The Fullness of Being: A New Paradigm for Existence 0268028648, 2001004288

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THE

FULLNESS OF

BEING A New Paradigm for Existence

BARRY MILLER

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS

Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright © 2002 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 http://www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Dedicated to the memory of C. ]. F. WILLIAMS,

fine philosopher and superb human being Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Barry, 1923The fullness of being : a new paradigm for existence I Barry Miller. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-268-02864-8 (cloth : alk. paper) r. Ontology. I. Title. BD311 .M55 2002 111'.1-dc21 2001004288

= This book was printed on acid-free paper.

Contents

Preface

lX

I.

The Question about 'Exists' and Existence

2.

'Exists' as Predicable of Concrete Individuals

22

Appendix to Chapter Two: Zalta and Parsons on Distinguishing 'Exists' from 'Is'

57

3·

Existence-A Real Property, but of What Kind?

63

4.

A Paradigm Shift in Thinking about Existence

82

5·

The Fecundity of the Paradigm ShiftThe Wealth of Existence

112

6.

The Fullness of Being

131

7·

Something of a Copernican Revolution

162

Index

l

170

Preface

According to a fairly standard view, there are various reasons that preclude existence from being a real property of concrete individuals. One such reason is that 'exists' cannot be predicated of individuals, and another is that first-level properties are parasitic on individuals for their actuality, which is something that existence could never be. A third is that, unlike all other real properties, existence would not add anything to an individual. Moreover, even if, per impossibile, existence were to survive all three counter-indications, it would be nothing but the most vacuous of properties. These claims, however, are testimony to what happens when wrong questions are asked, when false assumptions are made, and when the possibility of a new paradigm for existence is not so much as entertained. In other words, they testify to the substantial flaws underlying the familiar claim 'Existence is not a predicate' and the Frege-Russell-Quine view not only of 'exists' as exclusively a secondlevel predicate but of existence as no more than a Cambridge property of individuals. , By way of contrast, the account in the following pages is a story of what happens when different questions are asked, when false assumptions are eschewed, and when the possibility of a radically different paradigm for existence is actively explored rather than completely ignored. It is a story that underlies acceptance of 'exists' as predicable of individuals, and of existence as the richest of an individual's properties, albeit far from invariant from individual to individual. Finally, it is a story that culminates in showing how perfectly good sense can be made of the notion 'the fullness of being.' IX

x

Preface

The book is dedicated to the late Christopher Williams, a friend who would have appreciated my gesture even if not my views. It belongs to what might loosely be called a 'trilogy', the other members of which are From Existence to God (1992) and A Most Unlikely God (1996). Characteristic of each is their selective drawing on some of the insights from Frege and Aquinas. It is with deep gratitude that I acknowledge my debt not only to the comments of David Burrell and Brian Davies, but especially to detailed discussions with Peter Forrest, Mike Loux, and William Vallicella. Barry Miller University of New England, Australia

All Saints Day,

2000

The Fullness of Being

one

The Question about 'Exists' and Existence

Like many philosophically interesting notions, existence is no less familiar than elusive. Although the verb 'exists' is as easy to use as the two-times table, it is no small feat to say just what it means for a concrete individual to exist. 1 Existing seems to be at least as mundane as walking or being hungry. Yet, when we say 'Tom is hungry' or 'Tom is walking,' it may be news to those not in Tom's vicinity, whereas 'Tom exists' would be news to no one who knew of Tom as a healthy human being, and merely puzzling to those who had never heard of him. Again,we can readily indicate what is meant by Tom's walking, but surely Tom's existence is not something we can indicate to anyone. On the face of it, we are greatly challenged to explain just what his existence is or what 'existence' means. If we hearken to the voices of Russell and the late Christopher Williams, it is a challenge that we ignore at our peril, for Russell counsels that 'an almost unbelievable amount of false philosophy has arisen through not realizing what "existence" means.' 2 Presumably, his targets include such diverse philosophies as those of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, Paul Weiss, and

r. A concrete object can either cause or undergo change. An abstract object can do neither. 2. B. Russell, Logic and Knowledge, R. C. Marsh, ed. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1955), 234. I

THE FULLNESS OF BEING

The Question about 'Exists' and Existence

Milton Munitz, 3 to mention but a few, all of which fall in varying ways under the umbrella phrase 'philosophies of Being or Existence.' Williams dismisses them as 'paradigms of what Wittgenstein called man's bewitchment by language,' a bewitchment said to underlie the belief that 'the idea of existence is something deep and important, that existence is the central topic of philosophy.' 4 His distinguished work What Is Existence? seeks to exorcize those who have been thus bewitched. In it he offers readers an uncompromising apologia for the Frege-Russell view of existence, and in particular its twin claims that existence is not a property of individuals and that the expression 'exists' is not predicable of them. In so doing, his avowed aim is 'to destroy the foundations of an enormous amount of metaphysics.'5 Unconvinced by the Fregean thesis promoted by such as Russell, Quine, and Williams, I shall be arguing that the case for 'exists' being predicable of concrete objects is a product not of any bewitchment by language but of a distinctly more careful attention to language than Fregeans have been wont to give it. Before embarking on that task, however, it might be illuminating to reflect briefly not only on Frege's remarks on the existential use of 'exists' and 'is,' but on contributions from other sources as well.

multiplicity of uses may or may not reflect any multiplicity of senses rather than merely differences of force, Frege had reasons for thinking that the four senses were not even systematically ambiguous or analogical, but had nothing at all in common. Each of the senses was borne by one or other of the four uses-by the 'is' of predication, of existence, of generic implication (class inclusion), and of identity, as illustrated below.

2

I.

FREGE

In presenting Frege's views, I should mention that the existential use of 'is' is merely one of the four uses that he distinguished. Although 3. M. Munitz, Existence and Logic (New York: New York University Press, 1974). 'The chief problem of ontology ... is to give a satisfactory account of existence' (204). 4. C. J. F. Williams, What Is Existence? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), ix. In similar vein, Simon Blackburn has suggested that 'a central mistake in this area is to treat Being as a particularly deep subject matter.' He has then given voice to the arresting, though unoriginal, view that 'this is parallel to treating Nothing as a name for a particular thing ... .' Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 4. 5. Ibid.

• •

• •

3

The 'is' of predication, e.g., 'Socrates is wise,' rendered as 'Wise (Socrates)'. The existential 'is', e.g., 'Socrates is' and 'There are crocodiles,' the former being rendered in canonical language as '(3x)(x = Socrates)', and the latter as '(3x)(x is a crocodile).' The 'is' of generic implication, e.g., 'A crocodile is a reptile', rendered as '(x)(crocodile(x) :::ireptile(x)).' The 'is' of identity, e.g., 'Cicero is Tully,' rendered as 'Cicero = Tully.'

Although Frege clearly distinguishes the four uses, in no place does he group them all together. In one part the 'is' of (first-level) predication is distinguished from that of class inclusion, in another the 'is' of identity is distinguished from that of (first-level) predication, and in another the 'is' of existence is distinguished from that of (first-level) predication. 6 Fundamental to the distinctions are some of the now familiar Fregean doctrines concerning sense and reference, objects and concepts, and different levels of concepts, all being distinctions that I shall be employing in subsequent chapters. Objects are the referents of proper names which, for Frege, include all singular referring expressions; and concepts are the referents of predicates (concept expressions). According to Frege, a concept is not an intentional entity, as the term might have suggested. Rather, it is a property and is no less an ontological item than is an object, the

6. Predicates are first-level if they are said of individuals. They are second-level if they are said of properties of individuals.

THE FULLNESS OF BEING

The Question about 'Exists' and Existence

difference being that properties (concepts) are incomplete entities whereas objects are complete. 7 In an atomic proposition like 'Socrates is wise' the name 'Socrates' is to be distinguished from what is attached to it, namely, a predicate or concept expression. The name refers to an object and the predicate to a concept. A predicate that is said of an object is a first-level one. For Frege and Dummett, the name/predicate distinction is logically prior to the object/concept distinction, for objects are what names refer to, and concepts what predicates refer to, a point that I shall develop in chapter 3. Obviously, this is a much narrower use of 'object' and a much different use of 'concept' than we find in ordinary language. In addition to first-level predicates there are higher-level ones. For example, the concept (property) referred to by the predicate 'is wise' is that of being wise or wisdom, and in 'Wisdom is rare' the predicate 'rare' is being said of that concept (property), for which reason it is called a second-level property or concept, and is the referent of a second-level predicate. There can of course be still higher-level predicates, with higher-level concepts as their referents. These distinctions between objects and concepts (properties), and between first- and second-level predicates and first- and secondlevel concepts (properties) are basic to Frege's philosophical logic, and are a prerequisite for understanding some of his views on the uses of 'is'. As will now be evident, each use of 'is', except that of identity, bespeaks a radically different relation between those ontological items. The relation bespoken by the identity use is not between ontological items, however, but between linguistic ones-names. Below are the four relations.