{"id":11046,"date":"2010-12-18T14:33:20","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T14:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/12\/18\/divine-simplicity-and-whether-existence-is-a-first-level-property\/"},"modified":"2010-12-18T14:33:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-18T14:33:20","slug":"divine-simplicity-and-whether-existence-is-a-first-level-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/12\/18\/divine-simplicity-and-whether-existence-is-a-first-level-property\/","title":{"rendered":"Divine Simplicity and Whether Existence is a First-Level Property"},"content":{"rendered":"

A London reader, Rob Hoveman, kindly sent me Howard Robinson<\/a>'s "Can We Make Sense of the Idea that God's Existence is Identical to His Essence" (in Reason, Faith and History: Philosophical Essays for Paul Helm<\/em>, ed. M. W. F. Stone, Ashgate 2008, pp. 127-143).  This post will comment on the gist of section 4 of Robinson's article, entitled 'Existence is Not a Property.'<\/span><\/p>\n

One major implication of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) is that in God essence and existence are the same.  My Stanford Encyclopedia article on DDS<\/a> will fill you in on some of the details.  A number of objections can be brought against DDS.  Here only one will be considered, namely, the objection that existence cannot be a first-level property, a property of individuals.<\/span><\/p>\n

The objection might go like this.  If in God, an individual, essence and existence are identical, then existence must be a first-level property of God.  But existence cannot be a first-level property.  Therefore, essence and existence cannot be identical in God.<\/span><\/p>\n

This objection is only as good as the Fregean theory according to which existence is a property of concepts only.  Without explaining why distinguished thinkers have been persuaded of its truth, let me give just one reason why it cannot be right.  The theory says that existence is the property of being instantiated. An affirmative general existential such as  'Horses exist,' then, does not predicate existence of individual horses; it predicates instantiation of the concept horse<\/em>.  And a negative general existential such as  'Mermaids do not exist'  does not predicate anything of individual mermaids — after all, there aren't any — it denies that the concept mermaid<\/em> has any instances.<\/span><\/p>\n

To see what is wrong with the theory, note first that instantiation is a relation, a dyadic asymmetrical relation.  We can of course speak of the property<\/em> of being instantiated but only so long as it is understood that this is a relational<\/em> property, one parasitic upon the relation of instantiation.  Therefore, if a first-level concept C is instantiated, then there is some individual x such that  x instantiates C.  It would be nonsense to say that C is instantiated while adding that there is nothing that instantiates it.  That would be like saying that Tom is married but there is no one to whom he is married.  Just as 'Tom is married' is elliptical for 'Tom is married to someone,' 'C is instantiated' is elliptiucal for 'C is instaniated by some individual.'<\/span><\/p>\n

Now either x exists or it does not.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose it does not.  Then we have instantiation without existence.  If so, then existence cannot be instantiation.   For example, let C be the concept winged horse<\/em> and let x be Pegasus.  The latter instantiates the former since Pegasus is a winged horse.   But Pegasus does not exist.  So existence cannot be the second-level property of instantiation if we allow nonexistent objects to serve as instances of concepts. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now suppose that x exists.  Then the theory is circular: it presupposes and does not eliminate first-level existence. The concept blogging philosopher<\/em> is instantiated by me, but only because I possess first-level existence.  One cannot coherently maintain that my existence consists in my instantiating that concept or any concept for the simple reason that (first-level) existence is what makes it possible for me to instantiate any concept in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

If what we are after is a  metaphysical theory of what it is for an individual to exist, then Frege's theory in  all its variants (the Russellian variant, the Quinean variant, . . .)  is wholly untenable.  I demonstrate this in painful detail in A Paradigm Theory of Existence<\/em>, Kluwer, 2002, Chapter 4.  Robinson, p. 133, is on to the problem, and makes the following intriguing suggestion: "But there is a way of taking the second order analysis which is not incompatible with regarding 'exists' as a first order predicate, and that can be approached by treating existence as a monadic<\/em> property of concepts." (133)<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea is that, rather than being a relational property of concepts, as on the Fregean theory, existence is a nonrelational property of concepts.  If this could be made to work, it would defuse the circularity objection I just sketched.  For the objection exploits the fact that instantiation is a dyadic  relation. <\/span><\/p>\n

But if existence is to be construed as a monadic (nonrelational) property of concepts, then concepts cannot be understood as Frege understands them.  For Frege, concepts are functions and no function is an ontological constituent of its value for a given argument or an ontological constituent of any argument.  For example, the propositional function expressed by the the predicate '___is wise' has True as its value for Socrates as argument.  But this function is not a constituent of the True.  Nor is it a constituent of Socrates.  And for Frege there are no truthmaking concrete states of affairs having ontological constituents.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Robinson's suggestion to have a chance, concepts must be understood as ontological constituents of individuals like Socrates.  Accordingly,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Existence is not simply a property of the individual, in the ordinary sense; it is more a metaphysical component of it, along with form or essence. So the monadic property of the concept — its instantiation — is the same as the existence of the individual. (134)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Essence and existence are thus ontological constituents or metaphysical components of contingent individuals.  This is definitely an improvement over the Fregean view inasmuch as it preserves the strong intuition, or rather datum<\/em>,  that existence belongs to individuals.  But this Thomistic view has its own problems.  It is difficult to understand how existence could be a proper part of an existing thing as the Thomistic analysis implies.   After all, it is the whole<\/em> of Socrates that exists, Socrates together with all his spatial parts, temporal parts (if any), and ontological 'parts.'    As pertaining to the whole of the existing thing, its existence cannot be identified with one part to the exclusion of others.  For this  reason, in my book I took the line that the existence of an individual is not one of its constituents, but the unity of all its constituents.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A London reader, Rob Hoveman, kindly sent me Howard Robinson's "Can We Make Sense of the Idea that God's Existence is Identical to His Essence" (in Reason, Faith and History: Philosophical Essays for Paul Helm, ed. M. W. F. Stone, Ashgate 2008, pp. 127-143).  This post will comment on the gist of section 4 of Robinson's article, entitled … Continue reading “Divine Simplicity and Whether Existence is a First-Level Property”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divine-simplicity","category-existence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}