Wholes, Parts, and Modes of Being

Do wholes and their parts exist in different ways?  The analytic establishment is hostile to modes of being, but its case is weak.  Indeed some establishmentarians make no case at all; they simply bluster and asseverate and beg the question.  I wonder how a member of the establishment would counter the following argument.  Consider a house made of bricks and nothing but bricks, and let's list some pertinent truths and see what follows.

1. The house exists.
2. The bricks exist.
3. The house is composed of the bricks, all of them, and of nothing else, and is not something wholly distinct from them or in addition to them.
4. The bricks can exist without the house, but the house cannot exist without the bricks.
5. The relation between the house and the bricks is neither causal nor logical.
Therefore
6. The house has a dependent mode of existence unlike the bricks. 

Peter van Inwagen, one of those establishmentarians who is hostile to the very idea of there being modes of being, will deny (1) as part of his general denial of artifacts.  If artifacts do not exist at all, then questions about how they exist, or in what way or mode, obviously lapse.  But it is evident to me that if we have to choose between denying artifacts and accepting modes of being, then we should accept modes of being!

(2) is undeniable as is (3):  it would obviously be absurd to think of the house as something over and above its constituents, as if it could exist even if they didn't.  The house is just the bricks arranged house-wise.  This is consistent with the truth of (1).  The fact that the house is just the bricks arranged house-wise does not entail that the house does not exist. 

(4) is equally evident and is just a consequence of (3).  I put the point modally but I could also make it temporally: before the Wise Pig assembled the bricks into a house fit to repel the huffing and puffing of the Big Bad Wolf, there was no house, but there were the bricks.

(5)  is also obviously true.  The bricks, taken individually or collectively, do not cause the house.  Now an Aristotelian may want to speak of the bricks as the 'material cause' of the house, but that is not the issue.  The issue is whether the bricks are the efficient cause of the cause.  The answer to that is obviously in the negative.  Nor are the bricks the cause of the house in the Humean sense of 'cause,' or in any modern sense of 'cause.'  For one thing, causation is standardly taken to relate events and neither a house nor a set or sum of its constituents is an event.

Could we say that the relation between bricks and house is logical? No. Logical relations relate propositions and neither the bricks nor the house is a proposition.  It is not a relation of supervenience either since supervenience relates properties and neither bricks nor house is a property.

But I hear an objection. 

I agree with you that the house is not identical to the bricks and that the former depends on the latter but not vice versa.  Why not just say that the two are related counterfactually?  Had the bricks not existed, the house would not have existed either.  Why not  say that and be done with it?  The house depends on the bricks but not conversely.  But the dependence of one existent on another does not seem to require that there are different modes of existence.

True, had the bricks not existed, the house would not have existed.    But what is the truth-maker of this counterfactual?  Your objection is superficial.  Obviously the house is not the bricks.  Obviously the house is dependent on the bricks.  I say that the house, as a whole of parts, exists-dependently.  You said nothing that refutes this.

We should also ask whether it makes sense to speak of a relation between bricks and house. It is certainly not an external relation if an external relation is one whose holding is accidental to the existence of its terms.  If brick A is on top of brick B, then they stand in a dyadic external relation: each can exist without standing in the relation, which is to say that their being related in this way is accidental to both of them.  But a house and its bricks are not externally related: the house cannot exist apart from its 'relation' to the bricks. 

The best thing to say here is that the house has a dependent mode of existence.  The house exists and the bricks exist, but the house exists in a different way than the bricks do.  If you deny this, then you are saying that the house and the bricks exist in the same way.  And what way is that?  Independently.  But it is obvious that the house does not exist independently of the bricks.

I will end by suggesting that van Inwagen's strange denial of artifacts is motivated by his failure to appreciate that there are modes of being.  For if there are no modes of being, and everything that exists exists in the same way, then one is forced to choose between saying either that the house exists independently of its constituent bricks or that the house does not exist at all.  Since van Inwagen perceives that it is absurd to say that the house exists independently of its constituent bricks, he is forced to say that it does not exist at all.

But if there are modes of being we can maintain, rather more sensibly, both that the house exists and that it does not exist independently of its constituent bricks.

 

How Could I Be Wrong?

I say that there are beliefs.  An eliminativist contradicts me, insisting that there are no beliefs.  He cannot, consistently with what he maintains, hold that I have a false belief.  For if there are no beliefs, then there are no false beliefs.  But he must hold that I am wrong.  For if there are no beliefs, as he maintains, and I maintain that there are, then I am wrong. 

But if my being wrong does not consist in my holding a false belief, what does it consist in?  The eliminativist might say that my being wrong in this instance is my uttering or otherwise tokening of the sentence type 'There are beliefs' or  being disposed to utter or otherwise token the sentence-type 'There are beliefs.'  But a parrot could do that and you wouldn't say that a parrot is wrong about the philosophy of mind.

Utterances, inscriptions and the like, if they are to mean anything must have mind behind them.  See The Primacy of the Intentional Over the Linguistic.

Eliminativism is absurd.  If that's too quick for you, see the posts in the Eliminative Materialism category. 

Life is Hard

Even if your life is easy physically, economically, psychologically, and socially, it is bound to be difficult ethically, religiously, and  philosophically. Having solved the lower problems, the higher problems loom.

Two misfortunes.  One is to be so burdened with the lower problems that one is never in a position to tackle the higher.  Think of those whose energies are spent battling debt or obesity or substance abuse.  The other misfortune, or rather mistake, is to have solved the lower problems but to remain at their level without advancing.  Think of those who pile up loot far in excess of their needs while ignoring the condition of their souls, or the jocks who worship at the shrine of physical hypertrophy while allowing their minds to atrophy.

The higher his problems, the higher the man.

There is no escaping problems here below.  Life is a riddle and a predicament.

Ayn Rand on Bobby Fischer

It is hard to believe that Bobby Fischer has been dead for over three years now.  The king of the 64 squares died at age 64 on 17 January 2008.  Fischer's sad story well illustrates the perils of monomania. Ayn Rand did not realize how right she was in her 1974 "An Open Letter to Boris Spassky" (Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 56):

     Bobby Fischer's behavior . . . is a clear example of the clash
     between a chess expert's mind, and reality. The confident,
     disciplined, obviously brilliant player falls to pieces when he has
     to deal with the real world. He throws tantrums like a child,
     breaks agreements, makes arbitrary demands, and indulges in the
     kind of whim worship one touch of which in the playing of chess
     would disqualify him from a high school tournament. Thus he brings
     to the real world the very evil that made him escape it:
     irrationality.

More on Modes of Being with Two Applications

Clarity will be served if we distinguish the following four questions:  

 Q1. What is meant by 'mode of being'?
 Q2. Is the corresponding idea intelligible?
 Q3. Are there (two or more) modes of being?
 Q4. What are the modes of being?

So far in this series of posts I have been concerned only with the first two questions. Clearly, the first two questions are logically prior to the second two. It is possible to understand what is meant by 'mode of being' and grant that the notion is intelligible while denying that there are (two or more) modes of being. And if two philosophers agree that there are (two or more) modes of being they might yet disagree about what these modes are.

I assume that if talk of modes of being is intelligible, then there is no mistake such as Peter van Inwagen alleges, or fallacy such as  Reinhardt Grossmann alleges, that is committed by partisans of any modes-of-being doctrine.  Van Inwagen's claim, you will recall, is that such partisans illictly transfer what properly belongs to the nature of an F to the existence of the F.  And Grossmann's claim, you will also recall, is that one cannot validly infer from a dramatic difference in properties as between two kinds of thing (concreta and abstracta, for exsample) that the two kinds of thing differ in their mode of being.

An Application to Philosophical Theology

Suppose you have two philosophers. They agree that God exists and they agree as to the nature of God. But one claims that God exists necessarily while the other claims that he exists contingently. What are they disagreeing about? That there is a being having such-and-such divine properties is not in dispute. Nor is the nature of God in dispute. It is at least arguable that the disagreement centers on God's Seinsweise, or modus essendi, or way of being, or mode of being or however you care to phrase it.  The one philosopher says that God exists-necessarily while the other says that God exists-contingently.  This is not a difference in nature or in properties but in mode of being.

This suggests that with respect to anything, we can ask: (i) What is it?  (ii) Does it exist? (iii) How (in what way or mode) does it exist? This yields a tripartite distinction among quiddity (in a broad sense to include  essential and accidental, relational and nonrelational properties), existence, and mode of existence (mode of being).
 
My claim, at a bare minimum, is that, contra van Inwagen, Grossmann, Dallas Willard, and a host of others, the notion that there are modes of being is intelligible and defensible, and needn't involve the making of a mistake or the commission of a fallacy. Of course I want to go beyond that and claim that a sound metaphysics cannot get by without a modes-of-being doctrine.  But for now I am concerned merely to defend the minimal claim.  Minimal though it is, it puts me at loggerheads with the analytic establishment.  (But what did you expect for a maverick?)

A contemporary analytic philosopher who adheres to the thin conception of being according to which there are no modes of being will accommodate the difference between necessary and contingent beings by saying that a necessary being like God exists in all possible worlds whereas a contingent being like Socrates exists in some but not all possible worlds. So instead of saying that God exists in a different   way than Socrates, he will say that God and Socrates exist in the same way, which is the way that everything exists, but that God exists in all worlds whereas Socrates exists only in some.  But this involves quantification over possible worlds and raises difficult questions as to what possible worlds are.

(It is worth noting that a modes-of-being theorist can reap the benefits of possible worlds talk as a useful and graphic façon de parler without incurring the ontological costs.  You can talk the talk without walking the walk.)

Presumably no one here will embrace the mad-dog modal realism of David Lewis, according to which all worlds are on an ontological par. So one has to take some sort of abstractist line and construe worlds as  maximal abstracta of one sort or another, say, as maximal (Fregean not Russellian) propositions. But then difficult questions arise about what it is for an individual to exist in a world. What is it for   Socrates to exist in a possible world if worlds are maximal (Fregean)  propositions? It is to be represented as existing by that world. So Socrates exists in the actual world in that Socrates is represented as existing by the actual world which, on the abstractist aspproach, is the one true maximal proposition. (A proposition is maximal iff it entails every proposition with which it is consistent.) And God exists  in all possible worlds in that all maximal propositions represent him as exsiting: no matter which one of the maximal propositions is true, that proposition represents him as existing.

But veritas sequitur esse, truth follows being, so I am inclined to say that the abstractist approach has it precisely backwards: the necessity of God's existence is the ground of each maximal proposition's representing him as existing; the necessity of God's existence cannot be grounded in the logically posterior fact that every maximal proposition represents him as existing.
 
The ground of the divine necessity, I say, is God's unique mode of being which is not garden-variety metaphysical necessity but aseity.  God alone exists from himself and has his necessity from himself
unlike lesser necessary beings (numbers, etc) which have their  necessity from God. The divine aseity is in turn grounded in the  divine simplicity which latter I try to explain in my SEP article.

Summing up this difficult line of thought that I have just barely sketched: if we dig deep into the 'possible worlds' treatment of metaphysical necessity and contingency, we will be led back to an   ontology that invokes modes of being.

Application to the Idealism/Realism Controversy

Consider this thing on the desk in front of me. What is it? A coffee cup with such-and-such properties both essential and  accidental. For example, it is warm and full of coffee. These are accidental properties, properties the thing has now but might not have  had now, properties the possession of which is not necessary for its  existence. No doubt the coffee cup exists. But it is not so clear in what mode it exists. One philosopher, an idealist, says that its mode of being is purely intentional: it exists only as an intentional object, which means: it exists only relative to (transcendental)   consciousness. The other philosopher, a realist, does not deny that the cup is (sometimes) an intentional object, but denies that its  being is exhausted by its being an intentional object. He maintains that it exists mind-independently.

What I have just done in effect is introduce two further modes of being. We can call them esse intentionale and esse reale, purely intentional being and real being. It seems that without this   distinction between modes of being we will not be able to formulate the issue that divides the idealist and the realist. No one in his right mind denies the existence of coffee cups, rocks, trees, and   'external' items generally. Thus Berkeley and Husserl and other idealists do not deny that there exist trees and such; they are making a claim about their mode of existence.

Suppose you hold to a thin conception of being, one that rules out modes of existence. On the thin conception, an item either exists or it does not and one cannot distinguish among different ways, modes, kinds, or degrees of existence. How would an adherent of the thin conception formulate the idealism/realism controversy?  The idealist, again, does not deny the existence of rocks and trees.  And he doesn't differe with the realist as totheir nature.  Without talk of modes of being, then, no sense can be made of the idealism/realism controversy.

Reinhardt Grossmann Against Modes of Being

Here is a plausible principle:  if n items stand in an n-adic relation, then all of them exist.  And necessarily so.  If Miami is between Superior and Globe, then all three towns exist.  Combine this principle about relations with the plausible idea that the intentional nexus is a dyadic relation that relates a thinker (or a mental act of a thinker) to an object of thought.  So far, so good.  But what if the object of thought does not exist?  Then what we have is a relation that relates an existent thinker to a nonexistent object in violation of the plausible principle about relations.  The puzzle can be cast in the mold of an aporetic triad:

1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.
2. Intentionality is a relation that ties a thinker to an object of thought.
3. Every relation is such that, if it holds, then all its relata exist.

The limbs are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent.

Some will be tempted at this point to distinguish between two modes of being, a  strong mode and a weak mode if you will, call them existence and subsistence.  The relations principle could then be reformulated to say that if a relation R holds, then all of R's relata have being (either exist or subsist).  This seems to allow a solution of our problem.  When Tom thinks about a nonexistent item such as a mermaid, he does indeed stand in a relation to something, it's just that the item in question subsists rather than exists. The object of thought has being but does not exist.

Now I don't think this solution is a good one even if there are different modes of being, but at least it  illustrates how one might be tempted to embrace a doctrine of modes of being.  And  I agree with Reinhardt Grossmann that the above is not a good argument for modes of being.  But he seems to think that there are no good arguments for modes of being, and indeed that the very idea is fallacious.  Grossmann writes,

Are there any other arguments for the existence of modes of being?

It seems to me that all the rest of such arguments are of the following form.  One first points out that two kinds of thing are fundamentally different, that they differ 'categorially', so to speak.  Then one asserts that such a tremendous difference must be a difference in their modes of being.  While one kind of thing, say exists, the other kind merely subsists. [. ..] 

This type of argument  is obviously fallacious.  From the fact that two kinds of things differ fundamentally in their properties, it simply does not follow that they must have different modes of being.  Of course, they may exist in different modes, but that they do so exist cannot be shown in that way.  (The Existence of the World: An Introduction to Ontology, Routledge 1992, pp. 95-96)

Grossman is making two claims here.  One is about the invalidity of a form of argument whereby one infers a difference in mode of being from the fact that two kinds of thing are very different.  Grossmann is right that this is a non sequitur.  The other claim is that all arguments for modes of being have this fallacious form.

But this second claim is false.  Earlier I argued that if there are substances and if there are accidents, then substances and accidents differ in their mode of being.  My argument was not that substances and accidents are so radically different in their natures that this difference in nature entails a difference in mode of being.  My argument hinged on the relation between substances and accidents.  Suppose Socrates is a substance and his being sunburned is an accident inhering in him.  The substance and the accident both exist and they differ in nature.  But then how do we account for the fact that an accident cannot exist except as inhering in the substance whose accident it is?  We cannot  account for this characteristic feature of accidents by saying that both exist or that they differ in nature.  We have to say that accidents and substances exist in different ways.  Accidents exist in an existentially dependent way whereas substances exist in an existentially independent way.

Clearly, we have to introduce a distinction between different modes of being if we are to explain how substances and accidents are related.  Now this argument I just gave does not commit the fallacy that Grossmann mentions.  It does not infer a difference in mode of being from a difference in nature.  So Grossmann's second claim is mistaken.

On Civility and the Recent Civility Initiatives

Civility is a good old conservative virtue and I'm all for it.  But like toleration, civility has limits.  If you call me a racist because I argue against Obamacare, then not only do I have no reason to be civil in my response to you, I morally ought not be civil to you.  For by being civil I only encourage more bad behavior on your part.  By slandering me, you have removed yourself from the sphere of the civil.  The slanderer does not deserve to be treated with civility; he deserves to be treated with hostility and stiff-necked opposition.  He is deserving of moral condemnation.

If you call me a xenophobe because I insist that the federal government do what it is constitutionally mandated to do, namely, secure the nation's borders, then you slander me and forfeit whatever right you have to be treated civilly.  For if you slander me, then you are moral scum and deserve to be morally condemned.  In issuing my moral condemnation, I exercise my constitutionally-protected First Amendment right to free speech.  But not only do I have a right to condemn you, I am morally obliged to do so lest your sort of evil behavior become even more prevalent.

Examples can be multiplied, but the point is clear.  Civility has limits.  One ought to be civil to the civil.  But one ought not be civil to the uncivil.  What they need is a taste of their own medicine.

One must also realize that 'civility' is a prime candidate for linguistic hijacking.  And so we must be on our guard that the promoters of 'civility' are not attaching to this fine word a Leftward-tilting connotation.    We must not let them get away with any suggestion that one is civil if and only if one is an espouser of liberal/left positions. 

The Left no more owns civility than it owns dissent.

The motto of the No Labels outfit is "Not Left. Not Right. Forward."  'No Labels' is itself a label and a silly one , implying as it does that there are no important differences between Left and Right which need identification and labeling.  It is also preposterous to suggest that we can 'move forward' without doing so along either broadly conservative or broadly liberal lines.  To 'move forward' along liberal lines is to move in the direction of less individual liberty and ever-greater control by the government.  This is simply unacceptable to libertarians and conservatives and must be stopped.  There is little room for compromise here.  How can one compromise with those whose fiscal irresponsibility will lead to a destruction of the currency?  Any compromise struck with them can only be a tactical stopgap on the way to their total defeat.  Fiscal responsibility and border security are two issues on which there can be no compromise.  For it is obviously absurd to suppose that a genuine solution lies somewhere in the middle.

Worst of all, however is to claim that one is neither Left nor Right but then take policy stances that are leftist.  This demonstrates a lack of intellectual honesty.  The 'No Labels' folks cite the following as a "Shared Purpose": 

  • Americans want a government that empowers people with the tools for success – from a world-class education to affordable healthcare – provided that it does so in a fiscally prudent way.

    • But that's not a shared purpose but a piece of pure leftism.  First of all, it is not the government that 'empowers' people — to acquiesce for the nonce in this specimen of PC lingo — government is a necessary evil as libertarians and conservatives see it, and any empowering that gets done is best done by individuals in the absence of governmental shackles.  It is also not the role of  the federal government, as libertarians ansd conservatives see it, to educate people or provide health care.  Only liberals with their socialist leanings believe that.

    What the No Labels bunch is serving up is mendacity.  First they paper over genuine differences of opinion and then they put forth their own opinion as neutral, as neither Left nor Right, when it is obviously leftist.  So what these people are saying to us is that we should put aside all labels while toeing the leftist party line.  And be civil too!  I say to hell with that.  Let's be honest and admit that there are deep differences.  For example, if you say that health care is a right and I say it is not a right but a good, or a commodity, then we have a very deep difference. 

    In the wake of the Tucson shootings, the University of Arizona has set up a National Institute for Civil Discourse.  And then there is the American Civility Tour. Just what we need: more wastage of tax dollars on feel-good liberal nonsense.

    I conclude by referring you to a very interesting Allegheny College survey, Nastiness, Name-Calling, and Negativity. 

    The ‘Religion of Peace’ Strikes Again

    A London man was viciously attacked (face slashed, skull fractured) "for teaching other religions to Muslim girls." 

    I guess the Brits haven't learned that toleration has limits and that allowing mass immigration of uncivilized and uncivilizable elements can't lead to anything good.  (Or do they perhaps have a death wish?)  One hopes that the Brits wise up in time.  England is the mother country.  Every true American feels a certain fondness for her, regardless of ethnic origin.

    And here  Alan West shows how to respond to an apologist for Islamism.