Artifacts, Organisms, and Modes of Existence

Responding to a correspondent Bill returns to a compositional puzzle.  For related posts see his Wholes and Parts category. 

We are introduced to a house made of bricks.  Bill says,

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 therefore not something distinct from them or in addition to them.
4. Since the bricks can exist without the house but the house cannot exist without the bricks, the house is distinct from the bricks.
5. “Exist(s)” is univocal in (1) and (2), and there are no modes of existence.

Bill then argues that these five claims are inconsistent though plausible and suggests that we should reject (5).

1. I'm having trouble understanding how the puzzle here is made into an argument for modes of being. Premise (3) claims that the house and the bricks are not distinct and (4) claims that they are, so (3) and (4) are in contradiction regardless of (5). Is Bill perhaps suggesting the following? Since (4) contains the verb 'to exist', multiple modes of existence would allow us to modify the sense of 'can exist' in (4) so that the implicit little argument in (4) no longer delivers the conclusion 'the house is distinct from the bricks', and hence (4) would cease to contradict (3).

2.  Here is an argument for rejecting (4). The idea is that it misapplies the term 'distinct'. Suppose we present the puzzle a little differently:

1. On some plot there is a house,
2. On the same plot there are some bricks.

I tend to imagine this situation as involving two objects, the house and the bricks. Suppose then we are told any one of the following,

3a. The house consists of the bricks and the bricks comprise the house, without remainder.
3b. The house and the bricks are identical,
3c. The house and the bricks are not distinct.

This has affinities with Frege's Puzzle. We learn that seeming two things are one. So I say that the inferential equivalence of 3a, 3b, and 3c fixes the sense we should assign here to 'distinct'. Now (4) says,

The bricks can exist without the house but the house cannot exist without the bricks; ergo the house is distinct from the bricks.

Arguably, the house could exist without the bricks by virtue of consisting of different bricks.  We might imagine the bricks replaced by new bricks, one by one, and the old bricks finally destroyed.  The house would remain.  So an argument that this modal claim leads to the conclusion 'the house and bricks are distinct' needs to be made. Clearly we can distinguish the senses of 'the house' and 'the bricks' in our minds, and conceptually a composite object is dependent on its parts but not conversely, but just as in Frege's Puzzle, it's the referents not the senses that are being identified. So (4) and (3) differ in their use of 'distinct'. Bill also argues for (4):

...it is also not just the bricks, but the house-wise arrangement of the bricks, an arrangement that is not nothing, but something real that makes the house distinct from the bricks.

This too, I think, conflates sense and reference. The sense of 'collection of bricks' does not include 'is house-shaped' or 'protects against the elements' and so is distinct from the sense of 'house'. But it's reference that counts here, not sense. The actual bricks in their house-shaped configuration do offer shelter.

On Ceasing to Exist---Further Thoughts

In this piece written in December 2019 I commented on an argument Bill published earlier that year.   Bill presented this seemingly inconsistent tetrad.

1) Datum: There are predicates that are true of things that no longer exist, e.g., 'dead' and 'famous' and 'fondly remembered' are true of JFK. 
2) Veritas sequitur esse: If a predicate is true of an item x, then x exists.
3) Presentism: For any x, x exists iff x is temporally present.
4) The Dead: For any x, if x is dead, then x is temporally non-present.

I have two objections here.  First, in the formulation that Bill gives of VSE it is false.  Take the predicate 'does not exist' and apply it to the mythical creature called 'Pegasus'.  The resulting sentence, 'Pegasus does not exist', is true so Bill's VSE would allow us to conclude that Pegasus does exist.  An immediate contradiction.   Bill's VSE begs the question against the Presentist who would not concede that JFK has to exist in order to be famous or veridically remembered.  'JFK is famous'  does not assert that an extant JFK has the property of 'being famous'.  It says that many people now know his name and can tell you something about his role in US politics.  Indeed, you needn't ever to have existed in order to be famous.  Sherlock Holmes, perhaps.   But you do need to once have existed in order to be veridically remembered.

Second, Bill puts great store on the predicate 'is dead'.   But it seems to give us an immediate counter-example to (2).  For if 'is dead' means 'has ceased to exist' means 'no longer exists', then as BIll himself says at the end of the first paragraph, 'JFK is dead' implies 'JFK does not exist, contradicting VSE.

Bill is fond of characterising the Presentist as saying of something no longer extant that it does not exist at all.  I accept that wording.  I don't think the 'at all' adds or subtracts anything.  But that is not to say that it did not exist at all, that is, ever.   Obviously, if JFK didn't (past tense) exist at all he could not be dead, famous, remembered, etc.  Is Bill being a little loose with tense in the underlined phrase?

Bill says, 'Kennedy must in some sense exist if he is to be the object of successful reference and the subject of true predications'.  Does this reveal an attachment to a certain theory of names or of propositions?

Conclusion added in March 2020

I'm more puzzled by Bill's inconsistent tetrad than by the thought he is trying to capture.  Bill says that it's puzzling that a predicate can be true of a thing that doesn't exist.  But why?  We make past-tensed predications of things that don't exist all the time.  In 1943 Kennedy commanded  PT109, for example.  Neither exists now though they both did in 1943.  This is surely 'datanic', as Bill would say, of how we speak of the past.  The problem is that Bill's tetrad introduces theoretical terms like 'predicate', 'temporal presence', 'tenseless existence', etc, and principles like Veritas Sequitur Esse on which we rightly place less trust than we do on ordinary language.  The philosopher's new-fangled tools need further refinement.

Reference to What is Not

Bill is discussing reference to what is not with Lukas Novak.  In a comment he says,

It now strikes me that what you and I mean by 'nonexistent object' is different. What I mean is an INDIVIDUAL that actually has properties, but does not exist or have any mode of being. The example I have been employing is THE golden mountain. It ACTUALLY, not merely possibly, has exactly two properties, being a mountain and being made of gold. Just those two properties and no properties entailed by them. There can only be one such item; hence THE GM.

But why must there be just one such item?  Are we not in the same domain as Max Black's iron spheres of which there are two?  If Bill insists on just one such individual that has exactly the two properties then I think he must be talking about the description 'is a mountain and is golden'.  The order of the properties is not significant.  But of course, a description has properties in a way different from the way a concrete object has its properties.  We are in the realm of Zaltaian abstract objects.

Arguments for anti-presentism?

Bill has been discussing David Benatar's The Human Predicament. Benatar introduces what he calls the Existence Requirement,

(ER) In order for something to be bad for somebody, that person must exist at the time it is bad for him.

Many people find this self-evident. Bill argues here that the reason for this is a tacit commitment to presentism. Bill explains presentism via a somewhat murky notion of 'existence simpliciter', but I think the gist is captured by the following,

Consider Tom Petty who died recently. On mortalism, he no longer exists. On presentism, what no longer exists (i.e., what existed but does not now exist) does not exist at all. So on presentism, Petty does not exist at all. If so, dead Petty cannot be subject to harms or deprivations.

So if we have grounds for rejecting presentism, we can also reject Benatar's Existence Requirement.  But why would we want to say that ceasing to exist does not imply ceasing to exist at all?  What residuum of existence remains after something has ceased to exist?  Bill says,

We don't want to say that a dead man becomes nothing after death since he remains a particular, completely determinate, dead man distinct from others. If the dead become nothing after death then all the dead would be the same. If your dead father and your dead mother are both nothing, then there is nothing to distinguish them.

It's difficult to know what to make of this.  My guess is that Bill is conflating a thing with the idea of a thing.  First, 'particular' and 'completely determinate' do not denote properties of  concrete objects like men.  One can contrast 'I have in mind a particular man' with 'I have in mind a man' but 'particular' here qualifies not 'man' but rather the way of having in mind.  'Completely determinate' functions in a similar way.  What would 'partially determinate man' denote?  A partially determinate idea of a man makes sense, however;  we know some of his properties but not others.  Second, 'dead' is an alienating adjective.  If a man is a living thing and 'dead' means non-living then a 'dead man' is a somewhat contradictory conception.  Better to think of 'is dead' as 'has died'.  A dead man is one who has passed through that final event that all living things inevitably come to, and has ceased to be.  Third, to speak of 'becoming nothing' on death is misleading.  Death is the end of all becoming.  One has finally begone, as it were. It's not that the dead lack something to distinguish them. Rather, they are not there to be distinguished one from another.  But this is not to say that my parents were indistinguishable as objects.  Nor is it to say that my thoughts about my parents are now indistinguishable.  Surely I can say, My mother was short and my father was tall. 

Nor do we want to say that a person who dies goes from being actual to being merely possible. There is clearly a distinction between an actual past individual and a merely possible past individual.  Schopenhauer is an actual past individual; his only son Willy is a merely possible past individual

Once again I'm afraid I can't regard 'being actual' and 'being merely possible' as denoting properties of individuals. How these predications are to be understood is not an easy question.  Suffice it to say that there is clearly a problem with  'Schopenhauer's only son Willy' when the philosopher's only child was a daughter.

On the 'growing block' theory, dead Petty exists. (This is obviously not a present-tensed use of 'exists.') He does not exist at present, but he exists in the sense that he belongs to the actual world.  Once actual, always actual. Is this wholly clear? No, but it is tolerably clear and plausible. After all, we are making singular reference to Petty, a concrete actual individual, as we speak, and this is a good reason to hold that he exists, not at present of course, but simpliciter.

The 'growing block' theory sounds like a kind of four-dimensionalism deriving from the physicist's notion of spacetime as a four-dimensional manifold.  We trace the world-lines of the particles that were ever part of Petty and we find that they form a densely packed blob within a certain spacetime region.  We are tempted to identify the contents of this region with Petty himself.  If we think of the ensemble of worldlines of all material particles as the actual world itself, then yes, the Petty blob seems indeed to belong to the actual world.  But this is a mistake.  The worldline of a particle represents not so much the particle itself but rather its history.  Likewise the blob we take to be Petty represents his biography, in mind-numbing detail.  We are confusing a thing with the life it lived.  Of course Petty belonged to the world---I don't see quite what 'actual' adds here---it's just that he does not belong to it any more.  Perhaps Bill is emphasising that Petty was a real man, not, say, a character in a fiction like Spinal Tap.  There is more than a hint here that Bill is appealing to a theory of direct reference.  Petty has to exist in order that we may refer to him.

In the article, Fiction and Alienans Adjectives, I discuss this and related matters with Bill.

Expressing 'Something exists'

Bill returns to the limitations of language and logic.  He offers the following 'surely valid and sound' argument,

1. Stromboli exists,
Ergo
2. Something exists,

and shows that the attempt to render this using the so-called Quine formula for 'exists'  results in a 'murky travesty of the original luminous argument'.

I agree that he ends with a murky travesty.  But he doesn't start with a valid argument.  The name 'Stromboli' is plucked out of the sky without introduction.  This can lead to even murkier depths.  See Bill's piece Deducing John McCain from the Principle of Identity and especially the comment thread which dives deep into the mud at the bottom.  Interestingly, Bill correctly diagnoses the problem, namely that a supplementary premise is needed:

1.5 'Stromboli' refers to something that exists.

Putting this back in at the beginning we get

1. 'Stromboli' refers to something that exists.
2. Stromboli exists.
3. Something exists.

Substituting the equivalent Anglo-Saxon for the Latinate 'refers' and 'exists' in (1) we get

1. There is something called 'Stromboli'.
2. Stromboli exists.
3. Something exists.

That's now valid.  (2) is seen to be redundant and (3) is seen to be contained in (1). To render this in the language of the predicate calculus we first prise apart 'something' as 'some thing':

1. There is some thing called 'Stromboli'.
2. Stromboli exists.
3. Some thing exists.

This is equivalent to

1. ∃x.Thing(x)
2. Thing(Stromboli)
3. ∃x.Thing(x).

(2) is Existential elimination from (1) and (3) could be seen as Existential Introduction (aka generalisation) from (2).

The murky travesty suggests to Bill that

What I am getting at is that standard logic cannot state its own presuppositions.  It presupposes that everything exists (that there are no non-existent objects) and that something exists.  But it lacks the expressive resources to state these presuppositions.  The attempt to state them results either in  nonsense -- e.g. 'for some x, x' -- or a proposition other than the one that needs expressing.

Well, I'm not so sure about all that.  If Bill could let go of the bette noire of the Quine formula he would see that the predicate calculus language does better than he allows.  But he could still attack the murkiness of the predicate Thing().  [He does somewhere---I'll look it up],  As I use it here it's equivalent to Object() or Individual(), all candidates for the concept at the root of the Porphyrean Tree.  If Bill seeks the presuppositions  that cannot be expressed in the logical language, he might consider whether discrete individuals with discrete properties can indeed coherently be separated from the Bulk, ideas which do seem integral with the structure of the language.  But the existence of said individuals can be expressed.  That, as Quine says, is what the existential quantifier does.

Max Black exists!

No, not the philosopher.   Bill V. is fond of demonstrating his notion of 'singular existence' by reference to one of his cats.  'Max exists!' he exclaims, and his readers can imagine the accompanying thump on the table.  I've said many times now that this statement is true but uninformative, given that Bill must already have told us 'I have a cat named 'Max Black'', or some such.  I guess it behoves me to explain why our language has such constructions.  For if we think that language evolves by the elimination of the uninformative and the redundant, then surely such locutions should vanish?

Firstly, a singular existential claim like 'Max exists!' serves to emphasise and reinforce a general existence claim.  If Bill informs me that he has a cat called 'Max', that Max is such-and-such and has done so-and-so, and I am looking somewhat quizzical, Bill may say 'But Max really exists!' in order to urge on me the truth of what he is telling me. 

A second use for the singular existential occurs when knowledge by description turns into knowledge by acquaintance.  I know Max only by the descriptions Bill writes in his blog.  All knowledge from description is held but tentatively, at least at first.  We all know that what we read in the papers and what people tell us can be false, wilfully or mistakenly.  If I were to travel to Arizona and meet Max in the flesh I would come to know him by acquaintance.  I might well exclaim 'So Max really exists!'  Though I have no doubt that what Bill has told us about Max is true, nevertheless I am reassured when knowledge by description is confirmed by acquaintance.  Being the co-operative social creatures that we are this phenomenon lies deep in our psychology.  We are obliged to rely on information from others but are aware that we can be deceived.  So we are constantly on our guard.

Univocity of 'exists(s)'?

Bill is much exercised by an argument of Peter van Inwagen that he summarises thus:

a. Number-words are univocal.
b. 'Exist(s)' is a number-word.
Therefore
c. 'Exist(s)' is univocal.

He explains that

(b) captures the Fregean claim that ". . . existence is analogous to number. Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number nought." (Foundations of Arithmetic, p. 65)

He goes on,

Consider my cat Max Black. I exclaim, 'Max exists!' My exclamation expresses a truth. Contrast the singular 'Max exists' with the general 'Cats exist.' I agree with van Inwagen that the general 'Cats exist' is equivalent to 'The number of cats is one or more.' But it is perfectly plain that the singular 'Max exists' is not equivalent to 'The number of Max is one or more.' For the right-hand-side of the equivalence is nonsense, hence necessarily neither true nor false.

So Bill thinks that 'exist(s)' in 'Max exists' has a different meaning to 'exist' in 'Cats exist', and he denies PVI's univocity claim.  After some more argumentation he concludes,

So if you want to maintain the univocity of 'exist(s)' across general and singular existentials, you must either conflate the 'is' of identity' with the 'is' of predication, or embrace haecceity properties.

Bill has always maintained that there is an important distinction to be drawn between what he calls 'singular existence', exemplified by such as 'Max exists', and 'general existence', as in 'Cats exist'.   For all the ten years or so I have been reading him I have yet to understand what he is getting at.  For suppose that Bill's cat Max is the only cat there is. Then Max is our 'witness' that there is at least one cat. That Max exists shows that cats exist.  And if cats exist then there is at least one cat, in this case exactly one, and Bill has chosen to call him 'Max'.  I can't see how the verb 'to exist' is being used differently in the two cases.

Unfortunately, PVI's argument weighing in on the side of this univocity thesis gives Bill a hostage.  For it allows him to come up with 'the number of Max is one or more' as a paraphrase of 'Max exists'.  Besides being ungrammatical English, Bill can argue that any attempt to make sense of this leads to unacceptable conclusions.  So PVI has scored an own-goal.

I argue for the univocity thesis as follows.  Observe what Bill says,

Consider my cat Max Black. I exclaim, 'Max exists!'

He says that his exclamation expresses a truth.  Indeed it does.  We can see it's true because his first sentence, which is actually imperative, tells us that Bill has a cat whom he calls 'Max'.  In other words, some cat, in fact the one Bill calls 'Max', exists.  Bill's exclamation merely confirms, or emphasises, what we know already, namely, that there is a cat and that Bill calls him 'Max'.  But this is a general existential claim. The singular claim 'Max exists' is really a disguised general claim.  I say that all existential claims are in fact general and the question of univocity does not arise.

Deducing John McCain?

In the course of Bill's recent discussion on the Univocity of 'Exist(s)', I recalled a much earlier posting where a lack of what we might call 'logical hygiene' leads to much confusion.  This is especially evident in the comments.  Bill offers the following conundrum:

1. (x)(x = x) (Principle of Identity)
Therefore
2. John McCain = John McCain (From 1 by Universal Instantiation)
Therefore
3. (Ex)(x = John McCain) (From 2 by Existential Generalization)
Therefore
4. John McCain exists. (From 3 by translation into ordinary idiom)

Correctly, in my view, Bill identifies the trouble in the move from (1) to (2), though he tables a couple of other panaceas that he says are 'essentially equivalent'.  He says that we need a supplementary premise, namely,

1.5 'John McCain' refers to something that exists.

I would not put it quite that way myself.  The notion of 'reference' is a big topic that we have discussed endlessly at Maverick Philosopher, and the 'something that exists' seems to leave open the possibility that there might be something that doesn't exist, and we will be on the road to Meinongia.  So for simplicity I prefer to replace Bill's (1.5) with my own variant,

DB. There is something named 'John McCain'.

I call this the mention before use rule for proper names. This is just as effective as Bill's proposal for removing the rabbit out of a hat result that the existence of the contingent John McCain 'is validly deducible from an a priori knowable necessary truth of logic', as Bill puts it.  But in this response to my suggestion, Bill seems to reject the idea, saying that I 'seem to be denying the very possibility of coherent fictional discourse' and that he doesn't see the need for my brand of logical hygiene.  We await with interest.

Purely Fictional Objects

It looks as if Bill's musings on 'same God' have led him back to What Problem Does Literary Fiction Pose?,
a reworking of an earlier post that we have already discussed.  He offers the following aporia:

1. Purely fictional objects do not exist.
2. There are true  sentences about purely fictional objects, e.g., 'Sherlock Holmes is a detective' and 'Sherlock Holmes is purely fictional.'
3. If a sentence of the form Fa is true, then there exists an x such that 'a' refers to x.

For me, alarm bells were ringing before I reached (3). If we conjoin (1) and (2) we get

There are no PFOs yet there are true sentences about them,

and we should ask what the them refers to. Compare with

There are no leprechauns but there are true sentences about them.

So we can reject (1) and (2) without worrying too deeply about what it means to be a PFO.  I have claimed earlier that 'purely fictional', like 'mythological', 'past', 'intentional', and others, are not adjectives in the ordinary sense.

Plutocats

Some cat is fat.
Of the cats, one is fat.
Of the cats, there is one that is fat.
Of the cats, there exists one that is fat.
Of the cats, there exists a fat one.
There exists a fat cat.

Stromboli exists!

I was reminded recently of Bill's The Stromboli Puzzle Revisited from February this year.  Here is how it begins.

Here is a little puzzle I call the Stromboli Puzzle. An earlier post on this topic was defective. So I return to the topic. The puzzle brings out some of the issues surrounding existence. Consider the following argument.

Stromboli exists.
Stromboli is an island volcano.
Ergo
An island volcano exists.

This is a sound argument: the premises are true and the reasoning is correct. It looks to be an instance of Existential Generalization. How can it fail to be valid? But how can it be valid given the equivocation on 'exists'? 'Exists' in the conclusion is a second-level predicate while 'exists' in the initial premise is a first-level predicate. Although Equivocation is standardly classified as an informal fallacy, it induces a formal fallacy. An equivocation on a term in a syllogism induces the dreaded quaternio terminorum, which is a formal fallacy. Thus the above argument appears invalid because it falls afoul of the Four Term Fallacy.

Objection 1. "The argument is valid without the first premise, and as you yourself have pointed out, a valid argument cannot be made invalid by adding a premise. So the argument is valid. What's your problem?"

Reply 1. The argument without the first premise is not valid. For if the singular term in the argument has no existing referent, then the argument is a non sequitur. If 'Stromboli' has no referent at all, or has only a nonexisting Meinongian referent, then Existential Generalization could not be performed, given, as Quine says, that "Existence is what existential quantification expresses."

Bill tables a second objection, which he also rebuts, and then offers his own account of why the argument is valid, which hinges on a distinction between 'first-level' and 'second-level' uses of exists. I won't comment on these because I think Bill's Objection (1) gets things right.  I reject his Reply (1) as follows.  If 'Stromboli' has no existing referent, has no referent at all, or has only a nonexisting Meinongian referent, then there is no such thing as Stromboli and therefore 'Stromboli is an island volcano' is not true.  It may be false or it may be meaningless, but it certainly can't be true.  In which case the argument remains truth-preserving:  It has not been shown to take us from truth to falsehood.  Bill has not demonstrated that it is invalid.

But this talk of non-existing referents is already verging on the absurd and it would be better to reject Bill's Reply as nonsensical.  After all, an invalid argument is unpersuasive, and yet this argument, even without the first premise, is utterly persuasive.  Consider the following dialogues:

A: Stromboli exists.
B: This tells me nothing more than that there is something called 'Stromboli'.
A: Well, Stromboli is an island volcano.
B: OK.  So there is an island volcano?
A: Yes, an island volcano exists.
B: Good. Glad we understand each other.

A: Stromboli is an island volcano.
B: So an island volcano exists?
A: No.
B: What? You just told me Stromboli was one!
A: Yes, but Stromboli doesn't exist.
B: I don't follow you.

A: Stromboli is an island volcano.
B: OK.
A: And Stromboli exists!
B: Yes, I know, you just told me.  It's an island volcano.

Do these not have the ring of truth?  I think they do.  And this point of view is beautifully simple.  Compare it, for example, with Bill's 'two-level' account.  But I clearly need to say more.  Bill, and others, are happy to talk about 'empty' names, names with no referent, names with no existing referent, names with Meinongian referents, and so on.  So-called 'free' logics (there are at least three kinds) have been invented to accommodate the notion.  I need to say something more about what is going on here.

Let's distinguish the meaning of a name from its referent, if any.  The meaning of a name is what has to be understood about it in order for sentences involving the name to make sense.  This is quite independent of any external referent the name may have, as is shown by the fact that fictional sentences are perfectly understandable despite the proper names within them usually lacking real-world referents.  Now, in properly formulated discourse a name has to be introduced before it can be used.  This is how the name gets its meaning.  If, out of the blue, you say to me 'Stromboli exists!' and I have never been introduced to the name 'Stromboli', then what you say has no meaning for me.  I have no information to attach to the name 'Stromboli' and your statement doesn't change my epistemic state.  Asked to say something about Stromboli, I can tell you nothing.  If, on the other hand, you say 'There is an island volcano called Stromboli',  the name 'Stromboli' acquires a meaning.  If asked about it I can reply 'It's an island volcano, isn't it?'  For me, the name now means this island volcano and you can go on to tell me more about it by using the name.  What you say may be complete fiction---there may be no island volcanoes at all---but it will be meaningful, nevertheless. Notice that the name is introduced on the back of (literally behind) an existential claim:  'There is an island volcano---and it is called Stromboli', and it is open for this claim to be false.  If, out of the blue, you tell me 'Stromboli is an island volcano', and I have never heard of Stromboli, I have to interpret your sentence as a somewhat compressed existential assertion and name introduction.  This is the style adopted by dictionaries.  A subsequent use of the name, such as 'Stromboli is extinct', which has similar form,  does not carry an implicit existential claim, else we would have two entities in play, an island volcano and an extinct thing, rather than one.  Instead, the name means the same thing as was introduced earlier under the same name. 

All this, of course, is Ed Ockham's theory of  relativity of reference  which I think is spot on.  Where Ed and I differ is that Ed, I think, holds that negative free logic is needed to make inferences from sentences using names understood in this way.  I see this as an unnecessary and counter-intuitive complication to a simple and elegant theory.  Logical inference operates on the meanings of sentences not on the real-world objects and properties they might be about.  We can make inferences within fictional discourse just as easily as we do in discourse about the real world, using classical logic.  In Ed's theory all properly introduced names have meanings  and there are no names that lack meaning.  Hence we have no need to resort to free logics.  Ed may say that in classical logic we have no way of expressing negative singular existentials such as 'Vulcan does not exist'.  I answer that this amounts to a rejection of the explicit or implicit existential claim on the back of which the name 'Vulcan' was introduced. See also this post.

On Golden Mountain

Browsing once more through Bill's back catalogue of posts on existence---it's a bit like worrying a loose tooth---I came across this one from May 2012.  I think this brings out the difference between the London view and the Phoenix view quite clearly.

Bill and Ed (and I) are agreed that

1. ‘Island volcanos exist’ is logically equivalent to ‘Some volcano is an island.’ 

But Bill goes on to make a qualification:

2. This equivalence, however, rests on the assumption that the domain of quantification is a domain of existing individuals. 

Ed disagrees strongly, and I'm with Ed on this. I'm tempted to ask, What other kind of individuals are there?  'Individual' and 'existent' (that which stands out) are equivalent, and one does not need to delve into the apparatus of the predicate calculus (talk of 'domain of quantification') to see this.  Bill explains:

Now there is nothing in the nature of logic to stop us from quantifying over nonexistent individuals. So suppose we have a domain populated by nonexistent individuals only. Supppose a golden mountain is one of these individuals. We can then say, relative to this domain, that some mountain is golden. But surely 'Some mountain is golden' does not entail 'A golden mountain exists.' The second sentence entails the first, but the first does not entail the second. Therefore, they are not logically equivalent.

To enforce equivalence you must stipulate that the domain is a domain of existing individuals only. If 'some' ranges over existing individuals, then 'Some mountain is golden' does entail 'A golden mountain exists.' In other words, you must stipulate that the domain be such that, if there are any individuals in it, then they be existent individuals, as opposed to (Meinongian) nonexistent individuals. The stipulation allows for empty domains; what it rules out, however, are domains the occupants of which are nonexistent individuals in Meinong's sense.

What to say?  Of course 'some mountain is golden' entails 'a golden mountain exists', and without qualification.  Imagine that you meet a travel-stained fellow in the ale-house.  He tells you of his adventures in distant lands.  In the remote region of Utopistan, he says, one of the mountains is golden, and he shows you a nugget.  So, you think, some mountain really is golden.  Yes, he says, a golden mountain really exists.

Let's be firm:  talk of nonexistent individuals is nonsense.  But Bill and Meinong are, I think, getting at something real in thought and language, even if the language they use is confused and leads us into absurdities.  The question is, What is really going on here?  Bill's view is that he is on the track of ontological profundities.  I think we are encountering the machinery of thought.  That may be going a bit far for Ed.

Of course there are individuals, objects, existents, call them what you will.  There is simply no need to make room for them by prising open a space between 'some' and 'exists'.

Kripke on existence

Bill has been reading Saul Kripke's  Reference and Existence and he has a quibble or two.  The first quibble is that Kripke endorses the Frege-Russell notion that existence is not a first level predicate, applicable to individuals (rather it is second level, applicable to concepts, where it is equivalent to instantiation) while also claiming that, since everything exists, one isn't saying anything meaningful or significant in saying that some particular individual exists.  I think Bill's point is that if one holds that the existence predicate is purely second level then it's a performative inconsistency to say that everything exists, since this clearly applies the predicate to individuals.  On the face of it this does look daft. But I think we can rescue Kripke by pointing out that any predicate ϕ(x) that's true at all values of x is redundant and can be eliminated from any expression in which it is found. So a first level existence predicate drops out.

Bill's second objection is that Kripke allows that the definition

ϕ(x) ⇔ (Ǝy)(x = y)

does give us a first level existence predicate and consequently sees the Frege-Russell position as inconsistent.  Bill's strongly held view is that ϕ comes nowhere near to capturing the notion of singular existence.  He claims that Kripke misses this.  He gives a modal argument for this (appropriate in a comment on Kripke, I guess) which I do not follow.  The argument involves the predicate 'possibly nonexistent', which Bill claims is first level.  I have written before that I cannot see 'existent' as a predicate, let alone 'nonexistent'.  Nor do I think one can qualify bona fide predicates with the likes of 'possible' and 'past' and others without falling into nonsense.

Browsing through Bill's 'Existence' category I came across this post from November 2009. Bill says,

2. But my wonder at the sheer existence of things in general -- at their being as opposed to their nonbeing -- is not a wonder at the being-instantiated of some concept or property or natural kind or cognate item. For existing things are not instances of some concept or property or natural kind called 'existence.' There is no such concept or property or natural kind.

Whereas, a year before to the day, in a reply to a comment of mine in which I claimed it was otiose to treat existence as a property, Bill said,

There are many existing individuals, and they all have something in common, namely their existence. Does this not suffice to show that there is a property of existence in a suitably broad sense of 'property'?  Since there are many existents, but they have one thing in common, their existence, this one thing they have in common cannot be identical to any one of them or to each of them. Existence is one to their many. Does this not show that, in a broad sense of 'property,' existence is a property?

This leaves me confused. 

Fictional characters

Arizona Bill has been discussing the metaphysics of fiction (again) with adversary London Ed.  This time we seem to have got a little further than before.  See here for the latest.  One question we have is How are we to understand

1. Frodo is a purely fictional character?

In particular, does it licence the inference to

2. There are purely fictional characters?

My reply is No and Yes.  There are two distinct but related meanings embedded in (1).  To bring this out,  let me simplify the context considerably.  Consider the following tiny dialogue:

Al: I met this chap called Soc in the pub last night.  Soc is a philosopher.
Beth: I don't believe you.  Soc is a purely fictional character.

Al is making an existential assertion:  There is a philosopher called Soc.  Beth is denying this.  She is not attributing the property of fictional characterhood to the entity Soc.  Her utterance, 'Soc is a purely fictional character' is not intended indicatively and does not supply information about Soc.  It simply rejects Al's existential assertion. Hence it does not licence the inference to (2). Moreover,  it shouldn't be seen as a continuation of Al's text about Soc, to be made sense of as part of his story.  It can't be.  It contradicts Al's story!  There is no point in trying to formulate a logical language in which Al's assertion and Beth's can be seen together as an integrated whole.  They are fundamentally antagonistic.

Suppose now that Al is, objectively, a fabulist.  He has a history of inventing personages met in pubs.  The dialogue might then go like this:

Al: I met this chap called Soc in the pub last night.  Soc is a philosopher.
Beth: Honestly, Al. Soc is just another of your purely fictional characters.

This time Beth's statement is intended indicatively.  In the larger context of Al's repeated story-telling Beth sees Soc as a van Inwagen creature of fiction.  To get this view we must stand back from Al's utterance.  We must see it not only for its meaning but also for itself as an act of speech.  To  the exasperated Beth it's just another fabulation in a long series of such.  So Beth is attending to Al's speech as one of a series of meaning-laden acts or events.  She is making a semantic ascent.  At this level Al's Soc is indeed a purely fictional character and the inference (2) that there are such things is justified.

Are singular existential denials indicative?

Why do we make statements like Vulcan doesn't exist or Pegasus never existed or there's no such person as Santa Claus?

One usage is in proofs of non-existence by reductio ad absurdum where such statements form the concluding line.  Such proofs start with an hypothesis that an object satisfying a certain condition exists, ∃x.Px, in first order logic. For convenience in the subsequent argument we give this object a name, N, say.  We then proceed to deduce a falsehood.  This often takes the form of first deducing p and then deducing ~p.  This is a classic contradiction.  We infer from this that the original hypothesis is false.  That is, that no object satisfies the condition.  And we usually express this by asserting N does not exist, using the name we attached to our hypothetical object.   Note that we are not obliged to use this form of words.  The formal conclusion of the argument is ~∃x.Px.  We do not need to say N does not exist at all.  It is merely a convenient informal shorthand.

Now, my contention is that all use of singular negative existentials is really shorthand for a general existential denial.  Sometime in the past the name was introduced to us as a label for some object satisfying a condition.  This is a case of existential instantiation. If  ∃x.Px is true then introduce a new logical constant, c, say, and by instantiation we have Pc.  Informally, c is a name for the object that witnesses the truth of ∃x.Px.  Of course, c may only be used within the scope of the hypothetical ∃x.Px, and this is made very clear in the 'proof box' method of presenting an argument.  In effect, until we arrive at the contradiction that denies us ∃x.Px, the proof box remains open.  This is how we live our lives.  We are in the midst of hundreds, maybe thousands of proof boxes opened with general existential hypotheses.  There was an ancient Greek thinker who wrote several texts highly influential on medieval and subsequent European philosophy.  Call him Aristotle.  Aristotle was an ancient Greek thinker who wrote several texts highly influential on medieval and subsequent European philosophy.  If it ever turns out that there was no such man we simply say Aristotle never existed.  Close proof box.

Why do I question whether these denials are indicative?  Well, a consequence of closing the proof box that allows us to infer  ~∃x.Px is that we must discard all the formulae deduced inside the box.  Some of these may be re-deducible outside the box, but certainly all those involving the constant c have to go.  c no longer has a referent.  So we have to throw away everything we thought we knew about this object.  Aristotle never existed  is actually an imperative rather than an indicative.

So I throw out a challenge:  find a use of a negative singular existential that does not fit this pattern.

The Polo theory of existence

It's thin, circular, and has a hole in it.  At least according to the latest argument from the Maverick, though the final attribution is my own summary of Bill's view, rather than his.  Ed Ockham has a very nice reply.

It's quite interesting that Bill is persisting in this through argument when it's clear (to me at least) that we are standing at the intersection of logic and language that lies at the foundation of argument, if I can put it in that oblique way.   He says

On the thin theory, 'An F exists' means the same as 'The concept *F* is instantiated.'

He sees this as a thesis about the nature of existence that thinists would want to defend, also by argument.   I'm not sure this is the right way of looking at it at all.  I see it as a recipe for the elimination of the verb to exist.  The general form 'An F exists' can always be replaced by 'The concept F is instantiated', or, better still, the plain old Anglo-Saxon, 'there is an F'.   But this form is harmless.  The singular form, 'a exists', where 'a' is a proper name, is potentially harmful.  But it can always be avoided because, at least in formal argument, every proper name must be introduced in the context of a general existential assertion.  'There is an F' introduces a scope (a block of statements) in which we can say 'let this F be denoted by 'a'', where 'a' is a new name that does not appear elsewhere in the development. Within this block the name 'a' can be used freely.  There is no need to assert 'a exists'.   Indeed, it's interesting to note that without the Latinate to exist (from exsistere, to step forth, literally ex+sistere, out+to stand)  English has no form for expressing this:  'a is', perhaps, but this seems to invite 'a is what?'  However, one can say, pointing simultaneously,  'there is a', and, seeing for himself, one's listener can interpolate 'there is some object; it's to be called 'a' from now on'.  This understanding is beneath language, as it were.  The general existential assertion that opens the scope becomes a premise of the argument.  Alternatively, as in most mathematical arguments, it may be proved.   Budding mathematicians are taught early on that you must first prove an existential assertion before introducing a name.  'Let n be the least number that satisfies p' has to be preceded by a proof that there is such a least number.  This can go wrong in two ways:  there may be no numbers that satisfy p; or there may be some such numbers, but no least one. Failing to observe this rule of argument gets your proof into trouble and you into trouble with your tutor.   I don't see why philosophical argument need be any different.

A meagre existence

I would like to consider the Vulcan example once more, explicating the argument that 'Vulcan does not exist' in Frege-Russell terms.  We start, I think, with some background propositions on Newtonian celestial mechanics and observations of the orbit of Mercury.  We don't have to make these explicit, suffice it to say that the orbit of Mercury is anomalous and hence it is hypothesised that there is exists a planet within the orbit of Mercury whose gravitation is responsible for the anomalies.  I think it's useful to note that this does not say that one of the planets lies within the orbit of Mercury. This is in flat contradiction to the fact that the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,..., which is an extensional claim.  Instead the claim is that the concept 'intra-Mercurial planet responsible...', which we could call LeVerrier(), is instantiated.  In FR

∃x. LeVerrier(x),                                                           (H)

that is, there is an object that satisfies the LeVerrier() predicate.  Under this hypothesis the rules of deduction within FR allow us to introduce a new name, 'Vulcan', say, for this object, and hence we have

LeVerrier(Vulcan).

At this point it's worth considering the import of the statement 'Vulcan exists'.   In my view it neither extends what we have already nor contradicts it.  It simply conveys no new information at all, and need not be said.  Hence, perhaps, there is no FR notation to express it.  All the logical work is done by the name 'Vulcan', legitimate use of which itself rests on the hypothesis H.

The argument then continues along these lines.  From the experimental fact that no such planet has been observed we infer that the diameter of Vulcan is less than a certain length d₁, say.  And from Newtonian mechanics, and a reasonable assumption about the typical density of planetary matter we infer that in order to affect the orbit of Mercury in the prescribed way the diameter of Vulcan is greater than a second length d₂, say.  When we do the calculations we find d₁<d₂.  We thus reach a contradiction: by the transitivity and asymmetry of <, the diameter of Vulcan is both less than and not less than d₂, say.

So now we have a second anomaly.  The hypothesis put forward to dissolve the anomaly in the orbit of Mercury is itself anomalous.   In this situation we look for an escape route.  Perhaps we can explain why a larger planet might still be unobserved.  Or why a smaller one could account for Mercury's peculiarities.  Perhaps Newtonian celestial mechanics isn't quite right.  But if we cling to Newton it seems we have no choice but to abandon hypothesis H.  And this is what we mean by saying that Vulcan does not exist:  The existential claim that legitimates use of the name 'Vulcan' is denied.

Now this is a very specific example.  What about the general run of singular existential statements, like 'Socrates exists'?  My claim is that we are in an analogous position.  At some point in our past some authoritative figure or author has told us 'In fifth century BC Athens there was a philosopher called Socrates', or something similar.  This general existential claim introduces a new individual to us and gives us a name to use to refer to him in talk with ourselves and others.  Later we may learn more about this ancient figure.  Unless there is a suggestion that there may have been more than one Athenian called Socrates that it might be worth us knowing about, everything we are told about the man called Socrates we ascribe to just the one individual.  To be told 'Socrates really existed' is to invite the reply 'I never doubted it'.   But it seems that everything we know about the historical Socrates comes down to us in the work of Plato, Xenophon, and 'fragmentary remains of some other authors (eg, Aeschines)', according to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy.  So it doesn't require too great a stretch of the imagination to suppose that Plato may have invented Socrates as a convenient vehicle for expressing certain, perhaps unpopular, philosophical ideas.  And Xenophon may have followed suit.  If the evidence we have had been much less, and this could easily have been the case, then the discovery of evidence that Plato had indeed made up Socrates would be overwhelming.  In these circumstances we would be forced to revoke the assertion that there was an ancient Athenian philosopher called Socrates who did and said just what Plato tells us.  And then we would say 'Socrates didn't exist'.  But maybe there was another Socrates whom Plato was unaware of who did do all those things.  So Socrates didn't exist but another Socrates did.

To summarise:  there is an important asymmetry between singular existential assertions and denials.  If the name 'Vulcan' has been properly introduced by a general existential assertion then 'Vulcan exists' tells us nothing new.  In contrast,  'Vulcan doesn't exist' amounts to a denial of the general existential statement by which the name was introduced to us.   On the other hand,  if the name 'Vulcan' has not been properly introduced then 'Vulcan exists' is meaningless to us.  All we can do is shrug our shoulders.  Likewise, in similar circumstances, 'Vulcan does not exist' invites a blank stare.  Both statements are 'conversationally ill-formed'.  This account seems to give precedence to general existential statements over singular ones, at least from the point of view of logic and language, of saying and inferring what there is.   So I remain a Fressellian.   But no doubt the individuals of whom we talk are prior to language---or at least the non-fictional ones are.

A Fressellian replies

Perhaps prompted by Ed Ockham, Bill Vallicella has a post on Wittgenstein and Rejectionism in his current series on Why is there anything at all (rather than nothing)? which has got me thinking.    I've put Bill's piece on a blue background and interpolated some comments of my own.

I characterized Rejectionism with respect to the question why there is anything at all as follows: "The rejectionist rejects the question as ill-formed, as senseless." London Ed suggests that Wittgenstein may be lumped in with the rejectionists. He has a point, though I do insist on the distinction between taking 'Why is there anything at all?' as an explanation-seeking why-question and taking it as a mere expression of wonder at the sheer existence of things. We know that Wittgenstein was struck with wonder at the sheer existence of things. What is now to be discussed is whether Wittgenstein can be read as making a rejectionist response to the ultimate explanation-seeking why-question.

Ed quotes from Anthony Kenny's book, Wittgenstein:

Logic depends on there being something in existence and there being facts; it is independent of what the facts are, of things being thus and so. That there are facts is not something which can be expressed in a proposition. If one wants to call there being facts a matter of experience, then one can say logic is empirical. But when we say something is empirical we mean that it can be imagined otherwise; in this sense every proposition with sense is a contingent proposition. And in this sense the existence of the world is not an empirical fact, because we cannot think it otherwise.

This passage cries out for commentary.

1. Does logic depend on there being something in existence? Yes, if we are talking about the Frege-Russell logic that young Ludwig cut his teeth on. In 'Fressellian' logic, existence is instantiation. To say that cats exist is to say that something is a cat. (The concept cat is instantiated.) To say that dragons do not exist is to say that nothing is a dragon. (The concept dragon is not instantiated.) This works nicely -- but only on the assumption that individuals exist. So Kenny is surely right that (Frege-Russell) logic requires that something exists, in particular that individuals exist.

The assumption, I think, is not that individuals exist---that there is at least one individual---but that individuality is a possibility.  Our ordinary talk forever runs down the tramlines of Individuals and Concepts.  But that doesn't imply that we cannot say anything useful when there are no individuals.  Of the contents of an empty box we can surely say, There are none.  See below.

2. But can this presupposition be expressed (said) in this logic? Here is a little challenge for you Fressellians: translate 'Something exists' into standard logical notion. You will discover that it cannot be done. Briefly, if existence is instantiation, which property is it whose instantiation is the existence of something? Same problem with 'Nothing exists.' If existence is instantiation, which property is it whose non-instantiation is the nonexistence of anything? Similarly with 'Everthing exists' and 'Something does not exist.'

And as a Fressellian I accept the challenge.  That property is Individual aka Object, the concept at the root of the Porphyrean tree.  We can say 'Something exists' with ∃x.Object(x), ie, there is at least one object.  Likewise ∀x.Object(x) (which is always true, even when the box is empty) says 'Everything exists' and its negation (which is always false) says 'Some thing is not an object'.  But both these last are unenlightening---because always true  and always false, respectively, they convey no information, make no distinction, are powerless to change us.

3. I surmise that this is one of the motivations for Wittgenstein's infamous and paradoxical saying/showing distinction. What can be said can be said clearly. But not everything can be said. It cannot be said that there are beings or that there are objects or that there are individuals. For again, how does one express (say) that there are beings (existents) in Frege-Russell logic? This system of logic rests on presuppositions that cannot be expressed within the system. The presuppositions cannot be said but thay can be shown by the use of variables such as the individual variable 'x.' That is the Tractarian line.

Again, if we avail ourselves of the concept Object, then I think we can say that there is at least one object.  What we can't say is that Individuality makes sense.  That we are not deceiving ourselves that individuals congeal out of stuff.  That is the presumption that underlies our attempts to clarify language through logic.

4. Kenny also says that logic depends on there being facts. That's not clear. Near the beginning of the Tractatus, LW affirms the existence of facts. He tells us that the world is the totality of facts (Tatsachen) not of things (Dinge). But does the Frege-Russell logic require that there be facts? Not as far as I can see. The mature Frege certainly did not posit facts. Be that as it may.

I have never been clear on what LW means by 'facts'.  Be that as it may indeed.

5. Is Wittgenstein a rejectionist? Does he reject the question 'Why is there anything at all?' as senseless or ill-formed? The case can be made that he does or at least could within his framework.

When I raise the question why anything at all exists, I begin with the seemingly empirical fact that things exist: me, my cat, mountains, clouds . . . . I then entertain the thought that there might have been nothing at all. I then demand an explanation as to why there is something given (a) that there is something and (b) that there might not have been anything.

A Wittgensteinian rejection of the question might take the following form. "First of all, your starting point is inexpressible: it cannot be said that things exist. That is a nonsensical pseudo-proposition. You can say, sensibly, that cats exist, but not that things exist. That things exist is an unsayable presupposition of all thinking. As such, we cannot think it away. And so one cannot ask why anything exists."

I agree with Bill that LW is being rejectionist, but I'm not sure LW's justification of his stance holds up.  For surely cats are objects, and if cats exist then objects exist?

6. This form of rejectionism is as dubious as what it rests upon, namely, the Frege-Russell theory of existence and the saying/showing distinction.

Well, that is Bill's long-held view.  I think LW is wrong for other reasons.