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A PARADIGM THEORY
OF EXISTENCE
Onto-Theology Vindicated
by
The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly
philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind
with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.
William James
CONTENTS
PREFACE xi
REFERENCES 273
INDEX 279
Preface
The heart of philosophy is metaphysics, and at the heart of the heart lie two
questions about existence. What is it for any contingent thing to exist? Why
does any contingent thing exist? Call these the nature question and the ground
question, respectively. The first concerns the nature of the existence of the
contingent existent; the second concerns the ground of the contingent existent.
Both questions are ancient, and yet perennial in their appeal; both have presided
over the burial of so many of their would-be undertakers that it is a good
induction that they will continue to do so.
For some time now, the preferred style in addressing such questions has
been deflationary when it has not been eliminativist. Ask Willard Quine what
existence is, and you will hear that "Existence is what existential quantification
expresses."! Ask Bertrand Russell what it is for an individual to exist, and he
will tell you that an individual can no more exist than it can be numerous: there
just is no such thing as the existence of individuals. 2 And of course Russell's
eliminativist answer implies that one cannot even ask, on pain of succumbing to
the fallacy of complex question, why any contingent individual exists: if no
individual exists, there can be no question why any individual exists. Not to
mention Russell's modal corollary: 'contingent' and 'necessary' can only be
said de dicto (of propositions) and not de re (of things). At the source of the
Russellian-Quinean stream stands the imposing figure of Frege, perhaps the
greatest of logicians, and certainly the greatest since Aristotle. But logic is not
metaphysics, and we shall see that existence cannot come into focus through the
lenses of logic alone. It is, as Santayana once said, "odious to the logician.,,3
This is part of its charm, as the resolute reader will no doubt come to appreciate.
The critical task of this book is to put paid to deflationary and
eliminativist accounts, thereby restoring existence to its rightful place as one of
the deep topics in philosophy, if not the deepest. The constructive task is to
defend the thesis that the nature and ground questions admit of a unified answer,
and that this answer takes the form of what I call a paradigm theory of existence.
The central idea of the paradigm theory is that existence itself is nothing
abstract (hence not a property or a concept or a quantifier or anything merely
logical or linguistic or representational) but is instead a paradigmatically existent
concrete individual. The idea is not merely that existence itself exists -- which
would be true if one said that existence is a property and one held a realist
theory of properties -- but that existence exists in a plenary concrete sense that
it cannot be the business of a preface to explain. But the idea may be limned as
follows. Existence itself exists of absolute metaphysical necessity and the
contingent existent exists in virtue of its dependence on self-existent existence.
I submit that this robust theory of existence can be as rigorously defended as any
deflationary theory.
xi
xii PREFACE
NOTES
1 W. V. Quine, "Existence and Quantification" in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 97.
2 Bertrand Russell, "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism' in Logic and Knowledge, ed. R. C.
Marsh (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1956), pp. 232 ff.
3 George Santayana, Scepticism and Animal Faith (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.,
1955), p. 48.
4Barry Miller, The Fullness of Being (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002).
See also his From Existence to God (London: Routledge, 1992).
Chapter One
Our question about the nature of existence is actually two questions. First, what
is it for a contingent individual to exist? Second, what is existence itself? But
the questions are closely intertwined, and so may be posed indifferently in the
form, what is existence? Our treatment divides into two halves, one critical, the
other constructive. The critical chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 of this book tread the via
negativa: they attempt to show what existence is not. They issue in the following
aporetic tetrad:
The limbs of this tetrad are plausible even without argument; the detailed
arguments of chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 should make them well-nigh irresistible.
Taken together, (a)-(d) present us with the two main problems of this book. The
first is to explain how existence can belong to existing individuals (as the third
and fourth limbs imply) without being identical to individuals (as per the second
limb), but also without being a property or property-instance of them (as per the
first limb).
To simplify the question, how can an individual have existence if this
having is not the instantiating of a property? Chapter 6 answers this question
with the doctrine that the existence of a contingent individual is the contingent
unity or togetherness of its ontological constituents. We will see that this
togetherness cannot be understood as a property of an individual or as a relation
among its constituents. It is a unique sort of unity the nature of which logically
requires a unifier as its ontological ground, a unifier that is external in that it is
distinct from the individual and each of its constituents.
The second main problem is to determine what existence itself is. As
the reflexive pronoun suggests, existence itself is existence considered in its
difference from existing individuals. There is clearly a prima facie distinction
between existence itself and the existence of an individual. Thus someone who
thinks that existence is a universal property of individuals would have to
distinguish between the property of existence itself -- which is a universal-- and
the particular existing of a, which is a's instantiating of existence, the particular
existing of b, which is b' s instantiating of existence, and so on. Now we shall see
in Chapter 2 that existence itself cannot be a property, and thus that the existing
of an individual cannot be its instantiating of this putative property. But
1
2 CHAPfERONE
although this illustration of the primo. facie distinction collapses, the distinction
does not. Given (from Chapter 6) that the existence of an individual is the unity
of its ontological constituents, we will argue (Chapter 7) that unity logically
demands an external unifier, and thus that existence itself - existence in its
difference from individual existents - is the external unifier of each particular
unity of ontological constituents.
Our approach implies not only that existence itself exists, but also that
it exists in a paradigmatic way, as that by relation to which contingent objects
exist. Hence the name, 'paradigm theory of existence.' To deny that existence
itself exists is to embrace difficulties whose exfoliation will commence in
section 2 below. To deny that existence paradigmatically exists is to make an
adequate account of existence impossible, as section 1 below begins to argue.
The gist of the paradigm theory may be put as follows:
(PT) Necessarily, for any contingent individual x, x exists if and only if (i)
there is a necessary y such that y is the paradigm existent, and (ii) y, as the
external unifier of x's ontological constituents, directly produces the
unity/existence of x.
(PT) comes highly recommended by the fact that it allows for the reconciliation
of two desiderata that cannot otherwise be reconciled. One desideratum is that
a theory of existence account for the actual existence of existing individuals.
The other is that it avoid circularity. These desiderata and their reconciliation
will be explained in detail in the following section.
Another point in favor of (PT) is that, in accounting for what it is for a
contingent individual to exist, it at the same time accounts for why any
contingent individual exists. No doubt some will take this to be a liability of
(PT). But it is a peculiarity of existence that no adequate account of it can be
given which is not a unified account both of what it is for a contingent
individual to exist, and of why any contingent individual exists. We will return
to this in detail in sections 5 and 6 below.
The very question, 'What is existence?' embodies a tension. The word 'what'
suggests that the goal of the inquiry is the nature, essence, or intelligible
structure of the existence of individuals. But the word 'existence,' if it means
anything, refers to the that and the whether of things. The existence of a thing
is its sheer ontological presence, a presence that makes possible, and thus is not
to be confused with, its phenomenological presence, pace some
phenomenologists. The existence of a thing is its being as opposed to its
(possible) nonbeing, its being 'outside the mind.' The existence of a thing is
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 3
something it has quite apart from us and our conceptual and linguistic activities.
This 'datanic' point must be kept in view. Although we take this to be a datum,
section 2 argues for it by arguing that existence cannot be a concept that we
impose on things, but must be a determination they possess independently of us.
Now if the existence of a thing is its sheer ontological presence, its
thatness, then to ask what it is for an individual to exist, is to ask, seemingly
paradoxically, about the whatness (nature) of this thatness. This is not empty
word-play. If the sheer existence of things is not to be an unintelligible surd like
Jean-Paul Sartre's en soi, the appropriate response to which would be
Roquentin's nausea, then the existence of things must have an intelligible
structure. The thatness must have a whatness. But what sort of intelligible
content or structure could existence have? Is not existence just a bare facticity
opposite to all intelligibility? If ontology is fundamentally about existence, and
not fundamentally about what exists, how is ontology so much as possible? This
is a problem we must solve if we are to proceed.
The problem assumes the form of a dilemma. If a theory of the
existence of individuals is to be possible, then existence must have an
intelligible structure that can be explicated or conceptualized. But any
non circular explication which presupposes that existence is a property of
existents will fail to capture actual existence. Thus even if it is true that,
necessarily, for any x, x exists if and only if x is causally active/passive, this
explication fails to capture actual existence. This is clear from the fact that the
truth of the biconditional is consistent with the nonexistence of individuals.
Even if no individual exists, it could still be true that, for any x, x exists just in
case x is causally active/passive. To specify a property that all and only existing
individuals have, such as the property of being causally active/passive, or the
property of being spatiotemporal, or the property of being self-identical, or the
property of being the value of a bound variable, etc., is not to express what it is
for an individual to exist.
Let us say that any theory of existence which attempts to specify a
property that all and only existing individuals have is an existentially neutral
theory of existence. It is clear that any such theory is not a theory of existence
at all, but at best a theory of what exists. Thus the first example in the
foregoing paragraph tells us that what exists are causally active/passive entities
and nothing besides. It does not tell us what it is for an entity to exist. Thus our
first desideratum for a viable theory of existence is that it avoid existential
neutrality. To avoid existential neutrality, however, a theory of existence must
somehow invoke or presuppose that something actually exists. For only if the
theory invokes or presupposes something that actually exists will it be able to
account for the actual existence of anything. But then how can the theory avoid
vicious circularity? How can a viable theory satisfy the first desideratum, which
4 CHAPTER ONE
the sheer thatness of things, their presence, their being rather than nonbeing. An
adequate theory must explain the actual existing of individuals. Otherwise,
there would be no way to capture the facticity or thatness of existence. But if
so, we risk being skewered by the second prong of our dilemma, according to
which any theory of existence that presupposes that individuals exist cannot
avoid vicious circularity.
Thus Quine's proposal that a exists if and only if (~x)(x == a), l although
doubtlessly true, provides no insight into what it is for a to exist. (Here we treat
Quine's proposal somewhat cavalierly; a much more nuanced treatment is
provided in section 9 of Chapter 4.) That it provides no insight is clear from the
manifest circularity of Quine's suggestion. For what it comes to is that a named
individual exists just in case it is identical to something that exists. Of course,
it does not quite say this. What it says is that a named individual exists just in
case it is identical to something. But 'identical to something' is elliptical for
'identical to something that exists.' It is clear that Quine's definition would be
false if the first phrase were elliptical for 'identical to something that does not
exist,' or elliptical for 'identical to something that neither exists nor does not
exist.' So if Quine's definition is true, then it is circular. And if it is
noncircular, then it is false. (This last sentence is just a restatement of Horn
One.) Quine's biconditional is not quite useless, since it shows how a singular
existential like 'a exists' can be expressed as an existentially general sentence.
Although Quine's biconditional is not useless given his purposes, it is useless
given ours. But it is not only useless, but pernicious in that it appears to provide
insight into what existence is, when it can do no such thing.
One cannot take this dilemma to show that 'exist(s)' is not an admissible
predicate of individuals. For there are excellent reasons, detailed in Chapter 4,
for rejecting this eliminativist line of Frege and Russell.
Nor can one take the dilemma to show that existence is not an intrinsic
determination of individuals, but is a concept we impose on individuals, for
reasons given in the following section and in Chapter 8.
A third response to the dilemma is to take it as demonstrating that a
theory of existence such as the one here envisaged is impossible, and that the
question as to what it is for an individual to exist cannot be answered. We will
be told: "If in your account of what it is for an individual to exist, you invoke
something that exists, such as a paradigm existent, then you move in a circle of
embarrassingly short diameter; but if you attempt an account that remains
neutral on the question whether any individuals actually exist, then you miss
existence entirely. Ontology as you understand it, as a theory of existence itself
as opposed to a theory about what exists, is simply impossible." But the
dilemma can be circumvented.
Between the Horns. Safe passage between the prongs is possible if we
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 7
exists, then it necessarily exists (where its necessity is grounded in its self-
identity); but that it exists cannot be shown by showing how it exists if it exists.
We now want to answer in preliminary fashion a question raised near
the beginning of this section. If ontology is fundamentally about existence, and
not fundamentally about what exists, how is ontology so much as possible? The
answer is that ontology is possible only if existence itself exists as a paradigm
existent. To employ some Heideggerian terminology to make an anti-
Heideggerian point, ontology is possible only as onto-theology. That is to say,
ontology, the science of Being, is possible only if Being itself occurs as a
paradigmatic being. Heidegger is therefore wrong to maintain that ontology is
possible only as phenomenology.2
The thesis of the last section was that an account of the existence of concrete
contingent individuals is possible if (and only if) two conditions are met. The
first is that the theory of existence be anchored in an actual existent so that the
theory of existence is at the same time both a theory of existence and a theory
of an actual existent. The second condition is that the theory be noncircular.
Both conditions are met if we are allowed to invoke an entity, the paradigm,
whose way of existing is distinct from the way of existing of contingent
individuals. The crucial idea, then, is that existence itself exists as a paradigm
existent whose mode of existence implies that it exists a se and not ab alio. This
idea has weighty consequences.
For one thing, it follows that existence cannot be a concept as various
philosophers have maintained. Heidegger, for example, ties Being (Sein) to the
understanding (of) Being (Seinsverstaendnis).3 Butchvarov, following at a
distance, treats existence as a transcendental concept.4 (For a detailed critique
ofButchvarov, see Chapter 8.) We maintain, however, that existence is the exact
opposite of a concept, being that in virtue of which there is anything at all for the
mind to conceptualize. This is not to deny that there are various concepts of
existence or indeed that there is a true concept of existence. We are after all in
quest of a true concept of existence. But 'concept of existence' is ambiguous
due to the ambiguity of 'of.' It will pay to invest a bit of ink in disambiguation.
After the linguistic underbrush has been cleared away, some arguments against
the conceptual status of existence will be advanced. This will further support
the paradigm approach. For it is a necessary though not sufficient condition of
the paradigm theory's being true that existence not be a mere concept.
There is the 'of of apposition, as in 'the city of Boston.' The city of
Boston is the city, Boston. Curiously enough, the 'of' of apposition functions
as a punctuation mark, a comma. Then there is the genitive 'of which further
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 9
divides into the genitivus objectivus and the genitivus subjectivus. Consider
'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' 'Fear of the Lord' illustrates
the objective genitive; 'beginning of wisdom' illustrates the subjective genitive
or possessive. Clearly, fear of the Lord is not the Lord's fear, but our fear. The
Lord is the object of fear, not its subject. The beginning of wisdom, by contrast,
is wisdom's beginning. 'Concept of existence' is therefore exposed to a three-
fold ambiguity. The phrase could mean 'the concept, existence.' This would
imply that existence is a concept. Or it could mean 'the concept about
existence,' which does not imply that existence is a concept. Finally, and third
in order of plausibility, it could mean, 'existence's concept.'
Bearing these distinctions in mind, we are not likely to be bamboozled
by the three-fold ambiguity of 'concept of existence' into supposing that
existence is a concept. This is a good start, but we need arguments why
existence cannot be a concept. This section will provide some, and in so doing
provide indirect support for the conclusion of the preceding section according
to which existence itself exists.
A concept is a mental entity, whether occurrent or dispositional. It is
either an occurrent episode of conceiving as when I identify a percept as
something ( as a rabbit, as a modem ... ), or it is an unexercised ability to identify
a percept as something. We can also think of a concept, or else the content of
a concept, in abstraction from occurrent acts of conceiving and existing
dispositions to conceive. But when we engage in such an abstraction, we must
not forget that concepts are found in reality only where minds are found. In a
world with no minds, then, there are no concepts. We may put this by saying
that concepts exist only in minds, where 'in' does not have a spatial sense, but
means that concepts are either accusatives of awareness, or else a mind's
classificatory abilities.
Now if concepts exist only in minds, and some concepts exist, then at
least one mind must exist to be that in which concepts exist. So if existence is
a concept, then a mind must exist to be that in which the concept, existence,
exists. But this is clearly absurd. For it implies, first, that mind M exists, but
that, second, M's existence consists in its instantiating a concept C the very
existence of which presupposes the existence of M. In a nutshell, the absurdity
is that the existence of M ontologically depends on the existence of C, while the
existence of C ontologically depends on the existence of M. The existence of
my mind cannot depend ontologically on the instantiation of a concept in my
mind. Ontological dependence (o-dependence) is obviously asymmetrical: if x
is o-dependent on y, then y is not o-dependent on x. Given that the accident,
Socrates' whiteness, is o-dependent on the substance Socrates, Socrates cannot
be o-dependent on his whiteness. Given that the truth of what I say is 0-
10 CHAPTER ONE
dependent on the way the world is, the way the world is cannot be o-dependent
on the truth of what I say.
Similar arguments are easily generated. If a thing's existence consists
in its instantiation of the concept, existence, then at times at which there are no
minds, nothing exists, and at possible worlds in which no minds exist, nothing
exists. These are obviously unacceptable consequences, and amount to a
reductio ad absurdum of the view we are examining.
Therefore, if existence is the existence of individuals, where the
italicization signifies that the genitive construction, 'existence of individuals' is
to be taken as a subject genitive, then existence cannot be a concept. This
conclusion is inescapable if we understand what a concept is, and if existence
is the existence of individuals, an intrinsic determination in virtue of which
individuals are rather than are not. Now it seems to us that this is what we must
mean by existence if we are serious about the genuine article. When I say that
yonder mountain exists, what I mean is that it exists whether or not anyone
perceives it or thinks about it, indeed, whether or not any mind like ours exists.
But then it is clear that existence itself cannot be a concept. No doubt there is
a concept of existence, but the concept of existence is not the concept of a
concept, but the concept of something that is extraconceptual by its very nature.
Our interim conclusion is this: If existence is the existence of
individuals, then existence cannot be a concept, where 'concept' is defined as
above.
Charitably interpreted, then, someone who holds that existence is a
concept must be denying that existence is the existence of individuals. What
then could he be holding? Most likely what he is holding is that existence is the
existence of individuals, the genitive construction now being construed as a
genitivus objectivus. Thus the existence of a is not a's existence, the existence
intrinsic to a and belonging to it; the existence of a is now merely a's being the
obj ecti ve correlate (accusative) of a concept, where a concept is either an actual
conceiving, or a form of a possible conceiving by some actual mind. On this
latter scheme, existence is wholly extrinsic to a. It is not a's existence, but
something imposed on a from without. Butchvarov, for example, speaks of
existence as a concept we impose on objects. 5 Existence is not that which makes
a exist, it is rather that relative to which a is conceived as existent. This
extrinsicness is conveyed by talk of an individual 'falling under' or 'being
subsumed by' a concept.
Existence is thereby removed from things and relocated in the mind. The
existing of a becomes a matter of a' s being conceived as existent, a matter of a' s
being subsumed under the concept, existence. When existence is demoted to the
status of a concept, a concept, moreover, that does not correspond to any
determination in things, existence becomes a transcendental concept, and ceases
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 11
concept only if existence is divorced from existing individuals. This implies that
existing individuals are existing only relative to the concept, existence, which
is imposed on them by the mind from without. This further implies that
individuals in themselves, i.e., considered apart from the concept of existence
under which they fall, neither exist nor do not exist. This eliminativism about
the existence of individuals, to give it a name, is deeply counterintuitive if not
incoherent. How could a contingent individual neither exist nor not exist? If x
is contingent, then x is possibly nonexistent: it exists, but might not have existed.
Its nature does not entail its existence, but is consistent with its nonexistence.
If 'contingency' is a predicate that can be applied to individuals, then existence
must belong to individuals themselves. Contingency is contingency in respect
of existence: hence an individual cannot be contingent unless existence is an
intrinsic determination of it.
To avoid the consequence that existence is an intrinsic determination
of individuals, the conceptualist - one who maintains that existence is a concept
- must make one or another further move to account for the contingency of
individuals. One move leads to the reduction of existence to instantiation. The
other leads to the postulation of nonexistent objects. We examine the first move
first, the second second, and reject both in the end.
First Move: The reduction of existence to instantiation as a way of
accounting for the contingency of individuals without taking them to have
existence intrinsically. If existence is reduced to instantiation, then existence
is not only a transcendental concept, one to which nothing in things corresponds,
but it is a second-order transcendental concept. An example of a first-order
transcendental concept would be the concept of cause as it functions in Kant's
system. Cause is transcendental in that it is imposed by the mind; it is first-order
in that it is imposed on objects or events. A second-order concept is a concept
of a concept. Thus the concept, instantiation, is second-order. It is also
transcendental in that there is nothing in things to which it corresponds.
Concepts are either instantiated or not, but no individual can be instantiated.
Now if existence is the concept of instantiation, then perhaps we can do justice
to the contrast between existence and nonexistence by saying that the existence
of Fs is the instantiation of the concept F, and the possible nonexistence of Fs
is the possible uninstantiation of the concept F. In this way the contingency of
individual Fs may seem to be accounted for without an ascription of existence
to them. What we do is 'kick contingency upstairs': we take the line that the
contingency of a cat, say, is the contingency of the instantiation of the concept
cat.
But this is only the appearance of a solution. For it is not the
contingency of individual Fs, individual cats for example, that is being
accounted for when we speak of a concept's being possibly uninstantiated, but
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 13
the contingency of the truth of the proposition expressed by 'Cats exist.' The
contingency of an individual cat is ontological contingency; the contingency of
a proposition is alethic contingency. The latter is grounded in the former. To
account for alethic contingency is not to account for ontological contingency.
An individual cannot be ontologically contingent without being contingent in its
very existence, which presupposes that existence is an intrinsic determination
of it.
Furthermore, according to the 'truth-maker intuition' which this book
presupposes as self-evident, and elaborates in Chapter 6, a contingently true
proposition requires a worldly truth-maker, an ontological ground of its truth.
'I am sitting now' cannot just be true; it is true because a certain fact obtains,
namely, the fact of my now being seated. And so 'Cats exist,' which is
obviously contingently true, cannot just be true; it requires a truth-maker. What
could this be? It cannot be the fact of the existence of cats, for on the theory
under examination, existence has been removed from the world and relocated in
the mind. Hence, although there are cats in the world, there is no such thing in
the world as the fact of the existence of cats. But neither can the truth-maker be
cats themselves. For if an individual cat can make true the proposition
expressed by 'Cats exist,' then an individual cat can make true the negation of
this proposition, namely the one expressed by 'Cats do not exist.' For, on the
theory under examination, a cat is the only thing in the world having any
relevance to the truth of either sentence: if existence is a concept, it is not in the
world. If a cat in the world neither exists nor does not exist, then it can equally
well serve as a truth-maker for 'Cats exist' or its negation. But this amounts to
saying that no plain individual, which is structureless, can serve as a truth-
maker. A truth-maker cannot be a 'blob,' it must be a 'layer-cake,' to borrow
some scholarly terminology from David Armstrong. Only a fact can be a truth-
maker. For only a fact has a structure that can mirror the structure of a
proposition.
Lacking an ontological ground of its truth, 'Cats exist' will either have
no truth-ground, in violation of the truth-maker principle, or its truth-ground will
be in the mind, which amounts to idealism. Thus some may be tempted to say
that 'Cats exist' is true because we accept cats, and that 'Unicorns do not exist'
is true because we reject unicorns. (There will be more to say about this
acceptance and rejection when we discuss Brentano in Chapter 3.) Since neither
consequence is particularly palatable, the instantiation theory is reasonably
rejected. We will have much more to say about instantiation theories in general
later on.
Second Move: Positing nonexistent objects as a way of accounting for
the contingency of individuals without taking them to have existence
intrinsically. The other move the conceptualist could make is to treat
14 CHAPTER ONE
We have seen that the paradigm theory avoids circularity by maintaining that the
Paradigm and contingent beings exist in two different modes. The very idea of
there being ways or modes or kinds of existence, however, is controversial. A
sustained assault on this idea is to be found in Quentin Gibson's recent book,
The Existence Principle. 9 If Gibson is right, our project is doomed. So it is
incumbent on us to respond in some detail to the position Gibson represents.
Gibson maintains that existence is an "absolutely elementary concept"l0
that cannot be explicated in other terms without circularity. The circularity
arises from the fact that anything in terms of which one attempts to explicate
existence must itself exist. For example, to say that x exists if and only if x is
spatiotemporal is to say that x exists if and only if x exists in space and time.
The circularity is blatant. Gibson concludes that a biconditional like this one
cannot be taken to give us any information about what it is to exist; at best, it can
inform as to what exists. Such definitions can do nothing to illuminate the
concept of existence itself. "If ontology is an enquiry which is supposed to do
this, then there is no such thing as ontology."ll
Now Gibson is certainly right about one thing, namely, that existence
cannot be explicated in nonexistential terms. We ourselves emphasized this
point above. A theory of existence cannot be existentially neutral on pain of
failing to be a theory of actual existence; it cannot treat existence as if it were
an essence or form or categorial feature or structure or 'template' that mayor
may not apply to something. But it does not follow that every explication of
existence must be circular. For it was shown above how circularity can be
avoided if an appeal to the doctrine of modes of existence is allowed. If the
existence of contingent individuals is explicated in terms of a relation to a
paradigmatically, and thus necessarily existent individual, then circularity is
circumvented.
16 CHAPTER ONE
(1) Either something exists or it does not. (2) There are no degrees of
existence. (3) There are no kinds of existence. (4) Existence is not a relative
concept. (5) Existence is not a property. (6) We cannot classify objects into
existent and non-existent. 12
applies to chairs, which are not concepts, but denizens of the real. You cannot
sit on a concept or break one over someone's head. The content of the concept
chair remains the same despite the fact that it subsumes wheelchairs, electric
chairs, kitchen chairs, easy chairs, etc. Correspondingly, the sense of 'chair' is
the same in 'wheelchair,' 'electric chair,' etc. But this sameness of conceptual
content/sense 'in the logical order' is compatible with diversity of function 'in
the real order.' Thus an easy chair is designed with relaxation in mind, unlike
an electric chair where the object is quite different.
As a second example, consider that 'smoke' has the same sense in
'smoke a pipe' and 'smoke a cigarette,' although the ways of smoking are
different. One smokes a pipe by tasting smoke without inhaling it, whereas with
cigarettes, especially those whose active ingredient is cannabis sativa, the point
is to inhale. By contrast, 'smoke a pipe' and 'smoke a ham' feature different
senses of 'smoke' just as 'department chair,' 'endowed chair' and 'folding chair'
feature three different senses of 'chair.'
These examples (except the last two) show that sameness in conceptual
content/sense 'at the level of representation' is compatible with real differences
'in the world.' Now of course I am not implying that wheelchairs, electric
chairs, etc. exhibit different modes of existence. But if sameness of conceptual
content/sense is compatible with real differences in the world, then we may
entertain the possibility that sameness of content/sense is compatible with
difference in mode of existence.
Consider now the sentences 'Socrates exists,' and 'The Paradigm
exists.' The sense of 'exists' is the same in both. This sense can be described
by saying that 'Socrates' and 'the Paradigm' each denote something. We could
just as well say that the concept Socrates and the concept the Paradigm each are
instantiated. But this is compatible with saying that Socrates and the Paradigm
exist in different ways.
The main point is that sense is a semantic category which must be
scrupulously distinguished from way of existing, which is ontological. Our
interest is not semantic, but ontological. Nor is our quest a search for the
meaning of Being (Sinn von Sein) since this Heideggerian project is predicated
on a disastrous confusion of the semantic/conceptual and ontological
dimensions. Perhaps the most exasperating feature of Heidegger's thinking is
his use of 'Being' to refer both to that which makes beings be, and to that the
understanding of which makes possible our understanding of, and encounter
with, beings.18 In Heideggerian terms, the present project is concerned solely
with that which makes beings be.
A third example of how univocity of sense is compatible with difference
in existential mode is as follows. Suppose Socrates is a substance and his tan
is an accident inhering in him. Both Socrates and his tan exist, and in the very
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 21
same sense of 'exist.' What sense is this? It is the sense captured by saying that
both 'Socrates' and 'Socrates' tan' refer to something; or if you will the sense
captured by saying that both the concept Socrates and the concept Socrates' tan
are instantiated. But this univocity of sense is compatible with saying that
Socrates and his tan exist in different ways: the existence of an accident is
(identically) its inberence in a substance, whereas the existence of a substance,
whatever it is, is precisely not its inberence in a substance. Accidents exist in
another; substances in themselves. On the other hand, Socrates and his tan,
though both healthy, are not healthy in the same sense. Socrates is healthy
strictly speaking, while his tan is not healthy at all: it is at best an indicator of
health. Here is that failure of univocity called analogy.
The foregoing substance/accident example seems to me to show quite
clearly the coherence of the idea that there are modes of existence. An accident
exists in a different way than a substance in which it inberes. The existence of
an accident A consists in, is nothing other than, its inberence in a substance S.
If A and S were to exist in the same way, then what could the necessary relation
of the two be grounded in? Since A cannot exist without S, A's existence
necessitates the existence of S. This is clearly not causal necessitation. But
neither is it (narrowly) logical necessitation: it is not a (narrowly) logical
contradiction to say that A exists but S does not. Given that A's necessary
connection to S has neither a causal nor a (narrowly) logical ground, I say that
it has an ontological ground: it is grounded in the mode of being or mode of
existence of accidents. Accidents are necessarily dependent on substances in
their very being. That is the way they exist, dependently. Thus there are three
'moments' (as a German would say) to distinguish: the content or whatness of
an accident, its occurrence (existence as instantiation), and its way of existing.
Gibson, of course, cannot allow this. So he is driven to an extreme and
to my mind incoherent view. What he proposes, in effect, is that we deny the
existence of both S and A. "Taking the case of things [substances] and their
properties [accidents], this [view] is simply to deny the existence of both of
these alleged items and to say that what exists is [sic] propertied things and
propertied things only.,,19 Now a propertied thing is just a state of affairs. So
states of affairs alone exist; their constituents do not exist. Gibson is well aware
of the problem with this. Given that we distinguish among the constituents of
states of affairs, "How can we do this without assuming their existence?,,2o His
answer is that the distinction is a "distinction of reason" where "a distinction of
reason does after all require the existence f something, but not necessarily of
anything apart from us who make the distinction.,,21
This implies that there is no real distinction between a and F-ness in the
state of affairs, a's being F. But this leads to disaster. States of affairs are
introduced in the first place to serve as truth-makers for contingently true truth-
22 CHAPTER ONE
Implicit in the very sense of a paradigm theory of existence is the idea that the
Paradigm and what depend on it exist in radically different ways. Given this
difference in ways of existing, there is no one way of existing neutral as between
contingency and necessity. Thus one cannot think of the existence of
individuals, existence insofar as it determines individuals intrinsically as
existents, in modally neutral terms. This requires a bit more support.
The Leibnizian imagery of possible worlds is a nice expository aid.
Thus we may say that x is a necessary being if and only if x exists in all possible
worlds, while x is a contingent being if and only if x exists in some but not all
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 23
doxastic, epistemic, or whatever. For what the theory says is that the truth of a
proposition consists in a relation to something having a proposition-like
structure which possesses a truth-like 'valence,' namely, obtaining. Thus a
truth-making fact is not just a particular plus a property; it is a particular as
instantiating a property: not a + F-ness, but a's being F. This being is that to
which the truth of the proposition corresponds. The mereological sum a + F-
ness, or the set {a, F-ness} or the ordered pair <a, F-ness> cannot any of them
function as truth-makers. They can no more serve as truth-makers than a and F-
ness by themselves can serve as truth-makers. For they lack the analog of
propositional truth which is called obtaining. The sum, the set, and the pair are
all sub-alethic, as are their constituents a and F-ness. Nothing sub-alethic can
function as a truth-maker. But nothing propositionally alethic ('alethic' for
short) can serve as an ultimate truth-maker either. Thus no atomic proposition
can be made true by another true proposition. Since an ultimate truth-maker
cannot be either sub-alethic or alethic, it must be super-alethic. Facts are super-
alethic in that their obtaining transmits truth to propositions at the same time that
this obtaining is more ontologically basic than propositional truth. To put it
another way, a fact, as a truth-maker, cannot lack truth the wayan individual,
property, set, sum or pair lacks truth; but neither can a fact be true in the way a
proposition is true. Otherwise, it could not serve as an ontological ground of
propositional truth. Therefore, facts are super-alethic.
The point, then, is that propositional truth, as truth, is irreducible, but
as propositional is in need of explanation. A noncircular explanation is possible
by relating a proposition to a truth-making fact external to it which obtains.
There is no reduction of truth to something sub-alethic, because obtaining is
super-alethic. There is no circularity, because obtaining is different from
propositional truth.
The analogy with the paradigm theory of existence should be clear.
There are several points of analogy. (1) Just as the truth-maker account of
propositional truth attempts to provide an account of the truth of contingent
propositions which is both nonreductive and noncircular, the paradigm theory
of existence attempts to provide an account of the actual existing of contingent
concrete individuals which is both nonreductive and noncircular. (2) Both
theories must invoke an external entity, a truth-making concrete fact external to
the proposition on the one hand, the Paradigm external to contingent individuals
on the other. (3) In both cases, the external entity is such that there is no real
distinction between it and its existence. Thus there is no real distinction
between a concrete fact and its existence or obtaining. Whereas a contingent
proposition is what it is whether or not it is true, a fact is nothing at all unless it
obtains. There are contingent propositions that are not true; there are no facts
that do not obtain. Similarly with the paradigm: there is no real distinction
26 CHAPTER ONE
This book proposes a unified positive answer to the nature and ground questions.
A positive answer to the ground question is one that specifies a ground of the
existence of contingent individuals. A unified positive answer to the two
questions is one that answers the ground question in a positive manner by way
of answering the nature question. Thus our project is to answer the question as
to what it is for an individual to exist, and in so doing answer the question as to
why contingent individuals exist. How is such a thing possible? How is it
possible for a specification of what it is for an individual to exist to amount to
an explanation of why it exists?
Recall schema (S): Necessarily, x exists (in mode 1) if and only if there
is a y (which exists in mode 2) such that y stands in R to x. We arrive at our
paradigm theory by filling in this schema. This yields (PT): Necessarily, for any
contingent x, x exists if and only if (i) there is a necessary y such that y is a
paradigm existent, and (ii) y, as the unifier of x's ontological constituents,
directly produces the unity/existence of x.
Since the paradigm existent is a necessary being, no question can arise
as to why it exists. Thus a vicious infinite regress does not arise. The theory of
existence is anchored in a 'self-explanatory' existent, one for which the
question of why it exists cannot arise. (That the paradigm does exist is of
course something to be argued for, in Chapter 7.) The metaphysical necessity of
the paradigm existent is grounded in its ontological simplicity: the paradigm is
identical to existence and to its existence. Existence itself exists as the paradigm
existent. It cannot fail to exist because it is its nature to exist. If existence did
not itself exist, then nothing would exist, and this for the simple reason that what
exists exists by 'having' existence, however one explicates this 'having.' And
if existence did not necessarily exist, then nothing contingent would have an
explanation of its existence. Philosophers like Butchvarov, who deny that
existence exists, must reduce it to a concept that we impose on objects, which
leads to intolerable consequences detailed in Chapter 8.
One might object that (PT) is circular because its explicans contains an
existential quantifier. The objection is that 'there is,' which occurs on the right-
hand side of (PT), is an existential quantifier, and that therefore existence
appears in the explicans, thereby rendering (PT) circular. This objection fails
to appreciate that, on the paradigm theory, there is no modally neutral way of
existing: if something exists, it either exists-necessarily or exists-contingently.
There is nothing circular about (PT).
(PT) tells us what it is for a contingent individual to exist, and in so
doing explains why there are any contingent individuals. The existence of a
contingent individual consists in its being produced by the paradigm existent.
30 CHAPTER ONE
If so, we have by the same stroke an account of why contingent individuals exist.
We have a unified positive answer to the nature and ground questions.
7. A SPECTRUM OF THEORIES
We now round out this introductory chapter by attempting to map the conceptual
space of all possible theories of existence. Of course, our concern is with a
small number of theory-types, not an infinity of theory-tokens. The purpose of
this exercise in conceptual cartography is to allow us to situate our paradigm
theory of existence among its competitors. So let us imagine a spectrum of
theories of existence. On the left end of the spectrum we find 'no difference'
theories; in the middle there are 'moderate difference' theories; and on the right
end we encounter 'extreme difference' theories. These theories are attempts to
deal with the tension between difference and togetherness, between the datum
that existence is different from existing individuals and the datum that existence
nevertheless is together with, or belongs to, existing individuals. There are three
main types of theory because there are three main ways of relieving the tension
between difference and togetherness: deny the difference; deny the togetherness;
reconcile the two.
A. 'No difference' (ND) theories of existence deny that there is any real
difference at all between an individual and existence, and thus between an
individual and its having existence. A real difference is one that subsists apart
from us and our mental and linguistic activities. Note that two items can differ
in reality even if they are not physically separable. Thus the weight and the
mass of an object are really different even though nothing can have a weight
without having a mass. ND theories, therefore, deny that the prima facie three-
fold distinction among an individual, its existence, and existence, is anything
more than prima facie. The ND-theorist holds that in sober ontological truth
there is no such distinction. The basic idea is expressed by Donald C. Williams
when he writes that "a thing's existence is it.. .. ,,22 Thus for any x, the existence
. of x is just x, which implies both that there is no difference between x and
existence, and no difference between x and x's having existence. The 'no
difference' approach can be described as issuing in extreme ontological identity:
since existence is in no way different from individuals, existence is identical to
individuals. Existence, we may say, divides without remainder into individuals.
There is no such thing as existence itself as something different from
individuals. There is nothing in reality that all individuals have in common in
virtue of which they are all existing individuals. Radical ontological pluralism
rules. 'Individual' here is short for 'contingent concrete individual.' Thus the
ND theory has it that for every contingent concrete x, the existence of x =x.
Existence is in every case the existence of something or other, and
would be a mere abstraction otherwise. That is, existence cannot 'occur' in
reality except as something that exists, whether paradigmatic ally or non-
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 31
property cannot be multiply exemplifiable, for the simple reason that each
individual's existence is its own existence. So the property whose instantiation
is the existence of Felix must be such that, if it is instantiated, it is instantiated
by exactly one individual in the actual world, and by the very same individual
in any other possible world in which it is instantiated. This property - call it
Felicity - picks out Felix uniquely in that if anything has it, Felix has it, and
nothing distinct from him could have it. Thus the theory implies that the
existence of Felix consists in Felicity's being instantiated. The general form of
this theory is: a's existence consists in some other thing Z's having a property.
This is of course rather perplexing: How can one thing's existence consist in
some other thing's having a property? But critique comes later; here our
concern is merely taxonomy of possible theories.
Theories of the general form just given we may call 'higher-level
property theories.' The existence of a consists in some distinct item Z' shaving
of a property. We have just seen how Z could be a property. But Z could also
be a world or domain. Thus several thinkers have proposed the idea that the
existence of Socrates, say, consists in the world's having a property, namely, the
property of containing Socrates. Thus the existence of x consists not in x's
having a property, but in Z's having a property, where Z contains x. Borrowing
a phrase from Fred Sommers, we shall call theories of this SUbtype, 'mondial
attribute' theories.
There are thus two sorts of higher-level property theory. There is the
theory that existence is a property of properties, namely, the property of being
instantiated; and there is the theory that existence is a property of worlds or
domains, namely, the property of having a member.
A more robust 'moderate difference' theory takes the world to be an
individual in its own right as opposed to a domain or collection as on mondial
attribute theories. It is intuitively obvious that if the world is a collection, then
its existence as a collection is logically parasitic upon the existence of the
members of the world as collection. A collection exists because (logically
speaking) its members exist and not vice versa. What we may call a monistic
theory reverses this relation. The basic idea here is that there is exactly one
self-existent substance, and that the existence of a concrete contingent
individual consists in this substances' having an accident. On this theory, the
existence of Socrates consists in his being a modification, or accident, of the one
substance. What then is existence on this monistic scheme? Existence is the
one necessarily existent substance. Existence is thus not a property of Socrates,
or a property of a property of Socrates, or a property of domain that contains
him; existence is the one substance of which he is an accident. Existence is not
a property of Socrates, Socrates is a 'property' of existence.
We have now arrived at the idea of a paradigm theory of existence. A
paradigm theory is a moderate difference theory. Thus it upholds the distinction
among an individual, its existing, and existence. But it rejects the idea that
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 33
thing' as the existence of an individual. Thus someone who said that the
existence of Socrates is the being instantiated of Socrateity (the property of
being identical to Socrates) would be giving an identity theory, and thus
presupposing that the existence of Socrates is a reality, a reality that is
susceptible of explication in terms of the instantiation of an exotic haecceity
property. Such an identity theorist would be presupposing that in some sense
existence belongs to individuals and so can be legitimately attributed to them.
This is true in general for anyone who tries to fill the blank in 'x exists if and
only if __.' In this schema, 'exists' functions as a first-level predicate. But a
more radical view is that existence never belongs to individuals and is in no way
attributable to them: existence is always a property of properties (or cognate
items) only. On this more radical view, the above schema would be dismissed
as meaningless, as meaningless as 'x is numerous if and only if _.'
It is exceedingly important to be cognizant of this ambiguity as between
identitarian and eliminativist readings of an existential dictum. Consider the 'no
difference' theory according to which the existence of a is just a. One might
take this in identitarian fashion as implying that there is the existence of a, but
what that is is just a. Or one might take it in eliminativist fashion as the outright
denial of the existence of a. The different readings have different consequences.
But there is no point in anticipating here what will be discussed in detail later.
We now have our spectrum of theories before us. On the extreme left,
'no difference' theories construed in identitarian fashion; on the extreme right,
eliminativist theories; in the middle, 'moderate difference' theories. The datum
that gives rise to this classification is the tension between the difference of
existence and existing individuals, on the one hand, and the togetherness of
existence and existing individuals, on the other.
We now proceed to refute the competitor theories, in Chapters 2, 3, 4,
and 5. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 then work out the details. It will turn out that
something like God is in the details.
NOTES
1W. V. Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press,
1969), p. 94
2 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967), p. 35: "Ontologie
ist nur als Phaenomenologie moeglich." For my critique of Heidegger see the following articles.
"Heidegger and the Problem of Being," International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XXX, no. 2
(June 1990), pp. 245-254; Critical Review of Heidegger's Basic Problems of Phenomenology,
International Studies in Philosophy, vol. XVIII, no. 1 (1986), pp. 80-81; "Heidegger's Reduction
of Being to Truth," The New Scholasticism, vol. UX, no. 2 (Spring 1985), pp. 156-176; "Kant,
Heidegger and the Problem of the Thing In Itself," International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 23,
no. 1 (March 1983), pp. 35-43; "The Problem of Being in the Early Heidegger, The Thomist, vol.
45, no. 3 (July 1981), pp. 388-406.
THE IDEA OF A PARADIGM THEORY 35
4Panayot Butchvarov, Skepticism about the External World (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998), p. 122 ff.
5 Butchvarov, op. cit., p. 134.
6 At A 11-12 of Critique of Pure Reason, Kant explains that 'transcendental' as he uses the term
pertains not to objects, "but to our a priori concepts of objects."
8 Hector-Neri Castaneda, 'Thinking and the Structure of the World," Critica IV (1972), p. 55.
9 Quentin Gibson, The Existence Principle (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998).
10 Ibid., p. 1.
11 Ibid.
13 Ibid., p. 1.
14 Ibid., p. 6.
15 Ibid., p. 7.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
19 Ibid., p. 146.
20 Ibid., p. 150.
21 Ibid., p. 151.
22 Donald C. Williams, "Dispensing with Existence," The Journal ofPhilosophy vol. LIX (1962),
p.761.
23 Cf. Agent, Language, and the Structure of the World, ed. James E. Tomberlin (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing, 1983).
37
38 CHAPTER TWO
name -- are "completely mistaken.,,4 We shall see that this last epithet is more
justly applied to the view of Salmon and Co. Thus the issue whether existence
is a property of individuals is far from dead. We should, however, be alert to the
possibility that what Frege et al. were denying when they denied that existence
is a first-level property is distinct from what Salmon et at. are affirming when
they affirm that it is.
The plan of this chapter is to present various arguments for the thesis
that existence cannot be a property, and thus for the thesis that the existing of an
individual cannot consist in its instantiating of existence. Along the way it will
be shown that existence can be neither a property-instance nor a trope, which is
roughly a property-instance capable of independent existence. But why present
several arguments for a thesis, if one will do the job? The answer to this is that
in philosophy it is never wholly clear whether a given argument is successful.
Thus it is appropriate to consider a variety of arguments for the same conclusion.
It is hoped that the various arguments will illuminate one another and their
common subject-matter and thattheir cumulative persuasive force will be greater
than that of any single argument.
The following arguments against the naive property theory of existence rest on
the reasonable assumption that there are no nonexistent objects, that every
object exists. For if there are nonexistent objects, as philosophers in the tradition
of Alexius Meinong maintain, then one may plausibly hold that it is possession
of the first -level property of existence that distinguishes existing things (Britain,
the highest mountain) from nonexisting things (Atlantis, the golden mountain). 5
Thus a bit of preliminary argument is required to shore up what we are calling
a reasonable assumption. That is the task of this section.
A philosopher who maintains that there are objects that do not exist is
of course not maintaining the contradiction that there exist objects that do not
exist. What then is he maintaining? There are two possibilities. Either the view
is that nonexistent items have no being whatsoever, or the view is that they have
a mode of being weaker than existence. Both views have been held and both
involve difficulties.
For Meinong, such items as the golden mountain are ausserseiend,
literally, "outside of being.,,6 Meinong speaks of the Aussersein of the "pure
object." What he means is that the pure object neither exists (in the manner of
causally active/passive things like electrons and mountains) nor subsists (in the
manner of such causally inert items as propositions and numbers). The pure
object has no being at all, whence it follows that Aussersein is not a third mode
of being alongside of existence and subsistence. It is a commonly made mistake
to attribute to Meinong the view of the early Russell that the golden mountain
and the like have being or subsistence.?
IS EXISTENCE A FIRST-LEVEL PROPERTY? 39
Nevertheless, the "pure object," the golden mountain, for example, is not
a mere object of thought; for it is whether or not anyone thinks about it or refers
to it. The realm of Aussersein, then, is a realm of mind-independent items. They
are all out there waiting to be investigated in the Theory of Objects, and it is only
the famous "prejudice in favor of the actual" that dissuades us from prosecuting
the investigation.
But how can something be both mind-independent and beingless? As
Meinong says, nonexistent items are given to thought; they are not excogitated.
We don't think them up, we somehow apprehend them. They mayor may not
acquire what he calls the "pseudo-existence" of being actually thought about by
some mind. The problem is not how one can hold before one's mind a pure
essence in abstraction from existence, for nonexistent items are not engendered
by abstraction. The problem is how a pure essence can both mind-independently
be and yet be beingless. How can the golden mountain, the round square,
Pegasus, Cerberus and other possibilia and impossibilia be independent of
anyone's thinking and yet be beingless?
Now it seems to me that this is a flat-out contradiction. For if I say that
the golden mountain is but lacks being, then what I am saying is that it both is
and is not. Weare forced to make a choice. If we say that the golden mountain
is mind-independent, then we must say that it has some sort of being. But if we
deny that it has any sort of being, then we must deny that it is mind-independent.
Meinong himself seems to realize that he cannot have it both ways. Consider a
passage from the late work On Emotional Presentation (1917) in which he
inclines toward the view that Aussersein is a third mode of being:
As is well known, there 'are' many objects that do not exist, and many which
do not even subsist. But because they 'are' anyway, though they cannot be
said to be in a sense which warrants applying the traditional word 'being' to
them, I believed, and still believe, that I am justified in attributing to them
something being-like (seinsartiges) by predicating 'extra-being,' or
Aussersein,ofthem. 8
...to say of an object that it is only a possible object is not to say of it that it is
only possibly an object. For possible objects, as well as impossible objects,
are objects. 9
And according to Richard Routley, " ... all of Meinong' s objects are in the object-
domain of the actual world, and true unmodalised statements can be made about
all of them."IO Since actuality is a mode of being, (a) and (b) are logically
inconsistent. It is a contradiction to say that nonexistent items are actual and yet
have no being.
If we appreciate the point made by Chisholm, we will see that an
argument of Karel Lambert's for the conclusion that the round square is
beingless is fallacious. He infers this conclusion from the premise that "the
round square is an object" via the justification: "the round square is impossible,
and ... no subsistent can be impossible."ll The argument, then, is this:
The round square is impossible.
No subsistent is impossible.
Therefore
The round square is not a subsistent.
Therefore
The round square is beingless.
The argument is invalid since it equivocates on 'impossible.' If the first premise
is to be true, 'impossible' must mean 'not possibly existent' or 'not realizable.'
But if the second premise is to be true, 'impossible' must mean 'not possible in
itself.' The confusion here is very seductive, as witness Lambert's seduction.
Let us now consider the other possibility , according to which nonexistent
items have being, where this is distinguished from existence. The Meinongian
seems forced to say that nonexistent items have being in some sense by the
above considerations. Accordingly, nonexistent items are actual but incomplete
and actual but nonexistent. The golden mountain (GM), for example, is an
actual item -- although only possibly existent -- but incomplete: its Sosein
consists of exactly two properties, being golden and being a mountain. Thus it
is indeterminate with respect to such properties as being a physical thing,
occupying space, having a location, etc., even though being a mountain entails
these properties. (P entails Q if and only if it is impossible for P to be
exemplified without Q being exemplified.) But how can this be if the GM is an
actual item? How can it be a mountain without having some height, and without
having a definite height? How can incomplete items be actual? And what
prevents the golden mountain from having more than exactly two properties?
Consider a related question. What prevents the incomplete perceptual
object, the purple mountain in the distance, from having more properties than
those I now see it to have? The natural answer is that the incompleteness or
finitude of the perceptual object is brought about by the finitude of the knowing
subject, or perhaps the finitude essential to perceptual consciousness as such.
IS EXISTENCE A FIRST-LEVEL PROPERTY? 41
I begin with a synopsis of the argument, and then proceed to expand upon it.
Properties are instantiable entities. Existence is not instantiable without vicious
circularity. Ergo, existence is not a property.
Now for the expansion. (PI) If existence is a property of individuals,
then individuals exist in virtue of instantiating existence. But (P2) the existence
of an individual is an ontologically prior condition of its instantiating any
properties at all. So (C) it cannot be in virtue of instantiating the putative
property of existence that any individual exists. To think otherwise is to move
in a vicious circle of embarrassingly short diameter: one would then be saying
that a exists in virtue of a's instantiating existence, even though a can do no such
IS EXISTENCE A FIRST-LEVEL PROPERTY? 43
Which explains which? It is clear that this question does not reduce to one that
is narrowly logical or causal. What we are looking for is a metaphysical
(ontological) explanation that is in some sense 'mid-way' between a narrowly
logical and a causal explanation.
The intelligibility of metaphysical uses of 'makes' can also be brought
out as follows. Consider the biconditional, 'An individual exists if and only if
it satisfies the predicate "exist(s)".' This is false, since there are times when
individuals exist, but no language and thus no predicates exist. But if it were
true, one could still ask whether it is the existing of an individual that makes it
satisfy the predicate in question, or whether it is the satisfying of the predicate
that makes it exist. Now it is self-evident that this question is intelligible, and
that the use of 'makes' involved in its formulation is equally so. It is also self-
evident what the answer must be. It is the existing of an individual that explains
its satisfaction of any predicate it satisfies, and not vice versa. Planets and
galactic systems exist in sublime indifference to language and finite mind. One
would have to be pretty far gone into a 'Goodmaniacal' nominalism to think that
we create worlds by tossing out bits of language.
Thus we may reformulate (PI) as follows. If existence is a property of
individuals, then it is their instantiating of existence that makes them exist, and
not their existence that makes them instantiate existence. This is clearly
intelligible; but is it true? Due to the asymmetry of 'makes,' only one of the
options can hold, not both. And because the question is intelligible, it cannot be
that neither option holds. Now if it is the existing of a that makes a instantiate
(the putative property of) existence, then this property is completely otiose, a
metaphysical fifth wheel that explains nothing. It is the existing of a that needs
accounting; if the putative property of existence plays no role in this account, it
is explanatorily idle. From this one can see that (PI) as lately reformulated is
true.
Turning now to (P2), what it says is that the existing of an individual is
an ontologically prior condition of its instantiating any properties at all. Some
philosophers will balk at the phrase, 'ontologically prior condition.' They will
feign incomprehension of it, or declare outright that it is nonsense. But just as
there are relations such as the one expressed by 'makes true' that are neither
narrowly logical nor causal, there are conditions that are neithernarrowly logical
nor causal. The existence of a truth-making fact in the world is an ontologically
prior condition of the truth of a corresponding proposition. The fact of my being
seated is ontologically prior to the truth of the proposition expressed by 'I am
seated.' The fact is not a narrowly logical condition of the truth of the
proposition, because the fact is not a proposition and only propositions stand in
logical relations. The fact is not a causal condition of the truth of the
proposition, because concrete facts and abstract propositions do not stand in
causal relations. The fact is not only an ontological condition, but also an
ontologically prior condition, of the truth of the corresponding proposition in
IS EXISTENCE A FIRST-LEVEL PROPERTY? 45
that the proposition is true because the fact obtains, but not vice versa, where
'because' obviously has a non-causal sense. Truth-making is asymmetrical.
As a second example of the intelligibility of 'ontologically prior
condition,' consider the relation of an individual to one of its accidental
properties. (For definitions of 'accidental' and 'essential' see section 5 below.)
Surely my existence is a necessary and ontologically prior condition of my being
sunburned. It is obvious that my existence is neither a narrowly logical nor a
causal condition of my being sunburned: my existence, not being a proposition,
does not entail my being sunburned, and my existence does not cause my being
sunburned. So my existence is an ontological condition of my being sunburned.
But it is also an ontologie ally prior condition of my being sunburned in that I can
exist without being sunburned, but I cannot be sunburned without existing. The
existence of an individual is therefore an ontologically prior condition of its
possession of any accidental property.
At the risk of belaboring what to some readers will be obvious, I want
to give a third example of the intelligibility and indeed the indispensability for
metaphysics and philosophy generally of the phrase, 'ontologically prior
condition.' I do this not only for the purposes of this chapter, but for the
purposes of later chapters as well. Indeed, one could go so far as to say that
anyone who balks at the intelligibility of 'ontologically prior condition' has no
idea of what metaphysics is about. So turn to the philosophy of mind and the
recently much discussed thesis that the mental supervenes on the physical, a
thesis that is supposed to make possible a nonreductive physicalism which
avoids the problems besetting type-type identity theory. In his latest book,
Jaegwon Kim defines 'supervenience' as follows:
Kim goes on to correctly point out that supervenience as just defined expresses
a weaker notion than that of dependence. What the physicalist wants to say is
that mental property instantiations depend on, or are determined by, physical
property instantiations. He cannot express this idea, however, using the concept
of supervenience alone. For whereas dependence/determination is asymmetric,
supervenience is not. If mental properties depend on, or are determined by,
physical properties, this implies that physical properties do not depend on, are
not determined by, mental properties. "What does the determining must be taken
to be, in some sense, onto logically prior [emphasis added] to, or more basic than,
what gets determined by it."14 Supervenience, however, expresses a mere pattern
of co-variation between the mental and physical properties, " ... and such
covariances can occur in the absence of a metaphysical dependence [emphasis
46 CHAPTER TWO
... that which exists and has various perfections, does not have its existence as
a particular perfection and as one of the number of its perfections, but as that
by means of which the thing itself equally with its perfections is in existence,
and without which neither can it be said to possess perfections, nor can
perfections be said to be possessed by it. l1
and thus sets of universals the members of which are not constituents of any
concrete individual. If universals cannot exist uninstantiated, then the following
is possible. F exists in virtue of being instantiated by a, G exists in virtue of
being instantiated by b, and H exists in virtue of being instantiated by c. It
obviously does not follow that there is some one individual that instantiates all
three universals.
Evidently, there is something more to a than its constituents. This
'something more' is the unity or togetherness of these constituents. Without this
unity there is no concrete individual but a mere collection of properties. Thus
at a bare minimum, a =U{F, G, H, E}, where 'U' denotes the unifier of a's
constituents. One way to think: of U is as an operator that operates upon a set of
properties to form a concrete individual. Clearly, U cannot be a property, for
then it would be just one more member of the set of properties, and the question
would arise once more as to the unity of the members of that set. Thus if you say
that a ={F, G, H, E, U}, you have achieved nothing. For what ties U to the rest
of its classmates? A further constituent U*? But then a vicious infinite regress
threatens. It is also clear that U is not a nonconstituent (NC) property
instantiated by {F, G, H, E}. The arguments above that showed that the
existence of an individual cannot consist in its instantiation of a NC property
also show, mutatis mutandis, that the concrete individuality of a concrete
individual cannot consist in its instantiation of any NC property.
Possibilism was rejected in section 1 above where we rejected
Meinongian nonexistent individuals. If there are no nonexistent individuals,
then (assuming as we are that individuals have ontological constituents) the
existence of a is just the unity of a's constituents. Thus the actualist formula,
existing a = U {F, G, H, E}. From this we can see that the property of existence
is completely superfluous, a metaphysical fifth wheel that does no work. In
other words, genuine existence, the existence that makes the difference between
the existence and the nonexistence of an individual, cannot be a property. The
latter formula therefore reduces to: existing a =U{F, G, H}.
The upshot is that the existence of an individual cannot be a property of
it if properties are ontological constituents of individuals. The existence of an
individual pertains to the whole set of the individual's properties, and therefore
cannot be one property in that set. Note that the argument goes through whether
we think: of properties as universals or as particulars (tropes). Now matter how
you slice it, the existence of a thing cannot be one of its properties, hence cannot
be one of its properties.
Some may try to accommodate what I am calling the holism of existence
by saying that existence is not an ordinary first-level property, but the first-level
property of having properties (which is not to be confused with the Frego-
Russellian view that existence is a second-level property, a property of
properties).18 But the property of having properties is an essential property of
everything, and we have seen in section 5 above that existence cannot be an
IS EXISTENCE A FIRST-LEVEL PROPERTY? 55
By my lights, any philosopher who fails to appreciate the cumulative force of the
foregoing arguments and persists in the view that existence is a property of
everything is either simply wrong or has changed the subject from existence to
pseudo-existence. Charity bids us focus on the latter alternative. That there has
been a changing of the subject from genuine existence to pseudo-existence
becomes clear when we consider how such philosophers treat the actuality and
the contingency of concrete individuals. In what follows I have Plantinga-type
views in mind. 19 I shall argue that views of this type divorce existence from
actuality and from contingency. This twin divorce is the basis of the charge of
a shift from existence to pseudo-existence.
On the Leibniz-inspired views currently fashionable, a contingent being
is defined as one that exists in some but not all possible worlds, while a
necessary being is defined as one that exists in all possible worlds. So although
Socrates has existence essentially (instantiates existence in every possible world
in which he exists), he is nonetheless contingent since there are worlds in which
he does not exist. Whether an individual is contingent/necessary thus depends
on whether it exists in some/all possible worlds. But what are these worlds, and
what is it to exist in one?
David Lewis and friends aside, possible worlds on the most plausible
56 CHAPTER TWO
identical, since it makes sense to ask whether Socrates, e.g., has PI because he
has P2, or has P2 because he has PI. Does Socrates exist contingently because
some but not all maximal propositions depict him as existing? Is that what the
contingency of his existence consists in? Or do they depict him as existing
because he contingently exists? It seems obvious to me that our man has P2
because he has PI, and not vice versa. It is only because he exists contingently
that he can be represented as existing by some but not all worlds. PI and P2 are
thus distinct, and Socrates' having PI metaphysically grounds (accounts for) his
having P2, and not the other way around. 23
The non-identity of PI and P2 may be further argued as follows. On the
theory under examination, Socrates' contingency is just the fact that some world-
propositions 'say' he exists, and some 'say' he does not exist. Now if WI
represents him as existing, WI must have as a conjunct (or entailment) the
contingent proposition Socrates exists. Call this proposition S. What makes S
true? Clearly, the fact that Socrates exists. And what makes S contingently
true? Surely, the fact that Socrates contingently exists. It is the contingency of
Socrates' existence that makes S contingently true, and not the other way around.
Perhaps the main reason for thinking that existence is a property of individuals
is that 'exists' can be treated as a first-level predicate using the elementary
resources of standard predicate logic with identity. Thus
D3. x exists =df (::Iy)(x = y)
where '::I' stands for the particular quantifier. 24 (Calling it 'existential' is
tendentious and question-begging, and is so whether or not we countenance
nonexistent objects.)
In plain English, what (D3) says is that 'exists' is definable in terms of
'is identical with something.' Now if 'exists' is a first-level predicate, one will
be tempted to infer that existence is a first -level property, the property of being
identical with something. So is it not obvious that Frege and Russell were
wrong?
This is a perfect example of how logical acuity can walk hand in hand
with metaphysical obtuseness.
A moment's reflection suffices for one to see that (D3) is circular if it
is not false. For either (D3) says that a thing exists just in case it is identical
with something that exists, or (D3) says that a thing exists just in case it is
identical with something which mayor may not exist. On the first alternati ve the
circularity of the definition is obvious. On the second alternative, the definition
is false.
Let us consider the second alternative first. If to exist = to be identical
with something, and 'something' ranges over all objects whether existent or
nonexistent, then, from the principle that everything is self-identical, the
58 CHAPTER TWO
is obvious from the fact that the definiens of D3 contains logical machinery:
identity and the 'existential' quantifier. By playing fast and loose with
'predicate' Salmon appears to be contradicting Frege and Co., but in fact he is
not.
In sum, the proponent of (D3) has not established that 'exists' is a
predicate in the sense in which Frege and Co. denied that it is, and so he has not
established that existence is a property in the sense in which they denied it was
a property. Salmon succeeds only in introducing a red herring, schmexistence.
NOTES
1 Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 146.
2 David Kaplan, "Afterthoughts" in Themes from Kaplan, eds. Almog, Perry, and Wettstein
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 611.
4 Ibid.• p. 62.
7 Cf. Bertrand Russell, Principles ofMathematics (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1903), p. 449.
9 Roderick Chisholm, Brentano and Meinong Studies (Humanities Press, 1982), p. 55.
IS EXISTENCE A FIRST-LEVEL PROPERTY? 65
\0 Richard Routley, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview
Publishing Co., 1980), pp. 494-495.
11 Karel Lambert, Meinong and the Principle ofIndependence (Cambridge University Press, 1983),
p.147.
13 Jaegwon Kim, Mind in a Physical World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), p. 9.
14 Ibid., p. 11.
15 Ibid., p. 11.
17 The Philosophical Works of Descartes, vol. II, trans. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross
(Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 186.
18See J. K. Swindler, Weaving: An Analysis of the Constitution of Objects (Rowan & Littlefield,
1991), pp. 44-45 for an instance of this confusion.
20 Cf. Peter van Inwagen, "Two Concepts of Possible Worlds," Midwest Studies in Philosophy,
XI (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), pp. 185-213.
21 It might be objected that merely possible worlds and merely possible non-maximal propositions
do not represent possibilities, but are (identically) possibilities. One reason why this cannot be
right is as follows. The possibility of Humphrey's being elected president is a de re possibility
involving Humphrey himself, all 180 lbs. of him. But the (objective) proposition Humphrey is
elected president cannot contain Humphrey. At most, it contains an abstract constituent that
represents Humphrey. So the possibility of Humphrey's being elected president cannot be
identified with any (objective) proposition. On a grander scale, merely possible worlds, at least
some of them, represent total ways the concrete universe might have been; they represent de re
possibilities involving the concrete universe. I say 'at least some of them,' since the possible world
according to which no concretum exists clearly does not involve the concrete universe or any part
thereof.
22 In general, logical equivalences do not sanction identifications. Necessarily, for any x, x has a
shape if and only if x has a size; but shape and size are distinct properties. Necessarily, for any x,
x is triangular if and only if x is trilateral; but triangularity and trilaterality are distinct properties.
It is worth noting that in these two examples, the properties differ not only intensionally but also
causally. It was not the size but the shape of Brutus' weapon that fitted it for puncturing Caesar's
chest. And, borrowing an example from N. Wolterstorff, it is presumably because of the
triangularity, but not the trilaterality, of a metal triangle that I have three bloody points on my
hand.
23 One reader insisted that 'Socrates has contingent existence' means 'Socrates exists in some but
not all worlds.' This seems clearly false. For one thing, the first sentence could be true even if
there are no possible worlds. The existence of possibilities does not guarantee (without argument)
that there are possible worlds, Le., maximal possibilities. Every possibility might be non-maximal.
Or even if there are worlds, it might be that some possibles are possible without being included in
66 CHAPTER TWO
worlds. Perhaps some possibles come in "world-sized packages" but others do not. Second, most
will agree that possibility is prior to possible worlds. Proof: worlds are maximally consistent
objects. But logical consistency is a modal notion: p, q are consistent if and only ifthey (logically)
can both be true. So possible worlds presuppose primitive modality. For these two reasons, the
sentences in question cannot be identical in meaning.
25Jose A. Benardete, Metaphysics: The Logical Approach (Oxford University Press, 1989), pp.
22-23.
26 Michael Bergmann, "A New Argument from Actualism to Serious Actualism," Nous, vol. 30,
no. 3 (1996), pp. 356-359.
29 Some of these examples are borrowed from Jerome Shaffer, "Existence, Predication, and the
Ontological Argument" Mind 71 (1962), p. 318. This important article anticipates N. Salmon's
claims about the legitimacy of existential definitions, but is not cited by him.
31George Santayana, Scepticism and Animal Faith (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955),
p.48.
32 N. Salmon, op. cit. p. 66.
Chapter Three
Some will agree with the result of the last chapter that the existence of a
concrete individual cannot be one of its properties, but take this to show that, in
R. Grossmann's words,
67
68 CHAPTER THREE
each thing has its own existence. This implies that there are two sorts of
existential difference. The first, call it the frU1jor difference, is that between
existence as common to existents and existents. The second, call it the minor
difference, is that between the existence unique to a particular existent and that
particular existent. To anticipate a later conclusion, the major existential
difference is the difference between the paradigm existent and that which is
ontologically dependent upon it. The Paradigm is common to existents in the
manner of a common ground or metaphysical cause, and not in the manner of a
concept or property. The minor existential difference is the difference within a
given individual a between a and the existence of a.
The task of this chapter is to argue for the minor difference, the
extralinguistic and extramental difference between the existence of a and a,
where a is any arbitrary concrete individual. This is a necessary step on the way
towards establishing the major difference. It will become clear that the minor
difference is equivalent to the distinction in a thing between existence and
essence; for there is no difference between a considered in distinction from its
existence and the essence of a. 'Essence' is here employed in a wide sense to
denote the conjunction of those properties that make up what a thing is, and not
in the narrow sense according to which a thing's essential (as opposed to
accidental) properties are those it cannot fail to possess. Thus in the wide sense
of 'essence' being sunburned now is part of my essence, even though I might not
have been sunburned now. Thus narrowly essential and accidental properties
(whether monadic or relational) are part of my wide essence.
The plan of attack in this chapter is as follows. First, the difference
between eliminati vism and identitarianism is explained. Second, the identitarian
reading of the 'no difference' theory is examined and refuted. Third, we
examine Franz Brentano's theory of existence, perhaps the most interesting of
the 'no difference' theories of existence, a theory that is most plausibly
interpreted as an eliminativist theory. Brentano is an important transitional
figure in the history of philosophy. Although he was steeped in Aristotle and the
scholastics, his deflationary linguistic approach to metaphysical questions
anticipates 20th century analytic treatments. Indeed, Gustav Bergmann calls him
"the first linguistic philosopher.,,3 A good example of Brentano's deflationism
is his theory of existence, which in some ways anticipates the influential theories
of Frege and Russell which will be discussed in the next chapter. Fourth, we
refute D. C. Williams' eliminativist version of the 'no difference' theory.
Finally, we argue that the falsity of eliminativism entails the falsity of
nonconstituent ontology.
The question of this chapter is whether or not there is any difference in reality
between an individual and its existence. But there are two ways there might be
THE 'NO DIFFERENCE' THEORY 69
no difference. An eliminativist might say that there is no difference between an
individual and its existence because there just is no such 'thing' as the existence
of an individual. If there is no such 'thing' as the existence of an individual,
then of course there cannot be any difference between the existence of a and a.
An identitarian, on the other hand, might say that there is no difference between
a and its existence, not because there is no existence of a, but because the
existence of a, which is real, is nevertheless identical to a. For the eliminativist,
there is no difference because one of the terms of the difference does not exist.
For the identitarian, there is no difference because both terms, which exist, are
identical. Our first task, therefore, is to explain the division of theories of
existence into two main groups, eliminativist theories and identitarian theories.
Since this is a distinction not confined to the theory of existence, we will begin
by characterizing it in general terms.
An eliminativist about X, motivated by the puzzles to which X gives
rise, denies that 'there is any such thing' as X. An identitarian about X,
motivated by the same puzzles, aims to identify X with something theoretically
more tractable, and less likely to engender perplexity. Clearly, to identify X
with Y is to presuppose that X is there to be identified with Y. The distinction,
then, is roughly this. Faced with a recalcitrant datum, the eliminativist, radical
that she is, has no scruples about simply denying the datum and replacing it with
something more congenial. The eliminati vist is thus a replacement theorist. The
identitarian, however, has a conservative nature: he aims to analyze or explicate
the datum in question without denying it, distorting it, or changing the subject.
Hume's regularity theory of causation is an example of an eliminativist
theory.4 On our ordinary conception of causation, causes produce or bring into
existence their effects. But Hume was famously unable to find any production
in the causal sequences he examined. So he threw out causation-as-production
and replaced it with something that comported better with his empiricist
strictures. He thus proposed a theory in terms of spatiotemporal contiguity,
temporal precedence and constant conjunction. Taken as an analysis of our
ordinary concept of cause, as an unpacking of what we ordinarily mean when we
engage in causal talk, Hume's theory is hopeless. When we say, with the vulgar,
that an F-event caused a G-event, we mean that the former produced, and in
producing necessitated, the G-event. We do not mean that it just happens to be
the case that, hitherto, every F-event has been contiguously followed by a G-
event. Thus Hume's theory is more charitably interpreted as a replacement of
our ordinary concept.
The philosophy of mind provides a second example of the
eliminativistlidentitarian contrast. An eliminativist about mental states simply
denies their existence. He doesn't identify pain, to coin an example, with delta
A fiber stimulation (or whatever) as does the identitarian; he holds pain to be a
bogus category of 'folk psychology' that in the fullness of time we will learn to
do without. (It is to be hoped the manifest absurdity of eliminativism in the
70 CHAPTER THREE
The 'no difference' theory in its identitarian version says that there is no
difference between the existence of a and a, not because there is no existence of
a, but because the existence of a, which is real, is identical to a. But if there is
the existence of a, and it is identical to a, it follows that there is no distinction
in a between existence and essence. 'Essence' is here to be taken in its broad
sense as encompassing all of what a thing is. Essence in this broad sense is just
the opposite of existence. The essence of a is just a itself when a is viewed in
abstraction from its existence. And so given that a exists, it follows that a exists
by its very nature, hence necessarily exists, i.e., cannot not exist. To put it
another way, if in a essence and existence are identical, then a's essence entails
a's existence. But that is to say that a is a necessary being. Traditionally, there
was only one being of whom this could be said, namely, God. But the 'no
difference' theory in its identitarian version implies that every individual is a
necessary being, which is absurd.
Clearly, the only reasonable view to take with respect to contingent
individuals, given that there is the existence of a, is that the existence of a is
distinct from a. Within contingent beings there is a real (extramental,
72 CHAPTER THREE
extralinguistic) distinction between their essence and their existence,
equivalently, a distinction between a contingent individual and its existence.
Talk of a real distinction is not to be taken to imply that the existence of an
individual is itself a res, a thing, or a constituent of the individual. Some
Thomists may have held this view, but it is not a view we share. It is certainly
clear that the existence of a is not separable from a, any more than a is separable
from its existence. We are also denying that a thing's existence is a constituent
of it. For as we have already argued at length in Chapter 2, section 7, a thing's
existence pertains to the whole of it. To say that a distinction is real is to say
that it obtains independently of our conceptual and linguistic acts and abilities.
The 'no difference' theory in its identitarian version stands refuted. The
reader may complain that this is a meager result, because no one has ever held
this theory. Whether or not this is true, it is useful to have the position starkly
stated so that the 'no difference' theorist will be forced to declare himself
unequivocally as an eliminativist.
3. BRENTANO AS AN ELIMINATIVIST
The question [concerning essentia and esse] always turns on whether the
existence of a being is the same or a different reality than the being itself.
Scotus, Ockham, Suarez rightly deny that it is a different reality...But as a
consequence they fall into the error of thinking that the existence of a thing
belongs to the essence of the thing itself, and they regard it as the thing's most
general concept. Here the Thomists' opposition was correct...How, they cried,
could the existence of a thing be its most general concept? -- This is
impossible! -- Then its existence would follow from its definition, and
consequently the existence of a creature would be just as self-evident and
antecedently necessary as the existence of the Creator Himself. lO
For Brentano, both the Thomists and their opponents were wrong. It is neither
the case that the essence and existence of a are identical, nor that they are
different. For there is no such thing as the existence of a to be either identified
with a or differentiated from it. Existence does not pertain to things themselves.
THE 'NO DIFFERENCE' THEORY 73
Of course, Brentano does not merely deny that existence belongs to
individuals themselves, he goes on to replace the existence of a tree, for
example, with ajudger's acceptance (Anerkennung) of a tree, or else ajudger's
acceptance of the presentation of a tree, and the nonexistence of a unicorn with
a judger's rejection (Verwerfung) of a unicorn or else a judger's rejection of the
presentation of a unicornY It is important to interpret this as a replacement,
and not an identification or analysis or explication. If Brentano had said that the
existence of a tree is (identically) some judger's acceptance of a tree, then he
would have ended up in a lunatic form of idealism according to which trees
cannot exist unless human beings exist. Thus charity forbids us from interpreting
him in this way. We must read him as an eliminativist, as one who denies that
the existence/nonexistence contrast is applicable to individuals themselves. He
is not saying that there is the existence of a, and that the existence of a is to be
identified with a judger's acceptance of a. He is denying that there is the
existence of a, and replacing the existence of a with a judger's acceptance of a.
Compare Frege: he cannot be reasonably interpreted as identifying the existence
of an individual with the instantiation of some concept; he must be interpreted
as replacing the existence of individuals with the instantiation of concepts.
Thus charity demands that we give Brentano an eliminativist reading.
But there is a wrinkle here that needs to be explored. It is surely absurd to say
that the existence of a tree is identically some judger's acceptance (affirmation,
recognition) of a tree. It is part of the very sense of 'exists' (assuming that it is
a first-level predicate) that if an individual exists, it exists whether or not any
judger affirms it, indeed whether or not any judger exists. But what of the view
that the existence of a tree is its correct acceptability by someone? Passages in
Brentano and his students strongly suggest this view. 12 For example, Anton
Marty holds that the existent is that which can be rightly recognized or
affirmed. 13 If the correct acceptability line is free of idealistic taint, then perhaps
we will not be forced to interpret Brentano as an eliminativist.
But the view that the existence of x is identically its correct acceptability
by someone also implies an untenable idealism. For although what is acceptable
need not be actually accepted, the acceptable (in any robust sense) requires the
existence of beings capable of accepting. Surely the acceptability or
affirmability of a tree is not an intrinsic, but a relational, property of it: a
property the tree's possession of which implies a relation to a judger, a being
capable of accepting and rejecting. Hence the ability to be accepted is not an
intrinsic capacity of the tree, but resides instead in the ability of a judger to
accept. Thus to say that the existence of a tree consists in its correct
acceptability is to imply that beings are on hand capable of accepting and
rejecting. If so, the idealism remains: trees and the like could not exist except
in worlds in which judgers exist. To avoid the idealism, one would have to say
that an individual's correct acceptability, and thus its existence, requires only
that it be possible that there be a being capable of accepting it. But this is surely
74 CHAPTER THREE
far too anemic. The existence of a tree cannot be identified with the mere
possibility that there be a being capable of accepting it. For in possible worlds
without trees, there is surely the possibility that there be beings capable of
accepting trees. If the existence of a tree were identified with the mere
possibility that there be a being capable of accepting it, then trees would exist
in every possible world in which this possibility exists. But this possibility
exists in every world - by the characteristic S5 axiom of modal propositional
logic, to wit, 'Possibly P -> Necessarily possibly p' - so the proposal under
consideration implies that trees are necessary beings! This avoids idealism all
right, but only at the expense of something just as bad if not worse.
Since the identitarian reading issues in an unacceptable idealism,
whether existence is acceptance or correct acceptability, we conclude that the
eliminativist reading of Brentano's doctrine is the only one consistent with
charity. Thus when Brentano says, as in effect he does, that x exists if and only
if whoever accepts or affirms x judges correctly, and x does not exist if and only
if whoever rejects or denies x judges correctly, 14 we must not interpret this in an
identitarian spirit. Note first that the truth of these biconditionals does not
compel us to reach for an identitarian reading; we are not forced to read them as
saying that (i) there is the intrinsic existence/nonexistence of x and that (ii) it
consists in (Le., is identifiable with) x's correct acceptability/rejectability by
someone. Generally speaking, the truth, even the necessary truth, of 'Fx if and
only if Gx' does not logically require the identification of F-ness with G-ness.
(To see this, substitute 'triangular' for 'F' and 'trilateral' for 'G.')
Note also that if the Brentano biconditionals are taken as requiring the
identification of existence with correct acceptability, then they would be
manifestly circular. For if I affirm x correctly, and individuals exist
intrinsically, then the correctness of the affirmation would be grounded in the
actual existence of the individual affirmed; what would make my judgment
correct would be the actual existence of the individual affirmed. The judgment
would be correct because x exists; it would not be the case that x exists because
my judgment is correct. But if the judgment is correct because x exists, then,
on pain of vicious circularity, the existence of x cannot consist in its correct
acceptability. Thus the Brentano biconditionals do not support the identification
of existence with correct acceptability.
The Brentano biconditionals must therefore be taken in an eliminativist
spirit. 15 So taken, they have to be taken in the way we take 'God is the ultimate
anthropomorphic projection' (Feuerbach). This seems to invite an identitarian
reading on which (i) there is an entity named 'God' and (ii) this entity is
identically the ultimate anthropomorphic projection. But of course, this is an
impossible reading because self-contradictory: if God exists, he cannot be a
projection, and if God is a projection, then he does not exist. We must take the
Feuerbachian dictum in an eliminativist spirit as implying that there is no such
thing as God. Curiously, the Feuerbachian denies the existence of God using a
THE 'NO DIFFERENCE' THEORY 75
4. BRENTANO'S ARGUMENT
Brentano concludes from this translation scheme that " ... the 'is' or 'is not' of the
existential proposition is merely equivalent to the copula, so they are not
predicates and have no meaning at all in and of themselves. ,,21
It seems clear that this analysis can be readily extended to singular
sentences. Thus 'Socrates is sick' is equivalent to 'Sick Socrates exists,' and
'Brentano was never a Catholic priest' is equivalent to 'The Catholic priest
Brentano never existed.' In any case, the logical equivalence of predications and
existentials is not a thesis we will be questioning.
What we will be questioning is what Brentano infers from this
equivalence. What are we to make of his deliciously seductive argument for the
synsemanticity of 'exist(s)' and cognates? I submit that it trades on a confusion
of the pure (existentially neutral) copula with the 'is' as it ordinarily functions
in such sentences as 'The Charles River is polluted.' For premise (a) to be true,
78 CHAPTER THREE
the copulae in question must be pure. But for premise (b) to be true, the copulae
in question must be 'existentially loaded.' Thus the argument succumbs to a
fallacy of equivocation.
To put it another way, Brentano faces a dilemma. Copulative sentences
either feature a pure (existentially neutral) copula, which does not express
existence, or they feature an existentially loaded copula, which does express
existence, albeit while also discharging its copulative duties. If the former, the
copulations cannot be rendered as existentials. If the latter, the copulative
sentences can be rendered as existentials, but then this rendering has no
tendency to show that 'exists' is synsemantic. For copulative sentences
featuring existentially loaded copulae do not feature synsemantic copulae. A
pure copula may well be synsemantic - let us grant this for the sake of the
argument - but an existentially loaded copula is not.
The first question to ask is whether the 'is' in a sentence like 'The
Charles is polluted' is a pure copula. Imagine the sentence asserted by someone
upon emerging from an unpleasant swim in the river in question. Does the 'is'
in this sentence express merely the connection between logical subject and
logical predicate without expressing the existence of the logical subject? Or
does it also express, or presuppose, the existence of the logical subject, i.e., the
existence of that to which the grammatical subject of the sentence refers?
Although it is obvious that the 'is' of existence is distinct from the 'is' of
predication, this is consistent with one and the same concrete occurrence of 'is'
exercising both a copulative and an existential function. The distinction
between the 'is' of predication and the 'is' of existence is not like the distinction
between the inclusive 'or' (vel) and the exclusive 'or' (aut). One and the same
concrete occurrence of 'or' cannot be both inclusive and exclusive; but, I am
claiming, one and the same occurrence of 'is' can express both existence and
predication. One and the same concrete occurrence of 'is' cannot express both
identity and predication, but it can express both existence and predication.
That our sentence, used in the circumstances we are imagining, does not
feature a pure copula can be seen from the fact that it is analyzable as follows:
'The Charles is (exists) & the Charles [is] polluted,' where the brackets around
'is' signify that it is a pure copula. (With a nod toward Hussed, we might say
that the pure copula 'brackets existence.') This analysis makes explicit the dual
function of 'is' in our sentence. It functions both copulatively and existentially.
When I say, emerging from its turbid waters, that the Charles is polluted, I am
saying that it exists in a certain state, that of being polluted. I could just as well
say that the Charles exists 'pollutedly' - turning an adjective into an adverb. 22
Emerging from its troubled waters, I am certainly not abstracting from its
existence when I complain, 'The Charles is polluted.'
The correctness of this analysis is obvious from the proposition that an
individual cannot have a property unless it exists - a proposition to which
Brentano is no doubt committed given his opposition to Meinong's doctrine of
THE 'NO DIFFERENCE' THEORY 79
nonexistent objects according to which there are objects that actually23 have
properties despite their nonexistence. Now if the Charles cannot be polluted
unless it exists, then one who understands this point and says, in normal
circumstances, that it is polluted implies by his use of 'is' that it exists. We say
'in normal circumstances,' since we allow that one might for special purposes
abstract from (i.e., leave out of consideration) the existence of the Charles in
order to focus on its having of properties. So abstracting, one might say, 'The
Charles [is] polluted.'
The point, then, is that 'The Charles is polluted,' uttered in the imagined
circumstances, features an existentially loaded copula. This is simply a datum
that any theory must be able to accommodate on pain of failing to satisfy
elementary criteria of adequacy. Thus we cannot be fairly accused of begging
the question against Brentano. We are not simply assuming what he is out to
deny, namely, that existence belongs to individuals; we are invoking a datum
which, when properly understood, has the consequence that existence belongs
to individuals.
What is more, it is precisely the fact that the 'is' in 'The Charles is
polluted' has a double function, i.e., is existentially loaded, that allows the
sentence to be rendered as 'The polluted Charles exists.' What happens in the
translation from 'The Charles is polluted' to 'The polluted Charles exists' is that
the copulative function of 'is' is expressed by the juxtaposition of 'polluted' and
'Charles' (with the adjective preceding the noun), while the existential function
of 'is' is expressed by 'exists.' It is crucial to note that both sentences exhibit
both functions. It is just that in the first sentence the copulative function is to
the fore, while in the second, the existential function is to the fore. Since both
(types of) sentences exhibit both functions, it is a mistake to think that the
copulative function can be reduced to the existential, or vice versa. No
reduction is possible in either direction. Brentano's error, then, is to think that
the intertranslatability or logical equivalence of predicative and existential
sentences shows that the existential function can be reduced to the copulative.
Intertranslatability no more shows this than it shows that the copulative function
can be reduced to the existential. 24
Indeed, Brentano's argument is no better than the following obviously
unsound argument:
e. 'Exists' is an autocategorematic expression.
b. Existential and copulative sentences are intertranslatable.
Therefore
f. The copula is an autocategorematic expression.
Clearly, the truth of the premises is consistent with the falsity of the conclusion.
The same holds for Brentano's argument.
Thus Brentano appears to face a dilemma. If copulations and
existentials are to be intertranslatable, the 'is' in a copulative sentence cannot
express merely the connection between subject and predicate; it must also
80 CHAPTER THREE
express, or else presuppose, the existence of the subject. Hence it cannot be a
mere copula, and thus cannot be synsemantic. If, on the other hand, the 'is' in
a copulati ve sentence is a mere copula, and is thus synsemantic, then copulative
sentences cannot be expressed as existentials.
Brentano's argument accordingly trades on a fatal confusion. It is
plausible to maintain that the copula qua copula, or the 'is' in its purely
copulative function, is synsemantic. But Brentano has no right to assume that
the 'is' in such sentences as 'Socrates is wise,' 'Some man is sick,' etc. is a mere
copula. The truth of the matter is that the 'is' in these sentences has both a
copulative and an existential function in that it expresses both the connection of
subject and predicate and the existence (not necessarily present existence) of the
subject.
°
relational trope of concurrence, call it CT, then we have three distinct items, TI,
°
T2, and CT, which form a unity of concurrence. Let = the ordinary object of
which they are constituent tropes. Clearly, is numerically distinct from CT,
since CT is a proper constituent of 0. Relational tropes, however, unlike
monadic ones, are dependent objects: a relational trope cannot exist unless at
least two monadic tropes exist. Thus the particular co-occurrence of T I and T2
is a dependent object: it cannot exist unless TI and T2 exist. Furthermore, its
very nature as a concurrence trope requires the existence ofTI and T2 and their
concurrence: CT is the concurrence of T1 and T2 and could not be the
concurrence of any other tropes. Now since the existence and nature of CT
depends on the existence of TI and T2, and their concurrence, how can CT be
a proper constituent of O? Necessarily, CT exists if and only if (i) Tl and T2
exist, and (ii) Tl and T2 are concurrent. This implies that CT is not a proper
constituent of O,but is identical to 0.
So if concurrence is something real, and concurrence is a relational
trope, a contradiction emerges: CT is and is not a proper constituent of 0. On
these assumptions, CT must be a proper constituent of 0, since it is one of the
tropes making up 0, a trope distinct from TI and T2. Given these same
assumptions, however, CT cannot be a proper constituent of 0, for the reason
that there is nothing in reality to distinguish CT from 0. For CT cannot exist
unless TI and T2 exist and are concurrent.
This contradiction shows that one of the assumptions is false. It cannot
be the assumption that concurrence is something real, for this is needed to
distinguish a mere sum of tropes from a sum of tropes that constitute an actual
ordinary individual. So we must reject the assumption that concurrence is a
relational trope. Concurrence cannot be a trope.
The only other possibility available to an empiricist is that concurrence
be an external universal relation. This suggestion, however, succumbs to
Bradley's regress. If a universal relation CR contingently connects TI and T2,
what connects CR to Tl and to T2? If CR explains the difference between the
mere sum, TI + T2, and 0, what explains the difference between the mere sum,
TI + T2 + CR, and O? This problem arises since CR, unlike CT, can exist
whether or not TI and T2 exist. Since Bradley's regress will be thoroughly
treated in Chapter 7, we need not say any more about it here. In any case, a
trope theorist like Williams cannot invoke irreducible universal relations.
To sum up. Williams' position is a tissue of confusions and
contradictions. First of all, contra Williams, it is self-evident that existence
belongs to individuals as the Cartesian cogito attests. Second, Williams must
presuppose that existence belongs to individuals in order to maintain his anti-
Meinongian line and the logical equivalence of 'Fs exist' and 'Something is F.'
Third, he confuses the question whether there is such a thing as the existence of
individuals with the question whether existence is a property, and the question
whether existence is observable with the question whether existence is an
88 CHAPTER THREE
observable property, thus failing to refute the idea that existence is observable
in the precise sense that would be maintained by someone who takes first-level
existence seriously. Fourth, he confuses the question whether the existence of
an individual has a nature (the answer to which is obviously in the negative)
with the question whether existence itself, existence in its difference from
existing individuals, has a nature (the answer to which is not obviously in the
negative). Fifth, in contradiction to his claim that the existence of individual is
null and void, he introduces, and must introduce, concurrence, which is
indistinguishable from the existence of ordinary individuals within a trope-
theoretic framework. Finally, although he is forced to admit existence as
something real in the form of concurrence, this admission engenders a
contradiction within his system: concurrence cannot be a relational trope, but
that is all it could be within his system.
To sum up the main argument against the 'no difference' theory. Either a is
ontologically unstructured or it is not. If the former, then 'the existence of-a is
a' must be given an eliminativist reading which we have seen to be incoherent.
If the latter, if a is ontologically structured, i.e., has ontological constituents,
then the dictum must be given an identitarian reading, which implies the
egregious falsehood that every individual is a necessary being. These readings
exhaust the possibilities. Therefore the dictum is false.
It follows that its negation is true: the existence of-a is distinct from a.
'The existence of-a is distinct from a' is to be understood as the claim that there
is a distinction within a between the existence of-a and a, which is to say, a
distinction between the existence and the essence of a. For the essence of a (in
the broad sense in which this chapter uses 'essence') is just a considered in
distinction from its existence. With this we arrive at what we wanted to prove
in this chapter, namely, that the difference between existence and that-which-
exists is a real (extramental, extralinguistic) distinction internal to things
themselves.
But it is not as if individuals are composed of one part essence and one
part existence. For, as we have seen last chapter, the existence of a cannot be
a constituent or ontological part of a. The existence/essence distinction internal
to concrete individuals is a wholly unique affair that cannot be understood
analytically. Analysis operates under the aegis of the simple/complex and
part/whole distinctions. Analytic understanding proceeds by resolving its
subject-matter into parts, and ultimately into simple (not further analyzable)
parts. Analytic understanding may provide insight into the make-up or
constitution of a thing by laying out its constituents, by providing an "assay" in
Gustav Bergmann's terms; but it cannot provide insight into the unity of its
constituents. It will turn out that the existence of a thing, like its unity, cannot
be understood analytically in terms of the simple/complex and part/whole
models. We will need to find a different model for the relatedness of existence
and essence in concrete individuals. But there is no point in anticipating what
will later be argued in detail.
90 CHAPTER THREE
NOTES
1 Reinhardt Grossmann, The Categorial Structure of the World (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1983), p. 403. Grossmann reiterates the point in The Existence of the World: An
Introduction to Ontology (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 99: "A thing and its existence are 'one
and the same', while a thing and one of its properties are clearly two quite different things,
standing opposite to each [other], connected by the thread of exemplification."
2 I should make it clear that I am not concerned in this chapter with the particulars of Grossmann's
positive theory of existence, but with the general type of view suggested by the Grossmann
quotation, the view, namely, that there is no such thing as existence in distinction from existing
things, that existence just is existing things.
3Gustav Bergmann, Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (Madison: The University of
Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 234.
4 At least as standardly interpreted. Cf. J. L. Mackie, The Cement of the Universe (Oxford, 1980),
p. 59. Mackie rightly asserts that Hume's theory "aim[s] at reform rather than analysis of our
ordinary concepts."
5 Bertrand Russell, "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" in Logic and Knowledge, ed. R. C.
Marsh (New York: Capricorn Books, 1971), p. 232 ff.
7 Talk of a propositional function being 'sometimes true' is Russell's. See Bertrand Russell, op.
cit. p. 232.
9Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, trans. Rancurello, Terrell and
McAlister (New York: Humanities Press, 1973), p. 229
10 Ibid., p. 229
11 Ibid., p. 208.
12 Cf. Franz Brentano, The True and the Evident, trans. Chisholm et al. (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 109 et passim.
13 "Seiend und existierend heisst, wie wir schon wiederholt betonten: was mit Recht anerkannt
werden kann." Anton Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und
Sprachphilosophie (Hildesheim: Georg alms Verlag, 1976), p. 214. First published in 1908.
15 If they are taken in neither an identitarian nor in an eliminativist way, they would not amount
to a theory of existence. IfI want to know what existence is, it is not enough to be told that a thing
exists if and only if it is correctly acceptable by someone. For I can still ask: But what is it for an
individual to exist? If I want to know what it is to be trilateral, it doesn't help to be told that,
necessarily, a thing is trilateral if and only if it is triangular.
16 If existence itself exists, then it is itself an existent. If existence is different from existents, then
it can only exist or occur in existents.
19 Ibid., p. 294.
20For a thorough discussion of the distinction by a philosopher within the Brentano school, see
Anton Marty, op. cit. pp. 205-276.
22 In sentences like 'The Charles exists pollutedly' and (more idiomatically) 'The Charles exists
contingently,' 'exists' is obviously functioning not only to express existence, but also as a sort of
copula. We could say that such uses of 'exists' are 'copulationally loaded.'
23 Actually, not merely possibly. The golden mountain for Meinong is actually golden, even
though it neither exists, subsists, or has any mode of being whatsoever. See our critique of
Meinong in Chapter 2, section 1.
25Donald C. Williams, "Dispensing with Existence," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. LIX, no. 23
(1962), p. 763.
26 Ibid., p. 761.
27 Roderick Chisholm, Person and Object (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co., 1976), p. 25
ff.
28 Ibid., p. 763.
30 Ibid., p. 4.
31 Ibid., p. 13.
Chapter Four
93
94 CHAPTER FOUR
1. PRELIMINARIES
We have just seen that the instantiation theory of existence can be developed
nominalistically, conceptualistically and realistically. To further complicate the
picture, the instantiation theory of existence may be developed in three different
grades of strength within each of these versions, ordered here from weaker to
stronger. This makes for 3 x 3 = 9 combinations; fortunately, only some are
'salient.' Some of the salient theories are so defective that practically nobody
will hold them; a quick examination of them, however, will aid us in isolating
and clearly defining the theories that are held.
Grade 1: The existence of Fs is logically equivalent to the satisfaction
of 'F' (or the instantiation of F, or the exemplification of F-ness). Call this the
'equivalence variation.' Two propositions are said to be logically equivalent
just in case there is no (logically) possible world in which one but not the other
is true.
Grade 2: The existence of Fs is identical to the satisfaction of 'F' (or
the instantiation of F etc.) Call this the 'identity variation.'
Grade 3: The existence ofFs is not available for identification with any
other state of affairs. It is simply an illusion. What is real is the satisfaction of
'F' (or the instantiation of F, etc.) Call this the 'eliminativist variation.'
Fs to exist is for 'F' to be satisfied. The theory begins with the biconditional
l. Necessarily, Fs exist if and only if 'F' is satisfied
and takes this as sanctioning the reduction
2. The existence of Fs = the satisfaction of 'F.'
Unfortunately, this theory cannot even begin to get offthe ground since (1) -- the
equivalence variation on the nominalist version of the instantiation account -- is
false. There are possible worlds in which there are cats, but no language-users,
hence no linguistic tokens. In such a world, cats exist, but 'cat' tokens do not.
Now if 'cat' tokens do not exist, they cannot be satisfied. So (1) is false.
The falsity of (1) is also evident from the fact that there are times in the
actual world at which, say, dinosaurs exist but no linguistic tokens exist. If the
equivalence variation fails, then of course so do the identity and eliminativist
variations on the nominalist version of the instantiation account.
A third consideration. (l) presupposes that linguistic tokens exist.
What then does the existence of these tokens consist in? The satisfaction of
other tokens? I leave it as an exercise to the reader to think through the vicious
infinite regress that ensues.
Is the situation improved if we substitute concepts for terms? Not at all.
Since concepts are mind-dependent, and the minds with which we are familiar
are all contingent, the above objections are mutatis mutandis applicable to the
view that the existence of Fs is just the instantiation of the concept F. This
knocks out the equivalence, identity and eliminativist variations on the
conceptualist version of the instantiation account of existence.
To avoid the above objections we need a vehicle that exists (i) mind- and
language-independently and (ii) necessarily. Enter properties, which we are
taking to be necessarily existent abstract entities. The theory begins with the
biconditional
3. Necessarily, Fs exist if and only if F-ness is exemplified
and takes this as sanctioning the reduction
4. The singular existence of Fs =the being-exemplified of F-ness.
Now (3) is clearly true given our assumption that there are no nonexistent
objects, i.e., objects that exemplify properties without existing. Necessarily, if
cats exist, then catness is exemplified. And necessarily, if catness is exemplified
then cats exist. So far, so good. But what (4) implies is that the singular
existence of cats, the existence of each individual cat, is identical to the being-
exemplified of the property of being a cat. Thus the existence of Mungojerrie
= the being-exemplified of catness, the existence of Rumpelteazer = the being-
exemplified of catness, and so on for every other cat. This is the identity
variation on the realistic version of the instantiation account of existence.
Some will see right away that this theory is obviously absurd and will
98 CHAPTER FOUR
eliminativist option to be discussed below. This leaves case (i). If a exists, then
the existence ofa is a precondition of P' s being exemplified by a rather than by
some other individual, in which case the existence ofa is not identical with, but
is presupposed by, a's exemplification ofP.
We may think of it this way. What makes the being-exemplified ofP
the existence of a rather than the existence of some other individual? If you say
it is the exemplification of P by a, you move in a circle of embarrassingly short
diameter. The natural response is to introduce haecceity properties. Suppose
there are properties like identity-with-Socrates. (We shall see below that this
supposition is incoherent, but just suppose for the nonce.) If identity-with-
Socrates is exemplified, then in every possible world in which it is exemplified,
the honors are done by the same individual. What makes the exemplification of
Socrateity the existence of Socrates? Answer: nothing else could possibly
exemplify said property. Interestingly, this response is itself circular. Let me
explain.
For a to stand in the exemplification relation to P, no matter whether P
is multiply exemplifiable or a haecceity property, both relata must exist
ontologically prior to and as a condition of the possibility of their standing in
the relation. (Early on in Chapter 2 we explained 'ontologically prior.') For
NC-exemplification is an external tie in this sense: it is not an ontological nexus
within an individual, but a link between a wholly abstract property, causally
inert because abstract, and a concrete individual in the causal order. Clearly, the
existence of a relatum of such a relation cannot consist in, be identical with, its
standing in the relation. For its existence is presupposed by its standing in the
relation. So even if, per impossibile, there are such metaphysical monstrosities
as identity-with-Socrates, it is still impossible to identify the existence of our
man with the exemplification of this haecceity. The most you get is a necessary
equivalence: Necessarily, Socrateity is exemplified if and only if Socrates
exists. No reduction is in sight, since the philosopher must exist as a
precondition of his standing in the exemplification relation.
The Haecceity Objection. Let us now shift the attack to the other flank.
Whether or not the exemplification account in its identity variation is circular,
its viability requires that there be the right sort of properties, properties whose
exemplification is identifiable with the existence of specific individuals. I now
argue that those properties are not available. Thus this haecceity objection
amounts to an objection to haecceities.
The identity theorist cannot hold that the existence of a = a's
exemplification of just any old property; it must be a property P that satisfies
three conditions: (i) P is essential to a; (ii) P is such that nothing distinct from
a has it in the actual world; (iii) P is such that nothing distinct from a has it in
any (metaphysically) possible world. Let us consider why these conditions are
each necessary.
Ad (i). Either P is essential to a or P is accidental to a. IfP is accidental
100 CHAPTER FOUR
to a, then, given the definition of 'accidental property,' a can exist even without
exemplifying P. But then it is self-evident that the existence of a cannot be
identified with the being exemplified of P. Therefore, P must be essential to a.
Ad (ii). If the existence of Socrates =the exemplification of humanity,
it would follow that the nonexistence of Socrates = the nonexemplification of
humanity, which is absurd: Socrates need not exist for humanity to be
exemplified, which is a good thing for the rest of us. But on pain of circularity,
it cannot be said that the existence of Socrates is the exemplification of
humanity by Socrates, as we saw a subsection ago. So the identity theorist must
identify the existence of Socrates with a property he alone has. 3 This reflects the
fact that each thing has its own existence.
Ad (iii). But it is not enough that this be a property he alone has in the
actual world, e.g., the property of being the teacher of Plato. For someone else
might have had that property; but it is surely false that someone distinct from
Socrates might have been Socrates. So if there is a property whose
exemplification is the existence of Socrates, this property must be a property he
and he alone has in every possible world in which he exists. Let us call such a
property an haecceity or (in English) a thisness. If properties are abstract, and
thisnesses are properties, then they too are abstract: they are not constituents of
the things of which they are the thisnesses, but reside in an abstract realm apart.
On one approach, a thisness is thought of as the sense of a proper name. 4 It
would then be especially clear that the thisness of Socrates could not be an
ontological constituent of him. The sense of a name that designates a thing is
obviously not an ontological constituent of the thing designated. But what sort
of thisness property could be the sense of say 'Socrates'?
There are two options. The property in question could either be a
qualitative thisness or a nonqualitative thisness. I begin with the latter. What
I will attempt to show, first, is that there are no nonqualitative thisnesses (if
these are taken to be NC-properties), and second, that even if there are, the
nonqualitative thisness of a contingent being is itself contingent; indeed, it is
contingent upon the thing of which it is the thisness. If so, it is not suited to be
the property whose exemplification is the existence of the thing in question.
Nonqualitative Thisnesses. A nonqualitative thisness (NQT) is
nonqualitative because it cannot be analyzed in terms of qualitative properties.
A qualitative property is one which does not involve or make reference to
specific individuals. Thus being blue and being married to someone are
qualitative, whereas being married to Heideggeris nonqualitative. Identity-with-
Socrates, then, is an example of a nonqualitative thisness. We may also refer to
this property as 'Socrateity.'
Are there such properties? There are reasons to be sceptical.
First of all, we cannot assume that for every predicate, e.g., 'is identical
with Socrates,' there is a corresponding property. Indeed, this assumption leads
to a contradiction. Consider the predicate, 'is non-self-exemplifying.' If this
IS EXISTENCE A PROPERTY OF PROPERTIES? 101
should say that in those worlds it is identical to the null set. {Socrates} taken in
abstraction from Socrates is either the null set or just sethood in general.
The unintelligibility of haecceity properties seems to derive from the
attempt to transform the very particularity of a thing into an abstract property.
'Particularity' could be used to denote the categorial form common to all
particulars, or it could be used to designate the factor in a thing that 'makes' it
precisely that thing and no other. Let us use 'particularity' in the second sense.
And suppose it is nonqualitative. How could the nonqualitative particularity of
a rock, say, be an abstract object? Abstracta do not come into being or pass out
of being. But rocks do. And presumably the same goes for the rock's
nonqualitative particularity. For it is this particular rock that came into being
and this particular rock that will eventually pass out of being. It is absurd to
suppose that the NQ-particularity of this rock existed before the rock existed.
For before the rock existed, there was nothing to give the particularity of this
rock any particularizing content. It is equally absurd to suppose that the NQ-
particularity of this rock exists in possible worlds in which the rock does not
exist. But these are exactly the absurdities that afflict the haecceity-properties
of Plantinga and friends.
But even if there are nonqualitative thisnesses, how could they be
necessary beings as they must be to do the job demanded of them? Socrateity
must exist in possible worlds in which Socrates does not exist if Socrates'
nonexistence in those worlds is the non-exemplification ofSocrateity. Buthow
could Socrateity exist in a world in which Socrates does not exist? How could
identity-with-Socrates exist in a world in which Socrates does not exist? In such
a world there would be nothing to terminate the identity relation. And how can
there be such a property as identity-with-Pegasus in the actual world, given that
Pegasus does not exist in the actual world? If Socrates and Pegasus are
contingent, identity-with-Socrates and identity-with-Pegasus are equally
contingent. 5
Other considerations will exploit the fact that abstracta, unlike rocks, are
unlocated. If Socrates' NQT is an NC-property, it is unlocated; but Socrates is
located and moves about in space. How then can an haecceity-property be a
thisness of Socrates? The thisness of a material thing is bound up with its
spatiotemporal position, or with the matter that occupies the position.
Furthermore, the NQ-particularity of a thing is the thing taken in
abstraction from all its properties and relations. But if abstraction is made from
all properties, including the property of being a particular, then the NQ-
particularity of the thing cannot itself be a property. It is better thought of as
that which has the thing's properties, or perhaps as the spatiotemporallocus of
the thing's properties. The NQ-particularity of a thing is the determinable
element in it, as opposed to its determinations. Thus there is some plausibility
to the suggestion of Aquinas that 'designated matter' (materia signata) is the
principium individuationis, or better, the principle of differentiation.
IS EXISTENCE A PROPERTY OF PROPERTIES? 103
This coheres well with the fact that the NQ-particularity of a thing is
unconceptualizable. Hegel was well aware of this, though he drew the wrong
inference from it. He argues in effect that since only universals are linguistically
expressible, and NQ-particularity is not a universal, NQ-particularity is
inexpressible. Thus if I use the indexical 'this' to refer to an object before me,
I fail to say (sagen) what I mean (meinen). What I mean is e.g., this particular
piece of paper; but all I succeed in saying or expressing are universals. The this
that is expressible is a universal common to all thises; but the this that I mean is
not a universal. Where Hegel goes wrong is in thinking that this inexpressible
thisness is something "untrue" that can be ignored. 6 The mistake is to think that
what is ineffable or irrational is unreal.
Now if the nonqualitative thisness of a thing is an NC-property, a sense,
I should be able to grasp or conceive it. Senses are made for the mind, made to
be grasped. But what could it mean to grasp a nonqualitative thisness? What
could it mean to grasp or conceive identity-with-Socrates? The very idea of a
NQT which is also a property is an absurdity.
There is not the same problem with wisdom, since in this case there is
something common to Socrates and Buddha which, as common, cannot be
identified with either of them. The phenomenon that motivates the introduction
of properties is the fact that such predicates as "is wise" apply at the same time
to more than one item. Couple this with the reasonable assumption that there
must be something in the things in virtue of which the predicate correctly applies
to them, and we arrive at the idea of a property, a feature of reality that is
somehow repeatable or multiply exemplifiable. Having arrived in this way at
properties, we may apply logical operations to them and construct compound
properties like being the fastest runner, which are not repeatable (in a given
possible world). But the compound presupposes its components, and the latter
(if they are not themselves compound) are multiply exemplifiable.
Qualitative Thisnesses. Nonqualitative thisnesses, then, are creatures
of darkness. A qualitative thisness (QT) might be thought of as a disjunction of
conjunctions. In every possible world W in which Socrates exists, take the
conjunction C(W) of all his qualitative properties in W. Then take the
disjunction of these C(W)s: C(Wl) v C(W2) v ... v (C(Wn). The result is a
qualitative thisness. Could the existence of a particular consist in the
exemplification of a QT?
First of all, QTs allow no evasion of the various circularity objections.
These objections remain in force no matter what kind of property is on offer.
Second, if thisness is qualitative, and if the existence of a consists in the
exemplification of a's QT, then it is metaphysically impossible that a have an
indiscernible twin a': clearly, the existence of a and the existence of a' (these
being numerically distinct) cannot consist in the exemplification of one and the
same QT. SO this approach brings with it a commitment to the Identity of
Indiscernibles. There are, however, powerful arguments against the latter
104 CHAPTER FOUR
principle. 7
The Aristotelian Theory. There is aprimajacie difference between the
'is' of existence and the 'is' of predication. But if the identitarian instantiation
theory is true, the fonner reduces to the latter. For if you say that the existence
of Socrates is the exemplification by him of some property F-ness, then what
you are saying is that 'Socrates is (exists), reduces to 'Socrates is F.' Now we
have just seen the circularity of this view. But there is another problem with it.
Consider the superficially plausible Aristotelian view that to be is
always to be some kind of thing or other. 8 Thus for Socrates to exist is for
Socrates to be a man; for a patch of ice still to exist is for it still to be frozen
water. But these analyses are unacceptable. If for Socrates to exist is for him
to be a man, then for Socrates no longer to exist is for him no longer to be a man.
As Robin Attfield has pointed out, "... the name Socrates is only understandable
aright if understood as the name of some man. Therefore the analysis involves
the claim that a man is no longer a man. ,,9 I would add the modal observation
that, on the Aristotelian theory, the fact that Socrates might never have existed
is just the fact that he might never have been human. But this is palpably
absurd: it implies that a certain man might never have been a man.
The identity theorist admits singular existence, but attempts to identify it with
the being-exemplified of the right sort of property. The identity theory stands
refuted. The only hope left for the exemplification theorist is the eliminativist
gambit: he sacrifices the very idea of singular existence by holding that
individuals neither exist nor do not exist. In this way he avoids even the
suspicion of circularity: he cannot be surreptitiously presupposing singular
existence if he rejects the very idea as incoherent. The idea, then, is that the
existence/nonexistence contrast is at home on the level of abstracta and cannot
be situated at the level of individuals on pain of a sort of category mistake. 10 But
in being 'kicked upstairs' singular existence is eliminated to be replaced by
exemplification. Singular existence is an illusion. It is worth noting en passant
that 'singular existence' is pleonasm in the service of clarity: existence in the
strict sense just is singular existence. General existence is not a kind or mode
of existence but another animal entirely: exemplification. 'General' in 'general
existence' is thus an alienans adjective, one that 'alienates' or shifts the sense
of the tenn it modifies.
The discerning reader will have noted that we have actually already
refuted the eliminativist variation by showing that there are no nonqualitative
thisnesses. One can see this as follows. The eliminativist aims to replace
existence with exemplification. But existence is always the existence of
something, the existence of philosophers, say, or the existence of Socrates. Now
philosophers cannot exist unless particular philosophers exist. Let Socrates be
IS EXISTENCE A PROPERTY OF PROPERTIES? 105
one of them. So the eliminativist needs to replace the existence of Socrates with
the exemplification of some property. The only property that will do is
Socrateity. So if there is no such property as Socrateity, as we have argued, then
the eliminativist line is as dead as the identitarian one. This being said, it is
nonetheless important to consider other arguments against eliminativism since
our aim is a thorough and many-sided refutation.
The eliminativist variation comes in two degrees of strength. Call them
the extreme view and the mitigated view. On the former, there is no sense
whatsoever in which any individual exists. Existence is no more attributable to
individuals that numerousness is attributable to individuals. On the latter, there
is an exiguous sense in which an individual can be said to exist, namely, to exist
is to be self-identical. The extreme and mitigated views are distinct in that
although both deny the contrast of existence and nonexistence on the level of
individuals -- which distinguishes them from the identity variation -- the
mitigated view allows existence as a property of individuals, the property of self-
identity, which does not admit of contrast: no individual is even possibly self-
diverse. Some may want to classify the 'existence is self-identity' view as an
identitarian rather than an eliminativist view. But let us not quibble. The
avoidance of sin is more conducive to salvation than its correct taxonomy.
Is the Extreme View Intelligible? The main difficulty with the extreme
eliminativist view is that if it were true, certain statements that are clearly
intelligible would be unintelligible. Consider the identitarian claim that
1. Socrates exists =df Socrateity is exemplified.
The left-hand side of this definition features 'exists' as a meaningful first-level
predicate, but it cannot be such if the eliminativist theory is correct. For the
elimination consists in the claim that 'exist(s)' can only mean what 'is
exemplified' means. It can only have a second-level use, never a first-level use.
(Compare 'is numerous' which never admits of an intelligible first-level use.)
But if 'exists' can only mean what 'is exemplified' means, then the former
cannot be used in conjunction with a singular term like' Socrates.' So if extreme
eliminativism is true, (1) is unintelligible. But, obviously, (1) is intelligible.
When we were refuting the identity variation we knew exactly what we were
refuting, and if the reader was not convinced by our arguments, he knew exactly
which thesis it was that he thinks we haven't refuted. Therefore, by Modus
Tollens, extreme eliminativism is false.
The eliminativist can evade this conclusion only by the draconian
measure of denying that (1) is intelligible. But then what does his theory amount
to? Either it is a mere stipulation to the effect that 'exists' will not be allowed
as a first-level predicate in some sanitized language, or it is a non-stipulative
claim. Now if the eliminativist' s central contention is a mere stipulation, we may
safely ignore it. Metaphysical problems cannot be solved by stipulation, least
of all the problem of the nature of existence. Alternatively, we are within our
rights in accusing the eliminativist of changing the subject. What interests us is
106 CHAPTER FOUR
What Frege appears to be saying is that a sentence like 'Tame tigers exist' (to
borrow G.E. Moore's example) is to be analyzed in terms of 'The number of
tame tigers is not zero.' Equivalently, 'The concept tame tiger has something
falling under it,' or 'The concept tame tiger is instantiated.' Accordingly,
existence is a property of concepts, not of individuals, the property of being
instantiated. If so, it will not be merely false, but meaningless to say of an
individual that it exists. Hence the fundamental problem with the ontological
argument is that its conclusion, 'God exists,' is meaningless, hence neither true
nor false.
Frege provides an argument for this thesis that existence is exclusively
a property of concepts in his "Dialogue with Puenjer on Existence.,,12 On my
reconstruction, Frege's argument for the conclusion that existence cannot be
significantly attributed to individuals is as follows:
1. If' ... exists' were a first-level predicate, then affirmative existentials
would be trivially true.
But
2. Some affirmative existentials are not trivially true, e.g., 'Humans
exist.'
Therefore
3. ' ... exists' is not a first-level predicate.
Therefore
4. 'Humans exist' is not about individual humans but about the concept
human. It says that the concept has something falling under it.
5. ' ... exist(s)' and cognates are used univocally in general and singular
IS EXISTENCE A PROPERTY OF PROPERTIES? 109
existentials. (Assumption)
Therefore
6. First-level predications of existence are meaningless.
Thus 'Leo Sachse exists,' to take Frege's example, is a meaningless
form of words, since Leo Sachse is an individual, not a concept. As such, he
cannot be instantiated, or have anything "falling under him" as Frege would say.
Thus it would seem to be Frege' s view that such affirmative singular existentials
as 'Leo Sachse exists' are in the final analysis positively meaningless and not
just trivially true. Existence is just not the sort of thing that can be a property
of individuals. Russell later makes the Fregean point by comparing existence
with being numerous: Socrates can no more exist than he can be numerous.
This supports my interpretation of Frege and Russell as eliminativists rather than
identity theorists.
The most striking thing about Frege' s argument is the unbelievability of
its conclusion. Surely it is a mistake to think that sentences like 'I exist' are
meaningless. If one had to choose between the magnificent Cogito argument of
Descartes, which culminates in 'I exist,' and Frege' s argument, it is clear which
would have to be rejected. There are few things in philosophy as luminous to
the intellect as the Cogito; there are few dicta as dark as Frege's. No doubt the
utterance of a sentence like 'I exist' would in most contexts be pointless or
unmotivated. But that is entirely different from the question whether the
sentence is meaningful in the sense of possessing a truth-value. There is just no
comparison between 'I exist' and 'I am numerous' with all due respect to Lord
Russell.
So there must be something wrong with Frege's argument, and one
obvious locus of error is premise (5): ' ... exist(s)' and cognates is used univocally
in general and singular existentials. This Univocity Assumption is implausible
as I shall now argue. Let us begin by clarifying the distinction between general
and singular existentials.
A general existential is a sentence of the form 'Fs exist' or 'There are
Fs' or their negations, where 'F' is a predicate constant. A singular existential
is a sentence of the form 'a exists' or its negation, where 'a' is an individual
constant. Thus 'Philosophers exist' is a general existential, 'Socrates exists' a
singular existential. Now it is plausible to say that 'Philosophers exist' is not
about individual philosophers; it is about the concept philosopher or the property
of being a philosopher, or the class of philosophers, or the propositional function
'x is a philosopher' or something along the same lines, and what it says is that
the concept applies to something, or the property is exemplified, or the class has
a member, or the function is satisfied. Similarly, 'Unicorns do not exist' is not
about unicorns -- after all there are no such things -- it is about the property of
being a unicorn and says of it that it is uninstantiated. Thus it is very plausible
to take the Frege-Russell line that general existentials affirm or deny
exemplification of concepts, properties and the like. It is very plausible, in other
110 CHAPTER FOUR
words, to say that general existence is just exemplification, equivalently, that the
force of ' ... exist' is captured by 'Something is a ... .' But what about singular
existence, the existence appropriate to individuals? Surely we cannot say that
the irreducibly singular existence of a is identical to the being exemplified of
some property of a; for that would be to deny that there is any such thing as the
irreducibly singular existence of a. It would be to affirm that singular existence
is reducible to a species of general existence. The incoherence of this was
demonstrated ad nauseam above.
Thus one might be tempted to conclude, with Frege, that there is no such
thing as irreducibly singular existence, that sentences of the form 'a exists' are
meaningless (sinnlos) , that existence cannot be meaningfully predicated of
individuals. 13 But this argument requires the Vnivocity Assumption mentioned
above. Without this assumption, to which Frege explicitly commits himself,14
one cannot validly move from the claim that' ... exist' in 'Philosophers exist,'
e.g., is not a first-level predicate to the claim that' ... exists' in 'Brunton exists'
is not a first-level predicate. But why accept the assumption? It seems rather
more plausible to hold that' ... exist(s)' is equivocal as between general and
singular existentials. What it expresses in general existentials is
exemplification, equivalently, the logical quantity someness; what it expresses
in singular existentials is singular existence.
To see more clearly what is at stake, consider these arguments:
Frege was clear as to this distinction [between general and singular existence],
though he rightly had no special interest, as a mathematical logician, in
assertions of present actuality [singular existence]. It is [a] great misfortune
that Russell has dogmatically reiterated that the 'there is' sense of the
'substantive' verb 'to be' is the only one that logic can recognize as
legitimate; for the other meaning -- present actuality -- is of enormous
importance in philosophy, and only harm can be done by a Procrustean
treatment which either squeezes assertions of present actuality into the 'there
is' form of [read: 'or'] lops them off as nonsensical. 18
Not only does Geach cite no passage to support his claim, his claim is refuted
by the following quotation from Frege: "We can say that the meanings of the
word 'exist' in the sentences 'Leo Sachse exists' and 'Some men exist' display
no more difference than do the meanings of 'is a German' in the sentences 'Leo
Sachse is a German' and 'Some men are Germans' ."19 For Frege there appears
to be only one sort of existence and that is general existence. On this score his
position is indistinguishable from Russell's. Nevertheless, Geach is absolutely
right to protest Russell's Procrustean treatment of singular existentials and to
insist on the distinction between general and singular existence. One may
wonder, however, whether singular existence ought to be identified with present
actuality, inasmuch as the singular existence of the dead is clearly not present
actuality. But this is a large issue that lies beyond the scope of this study.
There is another consideration that suggests that Geach cannot be right
about Frege. Although Frege was not explicitly concerned with the critique of
the metaphysics of existence, his attitude with respect to existence is
deflationary: it reduces to someness. The quest for Being of the metaphysicians
is afata morgana. "When philosophers speak of 'absolute being', that is really
an apotheosis of the copula. ,,20 And so if the metaphysics of existence is to be
supplanted by the logic of' ... exist(s),' existence must reduce to someness; there
cannot be room for first-level attributions of existence.
Milton K. Munitz and Dennis E. Bradford are two other philosophers
who maintain that Frege recognizes a kind of first-level existence, called
112 CHAPTER FOUR
"actuality" (Wirklichkeit). Munitz21 just asserts this on the basis of his reading
of Geach, citing no passage from Frege. Bradford22 cites the following passage:
We must here keep well apart two wholly different cases that are easily
confused, because we speak of existence in both cases. In one case the
question of whether a proper name designates, names, something; in the other,
whether a concept takes objects under itself. If we use the words 'there is a
--' we have the latter case.23
Although this passage does seem to suggest that Frege recognizes both
singular and general existence, it can also be interpreted as saying that singular
existence is just a special case of general existence, the case where the concept
in question is the sense of a proper name. Accordingly, the existence of
Socrates, rather than being a property of him, is just the instantiation of the sense
of 'Socrates,' or the designation of something by this name. Or one could take
what Frege is saying metalinguistically as the view that 'a exists' is to be
analyzed as '"a''' designates something.'
The real clincher, however, is that if there is a kind of existence,
actuality, that pertains to individuals, then the Ontological Argument for the
existence of God would not "break down" as Frege says it does. The following
version of the argument would be impervious to Frege's criticism: God
possesses all perfections; actuality is a perfection; therefore, God is actual. 24 If
Frege's theory were merely a theory of general existence, he could not have
considered it to have any bearing on the ontological argument.
Therefore
3. ' ... exists' is not a first-level predicate.
Therefore
4. Existence is not a first-level property.
The inferences in this argument are valid, and (2) is obviously true. So
the soundness of the argument depends on the truth of (1). No doubt (1) has
some initial plausibility. But I will show that it rests on the ancient modal
fallacy of confusing the necessity of the consequent (necessitas consequentiis)
with the necessity of the consequence (necessitas consequentiae).
(1) presents us with a paradox of reference. Given that there is no
reference to the nonexistent, if I say of an existing thing that it exists, it seems
I have said nothing, or at least nothing that can fail to be true; and if I say of an
existing thing that it does not exist, then it seems I have said something that
cannot fail to be false.
Although there is something to this, it is not clear that it represents a
genuine paradox. A genuine paradox must issue in a logical inconsistency.
(Thus Russell's Paradox is a genuine paradox, i.e., an antinomy.29) But there is
no inconsistency in holding both that the existence of Davies is a contingent
state of affairs and that, necessarily, every use of 'Brian Davies' designates an
existent. Nor is there any inconsistency in holding both that the nonexistence
of Davies is a possible state of affairs and that no sentence containing 'Brian
Davies' could be used to express this state of affairs if it were actual.
Sentences of the form 'a exists' (where 'a' is a nonvacuous individual
constant) have the peculiarity that they cannot be used to express a falsehood.
Sentences of this form can thus be said, in a loose sense, to be necessarily true.
But all this means, speaking strictly, is that, necessarily, if a sentence S of this
form is used, then the proposition expressed by S is true. This, however, does
not by a long shot entail that the proposition expressed by S is necessarily true.
Thus the Beard argument would seem to be entangled in a modal fallacy.
Although it is true that, necessarily, every use of a nonvacuous name designates
an existent; it does not follow that every use of a nonvacuous name designates
a necessary existent.
Similarly, although it is true that, necessarily, every use of a sentence
of the form 'a exists' expresses a true proposition; it does not follow that every
use of a sentence of the form 'a' exists' expresses a necessarily true
proposition. The necessity of the consequence does not entail the necessity of
the consequent. The modal fallacy committed here is in essence no different
from, and just as egregious as, the one committed by the fatalist who argues
from 'Necessarily, whatever happens happens' to 'Whatever happens necessarily
happens.' The same trap snares the Platonist (Platonizer?) who argues from
'Necessarily, whatever is known is true' to 'Whatever is known is necessarily
true.'
To put it another way, it is pragmatically impossible for me to use
114 CHAPTER FOUR
say that existence belongs to individuals is not to say that existence is a property
of individuals.
Note three things about this passage: (i) Quine endorses the general
existence/singular existence distinction in so many words; (ii) Quine appears to
confuse singular existence with singular existentials; (iii) general existence is
logically primitive, while singular existence is definable in terms of it. Indeed,
Quine speaks as if general existence is existence in the strict sense. Point (iii)
makes it clear that Quine is an instantiation theorist and thus stands in the
tradition of Frege and Russell. But is he an identitarian or an eliminativist?
Point (i) suggests that he is an identitarian, while point (ii) in conjunction with
his explication of 'a exists' in terms of '(::Jx)(x = a)' suggests that he is an
eliminativist, at least with respect to singular existentials if not with respect to
singular existence.
We now proceed to examine Quine's explication of 'a exists' in terms
of '(::Jx)(x =a). ,36 As remarked, point (i) suggests that Quine is an identitarian,
one who admits singular existence; so let us first see what the explication
amounts to on an identitarian reading. My strategy is, first, to argue that Quine's
explication cannot reasonably support an identitarian interpretation, and second,
to argue that it is also not susceptible of an eliminativist interpretation. I
conclude that it is the waffling between them that gives Quine's theory of
existence its plausibility.
The Identitarian Construal. Note for starters that a formula like '(::Jx)(x
=a)' is to be evaluated relative to a universe of discourse containing only
existing objects and no Meinongian objects. That this is Quine's intention is
clear from his animadversions against 'Wyman' (who more or less stands in for
Meinong) in "On What There Is," and from his constant references to the
particular quantifier as an existential quantifier. Given this, it is surely a trivial
truth that a exists if and only if there is an x identical to a. For if there is an x
identical to a, this cannot be the case unless a exists. Mter all, it is a and
nothing else that is the value of the bound variable in '(::Jx)(x = a).' Thus
Quine's explication gives us no new insight into what the existence of an
individual consists in. We can put this by saying that the explication is circular:
the existence of a is explicated in terms of a's identity with something that
118 CHAPTER FOUR
exists. But since this thing that exists is a, this boils down to an explication of
the existence of a in terms ofthe existence of a. No explication ofthe existence
of a in other or more fundamental terms has been provided. Both explicandum
and explicans require that existence be first-level. So rather than being an
analysis of singular existentials that dispenses with first-level existence, or
reduces it to something else, Quine's proposal presupposes first-level existence.
There is this difference, however. In the singular sentence' a exists' the
burden of objective reference is borne by the singular term 'a.' But in the
existentially general formula '(:Jx)(x =a)' the burden is supposed to be shifted
to the bound variable which refers without naming. It is Quine's well-known
doctrine that bound variables, represented in English by 'something,' 'nothing,'
and 'everything,' "refer to entities generally with a kind of studied ambiguity
peculiar to themselves.'>37 Thus in 'Something is (identical to) a,' which is just
an ordinary language transcription of '(:Jx)(x = a),' it is 'something' that does
the referring and not 'a.' Now the idea that objective reference is routed through
quantified variables as opposed to names is not exactly clear; but to pursue this
line of critique would take us too far afield. But even if this idea be granted, it
is not easy to see why 'a' in '(3x)(x =a)' should play no referential role.
One might argue that 'a,' though no longer in the limelight, is still
shouldering the referential burden. For the x in question is identical to a. 'a'
must come into the explicans to insure that it is a that gets referred to and not
something else. The explicans thus only appears to be a general statement; in
reality it is as singular as the explicandum. Whether we say that a exists or say
instead that a is such that something is identical to it, the content of our assertion
is about a and so is singular. Likewise in the case 'a does not exist' explicated
as '-(:Jx)(x =a).' Whether we say that a does not exist or say instead that a is
such that nothing is identical to it, the content of our assertion is about a and so
is singular.
Allow me to expatiate on this last point a bit. Negative singular
existentials like 'Pegasus does not exist' pose well-known problems as we saw
in the section preceding. But rendering 'Pegasus does not exist' as '-(3x)(x =
Pegasus)' leads to no improvement whatsoever. For what the quantified formula
says is that Pegasus is diverse from each thing that exists. But surely any puzzle
to which 'Pegasus does not exist' gives rise will also be engendered by 'Pegasus
is diverse from each thing that exists.' For if Pegasus is diverse from each thing
that exists, must not Pegasus exist in order to be thus diverse?
Summing up the identitarian reading, we can say that it leads to
circularity and offers no solution to the problem of negative singular existentials.
The Eliminativist Construal. A defender of Quine might say that the
identitarian reading is wrongly foisted upon Quine, and gets the details wrong:
the logical form of '(:Jx)(x = a)' is general, not singular despite the occurrence
of 'a' in it, and parsing 'a does not exist' as '-(3x)(x = a)' does afford a solution
to the problem of negative singular existentials. What's more, there is no
IS EXISTENCE A PROPERTY OF PROPERTIES? 119
circularity. But to appreciate this, the Quine defender continues, one must
realize that Quine's explication of 'a exists' in terms of '(3x)(x = a)' is a
contextual definition in which 'a exists' taken as a whole is replaced by a
sentence in which neither 'a' (as an independent semantic unit) nor 'exists'
occurs. Since neither of these terms occurs in the explicans, there is no
circularity; nevertheless, the entire meaning of the explicandum is captured.
This eliminativist construal of Quine's explication works only on two
conditions. The first is that 'a' be replaceable by '= a' and this in tum by a
general term. The second is that the context '(3x)( ... x ... )' be construable as a
second-level predicate. Suppose we take these points in order.
A. If '(3x)(x = a)' is to be a truly general statement, despite the
presence in it of singular term 'a,' then it must be parsed in such a way that 'a'
no longer occurs in it as an independent semantic unit. Otherwise, it could be
read as 'a is identical to something' which is obviously singular. The way to do
this is by, first, thinking of 'a' as indissolubly linked to '=,' and thus not capable
of standing on its own, and second, by replacing '= a' with a general term, a
predicate constant, call it 'A' which is true solely of the individual a. Quine
makes this move. 38 It is a recurrent theme of his that names are eliminable
through contextual definition. In Word and Object he makes the point by saying
that "purely referential occurrences of singular terms other than variables can be
got down to the type '= a' ."39 This shows that "'= a' taken as a whole is in effect
a predicate or general term.... "40 The upshot is that the explicans of 'a exists'
becomes '(::Jx)(Ax)' which is undisputably general. 'Socrates exists' would then
be explicated as 'There is an x such that x socratizes' or 'Something socratizes.'
'Pegasus does not exist' would be rendered as 'Nothing pegasizes.' And so on.
Clearly, 'Nothing pegasizes' is not paradoxical in the way of 'Pegasus does not
exist.'
The replacement of empty names like 'Pegasus' with general terms
seems unproblematic. But it is difficult to see how a name like 'Socrates,'
which designates a genuine individual, could be replaced by a general term. To
be able to understand' Something socratizes,' one must be able to understand the
predicate 'socratizes.' But surely no one can understand this predicate without
understanding it as an abbreviation of 'is identical with Socrates.' What the
eliminativist construal demands, however, is that 'socratizes' be understood as
an indivisible semantic unity, and thus not as built up out of an understanding
of 'Socrates' and 'is identical with' taken separately. This demand cannot be
satisfied. The problem in a nutshell is that there is no general description that
captures the haecceity or thisness of Socrates. He may be the sole teacher of
Plato in the actual world, but there are other possible worlds in which he does
not satisfy this description. Since this is a theme familiar in recent philosophy
of language, I will not belabor it any further.
B. Suppose I am wrong about this and that '(::Jx)(x = a)'
unproblematically gives way to '(::Jx)(Ax),' which is undisputably general. Still,
120 CHAPTER FOUR
a second step is needed for the viability of the eliminativist construal. It is not
enough to eliminate 'a', we must also so interpret '(3x)( ...x ... )' that it does not
imply that existence is attributable to individuals. Otherwise, there would be no
elimination of singular existence. The way to do this is to construe the latter
expression as second-level predicate, one that cannot be meaningfully attached
to a name for an individual. Thus one could read it as the predicate 'is satisfied,'
which, when attached to the first-level predicate 'A' results in the sentence 'A
is satisfied.' But this is precisely what Quine does not do. He interprets
'(3x)( ...x ... )' objectually (as opposed to substitutionally) to mean: there is
(exists) an x such that.. .. ' So what '(3x)(Ax)' says is that there exists an x such
that x is A. Since the value of the bound variable in this case is a, what the
quantified expression says, in effect, is that a exists. The existence of a is the
fact that makes it true that (3x)(x =a). Thus Quine is committed to the view that
there is first-level existence, that existence belongs to individuals. Quine is by
no means an eliminativist with respect to singular existence. At the very most
he eliminates singular existentials. It is only by confusing singular existence
with singular existentials that one could think he has eliminated the former.
Recall that we found evidence of such confusion in the passage quoted above.
Quine's Major Dicta Inconsistent. Another way of seeing this is by
exploring the tension between Quine's two most famous ontological dicta,
"Existence is what existential quantification expresses," and "To be is to be the
value of a [bound] variable." These pull in opposite directions. The first, taken
neat, implies that existence is a property of properties (or cognate items, Fregean
Begriffe, Russellian propositional functions, etc.) and never a property of
individuals. The second, taken neat, implies that individuals are or exist. These
are doctrines that don't mix; or else their mixture evolves inconsistency. How
so?
We know from "On What There Is" that for Quine, to be = to exist.
Against Wyman and other whipping boys, Quine denies any distinction here.
There are no modes or kinds of being. Whatever exists exists in the same way.
Now a -- a itself and not the name 'a' -- is the value of the bound variable in
'(3x)(Ax).' Values of a variable are not to be confused with their substituends.
It therefore follows from the second dictum that a exists. It follows in other
words that existence is legitimately attributable to a. The argument can put as
follows.
a. If x is the value of a bound variable, then x is or exists.
b. a is the value of the bound variable in '(3x)(Ax).'
Therefore
c. a is or exists given that '(3x)(Ax)' is true.
'Exists' must therefore be an admissible first-level predicate. This in
tum implies that Quine's explication of 'a exists' in terms of '(3x)(x =a)' must
be given an identitarian interpretation. It must be read as presupposing that there
is singular existence and that affirmative singular existentials are meaningful as
IS EXISTENCE A PROPERTY OF PROPERTIES? 121
they stand. By 'meaningful as they stand,' I mean that they do not need analysis
to lay bare their true logical form: their logical form coincides with their
grammatical form. Grammatically, 'a exists' appears to attribute existence to
a. If, as has just been shown, affirmative singular existentials are meaningful as
they stand, then this appearance coincides with reality.
But this conflicts with the first dictum, "Existence is what existential
quantification expresses," which is most naturally taken to mean that 'exist(s)'
is a second-level and never a first-level predicate. It is most naturally taken to
mean that existence is just general existence, and that there is no singular
existence. This tension amounts to a waffling between an identitarian and an
eliminativist reading of Quine's explication of 'a exists.' Quine's objectual
understanding of the quantifiers implies that individuals exist; his commitment
to the idea that existence is expressed by the existential quantifier, however,
implies that individuals do not exist.
It is important to note that Quine has, and can have, no principled
objection to first-level uses of 'exists' as do Frege and Russell. He nowhere
says or implies that it is meaningless to attach 'exists' to a logically proper
name. Indeed, he implies the opposite. In "On What There Is" we read: "we
commit ourselves to an ontology containing Pegasus when we say Pegasus is.
But we do not commit ourselves to an ontology containing Pegasus ... when we
say that Pegasus .. .is not.,,41 Note the asymmetry: 'a exists,' whether true or
false, is ontologically committing, but 'a does not exist,' whether true or false,
is not ontologically committing. A name by itself is not ontologically
committing, and this for the simple reason that some of the terms that count
grammatically as names, like 'Pegasus,' are empty. But a name concatenated
with 'exists' is ontologically committing. Now if an utterance of 'a exists'
commits us to an ontology containing a, then, if 'a exists' is true, it follows that
a exists, and we are surely entitled to express this by saying, 'a exists.' Quine
can therefore have no objection to 'exists' as a legitimate first-level predicate.
Another reason why he can have no such objection is that his
explication of 'a exists' in terms of '(:=Jx)(x = a)' objectually interpreted
presupposes the meaningfulness of 'a exists' as it stands, i.e., as attributing
existence to a. Objectually interpreted, what the quantified formula says is that
there exists an x such that x =a, which of course boils down to the claim that a
exists. Compare the situation where the quantified formula is interpreted
substitutionally. Substitutionally interpreted, '(:=Jx)(x =a)' is true if and only if
there is a term which, when substituted for 'x,' yields a true sentence. Thus
interpreted, the quantified formula is ontologically noncommittal and thus
cannot serves as the explicans of 'a exists.'
Note also that, a few lines before giving his explication, Quine tells us
that" 'a' is used to name an object [in a theory] if and only if the statement' a
exists' is true for the theory. He goes on: "This is less satisfactory only [my
emphasis] insofar as the meaning of 'exists' may have seemed less settled than
122 CHAPTER FOUR
quantifiers and identity.,,42 Clearly, the quantified formula merely regiments 'a
exists' which is meaningful as it stands. The point is that, at the most, Quine
shows how one can for certain purposes dispense with singular existentials, but
not that one must dispense with them. Affirmative singular existentials need not
be dispensed with; they can be allowed to stand. 'Pegasus exists,' even though
it is false, causes no trouble. Nor does 'Socrates exists.' (I am now following
Quine in using 'exists' tenselessly.) Quine nowhere argues that if 'exists' were
an admissible first-level predicate, then true affirmative singular existentials
would be tautologically true. It is only negative singular existentials that must
be dispensed with. The same goes for names. At the very most, Quine shows
how to eliminate them; it is apparently not his view that they must be eliminated.
The Fregean C.J.F. Williams sees quite clearly the difference between
Quine and Frege. According to Quine's famous dictum, "To be is to be the value
of a variable." Let our example be 'There is someone who alone wrote
Waverley.' From Russell we learned how to put this in canonical notation:
'(:3x)(x wrote Waverley & (y) (y wrote Waverley -> y = x)).' Now the unique
value of the individual variable 'x' is the object Scott. Thus we can say that
Scott is the value of a variable. Since Scott is an object in Frege's sense, ' .. .is
the value of a variable' is a first-level predicate. It follows that ' .. .is' is a first-
level predicate if "To be is to be the value of a variable." Quine's famous
dictum therefore implies that 'is' and 'exists' - between which there is no
distinction for Quine - are admissible first-level predicates. But the whole point
of Frege's theory is to deny that ' .. .is' or ' ... exists' are admissible first-level
predicates Quine's view is therefore quite distinct from Frege' S.43 Frege's view
is unambiguously eliminativist; Quine's is not: he waffles between
eliminativism and identitarianism.
to. CONCLUSION
NOTES
1 A specific individual is not one that is specified by anyone or named by anyone, but simply a
particular individual. A specific individual may not have a name, or indeed may be unnameable.
2 Note that the property of being the wisest Greek philosopher is multiply exemplifiable in the
sense that in different possible worlds different individuals exemplify it.
4 Cf. A. Plantinga, "The Boethian Compromise," American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 15, no.
2 (April 1978), pp. 129-138.
5 Cf. Robert M. Adams, "Actualism and Thisness," Synthese 49 (1981), pp. 3-41.
6 G. W. F. Hegel, Phaenomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1952), pp. 79-
89.
7 Cf. Robert M. Adams, "Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity," The Journal of Philosophy,
vol. LXXVI, no. 1 (January 1979), pp. 5-26.
8 Cf. G. E. L. Owen, "Aristotle on the Snares of Ontology," in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle,
ed. Renford Bambrough (London, 1965). See also Alan Code, "The Philosophical Significance
of the Middle Books of Aristotle's Metaphysics," University of Dayton Review, vol. 19, no. 3
(Winter 1988-1989), pp. 81-91.
9 Robin Attfield, "How Things Exist: A Difficulty," Analysis, vol. 33, no. 4 (March 1973), p. 142.
12 Gottlob Frege, "Dialogue with Puenjer on Existence," Posthumous Writings, trans. Peter Long
and Roger White (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 53-67.
13 Gottlob Frege, "On Concept and Object" Translations from the Philosophical Writings of
Gottlob Frege, trans. Peter Geach and Max Black (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), p. 50.
14 "We can say that the meanings of the word 'exist' in the sentences 'Leo Sachse exists' and
'Some men exist' display no more difference than do the meanings of 'is a German' in the
sentences 'Leo Sachse is a German' and 'Some men are Germans'." Gottlob Frege, "Dialogue with
Puenjeron Existence" in Posthumous Writings, trans. Peter Long and Roger White (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 66.
15 According to Russell, "If you say that 'Men exist, and Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates
exists', that is exactly the same sort of fallacy as it would be if you said 'Men are numerous,
Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is numerous', because existence is a predicate of a
propositional function, or derivatively of a class." "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism" in Logic
and Knowledge (New York: Capricorn Books, 1971), p. 233. Russell repeats the point in
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1971), p. 164. He goes
on to say (p. 165) that "a exists" is a "mere noise or shape, devoid of significance" and that "... by
bearing in mind this simple fallacy we can solve many ancient philosophical puzzles concerning
the meaning of existence." Russell applies this to the Ontological Argument in A History of
Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1945), p. 787: "I think it may be said quite
decisively that, as a result of analysis of the concept 'existence,' modem logic has proved this
argument [the Ontological Argument] invalid. This is not a matter of temperament or of social
system; it is a purely technical matter."
17 It might be wondered whether what I am calling an equivocation might also, and perhaps better,
be thought of as an analogy, specifically, an analogy of attribution rather than an analogy of proper
proportionality. Accordingly, individuals exist properly speaking whereas concepts, properties and
the like exist to the extent that they apply to, or are instantiated by, individual existents. This,
124 CHAPTER FOUR
however, has the unwelcome consequence that there are no uninstantiated properties, a
consequence that does not accrue if we take the equivocity approach. For present purposes we
need not decide between analogy and equivocity; we need only reject univocity.
18 Peter Geach, "Aquinas" in Three Philosophers (Basil Blackwell & Mott Ltd., 1961), pp. 90-91.
19 Gottlob Frege, "Dialogue with Puenjer on Existence" in Posthumous Writings, trans. Peter Long
and Roger White (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 66.
21 Milton K. Munitz, Existence and Logic (New York University Press, 1974), pp. 87-88.
23 Gottlob Frege, Translationsfrom the Philosophical Writings ofGottlob Frege, op. cit., p. 104.
24 This is not to say that there are not other criticisms to which this argument succumbs.
25 Cf. W. V. Quine, "On What There Is" in From a Logical Point of View (New York and
Evanston: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 2.
26 " ••• existence is not an attribute. For, when we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert
that it exists: so that if existence were itself an attribute, it would follow that all positive existential
propositions were tautologies, and all negative existential propositions self-contradictory; and this
is not the case." A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover Books, 1952), p. 43.
28 Brian Davies, "Does God Create Existence?" International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XXX,
no. 2 (June 1990), p. 152.
29 Some sets are self-membered (e.g., the set of all things not in my pocket); some sets are non-
self-membered (e.g., the set of all philosophers). Now consider R, the set of all non-self-membered
sets. Is R self-membered or not? Clearly, R is self-membered if and only if R is non-self-
membered, which is a contradiction.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., p. 93.
34W. V. Quine, "Existence and Quantification," Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 97.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid., p. 94.
38 W. V. Quine, Philosophy of Logic, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 25.
IS EXISTENCE A PROPERTY OF PROPERTIES? 125
39 W. V. Quine, Word and Object, 8th ed. (Cambridge: M.LT. Press, 1973), p. 178.
40 Ibid.
127
128 CHAPTER FIVE
all truth-bearers, or at least for all truth-bearers that need truth-makers, since
every statement, judgment, or proposition, whether general or singular, can be
expressed as an existential statement,judgment, or proposition. Sommers credits
Quine with this insight, but 1 should think that the credit oUght to go to Brentano
who advanced this thesis in 1874 in his Psychologie vom empirischen
Standpunkt. 18 But the point is plausible whatever its provenance. For example,
and this is my exfoliation of the central point, to say that some cats are mangy
is to say that mangy cats exist. To say that no cats are mangy is to say that
mangy cats do not exist. To say that all cats are mangy is to say that non-mangy
cats do not exist. To say that some cats are not mangy is to say that non-mangy
cats exist. To say that Mungojerrie is mangy is to say that mangy Mungojerrie
exists. To say that Mungojerrie is not mangy is to say that mangy Mungojerrie
does not exist. Sommers is silent on modal judgments, but presumably one
could extend the analysis to them as well. Accordingly, to say that Mungojerrie
might not have been mangy (Possibly, Mungojerrie is not mangy) is to say that
mangy Mungojerrie might not have existed (Possibly, mangy Mungojerrie does
not exist.) And so on.
Sommers takes these equivalences to imply that every state of affairs is
an existential state of affairs, and thus that no state of affairs is in the world. (I
will question the cogency of this reasoning below.) Recall the argument: (i) if
existential states of affairs were in the world, then existence would be a first-
level property. But (ii) existence is not a first-level property. Therefore, by
Modus Tollens, (iii) existential states of affairs are not in the world. Therefore,
(iv) states of affairs, which we need to satisfy the realist demand for truth-
makers, are states of the world. The tacit premise in the inference from (iii) to
(iv) may be that, since facts cannot be outside the world, if they are not in the
world, then they must be properties of the world. This is plausible, although 1
will later suggest that it is false. 1 will also raise questions about how a fact can
be assimilated to a property, a state of affairs to a state.
The upshot is that Sommers holds that although there is nothing in the
world corresponding to 'Mangy cats exist' or 'Some cats are mangy,' it does not
follow that there is nothing corresponding to these (asserted) sentences. What
corresponds to them is the extralinguistic truth-making fact of the world's being
{mangy cat}ish. In this way truth-realism is upheld but without intramundane
truth-makers.
1 said that Sommers' theory is motivated by an ontological question
about existential states of affairs, which goes hand in hand with a question about
the explication of such phrases as 'the existence of lions' and 'the nonexistence
of griffins,' and an epistemological question about how we can be said to know
or have evidentiary beliefs about existential states of affairs. The ontological
question arises because although we seem to need existential states of affairs -
if we are going to be realists - they cannot be located in the world. The
130 CHAPTER FIVE
is taken by Sommers, and plausibly taken, to be a state of affairs: but how can
I sense a state of affairs? I sense the cat and I sense furriness. But I do not
sense its furriness;21 equivalently, I do not sense the connection of cat and
furriness, or something in addition to the cat and furriness (the state of affairs).
The state of affairs is more than the sum of its constituents, being their
togetherness. But this togetherness appears to elude empirical detection.
The puzzle may be set forth as a aporetic triad:
1. One can observe the existence of cats.
2. The existence of cats is a fact.
3. One cannot observe facts.
The triad is logically inconsistent, since the conjunction of (1) and (2) logically
implies the negation of (3), and yet each of its members seems true. (1) That
there are cats in my house, I see (smell, hear, etc.) every day. I don't just
observe the cats; I observe their presence. (2) The existence of cats is an
objective truth-making fact. (3) But how can one observe a fact? The cats
appear, but neither existence, nor their existence, appears.
Enter Sommers' theory. On my reconstruction, Sommers dissolves the
aporia by denying (3), and he does this by viewing facts not as members of
domains, but as properties thereof. Suppose a cat is in a box. Let the box be the
Domain under Consideration (DC). Then what Sommers will say is that the
existence of the cat is a property of the box. "The objects in a physical DC are
perceived; the DC itself is 'apperceived."m I have sensory access to the
properties of the cat by perceiving the cat; I have sensory access to the properties
of the box (the physical DC) by apperceiving the box. But one of these
properties of the box is the existence of the cat. So by apperceiving the box, I
have sensory access to the existence of the cat. For the existence of the cat is
just a state ofthe box, the {cat}ishness of the box.
There is no denying the intuitive appeal of this theory. Since existence
is not a property of the cat, I cannot acquire sensory knowledge of the existence
of the cat (which presumably I have) by confining my attention to the cat. I need
to take a wider view and make a 'mondial ascent' (my term). Attending to the
box, I see that it contains a cat. Thus it is plausible (at first blush anyway) to say
that the existence of the cat is a property of the box.
This is an ingenious theory as can be seen from the fact that it can
explain our knowledge of nonexistence. Looking for Pierre in the cafe, I may
become aware of his absence. This is arguably a sensory awareness. I see that
Pierre is absent. My man is 'conspicuous by his absence.' Since I cannot be
sensing Pierre, what am I sensing? On Sommers' theory I am sensing
(apperceiving) the cafe or perhaps my visual field as un{Pierre }ish. The
nonexistence of Pierre is thus a property or state of the cafe, a state to which I
have sensory access in virtue of my sensory access to the cafe.
Sommers' theory, then, is a serious contender. It explains what facts
132 CHAPTER FIVE
are, namely states of a domain, and how they can be known. To appreciate the
appeal of Sommers' theory, one needs to appreciate how dubious the main 201h
century theory is, namely the Frege-Russell or 'Fressellian' theory according to
which (roughly, and ignoring the differences between our two luminaries)
existence is a property of properties, the property of being instantiated.
Consider the existence of my hand. It would be nice to have a theory that
accounts for the following Moorean data: I see my hand; by seeing my hand, I
see that my hand exists. But the 'Fressellian' theory is hopeless in this regard.
No doubt my hand instantiates various properties and concepts and satisfies
sundry descriptions. But the existence of my hand cannot consist in, i.e., be
identical to, the fact that any property or concept is instantiated, or any
description is satisfied. Things exist at times and at possible worlds in which no
descriptions and no concepts exist, and even if concepts and properties are
necessary beings, it is still difficult to see how the existence of a concrete object
could consist in the instantiation of an abstract object. To put it somewhat
vaguely, but in a manner neutral as between Sommers' theory and the theory I
will be proposing, the existence of a concrete object pertains to the objective
world, and not to the concepts by means of which we gain access to the world.
Nor, when I see that my hand exists, am I seeing that a property or cognate item
is instantiated. Properties and concepts are not the sorts of items that can be
seen.
Sommers' theory is beginning to look very attractive. If existence is
neither a first-level property, nor a second-level property, and if, as seems
obvious, there is a real distinction between an individual and its existence, then
what else could the existence of an individual consist in but its being a member
of the world? Equivalently, what else could existence be but a property of the
world?
2. SOMMERS ON EXISTENCE: CRITIQUE
other direction hides the existential commitment while laying bare the
copulation. But what is hidden does not cease to exist. Clearly, both sentences
have both copulative and existential elements. Indeed, all predicative sentences
have both elements, even those that lack existential import in the narrow sense.
If 'All Italians are mafiosi' is parsed as 'If x is an Italian, then x is a mafioso,'
then the analysandum sentence is said to lack existential import (in the narrow
sense): it is not being assumed that there are any Italians. But the analysandum
is surely equivalent to 'Non-mafia Italians do not exist,' which, by making a
claim of nonexistence, has existential import in the broad sense.
If all predicative sentences have both copulative and existential
elements, then every truth-maker of a predicative sentence must have both
elements. The truth-maker of 'Fat Al exists,' then, must have a copulative
element corresponding to the 'is' in 'AI is fat.' Recall that 'Fat Al exists' is
elliptical for' AI, who is fat, exists.' But the world's containing fat Al -- which
is the truth-maker Sommers' theory prescribes -- does not have a copulative
element corresponding to the 'is' in 'AI is fat.' Sommers' world, unlike
Wittgenstein's, is a totality of things, not of facts.26 Fat Al is not a fact but a
thing (individual). As such, he has no copulative element, and so cannot make
true 'AI is fat.' What is needed to do this job is the state of affairs, AI's being
fat. This state of affairs, however, cannot be in the world on Sommers' theory.
But when it is transformed into a state of the world, the copulative element gets
lost. The world's containing fat AI, i.e., the world's being {fat AI}ish, cannot
therefore be the truth-maker of 'Fat Al exists.'
The crucial point is that if the world contains something fat and the
world contains AI, it does not follow that the world contains fat AI. For the
world to contain fat AI, it must contain not only Al and (an instance of) fatness,
but also the fact of AI's instantiating fatness. But there are no facts in Sommers'
world; all facts are existential properties of the world, properties having to do
with the presence or absence of individuals in the world. There is, however, no
individual in the world that can account for the 'copulation' of Al and fatness.
Bear in mind that I am assuming, with Sommers, that we need truth-makers, and
that truth-makers are facts. Neither the individual fat AI, nor the world's
containing fat AI, therefore, can be the truth-maker of 'AI is fat.'
What I have just shown is that, even though it is true that every
predicati ve sentence can be expressed as an existential sentence, it is false that
every truth-making fact is a purely existential fact, and thus false that every fact
is a mondial attribute. AI's being fat is not purely existential, even if AI's
existence is purely existential. To further nail down the point, consider 'Some
cats are mangy.' This is logically equivalent to 'Mangy cats exist.' But a mangy
cat is a cat that is mangy: 'mangy' does a robust characterizing job in 'mangy
cat' that 'pussy' does not do in 'pussycat' and that 'mammalian' does not do in
'mammalian cat.' The existence of mangy cats thus involves an irreducible
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 135
copulative element. It is possible that a world containing both cats and mangy
critters not contain mangy cats in the way in which it is not possible that a world
containing both cats and mammals not contain mammalian cats. It is some kind
of necessary truth that cats are mammals, but no kind of necessary truth that cats
are mangy. So if individuals have some of their properties contingently, then the
copulative element is surely ineliminable. It is a fallacy to think that, just
because predications can be expressed as existentials, existentials lack a
copulative element and that their truth-makers lack a copulative element.
so good. But the cafe's being {Guido }ish is itself a fact. For the property of
being {Guido }ish is an instantiated property: it would be a category mistake to
identify a fact with an uninstantiated property, and on a charitable interpretation
of Sommers' theory, one cannot impute such a mistake to him. Now the
instantiation of the property of being {Guido }ish by the cafe is just the fact of
the cafe's being {Guido} ish. So what we have done is traded an intra-domain
fact (the existence of Guido) for a higher-order fact (the cafe's being
{Guido }ish) the subject-constituent of which is a domain. We have jettisoned
the lower-order fact, but only by taking on board a higher-order fact.
Now this higher-order fact cannot remain unreduced lest we be left with
an innerworldly fact on our hands, which is to say, a fact with an unreduced
copulative element. Presumably the higher-order fact will reduce - given that
the cafe is in the North End - to a property of the North End, namely, the
property of being {Guido-in-the-cafe }ish. Butthe North End's being {Guido-in-
the-cafe }ish is in its tum a fact, and thus a property of a more inclusive domain,
Boston. And so it will go until we arrive at the maximally inclusive domain, the
totality of everything that actually and presently exists. Call this domain
'MAX.' Now since our man cannot be in the cafe unless he is in MAX, we need
not monkey with the smaller domains; we can say straightaway that the
existence of Guido is a property of MAX, the property of being {Guido }ish.
Indeed, we must say this since Guido cannot be in the cafe without being in
MAX: we must make the 'mondial ascent.' But surely MAX's being
{Guido} ish is itself a fact. Here, however, the 'mondial ascent' must end.
There is no wider domain of which this state of affairs can be a state. This
implies that although some facts can be reduced to existential properties of
domains, not all facts can be so reduced. So some facts - call them 'world-
facts' - are not existential properties. Thus there are two kinds of facts, ordinary
facts, which are existential properties of a domain, properties pertaining to the
"presence in it or absence from it of certain constituents,,28 and world-facts
which are not existential properties of domains. World-facts, then, cannot be
explicated in terms of the presence or absence of constituents in domains. This
implies that such world-facts as MAX's being {Guido }ish are irreducibly
copulative. For there is no SUPERMAX such that MAX's being {Guido }ish
can be explicated as a property of SUPERMAX, namely, the property of being
{Guido-in-MAX}ish, i.e., the property of containing Guido-in-MAX.
In this way we arrive at 'the revenge of copulation.' Maltreated,
marginalized and 'mondialized,' the copulative element in facts returns with a
vengeance at the apex of the mondial ascent. Since world-facts are irreducibly
copUlative, world-facts cannot be properties of the world, and so they must be
in the world. Hence MAX's being {Guido}ish is in MAX. Where else could
it be? And since everything that actually and presently exists is in MAX, for
every x in MAX, there is the fact of MAX's being {x}ish. All of these facts are
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 137
in MAX.
But now we are back to the original problem that was supposed to be
solved by thinking of facts as existential properties of domains. The original
problem has a special form and a general form. The special form of the problem
is that an existential fact like Quine's existence cannot be in the world unless
existence is a first-level property, which it clearly is not. The general form is
that it is difficult to see how any fact can be in the world. I'll have more to say
about this later, but for now, the general problem is that it is difficult to
reconcile the truth that a fact is more than its constituents, being their unity, with
the truth that a fact is nothing over and above its constituents. Sommers'
solution to the general problem is that all facts are existential properties of
domains, and thus that no fact is in any domain: facts are properties of domains.
But the 'revenge of copulation' shows that Sommers' solution is merely
apparent. World-facts, as irreducibly copulative, cannot be properties of the
world, and so must be in the world. Thus we are stuck with the problem of how
a fact like the world's being {Quine} ish can be in the world.
What is a Domain? To evaluate the claim that existence is a property of
domains, we need to know exactly what a domain is. Sommers' definitions,
although clear on the surface, leave thorny questions unanswered. "By a domain
we mean the (nonempty) totality of things that is under consideration when a
given assertive claim has been made. The actual world is the domain of 'there
are no elves.,,29 But not every domain is actua1. 30 Thus there is a fictional
domain relative to which 'there are elves' is true. What then distinguishes the
actual world from domains that are not actual? Are there both existing and
nonexisting domains? If yes, what is for a domain to exist? Is a domain a
collection or is it an individual in its own right? These are some of the questions
that arise. To discuss them properly, we need to make some distinctions. My
strategy will be to distinguish different sorts of domain, and then to ask which
sort of domain is such that membership in it could be what the existence of an
individual consists in.
A domain is either a collection or a non-collection, and a non-collection
is either an individual in its own right or a dependent individual. The set of all
my books is an example of a collection, and so is the set of natural numbers,
while my visual field and my bookcase are non-collections, with the bookcase
being an individual in its own right, and the visual field a dependent individual:
it depends on the subject whose visual field it is. Although a set is distinct from
each of its members (if any), and from its membership - call this the extension
of the set - a set is not something over and above its members. It is not 'an
addition to being' but 'an ontological free lunch.'31 If the members exist, the set
'automatically' exists. Indeed, the set exists because the members exist, and not
vice versa. Membership may have its privileges, but there is no club the joining
of which will confer existence on you. First (logically speaking) you have to
138 CHAPTER FIVE
exist, and only then (logically speaking) can you join a club or apply for set-
membership. The same goes for mereological sums. Thus as I shall use
'collection,' a collection is parasitic upon its members: it exists because they
exist and not vice versa. This strikes me as self-evident and non-negotiable.
A domain that is a collection I shall call a 'collective domain.' All other
domains I shall call 'non-collective.' A visual field, which I am distinguishing
from the collection of objects in the visual field, is an example of a non-
collective domain in that it is in some sense or other prior to what appears
within it. It is as it were the 'horizon' within which visual objects appear, and
so cannot be built up out of them in any sense analogous to the way a set is built
up out of its members. It would be absurd to hold that a visual field is a set of
visual data or a merelogical sum of visual data. (For one thing, sets and sums
have their members essentially, but visual fields and sensory fields generally
gain and lose data. As I hike over hill and hollow, ever new sights come into
and pass out of my visual field.) But on the other hand, a visual field is not an
individual that exists in its own right, but is anchored in, ontologically
dependent on, a visual subject. It would be absurd to hold that my visual field
could exist if I were not to exist. A domain that is an individual in its own right
I shall call an individual domain. A bookcase, for example, is an individual in
its own right. And so was the box my cat was in a moment ago. On the one
hand, a box is not a set or sum of smaller parts;32 on the other hand, as a
substance (=df a thing ontologically capable of independent existence), it is not
onto logically dependent on anything, which is not to say that it is not causally
dependent on anything.
Three Lemmata. I now prove three lemmata from which I will infer my
main critical conclusion.
Lemma 1. No individual is such that its existence could consist in a
collective domain's - a collection's -- containing it. Equivalently, no individual
is such that its existence could be an attribute of any collection. Proof Suppose
for reductio that (i) Mungo exists in virtue of his being a member of the
collection of cats. It follows, by the asymmetry of 'in virtue of,' that (ii) the
collection of cats does not exist (wholly or in part) in virtue of the existence of
Mungo. But we have just seen that (iii) a collection exists in virtue of the
existence of its members. Since Mungo is a member of the collection of cats,
it follows that (iv) the collection of cats does exist (wholly or in part) in virtue
of the existence of Mungo. But (iv) contradicts (ii); hence, (i) is false. Since
'Mungo' stands in for any individual, and 'collection of cats' stands in for any
collection, we may conclude that Lemma 1 holds in full generality.
It follows from Lemma 1 that existence cannot be a mondial attribute if
a world or the world is a collection. It seems hopelessly circular to say that the
members of a collection exist in virtue of being in the collection, when the
collection itself exists in virtue of the existence of its members. There are
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 139
must still exist in order to be in the collection. For an existing collection could
not actually have a member if that member is nonexistent. (If there is a
collection of the fauna of Greek mythology, that collection is as nonexistent as
its members.)
Part of the problem here is that Sommers seems to slide from 'universe
of discourse' to 'universe,' from 'domain under consideration' and 'world' in
the logical sense of 'domain of a claim' to 'external world' and 'real world.'
It is one thing to say that (a) the existence of a galaxy is a property of a universe
of discourse; quite another to say that (b) the existence of a galaxy is a property
of the physical universe. The (a)-claim invites the circularity objection, but it
is not so clear that the (b)-claim does. The (b)-claim, however, seems not
consistent with Sommers' overall doctrine.
The physical universe is a spatio-temporal system of causally interacting
concrete individuals, and is itself plausibly viewed as a concrete individual in
its own right that came into existence some 15 billion years ago, is expanding
at such-and-such a rate, etc. But a universe of discourse whose members are
precisely the individuals in the physical universe is not a spatio-temporal system
of causally interacting individuals, itself concrete, with a temporal duration of
15 billion years, a rate of expansion, etc. The universe is expanding, but it
sounds like a category mistake to say that a universe of discourse is expanding.
It is something fixed, and we fix it to include whatever we want for the logical
purposes at hand. A universe of discourse is not a physical concrete individual
in its own right with physical properties, but a mere collection of things relevant
for the evaluation of claims that we make. Before claim-makers with their
discourse existed, presumably there were no universes of discourse; but there
was a physical universe.
Thus there is a clear difference between the (a)-claim and the (b)-claim.
Which of these does Sommers intend? He clearly is making the (b)-claim in the
second to last quoted passage where he says, contra Frege and Russell, that the
existence of galaxies beyond the Milky Way is a property of the external world,
a feature of the (physical) universe. But he is not entitled to make the (b)-claim
given the rest of what he says. For the denial that existence is a property of
individuals implies a denial that existence is a property of the physical universe,
given that the physical universe is a physical individual in its own right.
Existence is not a property of the physical universe, but of the domain consisting
of the physical universe. In general, an individual cannot be its own domain,
any more than an individual can be its own set. Quine is distinct from the set
consisting of Quine: sets have members, individuals do not. Likewise, Quine is
distinct from the domain consisting of Quine: existence is predicable of
domains, but not of individuals. And what holds for Quine holds for the
physical universe.
Furthermore, the existence of the physical universe is a fact, but it is not
MONDIAL ATTRlBUTE THEORIES 141
a fact whose subject-constituent could be the physical universe. For again, this
would imply that existence is a first-level property. Hence the existence of the
physical universe must on Sommers' theory be a property of a domain
containing the physical universe. If this domain is the actual world, then we
must conclude that the actual world is to be scrupulously distinguished from the
physical universe. In any case, the actual world must be distinguished from the
physical universe since the actual world contains all sorts of things that cannot
be located in the physical universe such as propositions and all nonactual
domains. 35
The circularity objection, then, remains in force. But there is perhaps
a way to defend Sommers' theory against the circularity objection which arises
when a world or domain is taken to be a collection. The objection assumes that
Sommers' theory is an identitarian rather than an eliminativist theory. An
identitarian theory of existence inquires into what it is for an individual to exist,
on the assumption that there is a sense in which individuals do in fact exist, a
sense that needs and is susceptible of explication. Such a theory attempts to
identify the existence of an individual with something else, something 'more
respectable' or better understood, or less likely to give rise to such puzzles as
Plato's Beard. (Compare the identity theory in the philosophy of mind: mental
states, which are taken to exist all right, are identified with physical states which
are presumably theoretically more tractable and less likely to engender
puzzleS?6) An eliminativist theory of existence, on the other hand, makes the
much more radical move of denying that there is 'any such thing' as the
existence of individuals. (Compare the eliminativist in the philosophy of mind,
for whom mental states have the status of witches and goblins.) An eliminati vist
theory aims to replace the existence of individuals with something else. The
theories of Frege and Russell are both clearly eliminativist. If existence is a
property of concepts only, the property of having an instance, as on Frege's
theory, then it is clear that existence cannot in any sense belong to individuals.
It is simply senseless on Frege's theory to say of an individual that it is
instantiated. And if existence is a property of propositional functions, the
property of being 'sometimes true,' as on Russell's theory, then again it is
senseless to say of an individual that it exists. This is why Russell compares
existence with being numerous. Humans are numerous and humans exist. But
for Russell it is as senseless to say of Socrates that he exists as to say of him that
he is numerous. 'Numerous' and 'exist' can only be sensibly predicated of
classes?7
So if Sommers' theory is an eliminativist theory, then perhaps he can
escape the circularity objection?8 His theory cannot be accused of presupposing
the existence of members of domains, thereby moving in a circle, if the point
of the theory is to deny that there is 'any such thing' as the existence of
individuals. So interpreted, Sommers' theory will say that the existence of
142 CHAPTER FIVE
and simply deny that existence belongs to individuals, thereby eliminating the
very datum that we started out trying to understand, or we must go the
identitarian route and fall into circularity.
Thus, in my judgment, Sommers makes no real advance beyond Frege
and Russell. He clearly sees what is wrong with the 'Fressellian' theory, but his
own theory falls victim to the same difficulties.
There is a modal twist that also merits exploration. Not only does a
collection depend for its existence on the existence of its members, it also
depends on them for its very identity: collections have their members essentially.
So if the collection of presently existing cats contains mangy Mungo, then this
very collection - call it C - could not have been the very collection it is, and thus
could not have existed, had it not contained the distinguished feline in question.
Thus C not only depends for its existence on the existence of some members or
other, but on the existence of the very members it does in fact have. But surely
Mungo might not have been mangy, which is to say, given the expressibility of
predications as existentials, that mangy Mungo might not have existed. Now
how are we to understand this on Sommers' theory? He tells us how we should
understand specified existence and specified nonexistence, but what about
specified possible nonexistence (e.g., the possible nonexistence of cats, of
mangy Mungo, etc.) and specified possible existence (e.g., the possible existence
of cats who philosophize)? It is clear that the possible nonexistence of mangy
Mungo cannot consist in the possibility of C' s not containing him for the simple
reason that C necessarily contains him. And of course the same goes for any
collection containing him, no matter how big or small.
It is not clear that this modal point can be worked up into an objection
to Sommers' theory as opposed to a request for clarification. For it is not clear
that a sentence like 'Possibly, mangy Mungo does not exist' requires a truth-
maker. Sommers might argue as follows. 'Mangy Mungo does not exist' is not
true, but merely possibly true; not being true it needs no truth-maker. On the
other hand, 'Possibly, mangy Mungo does not exist,' although true is necessarily
true (by the characteristic S5 axiom of modal propositional logic according to
which Possibly P -> Necessarily possibly p), and what is necessarily true
likewise needs no truth-maker.
Nevertheless, the modal point that if x is a member of collection C, then
necessarily x is a member of C does underscore the vicious circularity of the
thesis that the existence of mangy Mungo consists in his membership in C.
There would be vicious circularity even if, per impossibile, collection-
membership were not essential; but given that it is essential, the circularity is all
the nastier.
My interim conclusion is that if worlds (domains) are collections, then
the circularity objection that Sommers rightly directs against the Frege-Russell
theory is chargeable against his own account, mutatis mutandis. But I should
144 CHAPTER FIVE
depends for its existence on me, then the existence of the elk depends on me,
which is absurd.
A third problem is that Sommers' theory does not solve a problem that
it advertises itself as being able to solve. Sommers says that "One wants an
account of facts that makes sense of their observability, allowing for the
perception ofthe fact that there is a rabbit."44 To perceive the fact that there is
a rabbit is to perceive the existence of a rabbit. But the existence of a rabbit is
not a property of the rabbit, and even if it were, it would not be an observable
property of the rabbit like its color. Thus on Sommers' theory the existence of
the rabbit is construed as a property of something else, its environment. If the
existence of the rabbit is to be perceivable, then this environment has to be of a
size that I can perceptually or apperceptually 'take in.' So suppose the existence
of arabbit is my backyard's being {rabbit}ish. (This cannot be right given what
was said a couple of paragraphs back about the existence of a thing being
essential to it, but let's not beat a dead rabbit.) The problem now is that,
although I perceive the rabbit and apperceive my backyard, do I perceive (or
apperceive) the rabbit's being in the backyard? I literally see the rabbit, and I
literally see the backyard, but do I literally see that the rabbit is in the backyard,
or that the backyard actually has a rabbit in it? There is no problem if our
concern is with the phenomenological presence of the rabbit, its presence-to me,
for that is consistent with there actually being no rabbit out there. There is no
question that the rabbit is given as a feature of the backyard, and that the
backyard is co-given as {rabbit}ish. But how make the move from the 'as' to
the 'is'? If the backyard is {rabbit}ish, then it is {rabbit}ish whether or not
anyone perceives it to be such. That's just what the meaning of 'is' is. Clinton
take note. But the backyard's being {rabbit} ish, as opposed to merely appearing
{rabbit}ish, is not something I perceive.
For consider: the content of my perception/apperception, namely the
backyard's being {rabbit} ish, is what it is whether or not the backyard actually
is {rabbit }ish. But then it is clear that I am not perceiving afact. For every fact
obtains. There are no merely possible facts, i.e., no facts in the mode of mere
possibility. It is not as if some facts obtain while others do not obtain. Facts are
extralinguistic and extramental truth-makers; as such, they cannot themselves
require truth-makers. They are nothing like Fregean propositions which can be
either true or false. So if I perceive a fact at all, I perceive an existing fact, and
my perceiving it assures me of its existence. But this is just to say that I cannot
perceive the fact of the backyard's being {rabbit}ish. For what I perceive is
what it is whether or not there actually is a rabbit in the backyard. What I
perceive is not a fact since it is itself in need of a truth-maker.
I conclude that Sommers has not succeeded in showing how facts are
perceivable. Construing facts as properties of domains does nothing to solve
this problem. If the existence of a rabbit is my backyard's being {rabbit} ish, this
146 CHAPTER FIVE
simply trades one problem for another, the problem of how we know existence
for the problem of how we know being, where 'being' signifies the connection
expressed by the copula 'is.' The dialectic went like this: since existence cannot
be a property of the rabbit, the rabbit's existence cannot be a fact in a world; so
the rabbit's existence is a property of a world (domain), the backyard's being
{rabbit}ish. But we cannot perceive the backyard's being {rabbit}ish, and
making a further 'mondial ascent' won't help either. The backyard's being
{rabbit} ish is presumably some wider domain's (e.g., the mountainside's) being
{rabbit-in-the-backyard}ish. But then the same problem arises once again. If
we ascend to the widest individual domain, the physical universe, we not only
have the same problem all over again, but we also reach something too big to be
perceived or apperceived.
Lemma 3. No individual is such that its existence could consist in any
non-maximal individual domain's containing it even if the domain is an
individual in its own right. Proof Suppose Pierre is in the cafe. Apart from the
problem that it is not essential to him that he be in the cafe, there is further
problem, namely, that his existence cannot consist in his being in the cafe unless
the cafe itself exists. For if the cafe does not exist then he can't be in it. And
if it does not exist, then it cannot have any properties, including the property of
being {Pierre }ish. But if the cafe exists, then its existence presumably consists
in its being a member of some wider domain. For if you say that the cafe just
exists, then you may as well say that Pierre just exists. If Pierre's existence
demands an explanation, then so does the cafe's. Now this wider domain cannot
be a collection (by Lemma 1), nor can it be a dependent individual (by Lemma
2). So this wider domain must be an individual in its own right. Either the
wider domain is non-maximal or it is maximal. If it is non-maximal, if e.g. the
existence of the cafe is said to consist in its being in Paris, then the process
repeats itself, until, passing through France, Europe, the earth, the solar
system, ... we arrive at a maximal individual in its own right.
From the three lemmata just proven we may infer that existence could
be a mondial attribute only if le monde, the world, is a maximal independent
individual which exists from itself and not from another, and which thus
necessarily exists. Only if the world is causa sui can we block the need to make
a further, but impossible, 'mondial ascent.' But now we are drifting towards
Spinozism, and I don't believe Sommers wants to go there. To be forced there
would constitute a reductio ad absurdum of the theory.
Do Any Domains Exist? Some of the foregoing objections to Sommers'
theory require the assumption that domains containing actual items exist.
According to one (but not the other) of the circularity arguments, for example,
the existence of a collection is parasitic on the existence of its members, in
which case the existence of the members cannot consist in their being members
of the collection. To assume that domains containing actual items exist seems
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 147
natural enough. How could I apperceive the cafe in which Pierre is conspicuous
by his absence if it didn't exist? Or if the domain is the objects in the cafe, how
could that domain not exist when the objects in it do? But Sommers denies that
domains exist. Mythological and past domains, for starters, do not exist. 'There
is a flying horse but no flying kangaroo' says that the domain of mythological
objects contains a flying horse but not a flying kangaroo. 45 The existence of
dinosaurs is a property of a past world. 46 This seems reasonable: if the
members of a domain do not exist, then the domain won't exist either.
Sommers also says that "Any totality is existentially characterized by the
presence of certain things and by the absence of certain things.,,47 Note the
quantifier 'any.' This implies that the domain of mythological objects is
existentially characterized by the presence in it of a flying horse and the absence
from it of a flying kangaroo. We can only conclude that the words 'existence,'
'presence,' and 'absence' are not being used by Sommers in their usual
ontological senses. He is using them quite obviously in an existentially-neutral
way. For if a nonexistent unicorn is present in a nonexistent domain, then
clearly 'presence' has nothing to with existence, and the existence of a unicorn
explicated as a property of such a nonexistent domain has nothing to do with
(pound the table) existence. Existence, like truth, is absolute. Existence in a
mythological domain is, in plain English, nonexistence.
Given all this, it would seem eminently reasonable to think that for an
actual item to exist it must be a member of an existing domain. For if the
existence of Quine consists in his being a member of a domain, then surely that
domain needs to exist if Quine is to exist. The actual world needs to exist if its
members are to exist. This is self-evident. Otherwise, there would be nothing
to distinguish the actual world from merely possible worlds, fictional worlds,
impossible worlds, past and future worlds (if we take pastness and futurity to
entail lack of actuality). To put it another way, if being a member of a domain
is consistent with an individual's being a nonexistent object, then being a
member of a domain does not suffice for a thing to exist (stamp the foot) in the
robust ordinary sense we want to understand. We have to go another step and
say that the domain in question is an existing domain, and that its existence gets
transmitted down to its members.
But, mirabile dictu, Sommers denies that the actual world itself exists,
and he has an excellent reason for the denial. Holding as he does that the
existence of elks and the nonexistence of elves are properties or states of the
world, he asks: "What of the world itself? Should we speak of it as existing?"
He concludes that "We need not think of the world as existing.,,48 For if our
present and actual world exists, then presumably its existence would be a
property of a super-domain, a domain of (possible) worlds. But then all the
worlds in this super-domain would exist. For each world in the super-domain
is a member of the super-domain: for each world W, the super-domain is
148 CHAPTER FIVE
{W} ish. Since each world is a member of the super-domain, being a member of
the super-domain confers no ontological privilege on any world. Thus
Sommer's theory implies that if one world exists, then all worlds exist. To allow
even one world to exist would thus be to embrace a 'mondial egalitarianism'
(my moniker) reminiscent of David Lewis' extreme modal realism, according
to which all possible worlds are on an ontological par. Sommers shrinks back
from this "drastic step,,,49 and rightly so. He therefore denies that the actual or
real world, 'our world,' exists. "What exists is present in (exists in) the world,
but while the world is real, it does not exist, nor do its properties."so The actual
world is real, but it doesn't exist.
But what could this mean? 'Exists,' 'actual,' and 'real' are typically
used interchangeably. So if the actual world is real but not existent, how does
reality differ from existence? Sommers contrasts the "real or actual world" with
"fictional, mock or nonactual domains." The latter are "expressive systems that
exist as intensional human products within the world, in much the way
propositions do."sl So the distinction between the real and the unreal is the
distinction between that which is not and that which is an intensional human
product. Thus Sommers' view seems to be that the real world does not exist,
because it is not a member of some wider domain; but it is nonetheless real,
because it is not an intensional human product.
This leaves us with two modes of being on our hands, existence and
reality, together with the suspicion that reality is or ought to be the genuine topic
here, rather than existence construed as Sommers construes it. Thus a
terminological 'switcheroo' has taken place. We started off wanting to know
what existence is, the genuine article, the existence of all this concrete stuff
around us, which is there whether we like it or not. But we are given a theory
that implies that to exist is just to be a member of a domain, a theory that has the
consequence that no domain itself exists. Since this is obviously unsatisfactory,
amounting as it does to an existentially-neutral theory of existence, we are then
told that, although the actual world does not exist, it is real. But then reality is
what we wanted to understand all along, though we began by calling it
'existence' !
To see this, consider an ordinary individual like Quine. Quine, unlike
the world, is both existent and real: existent, because he is in the world and real,
because he is not an intensional human product. Moreover, an entity's reality
would appear to be more fundamental than its existence. A non-intensional
entity cannot exist (be in the world) unless it is real, but a non-intensional entity
can be real without existing: the world is real but does not exist. Thus reality is
the true topic. What then is reality in positive terms? Is it a property of Quine?
Obviously not, and for the same reasons that existence is not a property of him.
Nor could it be a property of properties, and for the same reasons that existence
is not a property of properties. Is reality a mondial attribute? No again, for then
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 149
the world could not be real, for the same reason that the world cannot exist.
We are now at a complete dead-end. The mondial attribute theory of
existence has as a consequence that no world or domain can exist. But if no
domain exists, then nothing in any domain exists in the ordinary pre-analytic
sense of 'exists' which is what we set out to explicate and whose 'pre-thematic'
understanding is a pre-condition of the whole investigation. The reduction of
existence to mere domain-membership, which amounts to an existentially neutral
theory of existence, leaves us with reality about which we know nothing except
what it is not: not a first-level property, not a second-level property, not a
mondial property.
Let us conclude our critical discussion with a balance sheet. Sommers
is right on the following points. (i) Existence cannot be a first-level property; an
individual cannot exist in virtue of instantiating existence. (ii) Existence is not
a second-level property: it is not a property of properties, concepts, propositional
functions, descriptions, or any sort of logical, linguistic or conceptual item.
There is a clear sense in which the existence of galaxies beyond the Milky Way
is a 'feature of the world,' and not a feature of the logical or conceptual or
linguistic apparatus by means of which we gain epistemic and doxastic access
to the world. (iii) The existence of an individual is distinct from that individual,
and thus to perceive the existence of an individual is distinct from perceiving an
individual. (iv) Predications are expressible as existentials. (v) We need truth-
makers. (vi) Truth-makers are facts or states of affairs. (vii) There is a problem
concerning how a fact can be in the world.
Although Sommers is right on each of the foregoing points, he is wrong
about the following. (i) All facts are purely existential. Sommers needs to
establish this in order to establish that facts are properties of the world. But
although we saw that predicative sentences are expressible as existentials, it is
a fallacy to infer that existentials involve no copulative element, and thus a
fallacy to think that the truth-makers of existentials involve no copulative
element. (ii) The existence of an individual is a fact. Although the existence of
Quine is distinct from Quine, it does not follow that the existence of Quine is
fact. For there is an alternative, namely, that Quine is a fact, and the existence
of Quine is the unity of his ontological constituents. More on this below. (iii)
Existence is a mondial attribute. Although the existence of an electron, a planet,
a galaxy are 'features of the world' in a sense in which they would not be
features of the world if the 'Fressellian' doctrine were true, they are not mondial
attributes in Sommers' sense.
Part of the problem with Sommers' theory is that he asks the wrong, indeed an
incoherent, question. "If existence is not a property of a thing that exists, what
150 CHAPTER FIVE
tree is a feature or property of the forest, a feature without which the forest
would be qualitatively different, though presumably numerically the same.
Similarly, the existence of a branch of the tree is an essence (feature, property)
of the tree; the existence of a leaf is an essence of the branch, and so on. An
essence (Sosein) in this usage is simply a 'what-determination,' a quiddity in the
widest sense, and not an essential property in the narrow sense in which it is
opposed to an accidental property. Presumably, the existence of a particular
branch is not an essential property in the narrow sense of the tree of which it is
the branch: the tree would have existed had that branch been lopped off.
Furthermore, an essence is obviously not a complete essence. To say that the
branch is an essence of the tree to which it is attached is not to say that the
branch is the whole essence of the tree. Hartmann's theory, then, is not
implausible, and one can easily see its similarity to Sommers' theory. Both
Hartmann and Sommers are saying that the existence of an individual is a
property of something that contains, encompasses, or includes it, whether this
be a collection or an individual in its own right.
Proceeding in the other direction, the existence of the forest is an
essence of the countryside; the existence of the countryside is an essence of the
earth; the existence of the earth is an essence of the solar system; and so on until
we arrive at the maximally inclusive whole, the universe. 57 Hartmann points out
that there is no need to run through the series; we can say immediately of
anything, Socrates say, that its existence is an essence (feature, property) of the
world. 58 Hartmann's theory, then, appears to be a clear anticipation of
Sommers', and may also be classed as a mondial attribute theory. Both are
denying that the existence of x is a property of x, and both are maintaining that
for x to exist is for something else, the world, to have a property, the property of
containing x.
Now what about the world itself? What does its existence consist in?
As Hartmann realizes, the Dasein of the world cannot be a Sosein of anything:
there is nothing more inclusive of which it could be the Sosein. 59 (An infinite
regress of worlds upon worlds would clearly be vicious.) So even if the
existence of each thing in the world could be reduced to a property of something
else, and ultimately, to a property of the world, the existence of the world itself
cannot be similarly reduced. It cannot be said that the existence of the world is
parasitic upon the existence of its members, for this would bring us back to the
view that the world is a collection rather than an individual in its own right.
That view we found good reason to reject. For one thing, it showed itself to be
circular: to identify the existence of x with the world-collection's containing x
is to presuppose the existence of x in a sense that cannot be analyzed in terms of
world-membership. The world-collection cannot have the property of containing
Socrates unless Socrates exists. It would be absurd to say that both (i) Socrates'
existence consists in his membership in a collection, and (ii) the existence of that
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 153
NOTES
1 See Meditation Five wherein Descartes argues that, since God possesses all perfections, and
existence is a perfection, the nonexistence of God is as self-contradictory as a mountain without
a valley.
154
2 "Because existence is a property of concepts the ontological argument for the existence of God
breaks down." Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. J. L. Austin (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. 65.
3 Frederic Sommers, "Naturalism and Realism," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. XIX ed.
French et al. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 29 ff. Hereafter cited
asNR.
4 Milton K. Munitz, Existence and Logic (New York: New York University Press, 1974), p. 166.
5 Bruce Aune, Metaphysics: The Elements (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985),
p.35.
6 I will follow Sommers' terminological wont and use 'fact' and 'state of affairs' interchangeably.
Since they are being employed to denote truth-makers (concrete extralinguistic entities that
ontologically ground the truth of true contingent (asserted) sentences, judgments, and
propositions), it is clear that they are not to be confused with Fregean propositions or with abstract
('Chisholmian' or 'Plantingian') states of affairs which might either obtain or not obtain.
Obtaining abstract states of affairs are presumably themselves in need of concrete ontological
grounds of their obtaining. It follows that every truth-making fact or state of affairs exists; a
merely possible such fact is no fact at all. The possibility of there being a truth-making fact F is
not a possibility involving F itself; it is a possibility involving certain fact-appropriate constituents,
namely, the possibility that they be united to form a fact.
7We assume in this chapter what we will argue in the next (Chapter 6, sec. 4), namely, that truth-
makers must be facts or states of affairs, that no other category of entity, such as tropes, will do.
g NR p. 23 ff.
9 Sommers' theory is also motivated by his logical doctrine, which cannot be discussed in this
book. See his "The World, the Facts, and Primary Logic," Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic,
vol. 34, no. 2 (Spring 1993), pp. 169-182. Cited hereafter as WFL.
10 Cf. NR, p. 28. In the papers I will be citing, Sommers does not argue in any depth for this view.
Although it is clear from Chapter 2 that I agree with him that existence cannot be a property of
individuals, I do not wish to endorse his arguments as they stand. In particular, I reject the
argument known in the trade as 'Plato's Beard' for reasons I supply in Chapter 4.
II NR, p. 30.
13 The attentive reader will notice that this sentence, though plausible, does not follow from the
preceding one. I am merely reporting, not endorsing, 'Plato' Beard.' See note 10 above.
14 Sommers uses 'presence' and 'existence' interchangeably. It will emerge later that this usage
invites confusion on account of the ambiguity of 'presence' as between presence-to-a-subject (a
phenomenological concept) and existence (an ontological concept), not to mention presentness (a
temporal concept).
15 NR,p.31.
16NR, p. 30
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 155
17Fred Sommers, "Putnam's Born-Again Realism," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. XCIV, no.
9 (September 1997), p. 471. Cited hereafter as PBR.
18 Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, trans. Rancurello et al. (New York:
Humanities Press, 1973), p. 213: " .. .it can be shown with utmost clarity that every categorical
proposition can be translated without any change of meaning into an existential proposition, and
in that event the 'is' or 'is not' of the existential proposition takes the place of the copula." See
our Chapter 3 discussion and critique of Brentano.
19 To be precise, I should have written 'feel furriness,' not 'feel its furriness.' The reason for this
is in the next paragraph.
20Cf. PanayotButchvarov, Skepticism about the External World (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998), chs 5 and 6. Butchvarov argues that existence is just such a transcendental concept. We
criticize this view in Chapter 8.
21Even if I sense a particularized furriness, a furriness trope, it is still a further question whether
that particularized quality belongs to the cat.
22NR, p. 30.
23 This of course implies that Alexius Meinong was wrong to think that an item can actually and
mind-independently have a property without existing. Thus for Meinong the golden mountain is
golden, where 'is' conveys actual and mind-independent property-possession but without
expressing existence, or indeed any mode of being. Meinong spoke in this connection of das
Aussersein des reinen Gegenstandes, the extra-being of the pure object. It is thus an egregious
error, no less egregious for being oft-made, to think that for Meinong such items as the golden
mountain possess subsistence or some other mode of being.
24 The politically correct are invited to substitute 'gravitationally challenged' for 'fat.'
26 Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 1.1: "Die Welt ist die Gesamtheit der
Tatsachen, nicht der Dinge."
27 I am now ignoring a very serious difficulty that I will pursue irifra. Given that Guido might not
have been in the cafe, how can his existence (which is surely essential to him) be identified with
a property of the cafe?
28 EC, p. 138.
29 WFL, p. 174.
30 EC, p. 157.
32 If the bookcase is 'early undergraduate,' i.e., made of cinder blocks and boards without any glue
or connectors, the stuff still has to be arranged in a certain way, and to be sure, in a gravitational
field which provides the 'glue.' A cellulose molecule is not just a set of atoms; there are inter-
atomic bondings, etc. all the way down.
34 NR, p. 29.
36 For example, if mental states are (identically) physical states, then there is no special problem
about the causal interaction of the mental and the physical.
37 Bertrand Russell, "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism," in Robert C. Marsh, ed. Logic and
Knowledge (G.P.Putnam's Sons: New York, 1956), p. 233.
38 In private correspondence, Sommers made some remarks that suggest that he is an eliminativist.
He accused me of operating with an unanalyzed concept of existence, and of not taking seriously
enough his claim that existence is always relative to a domain. I responded by pointing out that
he himself invokes a pre-analytic understanding of 'exists' in his critique of Frege and Russell, and
that if he is merely opposing his stipulation (,exists' is a predicate of domains only) to their
stipulation ('exists' is a predicate of properties only), then there is no basis for a rational choice
between the theories. Furthermore, if 'exists' is a predicate of domains only, then Sommers'
theory on an eliminativist construal cannot even be formulated. 'Quine exists if and only if the
world is {Quine }ish' presupposes that 'exists' is a predicate of individuals.
39 NR, p. 35 et passim.
40 PBR, p. 471.
41 Ibid.
42 Trivially, for each individual, there is its singleton, the set consisting of it and it alone.
43 NR, p. 30.
44 NR, p. 26.
45 NR, p. 29.
46 NR, p. 29.
47 NR, p. 29.
48 EC, p. 157.
49 Ibid.
50 PBR, p. 467.
51 EC, p. 157.
52 NR, p. 28. Cf. PBR, p. 471 where Sommers writes, "If existence is not an attribute of the things
55 Nicolai Hartmann, Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1965).
56 Ibid., p. 123.
57 Ibid., p. 128.
MONDIAL ATTRIBUTE THEORIES 157
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
Chapter Six
So far we have been treading the via negativa, and it seems to have led us to an
impasse. An impressive array of arguments has been marshaled in support of
the following aporetic tetrad:
159
160 CHAPTER SIX
We have been given no good reason to reject the naive view that existence
belongs to concrete individuals and is attributable to them by the use of such
sentences as 'I exist,' 'This exists,' 'Socrates exists.' Surely the existence of a
cannot be a property of some other thing, whether this be a property or a
concept or a description or a domain. We saw that such higher-order theories
either issue in circularity or lead to the elimination of the very datum with which
we started, namely, that individuals exist. On the other hand, existence cannot
belong to individuals in the manner of a property or property-instance. And of
course the existence of a cannot belong to a by being identified with a, as on the
'no difference' theory for the reasons given in Chapter 3. So how does existence
belong to an individual?
An answer is forthcoming if we think of ordinary individuals as concrete
states of affairs or facts. A fact is a contingent unity of constituents. The fact of
a's being F is plausibly taken to have three constituents, a, F-ness, and the
asymmetrical tie of instantiation (whether this is a relation or something
'nonrelational' we leave undecided for the moment). But since the constituents
can exist without the fact existing, the fact is more than its constituents; it is
their unity. This being so, a fact exists just in case its constituents are united.
Thus it is natural to say that the contingent existence of a fact is just the
contingent unity of its constituents. Note that we do not say that the contingent
existence of a fact (in the simple monadic case) is just a particular's contingent
instantiation of a property. This for two reasons. First, we cannot assume that
the presence in a fact of a tertium quid, a tie of instantiation, will succeed in
unifying the primary constituents, a and F-ness in our example. That is, we
cannot assume that the unifier of a fact's constituents is a tie of instantiation
(whether or not conceived as a relation). Second, there is the question of
whether the unity of a fact's primary constituents can perhaps be established
without any tertium quid at all, with the help only of a 'saturated' individual and
an 'unsaturated' property. For these reasons, which will be treated in detail in
the following chapter, we do not speak of the existence of a fact as a particular's
instantiation of a property. We identify existence with fact-unity. But we do not
ground either existence or fact-unity in the tie of instantiation.
Now if an ordinary! individual is a fact, it follows that the contingent
existence of an ordinary individual is just the contingent unity of its
constituents. In short, existence is unity. This is to be taken as a reductive
identification of existence with a particular type of unity, fact-unity, and not as
an elimination or replacement of existence. There is the existence of a, but what
the existence of a consists in is the unity of a's constituents, the unity whereby
these constituents form a fact. We thereby receive an informative answer to our
question, What is it for an individual to exist? For an individual to exist is for
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 161
(TMP) For some t, if t is true, then there exists an entity e such that (i) e is
distinct from t, and (ii) e's existence entails that t is true.
We have completed the first step in our argument, the move from (contingent)
truths to truth-makers. (Further support for this step will emerge in the following
section wherein we respond to an objection to truth-makers.) But what sort of
entity is a truth-maker? And what sort of relation is truth-making? (TMP)
allows that e be a true proposition. But it seems clear that propositions, even if
true, cannot be (ultimate) truth-makers, since it is precisely (true contingent)
propositions that are in need of truth-makers. The whole idea is to secure an
ontological ground of truth, a ground outside the logico-linguistic sphere. Of
course, if propositions p, q are such that p entails q, then there is a sense in
which p, if true, makes q true. For if p entails q then it is impossible for p to be
true and q false. Thus one may be tempted to identify truth-makers with true
propositions, and truth-making with entailment. This is a temptation to be
resisted.
One argument against this view invokes the Disjunction Thesis. Let '1='
abbreviate 'makes true.' The thesis says that for any truth-maker S, S 1= p v q
iff S 1= p v S 1= q. Thus if John's sitting makes true 'John is sitting or John is
standing,' then either John's sitting makes true 'John is sitting' or it makes true
'John is standing.' The Disjunction Thesis seems obvious. But the thesis fails
if truth-makers are identified with true propositions and truth-making is
entailment. For p v q entails p v q, but p v q does not entail p nor does it entail
q.7 This shows that some propositions cannot be truth-makers, and thus that
truth-makers cannot be identified with true propositions.
Still, if not all true propositions are truth-makers, might it not be the case
that all truth-makers are true propositions, and that every case of truth-making
is a case of entailment? All are agreed that truth-making is not a causal relation,
even though there is a sense in which an agent who brings about a state of affairs
'makes true' the corresponding proposition. Thus by painting the gate red, there
166 CHAPTER SIX
is a sense in which I make true the proposition expressed by 'The gate is red.'
But what is really going on here is that I cause a concrete state of affairs to exist,
and then it noncausally makes true the corresponding proposition. So truth-
making is not a causal relation.
Truth-making is therefore best thought of as a kind of entailment, or as
analogous to entailment. But it cannot be entailment defined as a relation
between propositions. For the whole point of truth-makers is to provide worldly,
extra-propositional grounds for propositional truths. If we agree that truth-
makers are extra-propositional, then in cases where a true proposition entails
another, we will resist referring to the entailing proposition as a truth-maker.
But not just any entity in the realm of primary reference can be a truth-
maker. A truth-maker, if it is to be capable of entailing a proposition, and thus
making it true, must be a proposition-like entity: it must not only be structured,
but structured in a proposition-like way. An ontological 'blob' cannot be a
truth-maker since it lacks structure. But not just any structured entity can be a
truth-maker. For the ordered pair <Socrates, wisdom> and the corresponding
mereological sum are (arguably) in the realm of primary reference, and they
have a sort of structure, but they lack the requisite internal unity to be truth-
makers. So it seems we must posit something like concrete states of affairs
which have the sort of unity that ordered n-tuples and mereological sums lack.
But perhaps we are moving too quickly. Mulligan, Simons, and Smith
have suggested that moments can serve as truth-makers. They are using this
term Teutonically: it has no temporal connotation. An example of a moment is
the particular redness of pen A, which is numerically distinct from the particular
redness of a qualitatively indistinguishable pen B. Moments are existentially
dependent objects which cannot exist alone, but require the existence of objects
outside themselves. Thus the particular redness of pen A cannot exist on its
own, but only in A. What we called a property-instance in Chapter 2 is therefore
an example of a moment. A moment is not a trope given that tropes are capable
of independent existence. But moments and tropes are alike in two respects:
both are particularized properties, and as such unrepeatable, and both are
ontologically simple entities. Thus in the moment, a's F-ness, there is no
ontological composition, which distinguishes the moment, a's F-ness from the
fact, a's being F. A fact is a complex, a moment is not. One must guard against
confusion here. 'Socrates' whiteness' could be taken to denote a moment
(which is ontologically simple), or a fact (which is not). As prophylaxis against
confusing moments and facts, we will use' a's being F' to denote a fact, and 'a's
F-ness' to denote a moment.
Let us now consider whether the contingent truth 'Socrates is white'
could have a moment as a truth-maker. The moment in candidacy is Socrates'
whiteness. Now in the phrase, 'Socrates' whiteness,' how is 'Socrates'
functioning? Is it functioning merely to pick out a particular whiteness, one that
merely happens to be attached to Socrates? In that case, Socrates' whiteness
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 167
would be transferable, to Plato say. Although moments cannot exist on their
own, there would be nothing in the specific nature of a moment to require that
it be attached to any particular individual as opposed to some other one. This
appears to comport well with the idea that moments are ontologically simple
entities. Or is Socrates somehow part of the content of Socrates' whiteness such
that this moment cannot exist except in Socrates and so is not transferable? That
would seem to suggest that moments harbor internal complexity: a whiteness-
moment would have not only a quality but also a factor that ties it necessarily to
a particular concrete individual. Either way, it can be shown that moments
cannot serve as truth-makers.
If moment M is the truth-maker for truth T, then the existence of M
entails that T is true in this sense: there is no possible world in which both M
and T exist and T is not true. Now if Socrates' whiteness is a transferable
moment, then there is a possible world W in which Socrates' whiteness exists,
the proposition *Socrates is white* exists, but *Socrates is white* is false. For
it may be that Socrates' whiteness exists in Plato in W. In other words, the
particular whiteness picked out in the actual world by a use of 'Socrates'
whiteness' adorns Plato rather than Socrates in W.
We now consider the upshot if moments are nontransferable, and we
ignore the problem of how a simple quality-instance can involve a necessary tie
to a particular concrete individual. Truth-makers cannot do their job unless they
exist. So if Socrates' whiteness is the truth-maker of *Socrates is white*, then
Socrates' whiteness exists. But if moments are not only existentially dependent,
but also nontransferable, then Socrates' whiteness exists only in Socrates.
Hence the real truth-maker is not Socrates' whiteness, but the existence of
Socrates' whiteness in Socrates. The real truth-maker, in other words, is the
concrete fact of Socrates' being white, which is a concrete particular supporting
a moment, rather than a moment.
This may be see from another angle. *Socrates is white* is contingently
true. (If you doubt this, substitute 'dressed in white' for 'white.') This
contingency must somehow be reflected in the truth-maker. But this is
impossible if the truth-maker is the moment, Socrates' whiteness. For moments
are onto logically simple: it is not a complex consisting of Socrates and
whiteness, a complex that can 'come unglued.' To accommodate the
contingency, we must say that Socrates might not have had the moment,
Socrates' whiteness. But then it is clear that the real truth-maker is the concrete
fact of Socrates' being white, which is a particular supporting a moment, rather
than a moment. The view under examination thus collapses into the view that
truth-makers are concrete facts composed of particulars and property-instances.
So whether we think of moments as transferable or nontransferable, they
cannot serve as truth-makers. Truth-makers must be concrete facts or states of
affairs.
168 CHAPTER SIX
5. THE OSTRICH REALIST'S REJECTION OF TRUTH-MAKING
REJECTED
We have been arguing that (i) the truth-maker principle is sound; (ii) only facts
can be truth-makers; therefore, (iii) facts exist. But this argument can be run in
reverse: Since there are no facts, and since only facts can be truth-makers, the
truth-maker principle is unsound. This is essentially the line taken by Julian
Dodd. 8 Our 'fact' is short for 'concrete fact.' But Dodd uses 'fact' as
interchangeable with 'true proposition.' To avoid confusion, we will employ
'state of affairs' for the duration ofthis section. A state of affairs is a concrete
fact.
As I read him, Dodd's critique of the very idea of truth-making consists
of two main claims. The first is that, even if there are both particulars and
universals, and even if particulars instantiate universals, we are not forced to
countenance states of affairs. Thus if a exists and F-ness exists, and a
instantiates F-ness, it does not follow that there is in addition the state of affairs,
a's being F. A similar sentiment is expressed by David Lewis: "If I were
committed to universals myself, I would be an Ostrich Realist: I would think it
was just true, without benefit of truth-makers, that a particular instantiates a
universal.,,9 Dodd's second claim is that states of affairs are such seriously
problematic entities that no theory that invokes them has any right to our
attention.
As for the first claim, Dodd will presumably admit that there is a
difference between the sum a + F-ness and a's instantiating F-ness. This is
something to which all must agree. If a exists and F-ness exists, it does not
follow that a instantiates F-ness. So there is a difference between a + F-ness and
a's instantiating F-ness. But this is just a brute difference, Dodd seems to be
saying, not a difference that needs to be explained by positing a third sort of
entity, a state of affairs, in addition to a and F-ness. Even if the truth that a is
F ontologically commits us to a and to F-ness, it does not commit us to anything
in the world that connects a and F-ness. The 'is' in 'a is F' has no ontological
correlate. Thus we are not committed to an instantiation relation or to a
nonrelational tie of instantiation. And not being committed to any such
connector, we are not committed to the state of affairs a's being F assuming that
this is the product of instantiation's connecting of a and F-ness. To this one
might respond that it is not instantiation that ties a to F-ness, but the state of
affairs itself, and that we can dispense with instantiation (and perhaps must
dispense with it in the face of Bradley's regress). But this will not satisfy Dodd
either, since he refuses to admit that we need anything in the world to connect
a and F-ness. In the world there is at most a and F-ness, but there is nothing in
the world that corresponds to the truth that a is F. Truth does not require an
ontological ground. Not only is there nothing corresponding to the copula 'is,'
there is nothing corresponding to the whole sentence, 'a is F.'
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 169
But if nothing in the world connects a and F-ness when a instantiates F-
ness, then what is the difference between a's instantiating F-ness and a's not
instantiating F-ness? What does the difference consist in? Presumably, Dodd
must say that there is a difference, but that it does not consist in anything. This
however simply begs the question against the truth-maker principle. For truth-
makers are introduced precisely to satisfy the felt need for an explanation of the
difference in question. Dodd hasn't succeeded in refuting the truth-maker
principle; all he has done so far is to reject it.
Pointing this out, we of course do not succeed in refuting the Ostrich
Realist; we merely highlight the deep conflict of intuitions at the root of the
disagreement. The realist about truth cannot shake the sense that truth requires
an ontological ground, a sense simply unshared by an Ostrich such as Dodd.
With respect to Dodd's first claim, then, the upshot appears to be a standoff.
We now examine Dodd's second claim which is essentially that the
positing of states of affairs cannot serve as an adequate explanation of how
particulars instantiate universals. Whereas Dodd's first claim is that we have
been given no compelling reason to posit states of affairs, his second claim is
that nothing is explained even if we do posit them. This is a much more serious
objection. If sound, it would appear to refute the truth-maker project.
Given that a instantiates F-ness, Dodd will say that this instantiation is
just a brute datum. The truth-maker theorist, however, cannot rest content with
this. He feels that there must be something in the world that explains this
instantiation of a universal by a particular. So he posits a state of affairs in
which a and F-ness are brought together. He posits a state of affairs which just
is a's instantiating of F-ness. For Dodd, however, this is a bogus explanation.
Dodd's argument is not entirely clear, but it perhaps amounts to
something like the following dilemma. Either (L 1) states of affairs are
composed of constituents that are ontologically more basic than states of affairs,
or (L2) states of affairs are ontologically primary, and their constituents are mere
abstractions from them. (Ll) faces Bradley's regress and the unity problem,
something we will discuss in great detail in the following chapter. Given that
a and F-ness are contingently connected, what connects them? The instantiation
relation? But how can adding a further constituent establish unity of
constituents? Dodd's point is that if states of affairs face the unity problem - the
problem of explaining how they differ from a mere set or sum of constituents -
then invoking states of affairs can do nothing to explain how a particular
instantiates a universal. It is essentially the same problem all over again. If it
is unclear how a particular instantiates a universal, then this cannot be clarified
by positing an entity, a state of affairs, concerning the constituents of which it
is unclear how they form a unity. In other words, if you say that the difference
between a + F-ness and a's instantiating F-ness is the difference between two
items and the same two items connected within a state of affairs, this explanation
succeeds only if it is clear how the two items - a and F-ness - are connected
170 CHAPTER SIX
within the state of affairs. Since the latter is not clear, to invoke states of affairs
to explain propositional truth is to give a bogus explanation.
This throws us onto the other hom of the dilemma, (L2), according to
which states of affairs are ontologically basic, and their constituents are mere
abstractions from them. This would appear to avoid the unity problem. If a and
F-ness are mere abstractions from a primary unity, a's being F, then there is
presumably no problem about what holds them together. But then how could
the positing of a state of affairs so conceived explain or ground propositional
truth? The truth that a is F is contingent; hence the togetherness of a and F-ness
in a's being F must be contingent. This however leads us straight back to the
unity problem which arises because of the contingency of the togetherness of a
and F-ness. Since a and F-ness can exist without forming a unity, they cannot
be mere abstractions from some ontological primary unity: they are the
ontological atoms, the 'building blocks,' out of which states of affairs are
constructed. States of affairs must therefore be ontologically dependent on the
items that contingently form their constituents. It is not states of affairs, but
their constituents, that are ontologically basic.
Although Dodd is on to a very serious problem for states of affairs
theorists, a problem to be more thoroughly discussed in the next chapter, he has
given us no good reason to abandon truth-making and truth-makers. We noted
above that his first claim merely begs the question against the truth-maker
theorist. Standing pat on our realist intuitions, we are within our epistemic
rights in taking the truth-maker principle to show that there must be truth-
making states of affairs. And the fact that the 'compositional' and
'noncompositional' conceptions of states of affairs alluded to in (Ll) and (L2)
above are faulty does not by a long shot prove that there is no explanatorily
adequate conception of states of affairs. For there could be a third conception
of states of affairs. Working out this third conception is a task for the following
chapter.
The ostrich is not yet dead, so we propose to beat on him some more. If the
foregoing is correct, there are truth-makers, and truth-makers are facts. Facts
have properties as constituents. Assuming that properties are universals, facts
have universals as constituents. If ordinary concrete individuals are facts, then
such individuals have universals as constituents, and what we may call
constituent realism (C-realism) is true. Realism is the doctrine that properties
are language- and mind-independent universals. C-realism is the doctrine that
universals are constituents of the things that have them. The purpose of this
section is to lend further support to C-realism by examining some of the
difficulties of NC-realism, according to which properties are universals but
universals are not constituents of the things that have them.
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 171
What we are calling C-realism is what Armstrong calls 'realism' and
characterizes thusly: "The Realist will say that these properties are really there
in the world, as constituents of things, and will take their sameness, where two
different things have the same property, to be a matter of strict identity. Two
different things have the same constituent: horseness or whatever."l0 By
contrast, the NC-realist admits universals "as really there in the world" (as
opposed to 'in the mind') but segregates them from the particulars that
exemplify them thereby denying that they enter into the latter as constituents.
Armstrong speaks in this connection of a "separate-realm theory of universals
[which] permits of a blob as opposed to a layer-cake view of particulars." 11 The
difference is reflected in two different ways of understanding property-
possession. On a blob theory of individuals, a thing's having a property "is not
the thing's having some internal feature, but rather its having a relationship, the
instantiation relationship, to certain universals or Forms in another realm. ,,12 On
a layer-cake theory, a thing's having a property is its having it as a constituent.
Let A be an ordinary concrete particular, an apple say, and suppose it is
red. We are assuming that redness is a universal, but that it is not a constituent
of A. (This homely example does not commit us to the view that apples are
basic particulars, or that universals like redness are ultimate universals.) As
befits a 'blob,' A has no ontological constituents at all. How then is A related
to the universal, redness? A exemplifies redness. Thus
1. A is red =df A exemplifies redness.
Does the right-hand side of (1) explain the left-hand side? Is 'red' true of A
because A exemplifies redness? We shall argue that the NC-realist confronts a
dilemma. Either (Ll) the postulation of NC-universals explains nothing and is
metaphysically otiose, or (L2) A turns out to be what we will call a bare ordinary
particular (not to be confused with thin particulars as a type of ontological
constituent of ordinary particulars).
Lemma One. (1) implies that predications are really relational in that
they involve the relation of exemplification. A's being red is A's standing in a
relation to redness. But what sort of relation is exemplification? That it is a
relation (rather than something more 'intimate' like a nonrelational tie) seems
clear from the circumstance that exemplification connects a concrete particular
with a universal in a realm apart. Is exemplification internal or non-internal?
An internal relation is one that supervenes on the intrinsic properties of its
relata. 13 Suppose A and B are both red and ten feet from each other. Being the
same color as each other is an internal relation of A and B. To say that the
relation is internal implies that it could not cease to hold without some change
in the intrinsic properties of the relata. If A and B cease to stand in the same
color as relation, then there has to be a change in the intrinsic color properties
of either A or B or both. But being ten feet from each other is non-internal: a
change in the distance between A and B is compatible with no change in any of
their intrinsic properties.
172 CHAPTER SIX
Now it seems that 'exemplifies' in cases like 'A exemplifies redness'
must pick out an internal relation. For the exemplification relation could not
cease to connect A and redness without some change in the intrinsic properties
of the relata. Clearly, if A ceased to exemplify redness, then A would change
with respect to the intrinsic property of being red: it would cease to be red. It
would be absurd to suppose that A could cease to exemplify redness (or not
exemplify redness in some other possible world) without any change in the
intrinsic properties of either relatum. So exemplification must be an internal
relation, one that supervenes on the intrinsic properties of its relata.
Now which intrinsic properties of A and redness does exemplification
supervene upon? In the case of A, the only possible answer is: its being red.
So A's being red is the ground of its exemplifying redness. It is precisely
because A is red that A stands in the exemplification relation to redness, and not
vice versa. But this makes manifest the circularity of the analysis embodied in
(1). A's being red was supposed to be explained by A's exemplifying redness;
but we have just seen that it is the other way around: A's being red explains (or
at least is part of the explanation) of A's exemplifying redness. 14
This does not show that there are no NC-universals like redness; what
it shows is that they are explanatorily idle: it is not in virtue of A's
exemplification of NC-redness that A is red. NC-universals cannot figure in any
account of what makes truth-bearers true. They are merely abstract duplicates
of properties in or at particulars. Redness, for example, merely duplicates at the
level of abstracta the intrinsic redness in the concrete apple. What then are these
NC-universals good for, ontologically speaking? Semantically, they may serve
as the referents of predicates like 'red' and abstract substantives like 'redness';
but onto logically they appear otiose. ls They are lazy, good-for-nothing, entia
non grata.
Lemma Two. The argument just given involved the following steps. (a)
NC-exemplification is an internal relation. (b) An internal relation is one that
supervenes on the intrinsic properties of its relata. So, (c) A's exemplifying
redness supervenes (in part) on A's being intrinsically red. But then it is
obvious that (d) A's exemplifying redness cannot explain A's being red, whence
it follows that (e) A's exemplifying redness cannot be of any use in explaining
the truth of 'A is red.'
The NC-realist's best response to the argument is to deny that NC-
exemplification is an internal relation, one that supervenes upon, or is grounded
in, the intrinsic properties of its relata. So let us see what happens when
exemplification is taken to be a non-internal relation. If A exemplifies redness,
and exemplification is non-internal, then there is nothing in or at or about A that
grounds A's exemplifying of redness. A just exemplifies redness, and it is A's
exemplifying of redness in which A's being red consists. It is not something
intrinsic to A that grounds A's being related to redness, but the other way
around: A's being related to redness grounds, or rather, just is A's being
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 173
intrinsically red. A's being intrinsically red just is a relational fact about A,
namely, A's standing in the relation of NC-exemplification to redness. And the
same holds for the rest of A's properties. It follows that A has no irreducibly
intrinsic properties; all putatively intrinsic properties are analyzable in terms of
relations to NC-universals, 'separate-realm' universals. But if A has no
irreducibly intrinsic properties, then A would appear to be a bare ordinary
particular. A bare particular is a particular that exemplifies all of its properties
externally in the sense that (i) there is nothing in the nature of the particular that
dictates any of the properties it has, and so (ii) it is related to each of its
properties by an external relation of exemplification. A bare ordinary particular
is a bare particular that is not an ontological constituent of an ordinary
particular, but itself an ordinary concrete particular. It is crucial to note the
difference between saying that (iii) ordinary particulars have a thin (bare)
particular as constituent; and (iv) ordinary particulars are themselves thin (bare).
(iii), but not (iv), is consistent with saying that ordinary particulars have
properties as constituents. We will come out in favor of (iii), but we deny (iv).
Thus the NC-realist who posits universals but bars them entry into the
ontological innards of ordinary particulars faces a dilemma. If exemplification
is an internal relation, then NC-universals tum out to be metaphysically otiose;
they merely duplicate at the level of universals the features in or at particulars.
But if exemplification is non-internal, then the NC-realist is saddled with the
dreaded bare ordinary particulars. But is there really a dilemma here?
In a critical exchange with R. Chisholm, P. Butchvarov taxes the NC-
realist with commitment to bare (ordinary) particulars:
If we meant...that properties are not, even when exemplified, at the places and
times at which the individual things which exemplify them are, that they are
not in those individuals, and therefore that they cannot be perceived as
individual things can be perceived, then we would end up with a theory of
properties with the consequence that individual things are quite distinct,
ontologically distant, from their properties, that they are bare particulars, not
consisting in, or even containing, any properties, that they are related to their
properties by a purely external relation of exemplification which somehow
spans the abyss between the abstract world and the concrete world. 16
.. .if the 'is' [of predication] is not the 'is' of identity, then it appears that a
considered in itself is really a bare particular lacking any properties. But in
that case a has not got the property F. The property F remains outside a -- just
as transcendent forms remain outside the particular in Plato's theory.19
I think there are two points here. The first is that the NC-ontologist's
individuals are bare in Chisholm's second sense: they do not contain their
properties. The second is that if they are bare in this sense, it is difficult to see
how they can be said to have properties. How can a concrete particular's having
a property consist in its standing in a chasm-spanning relation to some other
entity of a radically different ontological category? 'Here below' we have a
concrete (causally active/passive) particular; 'up there' in a realm apart we find
its properties, all of them abstract and thus causally inert. But given the obvious
point that a particular's causal powers/liabilities depend on the properties it has
(e.g., it is my being massive that induces in me the causal power to depress the
couch, not my being intelligent, or my being a particular) one would think that
the properties that confer causal powers would have to be in the potent
particulars. How could an abstract property confer a causal power?
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 175
Furthermore, how could being red, or any empirically detectable property, be
abstract? Empirical detection involves causal interaction. I must somehow
interact with redness to detect it, but I cannot interact with an abstract object
since they are causally inert by definition.
Let us now sum up the argument of this section. I have been contending
in effect that the NC-realist is an Ostrich realist: universals are posited on
semantic grounds to serve as the referents of abstract substanti ves like 'redness,'
but they are unfit for serious ontological work. IfF-ness is an NC-universal, A's
exemplification of F-ness cannot serve to explain the truth of 'A is F.' The
attempt to explain A's being red in terms of A's exemplification of redness
either succumbs to the duplication objection (when NC-exemplification is taken
to be an internal relation) or to the bare ordinary particular objection (when NC-
exemplification is taken to be an external relation).
The NC-realist must therefore be an Ostrich realist. But then it is just
a brute, unaccountable, fact that A is red and that A exemplifies redness.
Ostrich realism just like ostrich nominalism thus violates the truth-maker
principle, which we take to be nonnegotiable. Wielding the truth-maker
principle, we kill two ungainly birds with one well-aimed stone.
The bare ordinary particular and duplication objections may seem to the
NC-realist to beg the question against his position. The NC-realist may insist
that although the ordinary particular Socrates is distinct from each of his
properties as well as from the set or conjunction or any other construction of
them, it does not follow that he is a propertyless substratum. But then my
question to the NC-realist will be: What does your distinction between an
individual and its properties amount to? If Socrates is distinct from each of his
properties, and this distinction is one with a basis in extramental reality, how can
Socrates fail on the NC-conception to be in himself a propertyless substratum
standing in a merely external exemplification relation to his properties? Perhaps
when philosophers like Chisholm and Plantinga allow, as they must, a
distinction between a thing and its properties, what they are doing is taking the
properties 'twice over.' They first of all take the concrete individual together
with its properties and insist, rightly, that it is not propertyless. They then
consider the properties by themselves in distinction from the propertied
individual and insist on the distinction between individual and properties. If that
is what they are doing, they are open to the duplication objection: they are
positing in the realm of abstracta explanatorily idle properties that merely
duplicate the properties in or at Socrates.
Another thing NC-realists such as Plantinga may be doing is simply
setting up a straw man. According to Plantinga,
... even though the tree is distinct from its properties .. .it doesn't follow either
that the tree could have existed without having any properties, or that each of
the properties it has is such that the tree could have existed without having
that property. It is distinct from its properties, but not, of course, separable
176 CHAPTER SIX
from them.20
But nobody ever said that a tree could exist without having any properties, and
nobody ever said that an individual is separable from its properties. Bergmann
and Armstrong explicitly deny reasonable facsimiles of both of these claims.
One may conjecture that by using the unfortunate phrase 'bare particular,'
Bergmann opened himself and his compadres up to misunderstanding and
strawman attacks.
Might the NC-realist turn the tables on us and demand to know what
grounds the fact that thin Socrates (to be explained in a moment) C-exemplifies
a certain conjunction of universals? But here we reach rock-bottom beyond
which one cannot dig for deeper ontological ground. From the hybrid state of
affairs of the NC-realist we can and must move to the level of a genuinely
concrete state of affairs =a thick particular. But beyond this there is no 'deeper'
state of affairs. We can and will in the next chapter ask about the unity of a
thick particular and whether it needs a unifier. But this question cannot be
answered in terms of any further state of affairs.
Our basic idea is that the existence of a thick particular is the unity of its
constituents. But what about these constituents? Can the constituents of a thick
particular exist without being anything's constituents? This would seem to be
required if thick particulars are ontological constructions from more basic items.
Our question divides into two. The first, to be treated in this section, is whether
a universal which is a constituent of a thick particular could exist uninstantiated,
i.e., without being a constituent of any thick particular. We answer this question
in the affirmative. The second question is whether a thin particular which is a
constituent of a thick particular could exist without being anything's thin
particular. This question will be addressed in the following section.
Our present question, then, is whether a universal which is a constituent
of a thick particular A and is therefore instantiated by the thin particular a at the
core of A, could have existed without being instantiated by a and indeed without
entering into any thick particular as a constituent. We need to answer this
question for two reasons. One is to determine the exact nature of the distinction
between thin a and any universal (including the conjunctive universal N) it
instantiates. The other reason is far more pressing.
To explain how existence can belong to individuals without being a
property of them, we theorized that ordinary (thick) individuals have ontological
constituents and that existence is unity of constituents. But if the existence of
a thick individual is the unity of its constituents, what about these constituents?
Do they exist? If so, what does their existence consist in? What is it for a
universal to exist? If one gives a theory of existence which explains the
existence of higher-order items in terms of the existence of more basic items,
leaving the existence of the latter unexplained, then it is clear that such a theory
cannot amount to a theory of existence as such. Note also that if universals
depend for their existence on thin particulars, as on Armstrong's view, then
universals exist only in facts, as constituents of facts. A world without facts is
then a world without universals. Universals turn out to be contingent upon the
facts of which they are constituents. But then to explain the contingent
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 179
existence of a fact in terms of the contingent unity of its constituents gets us
nowhere. For if the existence of a universal requires the ontologically prior
existence of a fact, then the existence of the fact cannot be explained by
invoking the existence of universals and other constituents.
Let us be sure we understand what the difficulty is and why it is a
difficulty. Given that the compositional model is correct (a thesis to be
supported in the next chapter), and a fact is built up out of its constituents, there
is a clear sense in which the latter must be ontologically prior to the fact. If so,
it is viciously circular to say that universals depend for their existence on facts.
Of course, if F-ness is a universal, then F-ness cannot depend for its existence
on any particular fact such as a's being F; the dependency would be a general
one, a dependency on some fact or other. So a defender of immanent universals
might respond as follows. Granted, the fact of a's being F is composed of a and
F-ness. But both a and F-ness can exist apart from a's being F by being
constituents of other facts such as a's being G and b' s being F. So a and F-ness
are ontologically prior to their coming together in the state of affairs, a's being
F. Universals can be more basic than the facts into which they enter without
being transcendent universals. And the same holds for thin particulars: they can
be more basic than the facts into which they enter without being capable of
existing apart from any fact.
This sounds plausible, but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Consider a
logically possible world WI in which there is exactly one fact, a's being F. In
WI, a and F-ness exist only as constituents of a's being F. How then can the
fact be composed of them without vicious circularity? How can a and F-ness be
more basic than the fact if they cannot exist apart from it? If they ontologically
depend on it, it cannot ontologically depend on them. Call this the problem of
vicious circularity. Now consider a world W2 containing two facts, a's being
F and b's being F. Let us say that a constituent is strongly fact-bound if it
cannot exist apart from a specified fact, and weakly fact-bound if it cannot exist
apart from some fact or other. In WI, both a and F-ness are strongly fact-bound.
In W2, however, the universal F-ness is weakly fact-bound, while the thin
particulars a and b are strongly fact-bound. This is a bizarre result, since the
ontology of facts should not vary with how many facts there are. Tum now to
W3 in which we have four facts: a's being F, b' s being F, a's being G, b's being
G. In W3, the two universals and the two thin particular are all of them weakly
fact-bound. So by adding two more facts to the popUlation of W2, the ontology
changes once again. But surely the ontological structure of a fact cannot depend
on the presumably accidental matter of how many facts there are. Call this the
problem of the contingency of ontological structure on number of facts.
Now compare WI with W3. In WI we have the problem of vicious
circularity: a's being F cannot be composed of a and F-ness if the latter exist
only as the constituents of a's being F. W3, however, doesn't face this problem
since all constituents are only weakly fact-bound. We may infer from this that
180 CHAPTER SIX
to avoid the problem of vicious circularity, we need a world with a minimum of
four atomic facts. But then these four facts logically require one another to
exist. A fact can exist only if its constituents are ontological prior to it. But this
is so only if its constituents occur in other facts. So those other facts are
metaphysically necessary for the existence of the given fact. Thus the existence
of a's being Fentails the existence of two other facts: a's being G (to insure that
a exists apart from the original fact), and b' s being F (to insure that F-ness exists
apart from the original fact). But notice that the existence of b's being F entails
the existence of b's being G (to insure that b exists apart from b's being F).
Therefore, by the transitivity of entailment, the existence of a's being F entails
the existence of b's being G. Two facts with nothing in common are such that
one entails the other. Call this the problem of the violation of fact-
independence.
Part of our solution to these three problems is the thesis that universals
are transcendent: they can exist uninstantiated, and so need not occur in facts to
exist. (The other part of the solution comes in the following section.) It may
seem that this is ruled out if instantiated universals are constituents of concrete
facts. For one will be tempted to think that a constituent universal (C-universal)
must be an immanent universal. But this is a confusion aided and abetted by the
ambiguity of 'immanent.' Immanence and constituency are distinct.
As we see it, the distinction between C-universals and NC-universals
cuts perpendicular to the distinction between immanent universals and
transcendent universals. An immanent universal is one that cannot exist
uninstantiated. Such a universal exists only 'in' the things that have it assuming
that 'in' signifies ontological dependence. But it does not follow that an
immanent universal exists only 'in' the things that have it when 'in' signifies
constituency. To think otherwise is to be taken in by the ambiguity of
'immanent' which reflects the ambiguity of 'in.' The multiple philosophical uses
of 'in' are a rich source of seduction. Thus a first-Ievelimmanent universal need
not be a constituent of a particular. Why couldn't an ontologically unstructured
individual (a 'blob' in Armstrong's scholarly terminology25) instantiate an
immanent universal? A transcendent universal, on the other hand, is one that
can exist uninstantiated. Such a universal exists 'outside of' the things that have
it assuming that 'outside of' signifies the denial of ontological dependence. But
it does not follow that a transcendent universal exists 'outside of' the things that
have it when 'outside of' signifies lack of constituency. Why couldn't an
ontologically structured individual (an Armstrongian 'layer-cake') instantiate a
transcendent universal by having it as a constituent? In particular, why is it not
possible for a fact to have a transcendent universal as a constituent? This is
simply the possibility that a fact have as a constituent an entity that might have
existed without being a constituent of any fact. The picture, then, is this:
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 181
A first-level universal can exist uninstantiated, and thus (given that the
instantiation of such a universal is equivalent to its being a constituent of a fact)
can exist apart from any fact. The fact-independent existence of universals can
thus be invoked as part of a noncircular account of what it is for a fact to exist.
We can say that for a fact to exist is for a fact-independent (conjunctive)
universal to be united with a thin particular. Note also that if universals can
exist uninstantiated, then they exist necessarily, which implies that there is no
need for an account of their existence. But what about thin particulars? Must
they too be capable of fact -independent existence, existence independent of any
fact, if a noncircular account of the existence of facts is to be possible?
If anything is clear, it is that thin particulars cannot exist without
instantiating properties: nothing can exist without instantiating properties. 26
Thus every existing thin particular is at least weakly fact-bound: no existing thin
particular can exist apart from some fact or other. On the other hand, facts on
our compositional view cannot be constructed from constituents unless the latter
182 CHAPTER SIX
are ontologically prior to the facts constructed. (Armstrong's noncompositional
view according to which facts or states of affairs are primary vis-a-vis their
constituents with the latter being mere abstractions from facts will be refuted
in the following chapter.) There must be some sense in which thin particulars
are independent of facts. It follows that the being of a thin particular cannot be
exhausted by its constituency, by its being an ontological part of a concrete fact.
Nor can the being of a thin particular be weakly fact-bound. Recall world WI
in which there is exactly one fact: both of its constituents must be ontologically
prior to the fact. Since the being of a thin particular, considered in itself, cannot
be existence or actuality, it is reasonable to theorize that the being of thin
particulars, when these are taken apart from the properties they instantiate, is
mere potentiality. This coheres nicely with our earlier talk of properties as
determinations. A first-level property determines something that is not a
property, something that is determinable, and as such undetermined. This is
exactly what a thin particular is: it is an sich undetermined, but determinable.
It is a potentiality for determination. It is something that accepts determination;
to be so accepting, however, it cannot in itself possess any determinations.
Clearly, a thin particular in itself is next-to-nothing; it is not nothing but
as close as one can get. If thin particulars were nothing at all, there would be
nothing for first-level determinations to determine. Thus they have being, not
existence, and their being is just their potentiality-for-determination, their
capacity to bear properties. One advantage of this approach is that it may allow
us to give a theory of partiCUlarity which avoids the counterintuitive reification
of particularity as individual thin particulars.
Analogies can be tricky and misleading and surely cannot be used to
prove anything in any definitive fashion. But they still may have some use. So
consider the holes in a peg-board. Suppose they are all of the same shape and
size. A hole is next-to-nothing, but obviously not nothing. A hole considered
in itself is fillable, but unfilled. It is therefore analogous to a thin particular,
which is determinable, but undetermined. Of course, a hole in a peg-board is a
'feature' of the peg-board. This is perhaps a point of dis analogy since a thin
particular is not obviously a 'hole' in something. So to approximate to the
thought of a thin particular we must think: of a hole in a peg-board while thinking
away the peg-board. Now if we think: away the peg-board, we think: away that
which keeps the holes distinct. They coalesce into a unitary and amorphous
potentiality-for-determination. Whether this is problematic will be considered
after completing the analogy.
Furthermore, each peg is analogous to a conjunctive property with
sufficiently many conjuncts to completely determine an individual. Just as a peg
is distinct from the hole it fills, properties are distinct from the thin particulars
that instantiate them. But properties are not 'ontologically distant' from the
particulars that instantiate them (in the way in which they would be if they were
NC-universals), any more that a peg is spatially distant from a hole it fills. A
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 183
peg-in-a-hole is analogous to a concrete fact or state of affairs. The lack of need
for anything to connect peg and hole is analogous to the lack of need for a
regress-generating relation of instantiation. Notice how this turns Frege's
saturated/unsaturated metaphor on its head. For Frege, properties (concepts) are
unsaturated or 'gappy' while particulars (objects) are unsaturated. For us,
properties are saturated, while (thin) particulars are unsaturated, indeed,
unsaturated in excelsis. Of course, both analogies limp, and the comparison of
the two analogies 'meta-limps.' To keep things in perspective, we must recall
that in Frege's mature ontology, concepts are functions; objects, as arguments
of functions, could be non-particulars; and there are no facts. Thus a fact is not
the value of a function for a given argument. If a's being F were the value of the
function Fx for the argument a, then Fx would be a constituent of its value,
which is absurd.
The peg/peg-board analogy can be pushed further to illustrate the
compositional model of facts. The lack of need of anything to connect a peg and
a hole does not require that peg and hole be mutually inseparable aspects of, or
abstractions from, a third thing, the peg-in-hole. Analogously, the lack of need
for a relation of instantiation to connect a and F-ness in the fact of a's being F
does not require that a and F-ness be mere abstractions from a's being F,
abstractions incapable of being apart from the fact in question. Indeed, the
contingent togetherness of a and F-ness requires that a and F-ness must be
capable of being apart from a's being F. But the analogy suggests something
stronger, namely, that the contingency of the togetherness of a and F-ness
requires that a and F-ness must be capable of being apart from any fact. For the
contingency of peg A's being in hole a implies not only that A might have been
in some other hole, but that A might not have been in any hole. Recall our
earlier arguments why C-universals must be transcendent.
Moreover, the contingent togetherness of a particular peg and a
particular hole is analogous to the contingent existence of a fact. The possibility
that a peg exist apart from the peg-board is analogous to the necessary existence
of universals. The possibility that a hole exist unfilled (unpegged) is analogous
to the necessary being (not existence) of thin particulars. The necessary being
of thin particulars? This demands explanation.
If properties are determinations, and the world is not properties 'all the
way down,' then it is necessary that there be thin particulars to receive
determination. But the necessity that there be thin particulars in general does
not entail the necessity of the being of any 'particular' thin particular. A
'particular' thin particular, one that is actually distinct from other 'particular'
thin particulars, is one that exists, i.e., actually instantiates properties. Two thin
particulars actually differ if and only if they actually instantiate properties and
actually exist. Otherwise they merely potentially differ. It follows that thin
particulars considered in themselves do not constitute a plurality of numerically
distinct items. There is no plurality of numerically distinct potentialities-for-
184 CHAPTER SIX
determination. There is just potentiality-for-determination. This potentiality-
for-determination is not nothing, so it is. And it necessarily is, given that
properties are necessary beings which are necessarily such that they possibly
determine something. Now it cannot be possible that afirst-level universal be
instantiated unless the being ofpotentiality-for-determination is necessary. The
point can be cast in possible worlds jargon.
First-level universal U exists in all possible worlds but is instantiated in
only some possible worlds. But the possibility that U be instantiated exists in
all possible worlds, by the characteristic S5 axiom. Now if it is to be possible
that U be instantiated in a world W, then potentiality-for-determination must be
in W. It follows that potentiality-for-determination is in all possible worlds,
hence necessarily is.
The picture that emerges is this. Universals necessarily exist.
Potentiality-for-determination necessarily is, but does not exist. The 'materials'
for state of affairs are therefore ontologically prior to states of affairs. There is
a sort of ontological hierarchy. At the very bottom, 'next to nothing,' so to
speak, we have potentiality-for-determination. One step up there are facts which
are contingent 'mixtures' of potentiality-for-determination and universals.
Above this, necessarily existent universals removed from time, change and the
possibility of nonexistence. If it turns out that universals are not necessary in
themselves, but necessary from another, then at the top of the hierarchy there
would be a being, necessary from itself, in which universals exist. This
absolutely necessary being would also be that in which potentiality-for-
determination is. At the apex of the hierarchy would stand a being which is the
unity of potentiality-for-determination and universals; as such a unity, such a
being would be a necessarily existent individual as opposed to a mere bundle of
properties. This of course is the Paradigm. But now we are getting ahead of our
story.
We must return to the question whether it is problematic to allow thin
particulars, considered in themselves, to coalesce into an amorphous
potentiality-for-determination. One of the traditional jobs of thin (bare)
particulars is to ground numerical difference. Can we still explain numerical
difference if thin particulars, considered in themselves, have yet to emerge from
an amorphous potentiality-for-determination? Our approach implies that what
differentiates thick particulars A and B are not thin particulars a and b, taken by
themselves, or difference of properties as between A and B, but a-instantiating-
properties and b-instantiating- properties. Thus thin particulars, considered in
themselves, are necessary but not sufficient for actual numerical difference.
Potentiality-for-determination plays a role but not the only role. (Talk of thin
particulars in themselves is just talk of potentiality-for-determination.) Actual
numerical difference is the numerical difference of actual or existing items. But
thin particulars, considered in themselves, do not actually exist. Hence they do
not actually differ. But thin particulars instantiating properties do exist, and can
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 185
be invoked to account for numerical difference. Thin particulars instantiating
properties, however, are just thick particulars. Thus numerical difference is
grounded in difference of thick particulars. This numerical difference of thick
particulars, however, is not a brute difference as we shall now see more clearly.
Suppose thick particulars A and B, which are numerically distinct, share
all universal properties. Then the numerical difference of the two cannot be
grounded in any property-difference. Think of Max Black's indiscernible iron
spheres. Nor can it be grounded in the numerical difference of two thin
particulars considered in themselves for the reasons just given. But there is a
third alternative: numerical difference is grounded in thin particulars together
with their properties. Not in properties apart from particulars, nor in particulars
apart from properties, but in the two taken together as composing facts. A fact
is something in addition to its constituents: it is their unity. Each unity excludes
every other unity. Each unity, as a unity, is numerically different from every
other one. This implies that two unities are numerically different even if they
have all the same property constituents. Recall our Chapter 6, section 1
argument that there is no universal property of being a unity in virtue of which
unities are unities. If there were such a property, then it would be nonsense to
say that each unity differs as a unity. To say that each unity of fact-constituents
differs numerically from every other such unity as a unity is to say that the
numerical difference cannot be explained in terms of any constituent of facts,
but only in terms of the unities themselves.
Thus no constituent is needed to distinguish two unities: they are two in
virtue of each being a unity of constituents. Hence once you have a unity of
constituents, you have a unity numerically distinct from every other unity. But
this is not to say that numerical difference is an unanalyzable brute difference.
For it rests on the ontological factors ingredient in facts, potentiality-for-
determination and universals. When these are unified, they form a structure (a
fact) which is ontologically more than their constituents. Since a fact is more
than its constituents, the numerical difference is locatable in this 'more' and
need not be assigned to a constituent, whether a thin particular or a universal or
anything else. Thus we reject the following three theories. (i) The difference of
thick particulars A and B is grounded in the brute numerical difference of thin
(bare) particulars at the ontological core of each. (ii) The difference is grounded
in a qualitative difference, a difference in properties. (iii) The numerical
difference of A and B is simply a brute difference, one that cannot be explained.
It is clear how our theory differs from (i) and (ii). It is perhaps less clear
how it differs from (iii). For are we not committed to saying that two unities,
albeit onto logically additional to the respective sums of their respective
constituents, just differ as a matter of brute fact and that numerical difference
has no ontological ground? This would be so if there were no unifier
responsible for the unity of each unity of fact-constituents. In the next chapter
we argue that unity demands a unifier which is the same for all facts, a unifier
186 CHAPTER SIX
that cannot be internal to facts in the manner of a further constituent. Assuming
that there is such a unifier, then unity in each case has a ground. But the unifier,
by grounding the unity of the constituents in each fact, by the same stroke
grounds the numerical difference of each unity from every other one. The
ground of unity is also the ground of numerical difference. Since existence is
unity, we can say that the ground of an individual's existence is also the ground
of its numerical difference from every other individual. That which makes
individuals exist, concomitantly makes them numerically differ. This is not
merely to say that two things must exist if they are to differ, but that they differ
in virtue of existing. Each thing has its own existence and so differs from every
other thing in virtue of its very existence. Necessarily, to exist is to exist as an
individual numerically different from every other individual. The ontological
ground of unity/existence is therefore the ground of numerical difference.
Thus it is a false alternative to say that either the numerical difference
of A and B reduces to the numerical difference of their substrata, or the
numerical difference of A and B reduces to a property-difference. Although thin
particulars (potentiality-for-determination) must enter into an explanation of
numerical difference, they cannot provide the whole explanation. This approach
avoids the reification of thin particulars while preserving the indispensable idea
that is the sound core of substratum theories, namely, that first-level
determinations presuppose for their very possibility an indeterminate
potentiality-for-determination.
Our problem was to explain how existence can belong to a concrete individual
(in the way in which it would not belong to a concrete individual if the Fregean
theory or the mondial attribute theory were true) without existence being either
a property of a concrete individual, or identical to it. This problem was forced
upon us by our critical investigations in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5. We solved the
problem by identifying concrete individuals with concrete facts, and by
identifying the existence of a concrete individual with the contingent unity of a
fact's constituents. The identification of concrete individuals with facts rather
than with bundles of properties was independently motivated by the truth-maker
argument for facts. Since facts are needed in any case to serve as the truth-
makers of contingent truths, we found reason to identify concrete individuals
with facts. But facts or states of affairs are entia non grata in Ostrich society,
and so we needed to defuse the arguments of the Ostrich realists. It turned out
that the positing of NC-universals, universals that do not form concrete facts
with particulars is a useless ontological move, whatever semantic value it may
have. We then took a deeper look at the ontological structure of facts and
argued that both universals and thin particulars must be ontologically prior to the
facts into which they enter.
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 187
The essentials of our solution to the problem of how existence can
belong to individuals are now before us. What remains to do in this chapter is
to add some refinements, and issue some rebuttals.
Approached in one way, the concept of a thin particular is as clear as the concept
of a first-level property. Necessarily, a property is possibly such as to qualify
something. This is non-negotiable. A 'property' that could not qualify anything
is no property at all. It is also non-negotiable that the world is not properties 'all
the way down.' So soon enough we come to non-property property-bearers.
This reasoning, however, rests on an assumption that we must now examine: it
assumes that no first-level property is identical to an individual. For on this
assumption, there would be no need for propertyless substrata. Why can't a
first-level property such as being human be identical to an individual such as
Socrates? Why can't a this-such be ontologically simple in the sense that it
cannot be split into a thisness-factor and a suchness-factor?
To begin, let us remind ourselves that the thinness of a thin particular
does not reside in its being devoid of properties. Nothing is devoid of
properties. A thin particular is thin in that there is nothing in the individual or
specific nature of a thin particular to dictate or constrain what properties it has
or can have. It must have some properties or other, but which properties it has
is not entailed by its being the thin particular it is. This is simply a consequence
of a thin particular's being the sheer particularity of the thing of which it is the
thin particular. As potentiality-for-determination it is in itself undetermined, but
determinable.
Thus there is no sense in which the properties of a thin particular are
rooted in it or flow from it or manifest its nature. A thin particular is not a
property that could entail other properties, nor is it a complex that could contain
properties. A thin particular is a mere particular, a simple particular. Considered
in and by itself, it has no individual or specific nature: it has at most the nature
common to all thin particulars. It is therefore unlike an Aristotelian primary
substance which is somehow identical with its essence or natureY In the
Aristotelian tradition, a substance such as Socrates is not a mere particular, but
a particularized nature harboring within itself certain powers and capacities
such as the capacity to acquire a tan. Being tanned is thus an (accidental)
property that is rooted in a capacity in Socrates' nature. By contrast, a thin
particular is, to repeat, a mere particular.
The Aristotelian conception according to which Socrates is somehow
identical with his essence is a conception we reject and indeed must reject if we
are to assay ordinary particulars as concrete facts composed of thin particulars
and properties. In any case, how could Socrates, a particular man, be identical
with his essence, which is to be a man? Mter all, he shares his essence, his to
188 CHAPTER SIX
ti en einai (quod quid erat esse) with Plato. His essence thus looks to be a
universal. This is not something Aristotle can accept, however, since he seems
to think that if the humanity shared by Socrates and Plato were a universal, it
would be have to be a transcendent universal, one capable of existing
uninstantiated, and indeed a Platonic paradigm. But then it and not Socrates
would be a primary substance (prote ousia).
Aristotle's Book Zeta Chapter 6 reasoning in his Metaphysics seems to
be along the following lines. If anything is a universal, it must be a Platonic
universal: it must be (i) capable of existing uninstantiated, and (ii) a self-
predicable paradigm entity. Thus the Platonic Form of the Good, the Good
Itself, is identical with the essence of goodness, 'what it is to be good.' For the
Good, in order to be a paradigmatic entity or standard, must itself be good. It
cannot be good, however, by participation in something distinct from itself on
pain of a vicious infinite regress. So the Good is identical with its essence or
nature. It is insofar forth ontologically simple. But since Aristotle is convinced
that there are no Platonic universals, and that they would not explain anything
even if they did exist, he concludes that it is things like Socrates that are primary
substances. But the Stagirite continues to operate with the quite Platonic
assumption that a primary substance, something that is not predicable of
anything more basic, is not such as to allow a distinction between its
particularity and its essence. He therefore concludes that there is no distinction
in Socrates between his particularity and his essence or nature.
There are at least two problems with the argumentation in Metaphysics
Zeta, 6. One is the assumption that a universal must be transcendent, i.e.,
capable of uninstantiated existence. Why can't a universal be immanent, i.e.,
capable of existing only in its instances? A second problem is the assumption
that a transcendent universal must be a Platonic paradigm. But why must
humanity, 'what it is to be human,' be itself human? Even apart from the
argumentation, the conclusion that there is no distinction in Socrates between
his particularity and his essence is hard to square with Socrates' contingent
existence. Existence is obviously not an accident of Socrates: a substance can
exist without any particular accident it has, and perhaps without any accident at
all; but a substance cannot exist without existence. But if existence is included
in Socrates' essence, then he is a necessary being. That way lies madness. So
how are we to understand the contingent existence of Socrates? We don't see
any answer to this in Aristotle, who may be fairly taxed with 'existence-
blindness.' Our suggestion is that contingent existence is contingent unity of
ontological constituents. But then particularity and essence in our man must be
distinguished. The particularity becomes thin, and essence ends up on the side
of the properties.
What this little excursus on Aristotle shows us is that, for a realist
ontology that cleaves to an irreducible category of particulars, a non-bundle
ontology, the alternative to admitting thin particulars as the ultimate substrata
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 189
or bearers of first-level properties is to admit individuals that are identical with
their essences or natures. But that strikes us as more problematic than the
postulation of thin particulars. Maybe God is identical with his nature, but how
could Socrates be? If there are first-level determinations, and all of the suchness
of a thing is captured by its determinations, then it quite naturally follows that
there must be thin particulars for those determinations to determine.
The present approach involves two main ideas: (i) ordinary (thick) individuals
are concrete states of affairs having ontological constituents; (ii) the existence
of a thick individual is the contingent unity of its constituents. If we think of
existence as the unity of the constituents of thick individuals, certain advantages
accrue.
One advantage is that we can uphold Frege's virtually self-evident
negative thesis (existence is not a mark (Merkmal) of any concept) which he
shares with Kant, while rejecting his dubious positive thesis (existence is a
property (Eigenschaft) of concepts or properties, never of individuals). For if
existence is the unity of the constituents of thick individuals construed as
concrete states of affairs, then existence is no part of what an individual is. The
whatness or nature of an individual is on the side of its properties, but existence
qualifies the entire complex whose constituents are a thin individual and its
properties. We have already seen that existence cannot be a further constituent
property. In the next chapter, we will see that it cannot be any sort of
constituent. Nevertheless, we avoid the mistake of kicking existence upstairs to
the level of abstracta, as we would if we made it a property of propositional
functions or Fregean Begriffe: it is the concrete Socrates that exists, and his
existence is not pseudo-existence, that essential property of everything, but
genuine existence. (For the distinction between existence and pseudo-existence,
see Chapter 2.) We can have it both ways: existence is no part of what a thing
is, and existence belongs to individuals. We can have Frege's negative thesis
without his positive thesis. And we must have it both ways, since both of these
claims are practically self-evident or datanic. That is, they are data that any
192 CHAPTER SIX
adequate theory must be able to accommodate, assuming that the adequacy of
a theory is closely tied to its ability to 'save the appearances.' Is it not self-
evident that existence is attributable to individuals and that Russell was wrong
in assimilating 'Socrates exists' to 'Socrates is numerous'? And is it not self-
evident that in attributing existence to a thing we are not characterizing it as we
would be if we said it was human or wise?
A second advantage of our approach is that it can accommodate the
intuition that existence and actuality are closely linked, if not identical. For if
ordinary individuals are concrete states of affairs, then the existence of an
individual will be (identically) the actuality (obtaining) of a state of affairs. We
will be able to maintain the very natural equation that one finds in Kant and
others: to exist = to actually exist = to be actual. A philosopher like A.
Plantinga who thinks of states of affairs as all of them 'abstract entities,'
however, will be forced to distinguish between existence and actuality. For if
only abstract states of affairs are actual/unactual, then no concrete individual
is actual. Accordingly, Socrates exists, but is neither actual nor unactual, any
more than he is true or false. What is actual is the abstract state of affairs,
Socrates' existence. But this implies that it is not Socrates himself who is
contingently actual, but an abstract object that at best represents him. And this
is counterintuitive. Our proposal allows us to say that it is Socrates himself who
is metaphysically contingent, just as it allows us to say that it is Socrates himself
who exists.
A third advantage of the present approach is that we will be able to resist
the temptation to identify the existence of a with a. For if existence is neither
a second-level nor a first-level property, one might suppose that the existence of
a = a, that "We cannot oppose a to its existence.,m The arguments against this
view were given in chapter 3. We now can see that our constituent ontology
offers a way of avoiding it. There is a clear difference between the actuality of
a state of affairs Sand S. So if individuals are concrete states of affairs, and
existence is actuality, we have a way of resisting the identification of the
existence of an individual with that individual.
A fourth advantage of our approach is that it allows us to accommodate
the holism of existence, the fact that existence pertains to the whole of a thing.
This holism refers to the fact that the existence of a thing cannot be one of its
properties (or property-instances) alongside others, as argued in Chapter 2. On
the present view, the whole of a thing is the thing as concrete state of affairs.
Since existence is the actuality of such states of affairs, it accrues to them 'from
without,' hence is not a property or any other constituent of the thick indi vidual.
Equivalently, if the existence of an individual is the unity of its constituents, it
is clear how it embraces all of its properties, and is therefore not one of them.
A fifth advantage of the present approach, and one of capital
importance, is that it allows us to explain how propositions can be made true by
individuals, and how the world in itself can possess an intrinsic intelligibility
THE ONTOLOGY OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 193
that does not derive from our conceptual schemes. For on the view defended
here, individuals, as facts, are proposition-like. They possess an intrinsic
structure and intelligibility that does not depend on us.
NOTES
3 See his Person and Object: A Metaphysical Study (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1976), p. 114.
4 Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. Richard Hope (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968),
p. 197; 1051b5. I am not suggesting that Aristotle holds to an ontology of facts.
5 Cf. Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons, and Barry Smith, "Truth-Makers," Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, vol. XLIV, no. 3 (March 1984), p. 301.
7Cf. Greg Restall, 'Truthmakers, Entailment and Necessity," Australasian Journal ofPhilosophy
vol. 74, no. 2 (June 1996), p. 337.
8 Julian Dodd, An Identity Theory of Truth (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 2000), pp. 1-18.
9 David Lewis, "Critical Notice of Armstrong, D. M., A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility, "
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 70, no. 2 (June 1992), p. 215.
p.7.
13 Cf. David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1986), p. 62.
14 Cf. James Van Cleve, "Predication without Universals? A Fling with Ostrich Nominalism,"
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research vol. LlV, no. 3 (September 1994), p. 580.
15 A somewhat similar complaint was lodged by Aristotle against Plato in Book Alpha, Chapter
17 Ibid., p. 202.
20 Alvin Plantinga, "Guise Theory" in Agent, Language, and the Structure of the World, ed. James
E. Tomberlin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1983), p. 44.
See my article, "Bundles and Indiscemibility: A Reply to O'Leary-Hawthorne," Analysis, vol. 57,
no. 1 (January 1997), pp. 91-94.
24G. W. F. Hegel, Phaenomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1952), pp. 79-
89.
25 Cf. D. M. Armstrong, Universals, op. cit., p. 38 et passim.
26 More generally, nothing can exist without having properties. We do not wish to rule out the
possibility of a being which has its properties, not by instantiating them, but by being identical to
them. Such a being is what it has.
27 Vide Aristotle, Metaphysics VII.6, 1031b18.
Wilfrid Sellars, "Particulars," reprinted in Science, Perception and Reality (London: Routledge,
28
30 Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Bergmann's Constituent Ontology" Nous vol. IV, no. 2 (May 1970),
p.116.
31 Ibid., p. 117.
32 Ibid., p. 125.
33Reinhardt Grossmann, The Categorial Structure o/the World (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1983), p. 403.
Chapter Seven
The argument of the preceding chapter issued in the conclusion that the
existence of a concrete contingent individual is the unity of its constituents, the
unity whereby an individual is distinguished from a mere collection of its
constituents. The question about existence has therefore led us to a question
about unity. What, if anything, accounts for the unity of a concrete contingent
individual? What, if anything, is the unifier of a concrete contingent individual?
The unifier of an individual is the ground of its unity, and thus the ground of its
existence. We employ the term 'ground' since we reserve 'cause' for physical
causes. One could, however, characterize the unifier as the metaphysical cause
or source of the unity and thus the existence of concrete contingent indi viduals.
The task of this chapter and the next is to answer the question about the
ground of the contingent existent using only materials supplied by, or implicit
in, our Chapter 6 answer to the question about the nature or structure of the
contingent existent. The task, in other words, is to establish the existence of a
ground of the contingent existent through sheer explication of what it is for
contingent individuals to exist, given the obvious fact that such individuals do
indeed exist, together with the view that they are unities of constituents.
We will try to show that there must be a ground, and that it must be
distinct from, and external to, the contingent thick individuals whose existence
it grounds. Given that thick individuals are facts, the thesis could be put by
saying that facts metaphysically require a unifier of their constituents, but that
this unifier cannot be a constituent of the fact, or the fact itself, and so must be
external to the fact and its constituents. In this chapter we are concerned only
to establish the existence of an external unifier. Further attributes of this unifier
await discussion in the chapter to follow.
Since our external unifier will remind some of the "God of the
philosophers," it is worthwhile to point out that the dialectical procedure
employed in these final two chapters is quite unlike that of a cosmological
argument whose central premise is some version of the Principle of Sufficient
Reason (PSR).! Although broadly cosmological in spirit, our argumentation
does not apply (PSR) or any causal principle to any member of the universe, or
to the universe itself; what it does is to argue from the nature of the existence of
the members of the universe to a transcendent ground of their existence. Crucial
to this argumentation is the general ontological thesis, defended in the preceding
chapter, that the existence of a contingent member of the universe is the
contingent unity of its constituents. This thesis of general ontology, taken in
conjunction with the obvious fact that concrete contingent individuals exist,
195
196 CHAPTER SEVEN
Given that there are truth-grounding facts, a question arises as to their precise
nature. A fact such as a's being F is a complex composed of its constituents, in
this case a and F-ness. Call these primary constituents. But it is clear that a fact
is more than its primary constituents since the existence of the constituents does
not entail2 the existence of the fact. If b and F-ness each exists, the latter being
a universal, it follows (with the aid of relatively uncontroversial principles3) that
various supervenient entities exist, among them the mereological sum b + F-
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 197
ness, as well as the set {b, F-ness }; but it does not follow that b's being F exists.
If a, b, and R each exist, the latter being an external relation and a universal,
it does not follow that the fact aRb exists. For a fact to exist (obtain), it is not
sufficient that its primary constituents exist; it is also necessary that they be
unified or connected. But how are we to understand this connectedness?
There are two extant approaches. The one, call it 'reductionist,'
attempts to account for the peculiar unity of a fact's 'primary' constituents -- the
a and F-ness in our simple monadic example -- by invoking a further constituent,
a 'secondary' constituent, whose job is to 'tie together' the others. (Views
according to which the connectedness is supplied by a primary constituent such
as the ordinary relation R in the fact aRb, without the need of a special relation
of exemplification, will also be classed as reductionist.) This further constituent
might be a relation of exemplification, or else some sort of nonrelational tie or
nexus. Whatever it is, it is a further constituent of the fact, and thus internal to
it. This approach is aptly called 'reductionist' because according to it a fact is
wholly analyzable and thus reduces without remainder to its primary and
secondary constituents. In the previous chapter there was talk of a
'compositional model' of facts according to which facts are composed oftheir
ontologically more basic constituents. Reductionism and compositionalism
come to the same thing. The idea is simply that a fact reduces without remainder
to the items out of which it is composed: The entire reality of a fact is exhausted
by its constituents. Even if a fact does not supervene upon its primary
constituents, on the reductionist theory it does supervene upon its primary and
secondary constituents. This is to say that on the reductionist/compositionalist
conception, although the existence of a fact's primary constituents does not
entail the existence of the fact, the existence of the primary and secondary
constituents does entail the existence of the fact.
The locus classicus of this approach is Bergmann's Realism. 4 The
reductionist view has quite a lot to recommend it as the following argument
shows. It is obvious that (PI) there is more to a's being F than a and F-ness; a
and F-ness can both exist without constituting a fact. But (P2) there cannot be
anything more to a complex such as a fact or state of affairs than its constituents.
Therefore, (C) the 'something more,' the 'togetherness' of particular and
universal must be, or must be grounded in, a further constituent of the fact, a
relation of instantiation or nexus of exemplification. On this reductionist
approach, one accounts for the difference between a's being F and the sum a +
F-ness5 (and also the difference between the state of affairs and the membership
or extension of the set {a, F-ness }) by positing a further ontological ingredient
in the state of affairs that ties the others together.
It is important to appreciate how strong and natural this argument is. PI
is self-evident. But given the sort of analytic ontology presupposed here, P2 also
seems well-nigh self-evident. If a complex is built up out of simpler elements,
198 CHAPTER SEVEN
how could there be anything more to a complex than these elements? A strict
adherence to the analytical ideal bids us construe every feature of a complex,
and every difference between two complexes, as grounded in a constituent. But
then C follows and the unifier or connector of a and F-ness is a further
constituent of a's being F.
The other approach, call it 'nonreductionist,' is essentially a reaction to
the difficulties that arise from thinking of the unifier of a fact's primary
constituents as a further constituent. On the nonreductionist approach, a fact is
not wholly analyzable and is thus an irreducible entity over and above its
constituents. We may also call this approach 'noncompositionalist' if we take
this to mean, not that facts lacks constituents, but that they do not exhaustively
decompose into them. Armstrong opts for this approach when he writes that
"States of affairs [facts] hold their constituents together in a non-mereological
form of composition ... ,,6 Thus there is no need for a special unifying constituent,
whether it be a relation of exemplification or a nonrelational tie. The fact itself
does the unifying job. Just what this means, however, is far from clear. There
will be more to say about it later.
These then are the two main approaches to the question of the unity of
a fact's constituents. On the one approach, the unifier of a fact's constituents is
one of its constituents; on the other, the unifier is the fact itself. But we will
show that both are incoherent. To anticipate, the reductionist approach is
incoherent because, for essentially Bradleyan reasons, the unity of a fact's
constituents cannot be established by any primary or secondary constituent, no
matter what marvelous properties it has. The nonreductionist approach is
incoherent because facts, conceived as irreducible to their constituents (whether
primary or secondary), are contradictory structures: it will emerge that a fact so
conceived is a whole of parts that is not a whole of parts. Any attempt to evade
this contradiction by maintaining that the constituents of a fact are abstractions
from it, so that it and not they are ontologically primary, will be shown to
destroy the very idea of a truth-making fact, which necessarily involves the idea
that the unity of constituents in a fact is contingent.
Now if both extant approaches to the nature of facts are incoherent, it
does not follow that there is no coherent approach and that facts should be
banished from our ontology. For one thing, the truth-maker argument explained
in the previous chapter gives us excellent reason to believe that facts exist; but
about anything that exists it must be possible to work out a coherent theory. To
see how there could be a third approach, note that both extant approaches
assume that facts are self-contained entities or as we will also say, 'independent
reals.' By this is meant that on both extant approaches, facts do not depend on
anything external to them for their existence as facts. On the reductionist
conception, the unity of a fact's constituents (and thus the existence ofthe fact)
is due to an internal unifying constituent. On the nonreductionist conception,
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 199
it is the fact itself that holds its constituents together. In neither case, then, is the
existence of the fact dependent on anything external to the fact. But there is a
third theoretical possibility (and this is the only other possibility), namely, that
facts have an external unifier, one distinct from the fact and its constituents.
Supposing this to be the case, facts would depend on this external unifier for
their existence and thus would not be independent reals. They would not be
self-existent, but dependent on another for their existence as facts. As so
dependent, facts are ab alia; so we are tempted to call this view 'abalism.'
Resisting temptation, we'll call it 'dependentism' instead.
2. BRADLEY'S PROBLEM
We now begin to make our case against the reductionist approach to the nature
of facts. The task of the next several sections is to defend the genuineness and
the seriousness of Bradley's problem about the unity of a fact. This is necessary
if we are to appreciate why the reductionist conception of facts fails and why
some have taken the lesson from Bradley to be that facts must be entities in their
own right, entities irreducible to their constituents that cannot be unified by any
constituent.
On reductionism, a fact, being a complex, reduces to its constituents.
But as noted, a fact is arguably more than its primary constituents in that it is
their peculiar fact-making unity or togetherness. This is a datum any theory
must explain; characteristic of reductionism is the attempt to explain it either by
assigning to an ordinary constituent such as a relation a unifying role, or by
postulating a special unifying constituent. This latter might be the relation of
exemplification, call it 'EX.' a's being F would then have as constituents, a, F-
ness and EX. But if there was a problem about how the fact's two primary
constituents can form a unity, there will also be a problem about how these three
constituents can form a unity. There is after all a difference between a's being
F and the sum, a + F-ness + EX. Although the existence of the fact entails the
existence of the sum, the existence of the sum does not entail the existence of
the fact. This of course is the animating core ofF. H. Bradley's famous regress
argument against external relations.? Bradley held that any attempt to explain
the togetherness of a fact's constituents by invoking a unifying constituent leads
to an infinite regress. Bradley thought it vicious, but that is a further question.
Some consider it benign, while others deny it altogether. We are going to have
to delve into all of this, and very carefully, as into a dialectical minefield. But
first a bit of historical perspective.
Bradley held that our inability to render intelligible to ourselves the
unity of a thing, and of relational facts generally, argued that things, and
relational facts generally, are mere appearances. 8 His main idea is that the
"relational situation" is self-contradictory. As he puts it, "A relation both is and
200 CHAPTER SEVEN
is not what may be called the entire relational situation, and hence in this respect
contradicts itself.,,9 The putative contradiction can be expressed as follows.
Any relational fact -- and presumably even 'monadic' facts like a's being Fare
broadly relational given that exemplification is a relation or at least relation-like
-- is more than its constituents since it is the constituents actually united with
one another. But a relational fact cannot be more than its constituents, for what
else could there be in a fact but its constituents? The fact must be more but
cannot be more than its constituents. Putative contradictions like these motivate
Bradley to demote our "relational experience" to the status of appearance, the
status of a "necessary makeshift" - which is not to say that relations and
relational facts do not exist, as he is often misinterpreted as saying. After all, he
says that "relational experience" is "unavoidable" and "fully justified in its own
place as a way of life and knowledge."l0 Whether our relational experience
embodies contradictions and whether this argues for ontological demotion of the
objects of such experience is not at all clear. So let us consider the problem
more closely, with special attention to the problem of the unity of an individual.
If an exemplification relation is introduced to connect a and F-ness, then
the externality of this relation seems to entail Bradley's regress. An external
relation is one whose holding between two or more objects is not grounded in
the intrinsic properties of those objects in the way in which the same color as
relation (which is internal) is grounded in the intrinsic properties of two red
balls, say. Now it is clear that EX is an external relation: in the contingent fact,
a's being F, there is nothing in the nature of a to require that it exemplify F-ness,
and nothing in the nature of universal F-ness to require that it be exemplified by
a. And of course there is nothing in the nature of EX itself to require that it
connect any two fact-appropriate constituents that it does connect. So EX being
an external relation, it appears that further relations -- which cannot fail to be
equally external-- must be brought in to relate EX to its relata in order to secure
the unity of the fact's constituents. But then a regress ensues which is both
infinite and vicious. For no matter how many further constituents are added,
there will always remain a logical gap, a failure of entailment, between the sum
of those constituents and the fact. For example, if triadic EX* is introduced to
tie together a, EX and F-ness, the sum of these four items still does not add up
to the fact. And so on for tetradic EX**, etc.
In rebuttal of Bradley, the following moves have been tried or could be
tried: (i) deny that a (dyadic) relation is a third thing between its terms; (ii) deny
that exemplification is a relation; (iii) replace exemplification with unsaturated
properties; (iv) deny that there is an infinite regress; (v) deny that there is a
vicious regress; (vi) deny that unifying constituents are universals; (vii) deny
that relatedness requires relations; (viii) deny that properties are universals. All
of these moves either involve a misunderstanding of the real thrust of Bradley's
argument, or are objectionable for other reasons, as will now be shown.
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 201
One response to Bradley is deny that a (dyadic) relation is a third thing between
its terms. (To simplify the discussion, we confine ourselves to dyadic relations,
without of course assuming that all relations are dyadic or that all relations can
be reduced to dyadic ones.) If a relation is not a third thing, then
exemplification, which we are now assuming to be a relation, will not give rise
to the Bradley regress. This section argues, however, that this denial is
mistaken, and that there is a clear sense in which a relation is a third thing
between or among its terms.
Could all the constituents of a fact exist apart from the fact?ll This is
something we were assuming when we made the point that a fact such as aRb is
more than the sum, a + R + b. In particular, could the relation R in the fact aRb
exist apart from the fact, i.e., apart from its actual relating of a and b? Many
have held that Bradley misconstrues the nature of a relation (whether this be an
ordinary relation or the putative relation of exemplification) by thinking that
one can get it off by itself apart from what it relates in a particular case.
According to Samuel Alexander, "the business of a relation is to relate .... "12
Bradley's difficulties therefore "arise from treating relations in the abstract as
if they did not relate .... "13 Brand Blanshard sounds the same note:
Applied to the monadic case, what Messrs. Alexander and Blanshard would be
saying is that exemplification (EX), though a relation, is not a third thing that
itself needs to be related to what it relates. If the business of a relation is to
relate, and EX is a relation, then EX relates a and F-ness directly without
igniting a regress. The relation of exemplification unproblematic ally establishes
fact-unity. To evaluate this oft-made AlexanderlBlanshard objection, we need
to distinguish two different senses of "The business of a relation is to relate."
On one reading it is false, on the other it doesn't stop the regress.
The slogan could mean that (i) the very being of a relation is its actually
relating the very terms 15 it does in fact relate. Thus supposing external relation
R relates a and b only, the point would be that the being of R is exhausted in
relating a and b. But this would imply that R could not relate any other pair of
relata, that it is essential to R that it relate just those terms. This is entirely too
strong a reading of the slogan. For one thing, it would imply that no relation that
just happens to relate two things is a universal. Every such relation would be a
particular, a relation-instance. (This theory will be examined in section 9
below.) Secondly, we surely do not want to say that a relation that relates a and
202 CHAPTER SEVEN
b, could not, by its very nature as a relation, have related any other pair. That
would contradict the fact that R is external to its terms.
On the weaker reading, "The business of a relation is to relate" says that
(ii) there are no unexemplified relations, that a relation cannot exist without
actually relating some relata. 16 Accordingly, dyadic R cannot exist unless it is
exemplified by some pair or other, but its existence does not depend on its being
exemplified by any particular pair. This weaker reading is very plausible, but
note that it does not stop the regress. For now R is sufficiently like a third term
to cause a problem. For the weaker reading allows that a relation is more than
its relating of specific relata; it is a universal capable of entering into different
relational facts. Suppose that, necessarily, a relation has some terms or other.
Even so, it is not necessary that a relation have the very terms it has. Now if it
is not necessary that a relation have the very terms a and b that it has, if it is a
contingent fact that R relates a and b, then Bradley's problem legitimately
arises: what is the ontological ground of the difference between aRb and the
mere sum, a + R + b? What both Alexander and Blanshard fail to see is that a
relation can exist without relating the specific objects it does in fact relate.
Relations are not put out of business by their failure to do their business in
specific cases. Bradley's challenge cannot be met simply by holding that a
relation cannot exist without terms.
Suppose we look at this from a slightly different angle. Relation R
presumably occurs both in the fact, aRb, and in the sum, a + R + b. In the fact,
R is supposed to occur as an 'active ingredient,' as an actually relating relation
that succeeds in unifying a and b. But it is clear that in the sum, R occurs
merely as an 'inert ingredient.' Now Bradley can be taken to argue as follows:
(a) One and the same entity R occurs both in the fact and in the sum. After all,
the fact and the sum have the very same constituents. But (b) R in the sum is
inert; it is not a relating relation. Therefore, (c) R in the fact is also not a
relating relation. Furthermore, (d) if R in the fact is not a relating relation, then
no further relation R * will succeed in doing the job that R cannot do. To think
otherwise is to embark on a vicious infinite regress. But (e) a relation is a
unifying constituent of a fact into which it enters, or it is nothing at all. A
relation must be at least capable of actually relating and thus unifying distinct
items. A relation that cannot relate anything is obviously no relation. But given
(c), according to which no relation is capable of actually relating distinct items,
it follows that (f) relations are contradictory. The "relational situation" is self-
contradictory and must be consigned to mere appearance.
The AlexanderlBlanshard response may be read as a rejection of
premise (a). What occurs in the fact is a distinct entity from what occurs in the
sum. In the fact we have a relating relation, in the sum a relation taken in
abstraction from its relating, and thus wrongly reified. But this response implies
that relations are not universals. For if R is a universal, then R is one and the
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 203
same entity whether it is relating a and b or not relating them. So in effect what
Alexander and Blanshard are doing is denying that relations are universals.
In defending the genuineness of the Bradley problem against the
AlexanderlBlanshard attack we are therefore assuming that relations are
universals, repeatables, and thus that a relation such as loves is distinct from an
instance of relatedness such as occurs in a fact like Monica's loving Bill. It is
because relations are universals that their being is not exhausted in their relating
the specific objects they do in fact relate. And it is because relations are not
exhausted in relating specific objects that the unity problem arises. There will
be no unity problem if sense can be made of the view that, in each relational
fact, what connects a and b is a particular (unrepeatable) entity - an instance of
relatedness - which exhausts itself in connecting a and b. For in that case, R
in the fact and R in the sum will not be identical, the first being an actually
relating relation and the second being an illicit reification of the former.
Premise (a) above will then be false. So one might think to question the
assumption that relations are universals. To be exact, one might think to
question the assumption that relations insofar as they are what do the job of
actually connecting distinct items are universals. Why can't unifying relations
be particulars, relation-instances or tropes? This is a question to be examined
below in section 8.
Our interim conclusion is that the Bradley problem survives the
AlexanderlBlanshard attack if it be admitted that relations are universals. If
relations are universals, they are sufficiently like third terms to give rise to the
unity problem.
The question thus remains: What is the difference between the relational fact
aRb and the mere sum, a + R + b? The difference, one might respond, is that in
the fact aRb, R is exemplified by a and b, but exemplification is not a relation.
Thus it is admitted -- contra section 3 above -- that if exemplification were a
relation, there would be a regress; but it is not a relation, so there is no regress.
Accordingly, one might hold with Bergmann that exemplification is a
nonrelational tie or nexus where "A nexus does not need a further entity to tie
it to what it ties .... "17 The nexus of exemplification ties directly; it is simply
postulated to have this 'power.' But this move won't work either. It mislocates
(dislocates?) the bone of contention. For let it be granted that exemplification
is a nonrelational tie or nexus, call it NEX, and that this nexus, by definition,
does not spawn a regress. There will remain the problem of accounting for the
difference between a's being F and the sum, a + F-ness + NEX. Thus the
problem is not primarily one of blocking a regress, but one of ensuring the unity
of afact's constituents. If you try to do this with exemplification relations, you
204 CHAPTER SEVEN
get for your trouble a vicious infinite regress. But if you try to do it with a
nonrelational tie, you avoid the regress, but are left with the unity problem.
The problem remains because NEX like EX is external to its terms:
there is nothing in the nature of NEX to require that it connect any two particular
fact-appropriate constituents, although it may well be that NEX cannot exist
without connecting some constituents or other. Since it is the externality of
NEX that causes trouble, its not being a relation helps not a jot. What is needed
is not a nonrelational tie, but a nonexternal tie. But if the constituents of a fact
are tied nonexternally (internally) to each other, that amounts to saying that the
existence of the constituents entails the existence of the fact (analogously as the
existence of two red balls entails the existence of the relational fact of their
being the same color as each other). This however would destroy the
contingency of facts: a fact is contingent because its constituents are only
contingently connected. To preserve the contingency of the connection, a tie
must be external to its terms; but then we are stuck with the unity problem. It
is clear that nonrelational ties avail nothing. It remains unintelligible how NEX
succeeds in actually tying together the primary constituents into a fact.
It might be thought that the unity problem cannot arise on Bergmann's
approach. For if NEX is not a relation (being a nonrelational tie), it is not a
universal. And if it is not a universal, then it is a particular, in which case there
would seem to be no difference between a's being F and a + NEX + F-ness.
The mere existence of a, F-ness, and their nonrelational togetherness would
ensure the existence of a's being F.18
This attempt to save Bergmann from the unity problem fails. Although
NEX is not a universal strictly speaking, it has the "one-many feature.,,19 Since
NEX is the same in every fact, the nonrelational togethernesses of a and F-ness,
and of band G-ness, are grounded in the same entity. NEX is therefore
sufficiently like a universal to generate the unity problem. Since there is nothing
in the very nature of NEX to ensure that it connects any two or more things it
does in fact connect, what accounts for the difference between a's being F and
a + F-ness + NEX? The unity problem remains.
It is easy to misunderstand the exact sense of the unity problem. The
question, What accounts for the difference between a's being F and the
mereological sum a + F-ness + NEX? is not a question about the difference in
general between fact-unity and sum-unity. For I could easily grant that NEX is
what accounts for this difference: all and only facts contain the NEX
constituent. The question is about the difference between any particular fact
such as a's being F and the sum (or the extension or membership of the set) of
its primary and secondary constituents. 2o If NEX unifies the fact's primary
constituents, then no doubt it unifies them into a fact: that is just what NEX (the
nonrelational tie of exemplification) is posited to do. The question, however, is
whether and how NEX actually does this unifying job. For if you add NEX to
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 205
a and F-ness, the result is not a fact, but at most the possibility of a fact: you
have everything you need for a fact except the actual connecting of a, F-ness
and NEX. 21 It is precisely this problem that I am highlighting when I ask, What
accounts for the difference between a's being F and the mereological sum a +
F-ness + NEX? Thus the question does not concern the nature of fact-unity in
general, but the existence of fact-unity in particular cases. It may well be that
all and only facts are complexes the unifying constituent of which is NEX. But
this at most specifies the nature of facts and could be true even if there were no
facts. What I am calling the unity problem, however, is a problem about the
existence of particular facts. For a fact cannot exist unless its constituents are
actually unified. So the unity problem is precisely this: What makes it the case
that a number of constituents of the right kinds -- constituents which are
connectable so as to form a fact but need not be connected to exist -- are actually
connected so as to form an actual or existing fact?
quid will eliminate the regress; but you will not thereby solve the unity problem.
Thus the Fregean shuffle mislocates the bone of contention.
Of course, I am assuming that properties, gappy or not, are universals.
If they are themselves particulars, then perhaps there is no unity problem. For
then it might be plausible to say that if Socrates and his (unrepeatable) whiteness
exist, then Socrates' being white 'automatically' exists. We shall return to this
question below. But for now, the main point of the last three sections is that the
unity problem arises whether we think of exemplification as a relation, as a
nonrelational tie, or as a 'nonrelational nontie,' i.e., as a gap in a property.
Hence we are saddled with the problem whether or not we think of
exemplification as a tertium quid 'between' a and F-ness. The problem arises
from the circumstance that there is nothing in the natures of a and F-ness to
require that they come together (as they would be so required if F-ness were an
Aristotelian accident of a); it does not arise because of the presence of a third
item 'between' a and F-ness. The postulated third item is not the source of the
difficulty, but a (misguided) attempt to solve it. Hence removing it ala Frege
does not remove the difficulty. This point is often overlooked.
But from our point of view, this misses the point. For let it be granted
that if a exemplifies F-ness, it does so without the need of any intermediary
relations. What accounts for the difference between a's being F and the mere
sum of a + exemplification + F-ness? In terms of the glue metaphor, it is clear
that there is no need of superglue (superduperglue ... ) to cement the glue (the
superglue ... ) to the boards. But the existence oftwo boards and some glue does
not entail the existence of two-boards-glued-together. Something more is
needed: the glue has to be applied to the boards, and they have to be brought
into contact with one another. Similarly, it is not enough that a, F-ness and the
exemplification relation all exist; they have to brought together so as to form a
state of affairs. Bradley's point is that this bringing together cannot be
accomplished by any constituent of the state of affairs in question. Surely he is
right about this.
Grossmann will presumably reject our demand for an account of the
difference between a fact and the sum of its constituents, and take the lesson
from Bradley to be that facts are irreducible entities. 24 But then the topic has
shifted from the reductionist conception of facts to the nonreductionist
conception to be discussed later. The present point is simply that the
reductionist conception cannot be saved by holding that exemplification is a
relation that does not give rise to an infinite regress. For again, the fundamental
problem is to secure unity, not to avoid a regress.
A fifth response to Bradley admits the regress but argues that it is as benign as
the truth regress. If proposition p is true, then it is true that p is true, and true
that it is true that p is true, ad infinitum. This truth regress (progress?) is clearly
benign. For it is obvious that the ground of p's truth is not the truth that pis
true, and so on, but the state of affairs that makes p true (assuming p is
contingent). And this state of affairs makes every member of the infinite series
true.
Armstrong's main position, as we will see later, is that there is no need
for an instantiation (exemplification) relation to tie particulars and universals
into states of affairs. But he has a 'fall-back' position: even if an instantiation
relation is admitted, the resulting regress is as harmless as the truth regress. 25
His idea is that "while the step from constituents to states of affairs is a
contingent one, all the further steps in the suggested regress follow
necessarily.,,26 What he means is more clearly explained in an earlier
publication where he describes the regress as follows. I have interpolated
numerals into his text for later reference.
208 CHAPTER SEVEN
[1] The particular a instantiates property F. [2] Prima facie, however, instantiation is
a universal, found wherever there are things having properties. [3] So this state of
affairs, a's instantiating property F, is a token of the type instantiation ... [4] The state
of affairs instantiates instantiation. [5] But here we have another token of instantiation.
[6] So the state of affairs (that state of affairs instantiating instantiation) also instantiates
instantiation. And so on ad infinitum. 27
Bradley. Thus McTaggart held that if a thing has a quality, this having is a
relation between the thing and the quality. So if a is red, then a exemplifies
redness. But equally, every standing in a relation engenders relational qualities.
So if a exemplifies redness, a has the relational quality of being an exemplifier
of redness. But then, reverting to the first consideration, a exemplifies the
relational quality of being an exemplifier of redness. And so a has the relational
quality of being an exemplifier of the relational quality of being an exemplifier
of redness. Et cetera ad infinitum et nauseam sed non ad absurdum. What's
more, every standing in a relation not only engenders relational qualities, it also
engenders further relations. If a exemplifies redness, then a, exemplification,
and redness are related by a triadic exemplification relation, and these four items
by a tetradic exemplification relation, and so on. For McTaggart, all of these
infinite series are benign, and thus "not a sign of error" which consideration, he
says, " ... removes the force of Mr. Bradley's argument for rejecting the validity
of the conceptions of quality and relation.,,29
Thus McTaggart's point against Bradley might be understood as
follows: Since each fact bears within itself an actual infinity of relations, every
constituent of the fact is related, and so the fact is a unity; and there is no
problem with such an actual infinity of relations. Thus nothing is left
unexplained and in this sense there is no vicious infinite regress such as Bradley
alleges.
If this is McTaggart's point, it doesn't tell against Bradley. Consider
again the infinite n-tuple mentioned earlier: <a, ... EX-n ... EX-2, EX-t, EX, F-
ness>. What is the difference between the membership of this n-tuple and the
corresponding fact? After all, there are (or could be) infinite n-tuples for which
there are no corresponding facts. The problem is to explain this difference, and
the problem remains with us whether exemplification spawns an infinite regress
or not, and whether or not there are actual infinities. The problem of explaining
the difference between a fact and the membership of the corresponding set has
nothing to do with the cardinality of the set. It is the same for finite and
transfinite cardinalities. One cannot possibly close the gap by cranking the
cardinality of a set up from some finite number to aleph-nought or 2-to-the-
aleph-nought. If we are thinking in terms of merely potential infinity, then we
can put Bradley's point by saying that adding another constituent will not secure
unity. But if we are thinking in terms of actual infinity, and all the constituents
have already been added, then we can put Bradley's point by saying that that
there is a difference between an actually infinite set of constituents, and those
same constituents actually unified.
If in the fact aRb, R cannot unify a and b, then an actual infinity of Rs
cannot make good on the deficit. Thus the actual/merely potential infinity issue
is a red herring. It distracts from the real issue which is simply that there is a
logical gap, a failure of entailment, between a set of constituents and those same
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 211
What we are trying to show is that the unifier of a fact's constituents cannot
itself be a constituent. Equivalently, we are trying to show that the reductionist
approach to facts is untenable. But we have been assuming that any unifying
constituent would have to be a universal, a repeatable entity, as opposed to a
particular, an unrepeatable entity. This assumption, which was the basis of our
defense of Bradley against Alexander and Blanshard in section 3 above, must
now be examined. Why could not there be a unifying constituent that is a
particular? The idea is that in the fact aRb, R is a particular, a relation-instance,
as opposed to a universal relation, and that this relation-instance connects a and
b. This implies that if Jack loves Jill, while Jill loves Phil, the loving that
connects Jack and Jill is distinct from the loving that connects Jill and Phil.
There may well be a universal loves, but if there is, it is not that which functions
as unifier in the two facts in question. The sense of 'loves' in 'a loves b' and 'b
loves c' is pretty clearly the same, and may be taken to be a universal; but it is
not this universal on the semantic plane that serves as the 'ontic glue' that
cements a and b into a relational fact or state of affairs here below in the real
order. The idea, then, is that facts have unifying constituents, but these are not
universals, but particulars.
If this approach is defensible, it would appear to defuse the Bradley
problem. Bradley's problem requires that R in the fact aRb, and R in the sum
a + R + b, be exactly the same entity. Ifthey are the same, then, since R in the
sum does not unify, R in the fact does not unify either. But if R is a relation-
instance, then R cannot exist except as relating a and b. It follows that there
cannot be one and the same R that occurs both in the fact (where R actually
relates) and in the sum (where R does not actually relate). If the sum exists at
all, it does not contain the actually relating relation R, but an illicit reification
or hypostatization of it, or perhaps an abstraction from it. Or one could say that
there simply is no such sum as a + R + b where R is a relation-instance, for the
reason that R cannot exist except as relating a and b. If there is no such sum,
then there cannot be the problem that Bradley envisages, namely, that something
more must be added to the three constituents to weld them together into a fact.
If this is right, then the lesson to be learned from Bradley is not that a fact is
irreducible to its constituents, but that an actually relating relation must not be
confused with a relation tom from its relational situation and wrongly reified.
As D. W. Mertz puts it, "Bradley and like-minded philosophers make the
mistake of identifying R-as-actually-relating with R as separated from, and not
relating, any relata.,,3o
Mertz is thus denying premise (2) in the following reconstruction of
212 CHAPTER SEVEN
Bradley's argument:
1. The fact aRb and the sum a + R + b are distinct.
2. R in the fact is identical to R in the sum.
3. R in the sum is not a unifying constituent.
Therefore
4. R in the fact is not a unifying constituent.
5. No further constituents, R*, R**, etc. can do what R cannot do.
But
6. A relation is a unifying constituent of a fact or it is nothing at all.
Therefore
7. Relations are self-contradictory.
Mertz denies (2) because he holds that actually relating relations are in
every case relation-instances, not universals. This implies that an actually
relating relation is (i) a proper constituent of a fact, i.e., a constituent that is not
identical to the fact of which it is a constituent; (ii) a unifier, and (iii) a
particular (unrepeatable entity). But it is difficult to see how these three
characteristics are mutually consistent.
If, as point (ii) says, R is the unifying constituent in the fact aRb, and,
as point (iii) says, R is a relation-instance, then R is a unifier that exhausts itself
in its unifying of a and b. This follows from R's being a particular rather than
a universal. In other words, Rjust is the fact-constituting togetherness of a and
b; R is not something distinct from the togetherness which brings it about. It is
not a universal that could have related some other pair of relata. But then how
is this consistent with point (i), according to which R is a proper constituent of
aRb? As a proper constituent, R is distinct from aRb, which implies that R is
distinct from a and from b. But note that R, being a relation-instance, cannot
exist unless a and b exist, and unless aRb exists. It is precisely this feature of
R that equips it to block Bradley's regress. Since the very identity and existence
of relation-instance R depends upon the existence of aRb, there is no distinction
in reality between R and aRb. The only distinction is one we bring to the matter
by considering R in abstraction from a and b and from the fact aRb.
To put it another way, since the very identity and existence of R depends
upon the existence of aRb, R is not an independently real constituent out of
which (along with a and b) aRb is constructed. The
reductionistlcompositionalist approach has then been abandoned, and we are in
the vicinity of a nonreductionistlnoncompositionalist approach according to
which facts are ontologically primary, with their constituents being merely
abstractions from them.
Points (ii) and (iii), therefore cannot be made consistent with point (i).
If R is the unifier or 'ontic glue' of aRb's constituents, and if R is a particular,
a relation-instance as opposed to a universal, then R cannot be an independently
real proper constituent of aRb.
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 213
We are nearing the end of our long argument for the thesis that the unifier of a
214 CHAPTER SEVEN
If foundationism is true, then relatedness does not require relations. Let us now
consider what this implies for monadic contingent facts like a's being F. What
foundationism implies is that the relatedness of a to F-ness does not require any
exemplification relation or other internal unifier, and that for this reason
Bradley's problem about unity cannot arise within monadic facts any more than
it can arise within properly relational facts such as aRb. But then F-ness cannot
be a universal. For if F-ness is a universal contingently possessed by a, then F-
ness can exist whether or not a exemplifies it, just as a can exist whether or not
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 217
it exemplifies F-ness, and so the connection between a and F-ness once again
becomes a problem. So what we now must consider is whether the way to avoid
Bradley's problem, for monadic facts at least, is to construe properties as
particulars rather than as universals. We need to consider (i) the classical
conception of substance and accident, (ii) Brentano's conception of substance
and accident, and (iii) the theory of tropes.
The Classical Conception ofSubstance and Accident. Suppose redness
is not a universal but a particularized quality, or in traditional terminology, an
accident. Accidents are said to inhere in substances. Thus one sort of particular
-- an abstract particular -- inheres in another sort, a concrete particular. It seems
obvious that inherence is a tighter, more intimate connection than
exemplification, even if exemplification is taken to be a non-relational tie.
Why? Well, if redness is a universal, then, even if it cannot exist unexemplified,
it is nevertheless ontologically indifferent to whether it is exemplified by a or
b or.... But if redness is an accident, then there is so such thing as redness as
such; there is only the redness of a, the redness of b, etc., such that the redness
of a cannot exist unless a exists, the redness of b cannot exist unless b exists,
etc. Accidents are 'less separable' from substances than universals are from
particulars. The being of an accident is exhausted by its inhering in the very
substance in which it does inhere; the being of a universal, however, is not
exhausted by its being exemplified by a particular that happens to exemplify it.
Not only can accidents not exist without substances, they cannot exist without
the very substances of which they are the accidents. Thus they are not
'transferable.' My coldness cannot migrate to you, nor is my being cold today
numerically identical with my being cold yesterday. Since nothing can have two
beginnings of existence, whenever I start and stop being cold a different
coldness accident comes into, and passes out of, being.
Moreover, accidents are traditionally thought to be modifications or
modes of substances. As Van Cleve puts it, " ... to be red is to be a certain way;
it is not to be related to a certain object.,,37 The apple is not red by being related
to redness; it is or exists redly. Thus inherence is not a relation in which the
accident stands to the substance, and it would be a mistake to think that the
accident must exist as a condition of its standing in said relation to the
substance. The existence of the accident is precisely its being in (inesse) the
substance of which it is the accident in the way in which the existence of a
universal could never be its exemplification by (not in) a specific particular. But
despite the intimacy of the bond between a substance and its accidents, there is
still a difference: Socrates is not identical to his whiteness. Identity is governed
by indiscernibility: if x and yare identical, then x has a property if and only if
y has it. Socrates and his whiteness cannot be identical since he is, e.g., a good
dialectician, but his whiteness is not a good dialectician. The question is
whether this difference suffices to engender the unity problem. Can we sensibly
218 CHAPTER SEVEN
ask about the difference between the fact of Socrates' being white and the mere
collection consisting of Socrates and his whiteness?
It would seem not. Socrates' whiteness need not exist, but if it does
exist, it cannot exist apart from Socrates and is thus existentially dependent upon
him. Accidents are necessarily linked to their substances, the contingency of
both notwithstanding. But a necessary link is not one that needs to be grounded
in a third entity such as an exemplification nexus. Thus it seems that there can
be no difference between the fact of Socrates' being white and the mere
collection of the fact's constituents. There is no difference between the fact,
Socrates' being white, and the sum, Socrates + his whiteness, assuming that his
whiteness is exactly the same entity in both he sum and the fact. (Or, if you
insist that there is a difference between fact and sum, then the accident in the
sum is not numerically identical to the accident in the fact, but an illicit
reification of the latter.) So if the constituents are there, then eo ipso the fact is
there. Facts would then supervene upon the bare existence of their constituents,
with no need for a nexus to tie them into a fact. A fact would be an "ontological
free lunch" in a phrase of Armstrong. Perhaps in thought one can separate
Socrates from his whiteness, but if there is no separability in reality, there is no
need for a nexus to unite them.
So if the substance-accident metaphysic were tenable, Bradley's regress
would be blocked, and we would have a solution (dissolution?) of the problem
of the unity of a thing. Unfortunately, the classical conception of substance is
one of the murkiest in the history of philosophy. So if Aristotle is the cure for
Bradley, this is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. For what is a
(primary) substance (prote ousia)? One of the functions of a substance is to
serve as the substratum or support of a thing's properties. The substance is that
in which the accidents inhere like pins in a pin cushion. This implies that a
substance is a particular. But Aristotle also seems committed to the view that
a substance is a universal. For he argues in Metaphysics VIl.6 that a primary
substance is identical with its essence. But an essence is a universal: whatever
the essence of being human turns out to be, it will be common to Socrates and
Plato, something they share, hence not something identical with either. So
which is it? Are primary substances particulars or universals?
The natural thing to say is that primary substances are particulars
(unrepeatables). But if primary substances are particulars, how are they 'related'
to their essences, which are universals? This 'relation' cannot be inherence. For
(i) inherence connects one particular or unrepeatable with another, and (ii) what
inheres is an accident, something that its supporting substance can exist without,
whereas an essence is not something its substance can exist without. So it seems
as if the 'relation' between a substance and its essence is one of exemplification.
But then the Aristotelian position is wide open to the Bradleyan objections. Not
so, of course, if a substance is identical with its essence. But this identity brings
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 219
versa. Two wholes are not distinguishable qua wholes, since in this respect they
are the same. But both of the wholes in question have the same member, S,
hence are indistinguishable. The point is ontological, not epistemological. It is
not just that we cannot tell them apart, but that there is nothing in or about these
wholes to make them different. Brentano's theory thus appears to have the
absurd consequence that distinct accidents are not distinct. The theory implies
that all of Socrates' accidents (being pale, snubnosed, hot, bothered, married to
Xanthippe) are the same accident. The theory gives the right answer when it
comes to the difference between Socrates' paleness and Plato's warmth: it
implies that these accidents are different, which of course they are. But it gives
the right answer for the wrong reason: they are distinct not because (or not only
because) Socrates and Plato are distinct, but also because these qualities are
themselves distinct, which is to say that they are distinct quite apart from their
inhering in Socrates and Plato respectively. For if paleness and warmth were
distinct only in virtue of the difference between Socrates and Plato, then
paleness and warmth in Socrates would not be distinct, which is absurd. The
point is that the difference between accidents is qualitative and thus impossible
to explain in terms of the numerical difference of the substances of which they
are the accidents.
The argument, then, is this:
1. If two wholes differ numerically, then they differ in a proper part: one
has a proper part the other doesn't have or vice versa.
2. An accident A of substance S is a whole whose sole proper part is S.
(Brentano's Theory)
Therefore
3. If S has accidents Al and A2, then there are two numerically distinct
wholes WI and W2 each of whose sole proper part is S. (From 2)
Therefore
4. If S has accidents Al and A2, then WI and W2 both differ in a part
and do not differ in a part. (From 1 and 3)
Therefore
5. Given that the antecedent of (4) is true, while the consequent of (4)
is a contradiction, and given that (1) is true, it follows that (2) --
Brentano's Theory -- is false.
One response to this argument might be to question premise (1). Why
cannot two wholes just differ, but without differing with respect to any part? We
cannot see that this makes sense, but even if it did, it would lead to a difficulty
for Brentano' s theory. If whole WI is a different existent from whole W2, but
the two wholes do not differ in any part, then one way this could be true is if
neither has a part, and both are 'empty wholes' or 'null wholes.' That would
imply that the existence of these wholes would not be dependent on the
existence of their members. They would exist in their own right. But then
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 221
There is yet another assumption the rejection of which may be thought to solve
or dissolve Bradley's problem. This is the assumption that the existence and the
actuality of a fact are the same, that a fact cannot exist unless it is actual.
Equivalently, it is the assumption that fact-constituents cannot be unified in the
fact-way without constituting an actual fact. To reject this assumption is to hold
that all categorially possible facts exist, but only some are actual. This implies
a distinction between existence and actuality. On this proposal, a possible fact
is itself a fact, a fact in the mode of possibility, and not merely the possibility of
there being a fact; a possible fact is thus a genuine unity of constituents, albeit
an unactual one.
Gi ven this 'bipolar' approach according to which all facts exist, but only
some are actual (obtain), could one still press the question: What is the
difference between the fact of a's being F and the membership of {a, NEX, F-
ness}? No. For this question has a point and a clear sense only if the existence
of the fact entails the existence of its constituents, but not vice versa. But the
converse entailment would be valid if every possible fact exists. For then the
existence of the constituents (including the nexus) would suffice for the
existence of the fact. There would be no need for any further 'assembly' of
these constituents. There would be no room for a distinction between the
substantival and participial aspects of a tie, i.e., the distinction between the tie
as a 'static' entity and as a 'dynamic' tying tie, between a tie that 'just sits there'
and a tie that 'does something,' namely, ties the other constituents into a fact.
Compare Russell's distinction between an "actually relating relation" and a
relation that is "merely one member of an aggregate.,,41 This sort of distinction
could get no grip if every possible fact is an existing (although not an actual)
fact.
224 CHAPTER SEVEN
To say that every possible fact exists is to say that every possible
combination of categoriaUy allowable constituents is 'automatically' a fact. To
illustrate, consider a world of two individuals, two nonrelational universals and
one nexus: a, b, F-ness, G-ness, NEX. Out of all the possible combinations of
these entities, only four triples are categorially allowable: <a, NEX, F-ness>,
<b, NEX, F-ness>, <b, NEX, G-ness>, <a, NEX, G-ness>. Now consider the
first triple. How does it, or its membership, differ from a's being F? If every
possible fact exists, then there is no difference at all: the existence of the three
constituents, one of which is a nexus, entails the existence of the fact. If the
constituents are there, then eo ipso the fact is there, which is to say that the
constituents cannot exist in a disconnected state. Although the representation
of the constituents as a triple suggests that they can exist disconnected, the
representation is misleading if all possible facts exist. And since the
constituents cannot exist in a disconnected state, there can be no legitimate
question as to the difference between the fact of a's being F and the mere
collection of its constituents.
Equivalently, since possible unity of fact-constituents entails existent
unity, the unity of every fact is a necessary unity. Of course, this is a
conditional necessity: if the constituents exist, then necessarily they are unified,
form a fact. Nevertheless, this is to say more than that, necessarily, if the
constituents exist, then they are unified, form a fact. Given the necessity of the
unity, it is clear that the question as to the difference between a fact and the mere
collection of its constituents cannot arise.
The upshot is that Bradley's problem can be solved if we abandon the
assumption that the existence and the actuality of a fact are the same( or
necessarily equivalent); if we admit unities of fact-constituents that are not
actual. But this 'solution' is unacceptable.
Our main objection to it is very simply that if facts are truth-makers,
then facts must all be actual. For if merely possible facts are truth-makers, then
sentences and beliefs that are false, but possibly true, will be made true by these
merely possible facts - which is absurd. In other words, the following triad is
inconsistent:
a. Every fact is a truth-maker.
b. Every truth-maker obtains (is actual).
c. Some facts do not obtain (are not actual).
The truth of (a) follows from our discussion in the previous chapter: facts were
introduced via the truth-maker argument. A fact just is a truth-maker. (b) is
self-evident: if a truth-bearer is true, then its truth-maker must obtain. From (a)
and (b), the negation of (c) follows. Hence, every fact obtains or is actual,
which is to say that the existence and the actuality of a fact coincide. It follows
that Bradley's problem cannot be defused by distinguishing the existence and
actuality of facts.
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 225
this leads to monism. I mention this approach only to reject it since it conflicts
with the basic thrust of a constituent ontology, namely, that ordinary things are
understandable in terms of ontologically more basic constituents. Recall that a
constituent ontology is needed to be able to explain how existence can belong
to an individual without being a property of it.
A second way of rejecting the unifier-is-a-constituent assumption is by
arguing that a complex such as a fact is an irreducible or basic entity. If facts are
irreducible entities, then they presumably stand in no need of a unifier to tie their
constituents together. On this conception, represented by Herbert Hochberg and
others, a fact is not a 'product' of the unification of its constituents by a special
unifying constituent, but an existent in addition to its constituents. Facts have
no need of either an internal or an external unifier; the unifier of a fact's
constituents is the fact itself.
The third way of rejecting the assumption is by holding that a fact is
indeed a 'product' of the unification of its constituents, and thus an entity
reducible to its constituents, but that the unifier of the fact's constituents is
'external' to the fact. By 'external' we mean distinct from the fact and its
constituents, distinct from each one of them and from the lot of them, and from
the fact which is their togetherness. We solve the Bradley problem by rejecting
the assumption in this third way. We then go on to ask how the unifier of a
fact's constituents could be external to the fact, and what the unifier is. But first
we need to argue against the view that facts constitute an irreducible category
of entity.
The unifier of a fact's constituents cannot be internal to the fact. That leaves
exactly three possibilities. Either (i) the unifier is the fact or state of affairs
itself, or (ii) there is no need for a unifier of a fact's constituents, or (iii) the
unifier is external to the fact and its constituents. We will now begin to steer
toward (iii) by arguing against (i) and (ii). If these arguments succeed, it will
have been shown (given that the unifier cannot be a constituent) that the unifier
must be external. Let us first consider the position of Herbert Hochberg.
Hochberg is in agreement with our rejection of the assumption
according to which the unifier of a fact's constituents is itself one of the fact's
constituents. "If we recognize that the [Bradleyan] problem arises only as a
challenge to analyze a fact solely in terms of its constituent elements, a simple
and straightforward solution is forthcoming. We need merely acknowledge that
such an analysis cannot be given.,,47 "Facts do not reduce to their constituent
particulars, properties, relations, and nexus.,,48
This is correct, but Hochberg's positive account is neither satisfactory
nor the only possible alternative. He tells us that "a fact is something in addition
228 CHAPTER SEVEN
Therefore, by substitution of the left-hand side of (b) into the right-hand side of
(a),
c. The fact = a + F-ness + the fact itself.
But
d. The unifier (= the fact itself) cannot be a constituent of the fact. (A
fact cannot have itself as one of its constituents.)
Therefore
e. The fact is wholly distinct from its own constituents.
But (e) is clearly absurd: since a and F-ness are constituents of a's being F, this
fact cannot be wholly distinct from a and F-ness. We have just quoted Hochberg
as saying that the fact is "the constituents structured or connected or related."
The truth is rather that the fact and its constituents are partially identical: they
are identical in respect of a and F-ness. What this reductio ad absurdum shows
is that premise (b) must be rejected. If there is a unifier, a ground of unity, it
cannot be the fact itself.
This is also clear from the following consideration. A fact is nothing
other than the unity of its constituents. A fact cannot therefore be the ground of
this unity. A ground must be something whose existence is independent of the
existence of what it grounds. If there is a unifier of a fact's constituents, a
ground of their unity, then this unifier cannot be the fact itself any more than it
can be something internal to the fact.
Construal Two. Hochberg, however, most likely has something different
in mind with his talk of facts as "irreducible entities," namely, that facts are
basic entities ("unanalyzable complexes") the unity of whose constituents is a
brute given. If so, there would be no need for a unifier to explain or ground a
fact's unity. In that case, a fact is a unity of constituents without a unifier. It
is not the fact that unifies its constituents; the latter just form a unity. There is
unity but no unifier. Why must there be a ground of unity?
There must be a ground of unity, because, without a ground, there is no
explanation of the difference between the sum, a + F-ness, and the fact, a's
being F. This is a genuine difference given that both a and F-ness can exist
apart from the fact in question. In the sum, F-ness is an 'inert ingredient,' a
character that does not characterize, a determination that does not determine, a
quality that does not qualify. But in the fact, F-ness is an 'active ingredient,'
a characterizing character. Bradley's challenge is essentially this: How do you
get from the sum to the fact? If you cannot account for this difference, you have
no right to posit facts. Hochberg's response, in effect, is that there just are facts,
and there is no need to 'get to them.' (Thus, charitably interpreted, he is not
saying that facts themselves do the unifying job that internal unifiers could not
do.) But this is a bogus solution which legislates the problem out of existence,
or else solves it by fiat. It is no better than the arbitrary stipulation that there are
nonrelational ties for which the Bradley problem cannot arise. If the problem
230 CHAPTER SEVEN
Suppose you deny (D). Then either you are saying that a fact does not
have constituents at all, but is a simple entity, which is absurd; or you are saying
that the constituents of a fact, a and F-ness in our example, are external to the
fact, which is equally absurd. It cannot be that in the world there is a, F-ness,
and the fact all equally existent, with the fact entirely separate from a and F-
ness. That would make sense only if the fact were an abstract entity, a
Chisholmian, rather than a Tractarian, fact. Chisholmian facts do not reside in
the causal order, but in a Platonic realm of abstracta. A Tractarian fact is a
complex built up out of its parts, and is thus ontologically dependent on them.
It cannot be wholly separate in its being from them. It cannot be a denizen of a
Platonic realm apart.
It is equally clear that the second limb, (-D), cannot be denied. For
although a fact is composed of its constituents, it is not a mere heap or aggregate
or sum of them. It has a property that neither they nor their sum has, namely,
the property of being a (potential) truth-maker. The existence of a fact is
therefore nothing other than the unity of its constituents, the unity whereby it is
equipped to play the truth-making role. This unity is the obtaining of the fact,
and thus the worldly correlate of the proposition's truth. Since this unity does
not derive from any constituent of the fact, or from the fact itself, the existence
of a fact does not derive from any constituent of the fact, or the from the fact
itself. A fact, therefore, does not depend for its existence (= its unity) on the
existence of its constituents.
The contradiction is most perspicuously represented as an inconsistent
triad:
a. A fact depends for its existence on its constituents.
b. A fact does not depend for the unity of its constituents on its
constituents.
c. The existence of a fact is the unity of its constituents.
Since it is obvious that (a) and (b) are contradictory in the presence of (c), one
might think to avoid the contradiction by denying (c). One might say this: the
existence of a fact is not the unity of its constituents; it is the unity of its
constituents PLUS the existence of its constituents. Although this idea naturally
suggests itself, it is unworkable. A fact is just a unity of its constituents. If the
existence of a's being F were identical to the unity of a and F-ness PLUS some
additional factor X, then, given that the unity of a and F-ness just is the fact, a's
being F, we would be saying this: the existence of a's being F is identical to the
existence of a's being F PLUS X. The additional factor X adds nothing.
On the other hand, if one were to insist that the X factor (the existence
of the constituents) does add something, then the question would arise as to how
unity of constituents, on the one hand, and existence of constituents, on the other
hand, could combine to form a unity. Suppose we start with the existence of a
and F-ness. How do we add the unity of a and F-ness to this? We know that the
232 CHAPTER SEVEN
existence of a + F-ness does not entail the existence of a's being F, and thus we
know that the sum and the fact are distinct entities. On the view we are
examining, however, there is no ground of this difference. Nothing makes them
different: nothing internal to the fact, not the fact itself, and nothing external to
the fact such as an operator that operates upon the constituents to form the fact.
The fact is indeed more than the sum, but it is unaccountably more: there is
therefore nothing one could add to the sum to get the fact. Thus it is nonsense
on the view under examination to say that the existence of the fact is the
existence of the constituents PLUS the unity of the constituents. The existence
of the fact is identical to the unity of constituents, and the contradiction stands.
The challenge, then, is to show how this apparent contradiction is not
a real contradiction. To do this, one must explain how the whole which is the
sum, a + F-ness, is different from the whole which is the fact, a's being F. It
will not do to say that the latter, unlike the former, is an 'unmereological whole'
or an 'unmereological composition.' For this merely re-Iabels the difficulty,
which could then be reformulated as the question, what is the difference between
a mereological whole and an unmereological whole? What one has to do is to
specify the ontological ground of the difference between the sum and the fact.
We have seen that this ontological ground cannot be located within the
fact as a further constituent. And we have just argued that the fact itself cannot
be this ontological ground. So it is not at all clear how Hochberg can avoid the
contradiction. Note that his phrase, "unanalyzable complex," appears to be a
contradictio in adjecto: the adjective, 'unanalyzable' contradicts the noun,
'complex.'
The view that there is just a brute difference between the sum and the
fact, a difference without ground or explanation, thus issues in a contradiction.
But there is another reason to reject the 'brute difference' view. For if it is
admissible, then why would it not also be admissible for the ostrich realist to say
that there are particulars and universals, that particulars instantiate universals,
but that there is no explanation for the difference between a + F-ness, on the one
hand, and a' s instantiating ofF-ness, on the other? There is clearly a difference,
one that the ostrich takes to be brute, but that the fact-ontologist tries to explain.
The latter claims what the ostrich denies, namely, that it cannot just be true that
a instantiates F-ness; there must be a fact that makes it true. But if the fact-
ontologist must appeal to a brute given - the brute difference between sum and
fact - then why not make the brute appeal sooner rather than later? What good
does it do to posit a fact as a truth-maker if the difference between a fact and the
sum of its constituents is a brute difference?
In sum, Hochberg on the second construal faces a dilemma. If there is
need for a unifier, then, since it cannot be internal to the fact, it must be the fact
itself. But this issues in absurdity, as was seen above. For it implies that a fact
is wholly distinct from its constituents, which conflicts with the obvious point
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 233
that a fact, as a complex, is partially identical with its constituents. If, on the
other hand, it is claimed that there is no need for a unifier, then there is nothing
to distinguish a fact from its constituents, and a fact ends up being a
contradictory structure for the reasons given.
Construal Three. The dilemmajust mentioned assumes that Hochberg's
model for facts is compositional. But his model may be a noncompositional one
according to which states of affairs or facts are ontologically basic, and their
constituents are mere abstractions from them. This would avoid the unity
problem that bedevils the compositional approach. If a and F-ness are mere
abstractions from a primary unity, a's being F, then there is presumably no
problem about what holds them together. For to say that a and F-ness are
abstractions from a's being F is just to say that they cannot exist apart from a's
being F. In that case, the a in the sum, a + F-ness, will not be exactly the same
entity as the a in the fact, a's being F, and the F-ness in the sum will not the be
the same as the F-ness in the fact. Or to look at it in another, equivalent, way,
if we begin by stipulating that the constituents are the same in sum and fact, then
there simply is no sum distinct from the fact: a and F-ness cannot exist apart
from the fact, and so cannot exist in the disconnected state in which they exist
in the sum. Either way, our 'mantra,' 'The existence of the fact entails the
existence of the constituents, but the existence of the constituents does not entail
the existence of the fact' will have to be abandoned. For on the view under
examination, there simply is no such thing as the existence of the constituents
apart from their existence in the fact.
But this noncompositional approach is inadequate. First, it implies that
properties are not universals. For if F-ness cannot exist apart from a's being F,
then it certainly is no universal. Hochberg, however, holds that properties are
universals. Second, how could the positing of a fact so conceived explain or
ground propositional truth? The truth that a is F is contingent; hence the
existence of a's being F must be contingent. But the existence of a fact is just
the unity or togetherness of its constituents. Hence the togetherness of a and F-
ness in a's being F must be contingent. But this togetherness cannot be
contingent if a and F-ness are mere abstractions from a's being F. It follows
that a fact fit to serve as a truth-maker for contingent truths cannot be a fact
conceived along noncompositionallines.
The problem faced by Hochberg and Co. might be put as follows. One
seems forced to choose between a compositional and a noncompositional model
for facts. On the compositional model, the constituents of a fact are
ontologically prior to it. They are the 'building blocks' out of which facts are
constructed. The constituents exist whether or not the fact whose constituents
they are exists. But this faces the Bradleyan problem of unity. Clearly, from
what has been argued above, the unifier of a fact's constituents can neither be
a further constituent, nor can it be the fact itself. On the noncompositional
234 CHAPTER SEVEN
model, a fact is ontologically prior to its constituents. This avoids the Bradley
problem, but makes it impossible to see how a fact so construed could function
as a truth-maker. For then the contingent existence of a fact would not be the
contingent unity of its ontologically prior constituents; indeed it is not clear what
the existence of a fact would be. Would the existence of a fact be the existence
of a simple (as opposed to complex) entity whose 'constituents' are mere
abstractable aspects of it? If yes, then this faces all the objections we brought
forward in Chapter 2 against the view that existence is a property of individuals.
for example, aRb and bRa seem to differ without differing in a constituent. If
there are complexes that differ without differing in a constituent, perhaps the
difference between a fact and its corresponding sum is but another instance of
this. Indeed, in one place Armstrong argues for states of affairs from the
premise that there are complexes that differ without differing in a constituent. 61
Since aRb and bRa (the relation either non-symmetrical or asymmetrical) are
different states of affairs that share all constituents, they differ only by being
different states of affairs. "Hence we require states of affairs in our ontology.,,62
This is not a satisfactory argument for states of affairs. For one thing,
it is question-begging. 63 The problem as to what distinguishes aRb from bRa
cannot arise except upon the antecedent assumption that they are states of
affairs, and thus entities in addition to their constituents. And as Armstrong
later came to realize under the influence of Reinhardt Grossmann, it is not at all
clear that our two relational facts do not differ in a constituent. 64 Arguably, ... R-
-- is different from ---R. ... Non-symmetrical and asymmetrical relations have a
'direction' so that, e.g., x's loving y is distinct from y's loving x. Thus there is
something internal to the two states of affairs that distinguishes them; they do
not just differ as states of affairs. In any case, how could they differ as states of
affairs given that the difference has to do with the order of the constituents? The
reason to hold the facts in question to be two and not one is precisely that the
order of the constituents is different. Now if difference in order of constituents
is the ground of numerical difference, then the ground of numerical difference
cannot be that aRb and bRa are each a state of affairs and that states of affairs
just differ among themselves.
With the concession to Grossmann, Armstrong loses an independent
reason for accepting states of affairs as unmereological compositions. (But a
bad reason is one well lost.) He is thrown back upon the truthmaker argument
as the sole support for nonreductionist (nonsupervenient) states of affairs. It is
therefore puzzling when he writes that "If we have to choose between the
(intuitively quite attractive) 'Nominalist' principle ['a system is nominalistic .. .if
no two entities are generated from exactly the same atoms.'] and the truthmaker
argument that leads us toward states of affairs, then my judgment is that the
truthmaker principle is by far the more attractive.,,65 Well, they are both
attractive, and there is no need to choose between them. To reject the notion
that facts supervene upon their constituents it is not necessary to hold that facts
can differ without differing in a constituent; it is only necessary to grasp
Bradley's point that a fact is more than its constituents. It is consistent to
maintain both that (i) facts are more than their constituents and (ii) facts cannot
differ without differing in a constituent. Indeed, I claim that both (i) and (ii) are
true.
This argument may be summed up as follows. It is unintelligible to
suppose that two distinct complexes just differ as a matter of brute fact. A fact
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 237
and the sum of its constituents are distinct complexes; hence there is need for a
ground of their difference. The case of aRb and bRa ( R either asymmetrical or
non-symmetrical) does not show that two complexes can just differ. Since the
ground of difference cannot be internal, it must be external.
A Further Argument. On the nonreductionist conception, a state of
affairs is a connectedness of constituents without a connector 'responsible' for
this connectedness. This implies that (Sl) a's being Fand (S2) b's being Ghave
no constituent in common. And yet each is a state of affairs, and so they appear
to have the universal being a state of affairs in common. Now this is puzzling.
If S 1 and S2 have no constituent in common, how do we explain the fact that
they are both states of affairs? This is no problem for the reductionist who
posits a universal instantiation relation in both; he can say that they are both
states of affairs because one and the same constituent ties their respective
primary constituents into states of affairs. There is a universal of being a state
of affairs because there is a universal of instantiation. But the nonreductionist
cannot say this. What he must say is that there is no (or need not be any)
universal of being a state of affairs because there is no (or need not be any)
universal of instantiation. So the nonreductionist faces the problem of
explaining why we group all states of affairs together as states of affairs.
Armstrong with his characteristic intellectual honesty recognizes the problem.
In the case of a's being F and b' s being F he says that it is the common universal
F-ness that accounts for their both being states of affairs. 66 But what if there is
no common universal as there cannot be when we consider all states of affairs?
Armstrong's solution is this: " ... the unity of the class of all the states of affairs
is given by the unity of the class of all the universals. This latter, in turn, would
seem to flow from the essential nature of universals: their promiscuous
repeatability. ,,67
But what could this mean? It cannot mean that what universals have in
common is repeatability, and that this repeatability is also what states of affairs
have in common. For it is clear that states of affairs are (thick) particulars and
are thus unrepeatable. This is the famous "victory of particularity." Combine
a (thin) particular and a universal and you get a (thick) particular. Nor can
Armstrong mean that what all states of affairs have in common is that they
include universals, which are repeatable. For this is also true of sets, sums, and
conjunctions of universals.
Clearly, what all states of affairs have in common is a peculiar sort of
unity of their respective constituents. Thus what is common to a's being F and
b's being G -- since it cannot be either a constituent or a property (e.g.,
repeatability) of a constituent -- is the unity of their respective constituents.
Each state of affairs is a unity of its constituents, but since being a unity is
common, there must be that which is the universal ground of these particular
unities. The reductionist will say that this is the universal of instantiation. In
238 CHAPTER SEVEN
the next section I will float the suggestion that there is an external unifier that
is responsible for the unity of each fact's constituents. But Armstrong, and
nonreductionists generally, are not in a position to specify in a satisfactory
manner that which is common to all states of affairs as states of affairs. Even
if each state of affairs holds its constituents together, there is obviously no one
state of affairs that unifies the constituents in each state of affairs.
Armstrong's Hesitation and the Regress Revisited. Immediately after
presenting his theory of states of affairs according to which it is not the
instantiation tie, but the state of affairs itself that holds together its constituents,
Armstrong, evincing his characteristic intellectual honesty, expresses a doubt
about it. "And even if this is not so, the theory is not fatally injured because the
alleged regress after the introduction of the fundamental tie is no addition of
being.,,68 He simply means that even if we must posit an instantiation tie, any
ensuing regress will be harmless. But as was argued earlier, Armstrong fails to
appreciate the real force of this regress argument because he confuses it with
something like the truth regress. He repeats this confusion in his 1997 book. If
proposition p is true, then it is true that p is true, and true that it is true that p is
true, and so on ad infinitum. The truth regress is clearly benign. The state of
affairs that makes p true also automatically makes true all further members of
the series. Armstrong thinks we can deal with the instantiation regress in the
same way. Suppose a instantiates F-ness, and call this state of affairs S 1. S 1 is
a token of the type, instantiation relationship. So S 1 instantiates instantiation,
and a regress ensues. The regress may be benign, but it is not Bradley's.
Whereas Armstrong assumes that S 1 is given, Bradley's worry concerns the very
existence of S 1. S 1 exists just in case its constituents are actually connected; but
the difficulty is to see how a further constituent, an instantiation tie, can effect
this connection. Thus Armstrong is not entitled to assume the existence of S 1.
Given S 1, the ensuing regress, if there is a regress, is benign. But Bradley's
problem concerns S I itself.
It also seems that Armstrong is confusing instantiation relations with
instantiation relationships. a's being F is an instantiation relationship (or
relatedness). If it gives rise to a regress, it is surely a benign one. But Bradley's
regress concerns the instantiation relation. For the fact to exist, this relation
must actually connect a and F-ness; but how can a further constituent effect this
connection?
In sum, (i) it is incoherent to suppose that states of affairs hold together
their constituents, and (ii) it is a mistake to confuse Bradley's regress with the
instantiation relationship regress.
The unifier of a fact's constituents cannot be anything internal to the fact. This,
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 239
the lesson from Bradley, shows that the reductionist approach to facts fails. So
a fact cannot be reduced to its constituents. But irreducible facts, i.e., facts as
viewed by the nonreductionist, are subject to three distinct construals.
On the first construal, an irreducible fact is a structure that unifies its
constituents. Thus there is a unifier of a fact's constituents, but this unifier is
nothing internal to the fact; it is the fact itself. This approach is clearly
incoherent as was argued above. For it implies that a fact is wholly distinct from
its own constituents, thus contradicting the obvious truth that a fact, as
composed of its constituents, is at least partially identical to them.
On the second construal, an irreducible fact is a structure that has no
need of a unifier to unify its constituents: the constituents form a unity as a
matter of 'brute fact.' But we have seen that facts construed in this way are
contradictory structures and hence necessarily nonexistent. This was cast above
in the mold of an inconsistent triad:
a. A fact depends for its existence on its constituents.
b. A fact does not depend for the unity of its constituents on its
constituents.
c. The existence of a fact is the unity of its constituents.
On the third construal, an irreducible fact is a structure the constituents
of which are mere abstractions from it. But on this approach, what was a
contingent unity of constituents becomes a necessary unity. A truth-maker for
contingent truths, however, must be a contingent unity of constituents.
Nonreductionism on any of these construals is false. Some will
conclude from this that there cannot be any (truth-making) facts. We, however,
have convinced ourselves that there must be such facts to serve as the
ontological grounds of contingent truths. So we take the correct conclusion to
be dependentism: facts depend for their existence on a unifier external to them.
There must be an external unifier to remove the contradiction that arises when
facts are taken to be ontologically independent entities. This is detailed in the
next section.
Ordinary particulars are concrete (truth-making) facts, and their existence is the
contingent unity of their constituents. This, in one sentence, is our solution to
the problem of how existence can belong to individuals without being a property
of them. Existence is not a property, but the unity of a thing's properties and
other constituents. As such, it is far more fundamental than any property of a
thing.
The question then arose as to whether or not facts are ontologically
brute, whether or not they 'just exist.' Our conclusion is not merely that they do
not just exist, but that they cannot just exist: facts are necessarily not
240 CHAPTER SEVEN
external to the fact, anything distinct both from the fact's constituents and from
the fact itself? I have argued that it is no solution to say, with Hochberg and
Armstrong, that facts are irreducible entities, that they are entities in addition to
their constituents. And I have argued against Armstrong's view that facts unify
themselves, that it is the fact (or state of affairs) itself that holds together its
constituents. How then can a fact be something more than its constituents? It
must be something more, because the existence of the constituents (including
any nexus constituent) does not entail the existence of the fact; it cannot be
something more, because there is nothing more in a fact than its constituents,
and because a fact just is the unity of its constituents and not something in
addition to them.
So we face a contradiction, the urgency of which derives from our need
for facts as truth-makers. Before showing how it can be removed, let us linger
over it a bit longer, noting its equivalence to the following paradox about
existence:
(C) An existing (thick) individual is nothing more than that very
individual. There is no difference between an existing x and x.
(-C) An existing (thick) individual is something more than that very
individual. There is a crucial difference between an existing x and x.
It should be clear that this contradiction -- call it 'Hume's Tension' - is
equivalent to the foregoing one. Or perhaps I should say that the (B & -B)
contradiction is a special case of the latter contradiction, one that results when
an existing thick individual is assayed as a fact or concrete state of affairs. An
existing individual is to a merely possible individual (or the essence, quiddity,
of an individual) as a fact is to its constituents.
Again, both limbs of Hume's Tension exert a strong pull. In some
sense, existence 'adds nothing' to a thing. As Hume puts it, "To reflect on
anything and to reflect on it as existent are nothing different from one another."
(Treatise, Bk. I, Sec. VI) Existence cannot be a property of an individual, as
Chapter 2 argued ad nauseam, so one will be tempted to say that the existence
of x = x, or equivalently, an existing x = x. On the other hand, there must be
some distinction between an existing x and x; otherwise a merely possible x
would eo ipso be actual. Every essence or quiddity would automatically exist.
We cannot allow that any more than we can allow that every set of categorially
allowable constituents makes a fact. (Compare our critique of D. C. Williams
in Chapter 3.) As Hume also says, apparently contradicting the remark from the
Treatise lately quoted, "Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive
as non-existent" (Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Part IX). But how
could (-C) be true, how could existing Socrates be anything more than Socrates?
Certainly existing Socrates cannot be an entity in addition to Socrates.
To resolve the contradiction we first deny (C) and affirm (-C). That
leaves the question of how existing Socrates can be something more than
242 CHAPTER SEVEN
contradiction. But fistfuls of pencils are actual, hence possible, hence non-
contradictory. Therefore, there must be an external unifier. Of course, it could
be a particularly dexterous foot: the argument does not trade on the analytic
truth that a fistful of something is made by a fist and thus a hand.
A critic, however, suggests a counter-analogy. A number of bricks are
stacked so as to form a wall. It is contingent that the bricks form a wall: they
could exist without forming a wall. And there is nothing internal to the wall,
such as mortar, to hold the bricks together. What is the external unifier in this
case? The critic claims there is none. But we demur: surely gravity holds the
bricks together, and gravity is external to the bricks. If nothing held the bricks
together, there would be a contradiction. We would be saying that the wall is
more than its constituent bricks, but that this 'more' has no ontological status
whatsoever. But this would be to say that the reality of the wall both is and is
not exhausted by its constituent bricks.
Let us now consider a less crude analogy, a nonphysical one. One can
combine in imagination elements that cannot be combined in reality. I may form
the mental image of a Saguaro cactus with human legs, say as part of an
imagined comic strip in which a Saguaro runs away from a cactus rustler.
Suppose I do this. The complex image is a unity of elements, and it is clear that
what unifies the elements is not a further element. On the one hand, (E) the
complex is nothing more than its elements. But on the other hand, (-E) the
complex is something more than its elements, since it is the latter actually
united. The only way to resolve this contradiction -- having seen through the
Hochberg and Armstrong maneuvers -- is by positing an external unifier, which
in this case is the mind that does the imaginative combining.
But the best analogy is as follows. (I here trespass upon ground that I
will more fully cover in the next chapter.) Suppose I judge that a is F, and
suppose further that the contents of acts of judging are not Fregean
propositions, but items that cannot exist apart from acts of judging. Injudging
that a is F, I create mentally a complex content composed of a subject-
constituent and a predicate-constituent. This complex is a unity of constituents.
On the one hand, (F) the judgmental content is nothing more than its
constituents. But on the other hand, (-F) the judgmental content is something
more than its constituents insofar as it is the latter actually united to form a
content capable of being either true or false -- in the way in which neither the
constituents taken by themselves, nor any list, set or sum of them is capable of
being either true or false. But how can the judgmental content be something
more than its constituents? The only way to resolve this contradiction -- again
having seen through the Hochberg and Armstrong ploys -- is by positing an
external unifier, an external ground of the unity of the judgmental content. In
this case it is the judging consciousness that brings about the content's unity.
Without recourse to such an external ground, we would be stuck with the
244 CHAPTER SEVEN
contradiction.
My solution to the (B & -B) contradiction is close to Bradley's, but to
gauge how close would shunt us onto an exegetical sidetrack. He takes the
inherent contradictoriness of facts to show that they cannot be ultimately real,
that they must be mere appearances. Thus we are referred beyond them to that
of which they are the appearances, the Absolute. I take facts to be inherently
contradictory when considered as self-existent, when considered apart from their
ontological ground, but free of contradiction when considered in dependence on
their ontological ground. On my view too we are necessarily referred beyond
facts to something else, their ontological ground, if we are to avoid
contradiction. So on my view facts are real, but derivatively real. Since they
derive their existence from another, and necessarily so, they are impossibly self-
existent.
If this is right, the 'natural attitude' involves a metaphysical (not
empirical) illusion: it involves the illusion of taking what is derivatively existent
for what is self-existent. In Buddhist terms, it involves the illusion of taking
what is metaphysically 'self-less,' (anatta) for something that has 'self-nature'
(atta).70
The upshot, then, is that there must be a unifier of thick particulars and
it must be external to them. But what exactly is this external unifier? To this
question we now turn.
NOTES
1Cf. William F. Valli cella, "On an Insufficient Argument against Sufficient Reason," Ratio, vol.
10, no. 1 (April 1997), pp. 76-81.
proposition q if and only if there is no metaphysically possible world in which p is true and q is
false.
4 Gustav Bergmann, Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (Madison: The University
of Wisconsin Press, 1967).
6 David Armstrong, A World of States ofAffairs (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 118. One
finds a similar nonreductionist approach in Herbert Hochberg, Thought, Fact, and Reference
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978), p. 339: "facts cannot be reduced to their
elements and, hence, are not analyzable." "Facts must, therefore, be recognized as existents in
addition to constituents of facts."
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 245
7Cf. F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1893), ch. III. For
more on Bradley, see my "Relations, Monism, and the Vindication of Bradley's Regress,"
Dialectica, 2002.
8 F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality (Oxford University Press, 1893), chs. 2 and 3.
10 Ibid.
11 Of course, the constituents of a fact cannot exist as constituents apart from some fact or other;
but that is not the question. The question is whether or not the entities that happen to be the
constituents of a given fact could exist apart from that very fact, i.e., without being its constituents.
12 Samuel Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1979), p. 249.
13 Ibid., p. 255.
14Brand Blanshard, "Bradley on Relations" in The Philosophy ofF. H. Bradley, eds. Manser and
Stock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 215.
15 The terms of a relation are its relata. This old terminus technicus is presumably a contraction
of the Latin terminus which in one of its senses denotes an endpoint.
16 Compare ETR, p. 295 ff. and p. 302 where Bradley argues that no relation is "real apart from
all terms."
17 Bergmann,op. cit., p. 9.
19Cf. Gustav Bergmann, New Foundations ofOntology (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1992), p. 78.
20 I introduce the rigmarole about the extension of the set instead of speaking simply of the set to
block the following cheap-shot: the difference between a fact and the set of its constituents is that
one is fact and the other a set. The problem is not to explain the difference between a fact and the
corresponding set of its constituents, but between a fact and its constituents. And if anyone is
tempted to think of a sum as distinct from its members, then I will reformulate the problem as
follows: What is the difference between a's being F and the membership of the sum, a + F-ness
+NEX?
21 Note that in 'possible fact,' 'possible' is what Geach calls an alienans adjective: it shifts or
alienates the sense of 'fact' in the way 'negative' in 'negative growth' shifts the sense of' growth.'
Strictly speaking, a possible fact is no more a fact than negative growth is growth. For a fact is the
actual unity of its primary and secondary constituents and not their mere sum. This of course
implies that all facts exist or are actual; there are no merely possible facts. There are no facts in
the mode of possibility. This is of course not the view Bergmann came to hold after Realism.
22 Gottlob Frege, "Function and Concept" in Geach and Black trans., Translations from the
Philosophical Writings ofGottlob Frege (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), p. 24.
23 Reinhardt Grossmann, The Categorial Structure ofthe World (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1983), p. 169.
24 Ibid., p. 168.
246 CHAPTER SEVEN
26 Ibid.
28 Of course, I do not mean that Armstrong is in general unaware of this distinction; what I mean
is that he temporarily lapses from this awareness in the course of arguing that the Bradley regress
is as benign as the truth regress.
29J. MeT. E. McTaggart, The Nature of Existence, vol. I (Cambridge University Press, 1927), p.
89n.
30D.W. Mertz, Moderate Realism and its Logic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p.
189. .
31 Ibid., p. 76.
32 I will ignore the view that a relation is a set of ordered n-tuples. This is fine as a set-theoretic
representation or model, but preposterous as the sober ontological truth about relations. See note
19 above.
33 See Reinhardt Grossmann, The Categorial Structure of the World (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1983), pp. 160-161.
36 Ibid.
37 James Van Cleve, "Predication without Universals? A Fling with Ostrich Nominalism,"
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research vol. LIV, no. 3 (September 1994), p. 584.
38 Cf. Roderick M. Chisholm, "Brentano's Theory of Substance and Accident" in Brentano and
Meinong Studies (Atlantic Highlands, N. J.: Humanities Press, 1982), pp. 3-16.
40 David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 211.
41 Bertrand Russell, "Some Explanations in Reply to Mr. Bradley," Mind, vol. XIX (1910), p. 374.
42Gustav Bergmann, New Foundations of Ontology (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin
Press, 1992), p. 90.
43 Ibid., p. 93.
46 Panayot Butchvarov, Being Qua Being: A Theory of Identity, Existence, and Predication
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), p. 217.
THE GROUND OF THE CONTINGENT EXISTENT 247
47 Herbert Hochberg, Thought, Fact, and Reference: The Origins and Ontology of Logical
Atomism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978), p. 338.
48 Ibid., p. 340.
49 Ibid., p. 338.
50 Ibid., p. 339.
51 Ibid., p. 340.
54See Gustav Bergmann, Logic and Reality (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1964),
p.57.
56Kenneth Russell Olson, An Essay on Facts (Center for the Study of Language and Information,
1987), p. 61.
57 Ibid., p. 60.
59 Ibid., p. 118.
60 Ibid., p. 119.
62 Ibid., p. 431.
63 As Herbert Hochberg points out in "Facts and Classes as Complexes and as Truth Makers," The
Monist, vol. 77, no. 2 (1994), p. 187.
65 Ibid. p. 122.
66 Ibid., p. 127.
67 Ibid.
69 Bertrand Russell and F. C. Copleston, "The Existence of God -- A Debate," reprinted in Paul
K. Moser, Reality in Focus (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 409.
70For discussion of the anatta doctrine, vide William F. Vallicella, "No Self? A Look at a
Buddhist Argument," International Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming, December 2002.
Chapter Eight
We have argued that the existence of an individual is the unity of its ontological
constituents, but that this unity requires an external unifier. The task of this
concluding chapter is to inquire into the attributes of this external unifier, or at
least such of these attributes as are relevant to our question about the nature of
existence.
1. ONE OR MANY?
First of all, is the external unifier U one or many? Is there one external unifier
for all facts, or do different facts have different external unifiers? Since all facts
have facthood in common, the ground of facthood must be common. Now U is
that which makes a given set of fact-appropriate constituents into a fact. U is
therefore one, not many. All facts have the same unifier. This is of course
consistent with there being a plurality of facts. Each fact is a unity of
constituents, and each such unity is numerically different from every other one;
but the ground of each fact's unity is common. We must distinguish the ground
of unity/existence, which is the external unifier, from each particular case of
unity/existence.
Someone who holds that relations are the glue of the world, that
relations hold the constituents of facts together, cannot of course agree that all
facts have the same unifier. Given that aRb and cSd are distinct facts, and that
relations are unifiers, then these two facts have different unifiers, R in the one
case, S in the other. But we have seen that the unifier of a fact's constituents
cannot be one of its constituents. If R is a universal, and R unifies a and b, then
there are three possibilities:
a. R relates a and b, but R is not related to a and b.
b. R, in relating a and b, relates itself to a and b.
c. R, in order to relate a and b, is related by another entity to a and b.
(a) is Grossmann's position which was rejected for reasons given in
section 6 of the previous chapter. How could R bring about the togetherness of
a and b if it is in no sense together with a and b? Analogy: how could some glue
hold together two boards without itself being together with the two boards? (b)
might be called the 'agent view' of relations. Whether or not anyone has ever
held this view, it is a useful foil. But R cannot literally be thought of as an agent
which brings about the existence of aRb by relating a and b while relating itself
to a and to b. For any such relating must be contingent, which would imply that
R has the power to contingently determine itself as relating a and b. R would
249
250 CHAPTER EIGHT
We now must ask whether the same Bradleyan objection that can be brought
against an internal unifier can also be brought against an external one. If it can,
THE PARADIGM EXISTENT 251
enough. U must satisfy three constraints: (i) the connection between U and its
operand must be contingent and so cannot be grounded in the nature of U; (ii)
the connection cannot be brute, and so must have a ground; (iii) the ground must
lie in U itself on pain of a vicious infinite regress. Now if the connection
between U and its operand cannot be grounded in the nature of U, and yet must
be grounded in U, then U must have the power of contingent self-determination:
it must have the power to contingently determine itself as operating upon its
operand. In other words, if U is the ground of the contingent unity of a fact's
constituents, then we must be able to say that U contingently grounds its
grounding of the unity of the fact's constituents. U would then ground the unity
of the fact's constituents without inciting a vicious infinite regress.
A model for U that satisfies the above constraints is available in our own
freedom which I assume is a power of contingent self-determination. To assume
this, of course, is to assume that we are libertarianly free. (We take this to be
practically self-evident, required as it is for our moral responsibility.) I am
libertarianly free with respect to action A just in case my performance of A is
such that I could have done otherwise. Now suppose I freely unify disparate
elements in the synthetic unity of one consciousness: I judge that a is F, or
perhaps I merely entertain the thought that a is F. Either way, I freely connect
a and F-ness. The connection instituted is contingent; both the connection
between the subject and predicate representations, and the connection between
me and the judgmental content. The connections are contingent since I could
have refrained from combining the representations. But the connections are not
brute since they have a ground in my combining activity. This satisfies the first
two constraints, that the connection be contingent, and that it not be brute.
As for the third constraint, my consciousness C, as the unifier of the
subject- and predicate-representations, is not an inert ontological ingredient that
itself needs unification with what it unifies. It is not as if there must be a C'
which unifies a, C, and F-ness, a Coo which unifies a, C, C', and F-ness and so
on into a vicious infinite regress. A Bradley-type regress cannot arise precisely
because C is a unifying unifier in a way in which a relation cannot be. An
external relation is not exhausted in its relating of what it relates, else it would
be essential to its terms and hence not external. But if it is not exhausted in its
relating of what it relates, then it is distinct from them and the problem arises as
to how it forms a unity with its terms. One cannot say that a relation, in relating
its relata, relates itself to them in such a way that it grounds not only their
togetherness, but also its togetherness with them. For no relation has the power
of contingent self-determination. But this is exactly the power consciousness
exercises when it unifies disparate representations: it establishes their
togetherness, and in so doing, establishes its togetherness with them.
Thus the difference between U<a, R, b> and U + <a, R, b> is grounded
by U itself in a way that an external relation R cannot ground the difference
between aRb and a + R + b. This of course requires that we impute to U a
THE PARADIGM EXISTENT 253
determination.
which ensures that the thing could exercise genuine ontological constraint.
This is implied by the intentional structure of perception. Every outer
perception intends that its object exist and instantiate properties perceiver-
independently. The mountain range I see in the distance is given as existing
whether or not I or anyone perceive it. It is given as something other than an
object of inner perception such as an idea or representation. This is a
phenomenological point about the way the object appears. The object appears
as more than a mere appearance; it appears as a reality. As phenomenological,
the point remains true even if the particular object in question fails to exist.
Even if I am hallucinating the mountain range, the experience remains
(phenomenologically considered) an outer perception that presents its object as
existing whether or not I or anyone perceive it. We could put this by saying that
every outer perception by its very nature embodies a claim to the transcendence
of its object. Every outer perception embodies the claim that its object is not a
(mere) object, but a reality. Now a claim and its validation are two different
things; but if outer perception's claim to transcendence is valid in some cases,
then existence cannot be reduced to, or analyzed in terms of, indefinite
identifiability, where this necessarily involves our application of the
transcendental concept of identity. For if outer perception's claim to the
transcendence of its object -- a claim that belongs to the phenomenological
essence of perception - is sometimes valid, then some objects exist in such a
way as to be capable of existing even at times and in possible worlds in which
consciousness and concepts do not exist. If existence is indefinite identifiability,
however, no object exists in such a way as to be capable of existing at times and
in possible worlds in which consciousness and concepts do not exist. Therefore,
if perception's claim to transcendence is ever valid, existence is not indefinite
identifiability. Contrapositively, if existence is indefinite identifiability, then
outer perception's claim to transcendence is never valid. Therefore, if
Butchvarov is right about existence, then outer perception is structurally
illusory: the structure of outer perception is such as to necessarily mislead us
about the ontological status of its objects. They are given as capable of existing
apart from being perceived when such independent existence cannot be the case.
This casts considerable doubt on Butchvarov's theory: we would prefer not to
ascribe to outer perception such a globally misleading character.
7. One response to what has just been argued is that it leads to
skepticism, whereas Butchvarov's approach allows for a neat dissolution of the
skeptical problem. If the existence of an object is something it has apart from
any application of concepts on our part, then how can we know that some of the
objects we perceive are real or existent? The skeptical problem arises because
existence is not an observable property. Even if the mountain range I am
perceiving does exist apart from my perceiving it, there is no mark, feature, or
index internal to this or any perception, and as such epistemically available to
the perceiver, that could certify that the object of the perception exists
THE PARADIGM EXISTENT 263
Our critique of Butchvarov has issued in the result that minds are not
transcendental, but transcendent metaphysical realities. Given, from section 4,
that the external unifier must be a mind, it follows that it must be a metaphysical
reality, and indeed a unitary metaphysical reality, since we know (from section
1) that the external unifier is one and not many. But we can also show that the
externally unifying mind must also be a necessarily existent metaphysical
reality.
The basic idea is that the existence of the unifier is unconditionally
necessary since it follows from the mere possibility of facts, which possibility
exists in every possible world. Thus, (1) the possibility of facts exists in every
possible world; (2) the possibility of facts in a given world W entails the
existence of the unifier U in W; therefore, (3) U exists in every possible world,
which amounts to saying that U exists necessarily.
That there is no possible world without the possibility of facts may be
demonstrated as follows.
a. Facts exist. (From the truth-maker argument)
b. It is possible that facts exist. (Ab esse ad posse)
c. If it is possible that facts exist, then necessarily it is possible that facts
exist. (By the characteristic S5 axiom of modal propositional logic.)
d. Necessarily, it is possible that facts exist. (By Modus Ponens from
(b) and (c).)
What this little argument shows is that the possibility of facts is
accessible from every possible world. Every world is such that, relative to it, it
is possible that there be facts. This amounts to saying that the possibility of
there being some facts or other is not contingent, i.e., does not vary from world
to world. And note that this is established from the premise that there is at least
one fact. The necessary possibility of facts is proven from the premise that there
are facts and not from the mere conceivability of them. 22 Thus (a) is not
superfluous. It does real work. Although (d) is necessarily true, and thus needs
no ground of its being true, it needs a ground of its being-known to be true, and
this is supplied by contingent proposition (a) in conjunction with (c).
The upshot is that the general possibility of there being some facts or
other exists in every metaphysically possible world. Having established (1), we
turn to (2) according to which the possibility of facts in a world W entails the
existence of the unifier in W. An argument for (2) quickly materializes once we
reflect on the following principle according to which, necessarily, whatever is
possible is possibly actual (PPA).
To work up to an appreciation of (PPA) suppose we begin at the
opposite end. If a thing is actual it is of course possible. Actuality is not out of
all relation to the possible; it is precisely the actuality of the possible. But if a
thing is possible, it does not follow that it is actual: the possible 'outruns' the
268 CHAPTER EIGHT
actual. The actual is a proper subset of the possible, which implies that there are
possibles that are not actual. Nevertheless, the (merely) possible is not out of
all relation to the actual; it is precisely that which is possibly actual, that which
can be (or could be) actual, that which is actualizable. It is part of the very
nature of the possible to be possibly actual: the merely possible is not
necessarily such that it is actual (else it could not be merely possible), but it is
necessarily such that it is possibly actual. If one were to deny (PPA), one would
be saying that an item can be possible and yet not possibly actual, not such that
it can be actual, not actualizable. And that appears to be a flat contradiction. If
we understand possibility at all, we understand it to stand in the sort of relation
to actuality encapsulated in (PPA). A modal doctrine such as David Lewis'
which is unable to accommodate the truth of (PPA) is unacceptable?3
Now given (PPA), the general possibility that there exist some facts or
other (as opposed to no facts at all) is possibly actual. It is actualizable. But it
is actualizable only if specific facts are actualizable. Thus every world is such
that there could have been some facts or other in it only because every world is
such that there could have been some specific (particular) facts in it. It is just
that these specific facts are different for different worlds. No one of them is
such that its singular possibility exists in every world. What exists in every
world is only the general possibility that there be some facts or other. But since
the actualization of this general possibility cannot come about without the
actualization of specific facts, the actualization of the general possibility, no
less than the actualization of singular possibilities, requires the unifier. Thus the
unifier is not only the ground of the existence and possibility of Socrates
(assuming concrete contingent individuals or 'thick particulars' to be facts) but
also of the possibility of facts in general. The external unifier is the ground of
this general possibility in that it is the ground of its possibly being actual, not the
ground of its existence. The existence of the possibility of contingent beings in
general is necessary existence (as per the (a)-(d) argument above) and so does
not need a ground.
The argument, then, is this:
1. Although facts, which are contingent beings, do not exist in every
world, the general possibility P that there exists some fact or other exists
in every world. (From the (a)-(d) argument above)
2. What is possible is actualizable.
Therefore
3. Pis actualizable in every world.
4. For any world W, Pis actualizable in W only if specific (particular)
facts are actualizable in W.
Therefore
5. For any world W, specific facts are actualizable in W.
6. For any world W, if specific facts are actualizable in W, then the
unifier exists in W as was seen in the preceding chapter.
THE PARADIGM EXISTENT 269
Therefore
7. The unifier exists in every possible world, and is therefore an
absolutely necessary being.
The unifier U exists of absolute metaphysical necessity. But what grounds this
necessity? We submit that the ground of this necessity lies in the fact that there
is no real distinction between U and its existence, or between U and existence.
U is self-existent existence itself. U does not have existence; it is existence.
Existence itself necessarily exists as the paradigm existent. Every contingent
existent exists in dependence on the Paradigm. Thus,
(PT) Necessarily, for any contingent individual x, x exists if and only if (i)
there is a necessary y such that y is the paradigm existent, and (ii) y, as the
external unifier of x's ontological constituents, directly produces the
unity/existence of x.
The reader is referred to Chapter 1 for elucidation of (PT), and, in particular, for
an account of how it avoids vicious circularity.
NOTES
4Panayot Butchvarov, Skepticism about the External World (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998).
6 Ibid.
8 Ibid., p. 119.
8 Ibid., p. 132.
THE PARADIGM EXISTENT 271
10 Ibid., p. 125.
11 Panayot Butchvarov, Being qua Being: A Theory of Identity, Existence, and Predication
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), p. 244.
12 Panayot Butchvarov, Scepticism about the External World, op. cit., p. 152.
13 Ibid., p. 153.
14 Ibid.
17 Panayot Butchvarov, ''The Untruth and the Truth of Skepticism," Proceedings and Addresses
of the American Philosophical Association, vol. 67, no. 4 (January 1994), p. 43. Cf. Being qua
Being, op. cit., p. 109.
19 Ibid., p. 48.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., p. 47.
23 Exercise for the reader: Explain why said modal doctrine is incompatible with (PP A). Hint:
explore the consequences of the alleged indexicality of 'actual.'
24Donald C. Williams, "Dispensing with Existence," The Journal ofPhilosophy, vol. LIX (1962),
p.754.
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273
274 REFERENCES
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Alexander, Samuel 202, 203, 211, Campbell, Keith 221-223
251 Castaneda, Hector-Neri xii, 14,47,
Aquinas, Thomas 102 216,254,255
Aristotelian substances 187, 188 Chisholm, Roderick M. xii, 40, 74,
Aristotle 23, 68, 104, 108, 187, 85, 162, 173-175
188,218 Code, Alan 123
Armstrong, D. M. 13, 171, 174, Copleston, F. C. 240
176,180,181,188, concrete facts 44, 161, 163-165,
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218,234-238,241, 181, 186-188,255
242,243 constituent ontology 96, 189, 192,
Attfield, Robin 104 227
Aune, Bruce 127 Dasein 151, 152,254
Ayer, A. J. 112 Davies, Brian 112
bare particulars 163, 173, 174,221 dependentism 196,238,239
Benardete, Jose 66 Descartes 42,53, 81, 109, 127
Bergmann, Gustav 68, 176, 189, Dodd, Julian 168-170
197,203,204,225, eliminativism 12, 68, 69, 76, 80-82,
228 88, 94, 105-108,
Bergmann, Michael 59 116,122,141,151,
Blanshard, Brand 201-203, 211, 269
251 existential neutrality 2-4, 7
Bogdan, Radu 193 existential quantifier 29, 57-58,
Bradford, Dennis E. 111, 112 117, 118, 121
Bradley, F. H. 200-203, 206-212, Findlay, J. N. xii
214,217,218,221, Frege, Gottlob xi, 6, 26, 31, 37, 52,
223,224,226,230, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64,
235,238,240,251 70,72,82, 108-113,
Bradley's regress 87, 169, 201, 117,121,122,127,
202, 208, 209, 132,139-143,150,
212-214,218,221, 151,183,205,206,
223,226,230, 238, 270
250,251,252,253 Geach, Peter 111,112
Brentano, Franz 13, 28, 68, 72-80,
82, 129, 133,
219-221,270
bundles 53, 163, 186,222
279
280 INDEX