Saturday Night at the Oldies: Midnight and Moonlight

Eric Clapton, After Midnight

Thelonious Monk, 'Round Midnight

Jack Kerouac, Old Angel Midnight

Allman Bros., Midnight Rider

Rolling Stones, Midnight Rambler

B. B. King, et al., Midnight Hour

Maria Muldaur, Midnight at the Oasis  (This one goes out to Mary Korzen)

Patsy Cline, Walkin' After Midnight

Joey Powers, Midnight Mary.  A one-hit wonder.

Kenny Ball, Midnight in Moscow  One of many memorable instrumentals from the early '60s.

Rolling Stones, Moonlight Mile

Doors, Moonlight Drive

Anne Murray, Shadows in the Moonlight (This one goes out to K. P.)

Ludwig van Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata.  A part of it anyway with scenes from the great Coen Bros. film, "The Man Who Wasn't There."

Van Inwagen on Quine on Existence

From Peter van Inwagen, "McGinn on Existence" in Modes of Existence: Papers in Ontology and Philosophical Logic, eds. Bottani et al., Ontos Verlag, 2006, p. 106:

There is the theory of Quine, according to which the two oppositions [that between being and non-being and that between existence and non-existence] are not two but one.  Existence and being are the same.  Existence or being is what is expressed by phrases like 'there is,' 'there are,' and 'something is.'  And, similarly, non-existence is what is expressed by phrases like 'there is no, 'there are,' and 'nothing is.'  Thus, 'Universals exist' means neither more nor less than 'There are universals,'  and the same goes for the pairs 'Carnivorous cows do not exist'/'Nothing is both carnivorous and a cow' and 'The planet Venus exists'/'Something is the planet Venus.'  This outline constitutes the essence of Quine's philosophy of being and existence.

And an accurate and succinct outline it is.  But it just reinforces me in my conviction of the wrongheadedness of Quine's version of the thin theory of existence.

I grant that existence and being are the same.  My objections begin with the assimilation of 'exists' to 'something.'  The following are logically equivalent:

Cats exist
There are cats
Something is a cat.

and the same goes for:

Mermaids do not exist
There are no mermaids
Nothing is a mermaid.

But the thin theorist goes beyond the relatively uncontroversial claim of logical equivalence to the eminently dubious claim that the meaning (van Inwagen uses this word above) of 'exist(s)' is exhausted by the meaning of 'something' and the meaning of 'not exist' is exhausted by the meaning of 'nothing.'

To sort this out, we first note that 'something' splits into 'some' and 'thing.'  To appreciate this, observe that the following are nonsensical

Some is a cat
Thing is a cat.

Equally nonsensical are their canonical counterparts:

(∃ )(x is a cat)
( x) (x is cat).

So both  'some' and 'thing' are needed for  'Something is a cat' — '(∃x)(x is a cat)' — to make sense. 

Now it is obvious that existence is not expressed by 'some' or '∃' since these are merely signs for particular (as opposed to universal) logical quantity.  Existence is not someness.  Existence is not expressed by '∃.'  And it is obvious that existence is not expressed by the variable 'x,' which is merely the canonical stand-in for the third-person singular pronoun, 'it.'  It is obvious, I hope, that one  cannot express the thought that cats exist by saying 'It is a cat.'  Existence is not 'itness.'  Existence is not expressed by 'x' any more than it is expressed by '∃.'

So existence cannot be expressed by the quantifier part of 'something' or the variable part.  Is existence expressed by both together?  No.  Putting together two pieces of mere logical syntax just gves you more logical syntax.  If existence is to come into the picture, we have to get off the plane of mere logical syntax: there has to be some reference to the real world. Suppose we write 'Something is a cat' as

Some thing is a cat.

But now the cat is out of the bag.  For surely these things one is quantifying over are existing things: 'thing' is a variable having existing values.  So to be perfectly clear, one must write:

Some existing thing is a cat.

And now the explanatory circularity of the Quinean account is obvious.  We were promised an account of existence in terms of the so-called existential quantifier.  But the account on offer presupposes the very 'thing' we want an account of, namely, existence.  Clearly, one must presuppose that the objects in the domain of quantification are existing objects if the logical equivalences above mentioned are to hold. 

The Quietist on the Delights of Escapism

There are the undeniable and readily accessible delights of escapism into scholarship, and science, and research and inquiry of all sorts.  When 'reality' becomes too much to bear, what is wrong with retreating into an ivory tower?  Who can rightfully begrude us our right to peace and quiet and happiness?

You say that there are more pressing concerns than the nature and extent of the influence of Avicenna on Aquinas' De Ente et Essentia?  No doubt.  But do you really believe that your becoming hot and bothered over these 'pressing concerns' will lead to any improvement?  Are you sure about that?  And isn't your political activism your mode of escape from something or other?  I like peace and quiet; you like 'drama' and contention.  To each his own.

Thus spoke the quietist.

The Philosopher and the Conservative

One cannot be a philosopher without believing in the power of reason.  But one cannot be a conservative without doubting its power to order our affairs and ameliorate our condition.

Equally, one cannot be a philosopher without doubting — doubt being the engine of inquiry — and one cannot be a conservative without believing, that is, without accepting as true much that one cannot prove.

To live well we must somehow tread a razor's edge between unexamined belief and beliefless examination.

I Married an Animal!

You are and you marry both a person and a member of a zoological species.  And so you must be concerned not only with person-to-person compatibility but with  animal-to-animal as well.  Can she stand your smell, and you hers?

The Voter ID Controversy Continues

It amazes me that new articles and columns in high-class venues appear almost daily concerning what really ought to be a non-issue.  Of course, I blame the Left for this.  By maintaining preternaturally absurd positions, they force sensible writers to waste time and energy opposing their nonsense.  Here is how a 15 August NY Times editorial begins:

Judge Robert Simpson of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania seems to assume that legislators have a high-minded public purpose for the laws they pass. That’s why, on Wednesday morning, he refused to grant an injunction to halt a Republican-backed voter ID law that could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority state residents in November.       

One thing you have to understand about leftists is that they regularly engage in semantic distortion: they will take a word that has an established meaning and misuse it for their ideological ends.  'Disenfranchise' is a case in point.

To disenfranchise is to deprive of a right, in particular, the right to vote.  But only some people in a given geographical area  have the right to vote.  Felons and children do not have the right to vote, nor do non-citizens.  You do not have the right to vote in a certain geographical area simply because you are a sentient being residing in that area.  Otherwise, cats and dogs and children and felons and illegal aliens would have the right to vote. Now a requirement that one prove that one has the right to vote is not to be confused with a denial of the right to vote.

My right to vote is one thing, my ability to prove that I have the right another.  If I cannot prove that I am who I claim to be on a given occasion, then I won't be able to exercise my right to vote on that occasion; but that is not to say that I have been disenfranchised.  For I haven't be deprived of my right to vote; I have merely been prevented from exercising my right due to my inability to prove
my identity.

That's one point.  The author of the NYT editorial begins by egregiously misusing 'disenfranchise.'  But note also the cynicism betrayed in the opening sentence.  Third, we are asked to believe the unbelievable, that "hundreds of thousands of poor and minority state residents" will be 'disenfranchised' come November.  Hundreds of thousands? Prove it!  In Pennsylvania, photo ID is free.  So even the 'poor' can afford it.  Our editorial writer continues:

He wrote in his ruling that requiring a government-issued photo ID card to vote “is a reasonable, nondiscriminatory, nonsevere burden when viewed in the broader context of the widespread use of photo ID in daily life,” as if voting were equivalent to buying a six-pack of beer or driving a car.       

At this point I stopped reading.  The writer is committing a grotesque straw man fallacy.  No one claims that voting is "equivalent" — whatever that is supposed to mean – " to buying a six-pack of beer or driving a car."  The point is that the photo ID requirement is a minimal one in that photo ID is necessary for all sorts of transactions in everyday life that ordinary people engage in.  And again, in PA you can acquire this ID for free. Our idiot editorialist also seems not to realize this issue has nothing to do with driving a car.  A photo ID is not the same as a driver's license.  The latter is a species of the former as genus.  You don't need to own a car, and you don't even need to have a driver's license.

Now if you want to read something intelligent on this issue, besides what I have written, I recommend this WSJ piece, and this article from Commentary.

Generation Screwed May Support Ryan

Gen-Xers (those born between 1965 and 1980) are the cohort sandwiched between the Boomers  and the Millennials.  Now they have one of their own in contention for high office.  And Paul Ryan, 42, is no slacker.  Romney's pick of the man for VP was a brilliant stroke and may gin up support for the Republican ticket as Kirsten Powers argues.

She quoted a word I had never seen before, 'athazagoraphobia':

Generation X chronicler Jeff Gordiner, has written that Gen-Xers suffer from “athazagoraphobia”—“an abnormal and persistent fear of being forgotten or ignored.” Except it’s not really a phobia; it’s been reality for a long time. Maybe that is about to change.

My Existence and My Possible Nonexistence

Leo Mollica made a good objection to my earlier argument, an objection I  need to sort out.  I exist, but I might not have existed.  How might a thin theorist translate this truth?

On the thin theory, my existence is my identity-with-something.  It follows that my nonexistence is my diversity-from-everything, and my merely possible nonexistence is my diversity from everything in one or more merely possible worlds.  But — and this I take it is Leo's point — I needn't exist in merely possible world w for it to be true in w that I am diverse from everything in w.  So w is not a world in which I am self-diverse, but simply a world in which I am diverse from everything in w.  Had w been actual, I would not have been self-diverse; I would not have existed at all, i.e., I would not have been identical to any of the things that would have existed had w been actual.

To put it another way, on the thin theory, my actual existence is my self-identity, my identity with me.  Opposing this reduction of singular existence to self-identity, I argued that if my existence is my self-identity, then the possibility of my nonexistence is the possibility of my being self-diverse — which is absurd.  Mollica's rejoinder in effect was that my possible nonexistence is not my possible self-diversity, but my possible diversity from everything distinct from me.

I could respond  by saying that this objection begs the question by assuming the thin theory.  But then Mollica could say that I am begging the question against him.  Let me try a different tack.

If I am diverse from everything in w, but I don't exist in w, then something must represent me there.  For part of what makes w w is that it lacks me.  It is essential to w that it not contain me. But how express this fact if there is no representative of me in w?  Now the only possible candifdate for a representative of me in possible worlds in which I do notr exist  is my haecceity-property: identity-with-BV.  If there is such a property, then it can go proxy for me in every possible world in which I do not exist, worlds which  in part are  defined by my nonexistence.

So it seems that Mollica's objection requires that there be haecceities such as identity-with-BV, and that these be properties that can exist unexemplified.  But now two points.

First, there are no such haecceity properties for reasons given elsewhere, for example, here.

Second,  if haecceities are brought into the picture, then we are back to the Fregean version of the thin theory according to which 'exists(s)' is a second-level property.  But what I have been pounding on is the latest and most sophisticated version of the thin theory, that of van Inwagen.  And we have seen that he rejects the view that 'exist(s)' is second-level.