impossible if existence is exemplification. (How existence belongs to individuals is a difficult question. I propose an answer in my book, A Paradigm Theory of Existence, Kluwer 2002.) For again, it makes no sense to say of an individual that it is exemplified. Only concepts, properties, and cognate items can be exemplified. If existence reduces to exemplification, then no individual exists.

6) So we have a problem. We seem driven by cogent argumentation to identify existence with the second-level property of exemplification. We seem driven in this direction by the need to maintain the contingency of such sentences as 'Cats exist' (true but possibly false) and 'Cats do not exist' (false, but possibly true), and the related need to explain how true negative existentials are possible. But the exemplification approach breaks the connection between general and singular existentials. Both affirm existence. We cannot rest content with a theory that consigns singular existentials such as 'Max exists' to meaninglessness. 'Max exists' is nothing like 'Max is numerous,' pace Russell.

Max exists, but he might not have. He is a contingent being. We need to find a way to accommodate the contingency of contingent existents, and with it, the contrast between existence and (possible) nonexistence at the level of individuals. And somehow we have to do this without reaching for Meinongian nonexistent individuals.

7) At this juncture I will be told that 'x exists' may be defined in terms of '(Ǝy)(x = y).' But this move only generates further problems. One of them is that this definition cannot be meaningfully formulated if 'exists' is an inadmissible first-level predicate. Kripke spots the problem. He points out (Reference and Existence, p. 37) that the Frege-Russell logical apparatus seems to allow for a definition of 'x exists' in terms of

(Ǝy)(x = y).

Kripke then remarks that "it is hard for me to see that they [Frege and Russell] can consistently maintain that existence is only a second-level concept (in the Fregean terminology) and does not apply to individuals." (37) Kripke's point is that on the above definition 'exists' is an admissible first-level predicate contra the official 'Fressellian' doctrine according to which 'exists' is never an admissible first-level predicate.

This is a serious problem. If existence is exemplification, then individuals do not exist. But if everything exists, then individuals do exist. To avoid the contradiction we must distinguish two senses of 'exist(s),' the general and the singular. Accordingly, general existence is exemplification and is not predicable of individuals while singular existence is.

But even if we relax the Fressellian stricture and admit 'exists' as a first-level predicate we still face serious problems. One of them is that 'exist(s)' becomes equivocal across general and singular existentials. Another is that singular existence cannot be identity with something (or other). The idea is that Max exists just in case he is identical to something. Since the only thing to which Max could be identical is himself, that is equivalent to saying that Max exists if and only if he is self-identical. No doubt this is true, but it doesn't sanction the reduction of (singular) existence to self-identity. It cannot be that Max exists in virtue of being identical to something, for that would imply that his possible nonexistence = his possible diversity from everything. But if he is possibly diverse from everything, then he possible diverse from himself, i.e., possibly self-diverse. But it is impossible that he, or anything, be self-diverse. Therefore, it cannot be the case that the existence of Max reduces to his self-identity.

Furthermore, if for Max to exist is for Max to be self-identical, then, given that everything is essentially self-identical, it follows that Max essentially exists and so cannot cease to exist once he exists, which is absurd. If you tell me that Max is self-identical only as long as he exists, then, on the theory under discussion, that amounts to saying that Max is self-identical only as long as he is self-identical, which is a tautology. You are in effect admitting that the existence of a thing is not its identity with something. We ought to conclude that singular existence cannot be reduced to self-identity.

8) The only solution I can see to the problem of accounting for singular existence within the exemplification account is by way of haecceity properties. 'Haecceity' is from the Latin haecceitas, thisness. An haecceity property, then, is a property that captures the very thisness of an individual. These properties, though supposedly distinct from the things that exemplify them, are as singular as they are. If there are such properties, then we can give a unitary exemplification account of both general and singular existentials that preserves their contingency and also explains the semantic connection between the two types of existential. It would then be possible to say that 'exist(s)' is univocal across general and singular existentials. We could then say that general existentials express the exemplification of multiply exemplifiable properties while singular existential express the exemplification of haecceity properties. Now to the details.

We assume that (i) properties are abstract objects, that (ii) they can exist unexemplified, and that (iii) they are necessary beings. We may then define the subclass of haecceity properties as follows.

A haecceity is a property H of x such that: (i) H is essential to x; (ii) nothing distinct from x exemplifies H in the actual world; (iii) nothing distinct from x exemplifies H in any metaphysically possible world.

So if there is a property of Socrates that is his haecceity, then there is a property that individuates him, and indeed individuates him across all times and worlds at which he exists: it is a property that he must have, that nothing distinct from him has, and that nothing distinct from him could have. Call this property Socrateity. Being abstract and necessary, Socrateity is obviously distinct from Socrates, who is concrete and contingent. Socrateity exists in every world, but is exemplified (instantiated) in only some worlds. What's more, Socrateity exists at every time in every world that is temporally qualified, whereas Socrates exists in only some worlds and only at some times in the worlds in which he exists. Haecceity properties have various uses. I'll mention just the one of present interest.

Suppose I need to analyze 'Socrates might not have existed.' I start with the rewrite, 'Possibly, Socrates does not exist' which features a modal operator operating upon an unmodalized proposition. But 'Socrates does not exist,' being a negative existential proposition, gives rise to an ancient puzzle dating back to Plato. How is reference to the nonexistent possible? The sentence 'Socrates does not exist' is apparently about Socrates, but how so given that he does not exist? If the meaning of 'Socrates' is the name's referent, and nothing can be a referent of a term unless it exists, then Socrates must exist if he is to have nonexistence predicated of him. But the whole point of the sentence is to say that our man does not exist. How can one say of a thing that it does not exist without presupposing that it exists? Haecceities provide a solution. We can understand 'Socrates does not exist' to be about Socrateity rather than about Socrates, and to predicate of Socrateity the property of being exemplified. Recall that Socrateity, unlike Socrates, exists at every time and in every world. So this property, unlike Socrates, is always and necessarily available. Accordingly, we analyze 'Possibly, Socrates does not exist' as 'Possibly, Socrateity is not exemplified.' Socrates' possible nonexistence boils down to Socrateity's possible non-exemplification. It is a nice, elegant solution to the puzzle –assuming that there are haecceity properties. There are reasons to be skeptical.

9) One of the stumbling blocks for me is the strange notion that the thisness of an individual could exist even if the individual whose thisness it is does not exist. Consider the time before Socrates existed. During that time, Socrateity existed. But what content could that property have during that time (or in those possible worlds) in which Socrates does not exist? Socrateity is identity-with-Socrates. Presumably, then, the property has two constituents: identity, a property had by everything, and Socrates. Now if Socrates is a constituent of identity-with-Socrates, then it seems quite obvious that Socrateity can exist only at those times and in those worlds at which Socrates exists. Socrateity would then be like Socrates' singleton, the set consisting of Socrates and Socrates alone: {Socrates}. Clearly, this set cannot exist unless Socrates exists. It is ontologically dependent on him. The same would be true of identity-with-Socrates if Socrates were a constituent of this property.

If, on the other hand, Socrates is not a constituent of Socrateity, then what gives identity-with-Socrates the individuating content that distinguishes it from identity-with-Plato and identity-with-Pegasus? Consider a possible world W in which Socrates, Plato, and Vulcan (the planet) do not exist. In W, their haecceities exist since haecceities ex hypothesi exist in every world. What distinguishes these haecceities in W? Nothing that I can see. The only things that could distinguish them would be Socrates, Plato, and Vulcan; but these individuals do not exist in W. It might be said that haecceity properties are simple: identity-with-Socrates is not compounded of identity and Socrates, or of anything else. Different haecceities just differ and they have the content they do in an unanalyzable way. But on this suggestion haecceities seem wholly ungraspable or inconceivable or ineffable, and this militates against thinking of them as properties. I have no problem with the notion of a property that only one thing has, nor do I have a problem with a property that only one thing can have; but a property that I cannot grasp or understand or conceive or bring before my mind — such an item does not count as a property in my book. It would be more like a bare particular and inherit mutatis mutandis the unintelligibility of bare particulars.

Haecceities must be nonqualitative. Consider a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are all the mutiply exemplifiable properties a thing has in the actual world. Such a property would individuate its possessor in the actual world: it would be a property that its possessor and only its possessor would have in the actual world. Such a property is graspable in that I can grasp its components (say, being barefooted, being snubnosed, being married, etc.) and I can grasp its construction inasmuch as I understand property conjunction. But the only way I can grasp Socrateity is by grasping is as a compound of identity and Socrates — which it cannot be for reasons given above.

Note that Socrateity is not equivalent to the big conjunctive property just mentioned. Take the conjunction of all of Socrates' properties in the actual world and call it K. In the actual world, Socrates has K. But there are possible worlds in which he exists but does not exemplify K. And there are possible worlds in which K is exemplified by someone distinct from him. So Socrateity and K are logically nonequivalent. What we need, then, if we are to construct a qualitative thisness or haecceity of Socrates is a monstrous disjunctive property D[soc] the disjuncts of which are all the K's Socrates has in all the possible worlds in which he exists. This monstrous disjunction of conjunctions is graspable, not in person so to speak, but via our grasp of the operations of conjunction and disjunction and in virtue of the fact that each component property is graspable. But D[soc] is not identical to Socrateity. The former is a qualitative thisness whereas the latter is a nonqualitative thisness. Unless the Identity of Indiscernibles is true, these two thisnesses are nonequivalent. And there are good reasons to think that the Identity of Indiscernibles is not true. (Max Black's iron spheres, etc.) So D[Soc] is not identical to Socrateity.

To compress my main point about haecceities into one sentence: identity-with-Socrates is graspable only as a compound of identity and Socrates; but then this property cannot exist unexemplified. Hence haecceity properties as defined above do not exist.

10) Suppose now that, despite the above argumentation, there are haecceity properties. It will then be necessarily true both that Socrates exists iff Socrateity is exemplified, and that Socrates is contingent iff Socrateity is contingently exemplified. But a Euthyphro-type question arises. Does Socrates exist because Socrateity is exemplified, or the other way around? The latter: Socrateity is exemplified because Socrates exists. We therefore move in an explanatory circle if we try to account for the existence of an individual in terms of the exemplification of the individual's haecceity.

As for contingency, Socrateity is contingently exemplified because Socrates contingently exists, and not the other way around.

11) I conclude that the exemplification account of existence is untenable. This does not imply that some other view is tenable. For it may be that every view that it is possible for us to formulate is untenable.

If God Cannot Cause Himself, How Can He Know Himself?

This from a reader:

If we say God cannot create himself since this implies a contradiction (God existing prior to himself to act on himself), how can we say God does anything with regard to himself?

For instance, we say God knows himself. But how is this possible, seeing as God would need to first exist, in order to know himself? Knowledge is a relation in the mind to what is outside it. If I "know" a thing, I have the thing, the thing that is not me, in my mind. But if there is only simply God, how does he "have" himself in his mind?

An interesting question worth thinking about.

I grant that God cannot create himself. For if he creates himself then he causes himself to exist, and nothing can cause itself to exist. For a thing cannot enter into a causal relation unless it exists. So if God causes himself to exist, then his existence is logically, if not temporally, prior to his existence. And that, we agree, is impossible.

The main point is that the existence of a thing cannot be logically prior to its existence. (And if it cannot be logically prior, then it cannot be temporally prior either.) But the existence of a knower not only can but must be logically prior to its self-knowledge. I cannot know myself unless I exist, but I can exist without knowing myself. In the finite case, then, it is clear that existence is logically prior to self-knowledge, and indeed other-knowledge as well.

Now God is omniscient and exists in all possible worlds. So there is no possible situation in which he does not know himself or fails to know everything there is to know about himself. If we think of God as omnitemporal as opposed to eternal, then at every moment he enjoys full self-knowledge. At every moment, his existence and self-knowledge are simultaneous. But this is not a problem since there is no problem with God's existence being logically prior to his self-knowledge even if the former is not temporally prior to the latter. We get the same result if God is eternal.

In sum, God's existence cannot be logically prior to God's existence as it would have to be if God creates himself. But God's existence can be logically prior to God's self-knowledge.

There is a second problem that the reader conflates with one I just discussed. If God alone exists, how can God know himself if "Knowledge is a relation in the mind to what is outside it"? This problem is solved by denying the assumption. Self-knowledge is NOT a relation to what is outside the mind. I feel good right now, and I know it. The object of my knowledge is an internal state. God's self-knowledge can be said to be analogous to finite self-knowledge.

Half-Way Fregeanism About Existence: Questions for Van Inwagen

In section 53 of The Foundations of Arithmetic, Gottlob Frege famously maintains that

. . . existence is analogous to number. Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number nought. Because existence is a property of concepts the ontological argument for the existence of God breaks down. (65)

Frege is here advancing a double-barreled thesis that splits into two sub-theses.

ST1. Existence is analogous to number.

ST2. Existence is a property (Eigenschaft) of concepts and not of objects.

In the background is the sharp distinction between property (Eigenschaft) and mark (Merkmal). Three-sided is a mark of the concept triangle, but not a property of this concept; being instantiated is a property of this concept but not a mark of it. The Cartesian-Kantian ontological argument "from mere concepts" (aus lauter Begriffen), according to Frege, runs aground because existence cannot be a mark of any concept, but only a property of some concepts. And so one cannot validly argue from the concept of God to the existence of God.

Existence as a property of concepts is the property of being instantiated. We can therefore call the Fregean account of existence an instantiation account. A concept is instantiated just in case it has one or more instances. So on a Fregean reading, 'Cats exist' says that the concept cat is instantiated. This seems to imply, and was taken by Frege and Russell to imply that 'Cats exist' is not about cats, but about a non-cat, a concept or propositional function, and what it says about this concept or propositional function is not that it (singularly) exists, but that it is instantiated! (Frege: "has something falling under it"; Russell: "is sometimes true.") A whiff of paradox? Or more than just a whiff?

The paradox, in brief, is that 'Cats exist' which one might naively take to be about cats, is in reality about a non-cat, a concept or propositional function.

Accordingly, as Russell in effect states, 'Cats exist' is in the same logical boat with 'Cats are numerous.' Now Mungojerrie is a cat; but no one will infer that Mungojerrie is numerous. That would be the fallacy of division. On the Fressellian view, one who infers that Mungojerrie exists commits the same fallacy. 'Exist(s)' is not an admissible first-level predicate.

My concern in this entry is the logical relation between the above two sub-theses. Does the first entail the second or are they logically independent? There is a clear sense in which (ST1) is true.

Necessarily, if horses exist, then the number of horses is not zero, and vice versa. So 'Horses exist' is logically equivalent to 'The number of horses is not zero.' This is wholly unproblematic for those of us who agree that there are no Meinongian nonexistent objects. But note that, in general, equivalences, even logical equivalences, do not sanction reductions or identifications. So it remains an open question whether one can take the further step of reducing existence to instantiation, or of identifying existence with instantiation, or even of eliminating existence in favor of instantiation. Equivalence, reduction, elimination: those are all different. But I make this point only to move on.

(ST1), then, is unproblematically true if understood as expressing the following logical equivalence: 'Necessarily Fs exist iff the number of Fs is not zero.' My question is whether (ST1) entails (ST2). Peter van Inwagen in effect denies the entailment by denying that the 'the number of . . . is not zero' is a predicate of concepts:

I would say that, on a given occasion of its use, it predicates of certain things that they number more than zero. Thus, if one says, 'The number of horses is not zero,' one predicates of horses that they number more than zero. 'The number of . . . is not zero' is thus what some philosophers have called a 'variably polyadic' predicate. But so are many predicates that can hardly be regarded as predicates of concepts. The predicates 'are ungulates' and 'have an interesting evolutionary history,' for example, are variably polyadic predicates. When one says, 'Horses are ungulates' or 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history' one is obviously making a statement about horses and not about the concept horse. ("Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment," pp. 483-484)

It is this passage that I am having a hard time understanding. It is of course clear what van Inwagen is trying to show, namely, that the Fregean sub-theses are logically independent and that one can affirm the first without being committed to the second. One can hold that existence is denial of the number zero without holding that existence is a property of concepts. One can go half-way with Frege without going all the way.

But I am having trouble with the claim that the predicate 'the number of . . . is not zero' is 'variably polyadic' and the examples van Inwagen employs. 'Robbed a bank together' is an example of a variably polyadic predicate. It is polyadic because it expresses a relation, that of robbing, and it is variably polyadic because it expresses a family of relations having different numbers of arguments. For example, Bonnie and Clyde robbed a bank together, but so did Ma Barker and her two boys, Patti Hearst and three members of the ill-starred Symbionese Liberation Army, and so on. (Example from Chris Swoyer and Francesco Orilia.)

Now when I say that the number of horses is not zero, what am I talking about? It is plausible to say that I am talking about horses, not about the concept horse. (Recall the whiff of paradox, supra.) What I don't understand are van Inwagen's examples of variably polyadic predicates. Consider 'are ungulates.' If an ungulate is just a mammal with hooves, then I fail to see how 'are ungulates' is polyadic, let alone variably polyadic. I do understand that some hooved animals have one hoof per foot, some two hooves per foot, and so on, which implies variability in the number of hooves that hooved animals have. What I don't understand is the polyadicity. It seems to me that 'Are hooved mammals' is monadic.

The other example is 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history.' This sentence is clearly not about the concept horse. But it is not about any individual horse either. Consider Harry the horse. Harry has a history. He was born in a certain place, grew up, was bought and sold, etc. and then died at a certain age. He went through all sorts of changes. But Harry didn't evolve, and so he had no evolutionary history. No individual evolves; populations evolve:

Evolutionary change is based on changes in the genetic makeup of populations over time. Populations, not individual organisms, evolve. Changes in an individual over the course of its lifetime may be developmental(e.g., a male bird growing more colorful plumage as it reaches sexual maturity) or may be caused by how the environment affects an organism (e.g., a bird losing feathers because it is infected with many parasites); however, these shifts are not caused by changes in its genes. While it would be handy if there were a way for environmental changes to cause adaptive changes in our genes — who wouldn't want a gene for malaria resistance to come along with a vacation to Mozambique? — evolution just doesn't work that way. New gene variants (i.e., alleles) are produced by random mutation, and over the course of many generations, natural selection may favor advantageous variants, causing them to become more common in the population.

'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history,' then, is neither about the concept horse nor about any individual horse. The predicate in this sentence appears to be non-distributive or collective. It is like the predicate in 'Horses have been domesticated for millenia.' That is certainly not about the concept horse. No concept can be ridden or made to carry a load. But it is also not about any individual horse. Not even the Methuselah of horses, whoever he might be, has been around for millenia.

As I understand it, predicate F is distributive just in case it is analytic that whenever some things are F, then each is F. Thus a distributive predicate is one the very meaning of which dictates that if it applies to some things, then it applies to each of them. 'Blue' is an example. If some things are blue, then each of them is blue.

If a predicate is not distributive, then it is non-distributive (collective). If some Occupy-X nimrods or Antifa thugs have the building surrounded, it does not follow that each such nimrod or thug has the building surrounded. If some students moved a grand piano into my living room, it does not follow that each student did. If bald eagles are becoming extinct, it does not follow that each bald eagle is becoming extinct. Individual animals die, but no individual animal ever becomes extinct. If the students come from many different countries, it does not follow that each comes from many different countries. If horses have an interesting evolutionary history, it does not follow that each horse has an interesting evolutionary history.

My problem is that I don't understand why van Inwagen gives the 'Horses have an interesting evolutionary history' example — which is a collective predication — when he is committed to saying that each horse exists. His view , I take it, is that 'exist(s)' is a first-level distributive predicate. 'Has an interesting evolutionary history,' however, is a first-level non-distributive predicate. Or is it PvI's view that 'exist(s)' is a first-level non-distributive predicate?

Either I don't understand van Inwagen's position due to some defect in me, or it is incoherent. I incline toward the latter. He is trying to show that (ST1) does not entail (ST2). He does this by giving examples of predicates that are first-level, i.e., apply to objects, but are variably polyadic as he claims 'the number of . . . is not zero' is variably polyadic. But the only clear example he gives is a predicate that is non-distributive, namely 'has an interesting evolutionary history.' 'Horses exist,' however, cannot be non-distributive. If some horses exist, then each of them exists. And if each of them exists, then 'exists' is monadic, not polyadic, let alone variably polyadic.

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.

……………………………….

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.