Category: Existence
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Seeing versus Imagining a Ghost: Another Round with Hennessey
It is plain that 'sees' has many senses in English. Of these many senses, some are philosophically salient. Of the philosophical salient senses, two are paramount. Call the one 'existence-entailing.' (EE) Call the other 'existence-neutral.' (EN) On the one, 'sees' is a so-called verb of success. On the other, it isn't, which not to say…
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Incompleteness, Completeness, and the External World
David Brightly comments: I appreciate that in discussing these epistemological issues we must use the non-question-begging, existence-neutral sense of 'see'. My point is that for the distinction between 'complete' and 'incomplete' to make any sense, the epistemological question as to whether seeing is existence-entailing has to have already been settled favourably, though with the caveat…
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Seeing: Internalist and Externalist Perspectives
This is a second entry in response to Hennessey. The first is here. Consider again this aporetic tetrad: 1. If S sees x, then x exists 2. Seeing is an intentional state 3. Every intentional state is such that its intentional object is incomplete 4. Nothing that exists is incomplete. The limbs of the tetrad…
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The Epistemologically Primary Sense of ‘See’
Richard Hennessey questions the distinction between existentially loaded and existentially neutral senses of 'sees' and cognates. He quotes me as saying: 'Sees’ is often taken to be a so-called verb of success: if S sees x, then it follows that x exists. On this understanding of ‘sees’ one cannot see what doesn’t exist. Call this the…
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Some Notes on Rescher’s “Nonexistents Then and Now”
A reader inquires: Have you read Nicholas Rescher's Nonexistents Then and Now? I read it recently and thought I'd bring it to your attention because it's relevant to your recent posts on fiction. If I understand the article, Rescher would agree with you that a fictional man is not a man, but he would say…
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On Multiplying Modes of Existence
Am I committed to an uneconomical multiplication of modes of existence? I said that the following set of propositions is logically consistent: a. Tom is thinking of a unicorn b. Unicorns do not exist in reality c. Tom's mental state is object-directed; it is an intentional state. d. The object of Tom's mental state does…
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Merely Intentional Objects and the ‘Existential Fallacy’
London Ed wants to pin the 'existential fallacy' on me. He writes and I respond in blue:
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Do Merely Intentional Objects Have Being of Their Own? With a Little Help from Ingarden
WARNING! Scholastic hairsplitting up ahead! If you are allergic to this sort of thing, head elsewhere. My old post, On Hairsplitting, may be of interest. My Czech colleague Lukas Novak seems to hold that there is no mode of being that is the mode of being of purely or merely intentional objects: . . .…
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Existence and Essence: An Aporetic Dyad
This post continues my discussion with Lukas Novak who, so far, as been wiping the floor with me, refuting my arguments for the distinctio realis. Now I take a different tack. I want to see if we have a genuine problem here, but one that is simply insoluble. Such a result would be consistent with…
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More With Novak on the Real Distinction
I have been defending the real distinction between essence and existence in contingent beings. Lukas Novak, though not rejecting the distinction, finds my arguments wanting. Here is his latest challenge to me: 1) First I will use your own weapons against you. The following triad is inconsistent, any two propositions entail the negation of the…
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Existence Neither Accidental Nor Essential
This post continues my ruminations on the distinctio realis. If essence and existence are really distinct in a contingent being, should we think of its existence as accidental or essential, or neither? Max, a cat of my acquintance, exists and exists contingently: there is no broadly logical necessity that he exist. His nonexistence is broadly logically possible. So one may be…
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Defending the Distinctio Realis Against Anthony Kenny
This post defends the real distinction between essence and existence. For some background, see Geach on the Real Distinction I. In Aquinas on Being (Oxford 2002, p. 45), Anthony Kenny writes, "Peter's continuing to exist is the very same thing as Peter's continuing to possess his essence; if he ceases to exist, he ceases to…
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Existence-Blindness or Double-Vision?
I had the pleasure of meeting London Ed, not in London, but in Prague, in person, a few days ago. Ed, a.k.a. 'Ockham,' and I have been arguing over existence for years. So far he has said nothing to budge me from my position. Perhaps some day he will. The following entry, from the old…
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Avicenna’s God and the Queen of England
For a long time now I have been wanting to study Frederick D. Wilhelmsen's hard-to-find The Paradoxical Structure of Existence. Sunday I got lucky at Bookman's and found the obscure treatise for a measly six semolians. I've read the first five chapters and and they're good. There is a lack of analytical rigor here and there,…
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Another Zimmerman: The Plagiarist Jára Cimrman
You've heard of Robert Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan, and the 'white-Hispanic' George Zimmerman whose nomen has proven to be one bad omen indeed. (Would we have heard about him at all had his name been Jorge Ramirez?) Permit me to introduce you to Jára Cimrman whose Czech surname, if I am not badly mistaken, is…