The Aporetics of Existence and Self-Identity

Andrew B. made some powerful objections to a recent existence post.  His remarks suggest the following argument:

Argument A

1. Existence is self-identity
2. My existence is contingent:  (∃x)(x = I) & Poss ~(∃x) (x = I)
Therefore
3. My self-identity is contingent:  I = I & Poss ~ (I = I)

Argument A may be supplemented by the following consideration.  Since I am contingent, there are possible worlds in which I do not exist.  Not being in those worlds, I cannot have properties in them, including the property of self-identity. So it is not the case that I am necessarily self-identical; I am self-identical only in those worlds in which I exist, which is to say: I am contingently self-identical.  I am self-identical in some but not all worlds.

The argument can be rationally resisted. 

Consider a possible world w in which I do not exist.  In w, the proposition expressed by an utterance by me of 'I am not self-identical' is true.  But if it is true in w, then the proposition exists in w.  Now if the proposition exists in w, then so do its constituents.  On a Russellian view of propositions, I am one of the proposition's  constituents.  So for the proposition  *I am not self-identical* to be true in w, I must exist in w.  But if I exist in w, then of course I am self-identical in w, and the proposition is false in w.  But the same goes for every world in which I do not exist.  It follows that I am self-identical in every world and I exist in every world.

Of course, one needn't take a Russellian line on propositions.  One could take a Fregean view according to which propositions about me do not have me as a constituent but an abstract representative of me, a sense or mode of presentation.  But the first-person singular pronoun 'I' has the peculiarity that it cannot be replaced salva significatione by any description; so even if there is an abstract representative of me in the Fregean proposition expressed by my utterance of  'I am not self-identical,' there still has to be a referent of the representative external to the proposition.  So I have to exist in w for the proposition *I am not self-identical* to be true in w.  But if I exist in w then I am self-identical in w.  This in turn implies that the proposition is not true.  

The cognoscenti will appreciate that what I have been doing in a rough and dirty way is reproducing some of the thoughts in Timothy Williamson's paper Necessary Existents.  I am doing so to show that Argument A is not convincing.  Making use of materials from Williamson's paper, we can 'throw Argument A into reverse':

Argument B

1. Existence is self-identity
~3. My self-identity is necessary: Nec (I = I)
Therefore
~2. My existence is necessary.

In point of validity, there is nothing to choose between A and B: both are valid.  And both, I submit, have counterintuitive conclusions.  It seems to me that the arguments cancel each other out.  So I propose that we think very skeptically about the common premise that existence is self-identity, and the Quinean thin theory that commits us to it. 

The Modal Aporetics of Existential Generalization

Consider this trio of propositions:

1. '~(∃x)(x = Venus)' is possibly true.

2. Existential Generalization warrants the inference of '(∃y)~(∃x)(x = y)' from  '~(∃x)(x = Venus).'

3. '(∃y)~(∃x)(x = y)' is logically self-contradictory, hence necessarily false.

Solve the triad, either by showing that the limbs are (collectively) logically consistent or by rejecting one or more of the limbs.

Living in the Past: Is That Why You are Still a Dem?

To understand a person, it helps to consider what the world was like when the person was twenty years old. At twenty, give or take five years, the music of the day, the politics of the day, the language, mores, fashions, economic conditions and whatnot of the day make a very deep impression. It is an impression that lasts through life and functions as a sort of benchmark for the evaluation of what comes after, but also as a distorting lense that makes it difficult to see what is happening now. 



The foregoing insight may help us understand why people remain in the Democrat Party. People born in the 'twenties are many of them still living in the 'forties. For them the Democrat Party is the party of FDR. They haven't noticed the changes, or haven't wanted to notice the changes. They haven't noticed that their interests are no longer served by the party of this name. Or perhaps they are just attached to the label, or in the grip of misplaced piety: they are attached to a family tradition. "My pappy was a Democrat and my grandpappy afore him was a Democrat; we McCoy's have always been Democrats, and we don't see no reason to change now."

People born in the early 'forties are many of them still living in the early 'sixties, those heady days of Camelot when the young and vigorous Jack Kennedy and his charming wife occupied the White House, and society was all in a ferment with necessary reforms being made or about to be made. They thrilled to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and other anthems of the Civil Rights movement. Those worthy battles were fought, and they were won, and progress was made.  But soon enough the rot set in: the legitimate struggle for civil rights gave way to affirmative action as we now know it, which involves  reverse discrimination, race-norming, preferential hiring, minority set-asides.  The noble Martin Luther King, Jr. was soon followed by such race-hustlers as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who cleverly cashed in on white liberal guilt.    People were precisely not judged by "the content of their character" but by the color of their skin.  Equality of opportunity was confused with equality of outcome; the quota mentality replaced the concern for justice.  Justice gave way to the unconcept 'social justice' which either means nothing or is code for socialism.

In the '60s , Democrats were progressive and liberal in respectable senses of these terms. But it is no longer the 'sixties, and if JFK were alive today and held the views he held then, he would be classed with conservatives. If you are living in the past, however, fixated on the glory days of youth, you may have missed the changes. You may not have noticed the difference between Jack and Teddy, the difference a brother can make.

So if you are still a Dem, you need to ask yourself: Are you living in the past?  Watching Pat Cadell on the Glenn Beck show a while back I had to scratch my head.  He was agreeing with Beck, and yet he remains a Dem. Is he just attached to the name?  When the Dems become indistinguishable from the CPUSA will he still call himself a Dem?

You superannuated  farts who are still Dems — tune into the Democratic National Convention going on this week in Charlotte.  Listen carefully to the proceedings.  Is that the stuff you believe in?

The Incompatibility of a Market Economy and a Socialist Welfare State

Janet Daly of The Telegraph has written a penetrating article. Excerpts (emphasis added)

What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union.

[. . .]

Mitt Romney had been hinting, in an oblique, undeveloped way, at this line of argument as he moved tentatively toward finding a real message. Then he took the startling step of appointing Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, and the earth moved. If Romney was the embodiment of the spirit of a free market, Ryan was its prophet. His speech at the convention was so dangerous to the Obama
Democrats, with their aspirations toward European-style democratic socialism, that they unleashed their “fact checkers” to find mistakes (“lies”) in it. (Remember the old Yes Minister joke: “You can always accuse them of errors of detail, sir. There are always some errors of detail”.) When Romney and Ryan offer their arguments to the American people, they are, of course, at an advantage over almost any British or European politician. Contrary to what many know-nothing British observers seem to think, the message coming out of Tampa was not Tea Party extremism. It was just a reassertion of the basic values of American political culture: self-determination, individual aspiration and genuine community, as opposed to belief in the state as the fount of all social
virtue.

[. . .]

So it would be deeply misleading to imply that this campaign will be a contest between what Britain likes to call “progressive” politics and some atavistic longing for a return to frontier America where everybody made a success of his own life with no help from anybody but his kith and kin. In the midst of the impassioned and often nasty debate about the future of health care, in which Ryan was depicted as a granny-killer, there has been some serious Republican thinking about the universal provision of medical care for pensioners (or “seniors” as they are called in the US). Because, you see, the debate over there has gone way beyond welfare reform: the need to restrict benefit dependency among the underclass is an argument that has been won. What is at issue now is much more politically contentious: universal entitlements such as comprehensive Medicare and social security are known to be unaffordable in their present form. Ryan, the radical economic thinker, suggests a solution for Medicare in the form of a voucher system. Patients could choose from competing health providers, with a ceiling on the cost of procedures and treatments, instead of simply being given blanket no-choice care. Thus, the government would get better value for money, and individuals would have more say in their own treatment. Now why doesn’t anybody here think of applying that mechanism to the NHS? Oh, yes, some people have – but nobody in power will listen to them.

Existence and Contingency

Let us return to the problem of contingency that I was belaboring in my last existence post.  Consider this reasoning:

1. (x)(x = x).  Principle of Identity: everything is self-identical
2. Venus = Venus.  From (1) by Universal Instantiation (UI)
3. (∃x)(x = Venus).  From (2) by Existential Generalization (EG)
4. (1) is logically true, hence necessarily true.
5. If p is necessary, and p entails q, then q is necessary.  (Principle of Modal Logic)
6. (3) is necessarily true.  The necessity of (1) is transmitted via the Modal Principle to (2), and then to (3)
7. 'Venus exists' is contingent.
8. If sentence s1 adequately translates sentence s2, then s1 preserves both the truth and the modal status of s2.  (Translation Principle)
Therefore
9. (3) is not an adequate translation of 'Venus exists': it preserves truth but not modal status.

And of course this result is generalizable:  'x exists' cannot be adequately translated as '(∃y)(x = y).'  But that is the canonical translation on the Quinean version of the thin theory.  So the Quinean version is untenable.

If you don't accept this argument, which premise or inference will you reject and why?

If Venus exists, then of course it is identical to something.  But surely it is not contingent that Venus  is identical to something.  It is contingent, however, that Venus exists.  Therefore, the existence of Venus is not its identity to something.  Once again we see that the thin theory is false. 

Rigor and Cognitivity

Some say philosophy lacks rigor.  Well, some does, but the best doesn't.  People who bemoan a lack of rigor in philosophy are typically unacquainted with its best authors.  The problem with philosophy is not lack of rigor but lack of cognitivity.  The lack of cognitivity, however, does not detract from philosophy's value.  Is there no value in the Socratic docta ignorantia?

Could a Universe of Contingent Beings be Necessary?

If everything in the universe is contingent, does it follow that the universe is contingent?  No it doesn't, and to think otherwise would be to commit the fallacy of composition.  If the parts of a whole have a certain property, it does not follow that the whole has that property.  But it is a simple point of logic that a proposition's not following from another is consistent with the proposition's being true.

And so while one cannot straightaway infer the contingency of the universe from the contingency of its parts, it is nevertheless true that the universe is contingent.  Or so I shall argue.

The folowing tripartition is mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive:   necessary, impossible, contingent.  A necessary (impossible, contingent) being is one that exists in all (none, some but not all) possible worlds.  I will assume an understanding of possible worlds talk.  See my Modal Matters category for details.

Our question is whether the universe U, all of whose members are contingent, is itself contingent.  I say it is, and argue as follows.

1. Necessarily, if U has no members, then U does not exist. (This is because U is just the totality of its members: it is not something in addition to them.  If U has three members, a, b, and c, then U is just those three members taken collectively: it is not a fourth thing distinct from each of the members.  U depends for its existence on the existence of its members.)

2. There is a possible world w in which there are no concrete contingent beings.  (One can support this premise with a subtraction argument.  If a world having n members is possible, then surely a world having  n-1 members is possible.  For example, take the actual world, which is one of the possible worlds, and substract me from it.  Surely the result, though  sadly impoverished,  is a possible world.  Subtract London Ed from the result.  That too is a possible world.   Iterate the subtraction procedure until you arrive at a world with n minus n ( = 0) concrete contingent members.   One could also support the premise with a conceivability argument.  It is surely conceivable that there be no concrete contingent beings.  This does not entail, but is arguably evidence for, the proposition that it is possible that there be no concrete contingent beings.)

Therefore

3. W is a world in which U has no members.  (This follows from (2) given that U is the totality of concrete contingent beings.)

Therefore

4. W is a world in which U does not exist. (From (1) and (3))

Therefore

5. U is a contingent being.  (This follows from (4) and the definition of 'contingent being.')

Therefore

6. The totality of contingent beings is itself contingent, hence not necessary.

What is the relevance of this to cosmological arguments?  If the universe is necessary, then one cannot sensibly ask why it exists.  What must exist has the ground of its existence in itself.  So, by showing that the universe is not necessary, one removes an obstacle to cosmological argumentation.

Now since my metaphilosophy holds that nothing of real importance  can be strictly proven in philosophy, the above argument – which deals with a matter of real importance — does not strictly prove its conclusion. But it renders the conclusion rationally acceptable, which is all that we can hope for, and is enough.