Language, Philosophy of – Page 15

Pavel Tichý on Whether ‘God’ is the Name of an Individual

This post is the third in a series on Pavel Tichý's "Existence and God" (J. Phil., August 1979, 403-420). So far I have sketched his theory of existence, made a couple of objections, and refuted his argument for it. I now turn to section II of his article (pp. 410-412) in which he discusses Descartes' Meditation Five ontological argument. But in this post I will address only the preliminaries to the discussion of Descartes. Tichý writes,

We have seen that 'Jimmy Carter' and 'the U. S. president' are terms of completely different typological categories: 'Jimmy Carter' denotes an individual, and 'the U. S. president' denotes something for an individual to be, an individual-office. Which of the two categories does the term 'God' belong to? It would be patently implausible to construe it as belonging to the former category. If 'God' were simply the name of an individual, it would be a purely contingent matter whether God is benevolent or not; for any individual is conceivably malicious. But of course the notion of a malevolent God is absurd. If so, however, God cannot be an individual; God is bound to be rather something for an individual to be, and benevolence must be part of what it takes for someone to be it. In other words, 'God' must stand for an individual office, and benevolence must be one of the requisites that make up the essence of that office.

It is only because 'God' denotes an individual-office that we can sensibly ask whether God exists. To ask, Does God exist? is not to ask whether something is true regarding a definite individual; for which individual would it be? It is rather to ask whether, of all the individuals there are, one has what it takes to be God. It is to ask, in other words, whether the divine office is occupied. (410-411)

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More on Tichý on Existence: One of His Arguments Examined

This post is a sequel to Pavel Tichý on Existence. There I explained Tichý's theory as a variation on the Fregean theory and made a start on a critique of it. Here I examine an argument of his for it. He writes,

If existence were a property ascribable to individuals, then the force of such an ascription could only be to the effect that the individual in question is indeed one of the individuals there are. But since any individual is, trivially, one of the individuals there are, all ascriptions of existence would be tautologically true. If existence were properly raised in regard to individuals, then a negative answer to such a question would be self-defeating: it would suggest that no question has in fact been asked and that, accordingly, no answer is called for in the first place. Genuine existence questions would be answerable wholesale and a priori in the affirmative. ("Existence and God," Journal of Philosophy, August 1979, pp. 404-405)

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Richard Gaskin on the Unity of the Proposition

The following is my contribution to a symposium on Richard Gaskin's The Unity of the Proposition. The symposium, together with Gaskin's replies, is scheduled to appear in the December 2009 issue of Dialectica.

GASKIN ON THE UNITY OF THE PROPOSITION

William F. Vallicella

While studying Richard Gaskin’s The Unity of the Proposition (Oxford 2008), the word ‘magisterial’came repeatedly to mind. Gaskin’s mastery of the history, literature, and dialectical intricacies of the problem of the unity of the proposition in all its ramifications is in evidence on every page. More than a treatment of a particular problem, Gaskin’s book is a systematic treatise in the philosophy of language organized around a particular but centrally important problem. To my knowledge, it is the most thorough and penetrating discussion of the unity of the proposition ever to appear. The fact that Gaskin’s solution to the unity problem is set within a systematic philosophy of language contributes to the book’s depth and richness, but also makes the task of the critic difficult. In a few pages, the critic cannot properly convey the systematic underpinnings of Gaskin’s formulation of the problem and his solution to it. And when the critic evaluates, he is forced to acknowledge that he is evaluating a solution embedded in a far-flung system whose ideas are mutually reinforcing. His critical points may then appear as ‘dialectical potshots’ if he cannot, as he cannot in a few pages, bring a competing system of mutually reinforcing ideas onto the field. These caveats having been registered, I proceed to sketch Gaskin’s project and raise some questions about his formulation of the unity problem. After conceding that Gaskin has solved the problem as he understands it, I will suggest that the problem lies deeper than he recognizes, and that the linguistic idealism in which he embeds his solution is problematic.

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