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Graham PRIEST: Towards Non-Being

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Graham PRIEST: Towards Non-Being Grazer Philosophische Studien 76 (2008), 255–258. Graham PRIEST: Towards Non-Being. Th e above the actual world (possible as well as Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality. impossible ones). All worlds are supposed to Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. xv + 190 share the same domain. But not all objects of pp. ISBN: 978-0-19-926254-0. $ 46,80. the domain are supposed to exist in all possi- (Hardback). Paperback: 2007. ISBN: ble worlds. (13, 15–19) 978-0-19-923055-6. $ 34,00. Th e essential innovation in Priest’s for- mal language is the introduction of “inten- In this book, which already attracted a great tional operators”, which stand for locutions deal of attention, Graham Priest develops and such as “believes/knows/fears that” etc. Fur- defends a new version of Richard Routley’s so- thermore, he introduces a special kind of called “noneism”, which is itself a version of quantifi ers, which are supposed to have no Meinongianism. According to noneism, “con- ontological import whatsoever. Existence is crete objects exist; everything else (abstract expressed by means of a predicate. No distinc- objects, worlds, merely possible objects, tion between “there is” and “exists” is made. impossible objects) simply do not exist” (vii) (13) Nonexistent objects are not granted any but they nevertheless have intrinsic properties kind of being. (14) and stand in relations to other objects (nonex- In Part II, Priest fends off Russell’s and istent as well as existent ones). Th e main dif- Quine’s criticism of Meinong (Chapter 5), ference to “classical” Meinongianism consists develops a noneist theory of fi ctitious objects in the fact that within noneism no distinc- (Chapter 6) and of mathematical objects tion is made between diff erent kinds of being and worlds (Chapter 7) and discusses sev- (existence and subsistence or the like). eral objections against noneism (Chapters 7 Th e book consists of two parts. In Part I, and 8). Priest discusses the paradox of the intention- In Chapter 4, Priest answers the question al directedness to nonexistent objects (there- of what properties nonexistent objects have. by providing one of the main motivations for A “naive” answer to this question is provided noneism), and he develops the formal basis of by the “characterization principle” (“CP”): “if his theory, i.e., a semantics of intentionality. A(x) is any property, or conjunction of prop- Th e paradox of the intentional directed- erties, we can characterize an object cA, and be ness to nonexistents may be stated as follows. guaranteed that A(cA).” (83) In other words, It is prima facie true that we may think about, according to this principle, a (nonexistent) imagine or fear things that do exist as well as object has all those properties which we use things that do not exist. Th is alleged “inten- in order to characterize it. tional directedness” to nonexistent objects As Russell had noted already, this princi- seems to be “paradoxical” for the following ple has an unacceptable consequence: if exis- reason: to think about, imagine or fear an tence is considered to be a property, we may object seems to amount to standing in a par- characterize arbitrary objects (winged hors- ticular relation to the object in question. But es, round squares etc.) as existent, and the how can one stand in a relation to something principle seems to entail that these objects if the second term of the relation does not exist. Th us, according to the characterization exist? principle, an object that is characterized as Th e noneist solution to this paradox is an existent round square is existent, which simply to deny that there is an indissoluble seems to contradict the assumption (shared connection between existence (or being in a by Meinongians and Anti-Meinongians) that wider sense) and being something and “sim- no such thing as a round square exists. As ply to accept that an agent can have a relation- Priest observes, ship with a non-existent object” (57). Priest’s noneist semantics rests on the [t]he standard response, from Meinong assumption that there are worlds over and onwards, has been to accept [CP] only if the properties deployed in CP are of a worlds. But this, I would like to claim, con- certain kind: assumptible, characterizing, tradicts “phenomenological experience” (to nuclear, the names vary. And existence use one of Priest’s favourite phrases). If I talk (among others) is not such a predicate. about Sherlock Holmes, I do not talk about Th e problem for this line is to give a prin- a human being in another possible world but cipled characterization of what constitutes about a character in the actual world. Th e a characterizing predicate and why. No question to be answered is: what are the prop- one, as far as I am aware, has been able to erties of this character in the actual world? do this. Certain classes of predicates can Th e Vulcan case is a bit diff erent, but it be circumscribed and deemed safe. But raises analogous objections: it may be that without an appropriate rationale, it is dif- some philosophers today use the name “Vul- fi cult to avoid the feeling that the class can” to refer to a planet in other possible has been gerrymandered simply to avoid worlds. But the astronomers of the 19th cen- problems. (83) tury surely have not used the name in this sense. And it seems to me that a theory of Priest rejects the option to distinguish dif- nonexistent objects should primarily provide ferent kinds of properties (nuclear existence an account of this use of an empty name. and extranuclear existence or the like) and At the end of section 4.4, Priest address- off ers the following as his own solution to es the problem of trans-world identity: “What this problem: makes an object, x, at one world, the same object as one, y, at another?” (90) Priest’s I suggest, the object characterized by a rep- answer is: resentation has the characterizing proper- ties, not necessarily in the actual world, [I]n the semantics we have, objects are but in the worlds (partially) described by just objects; they are not ‘at one world’ the relevant representation. Th us, Holmes or ‘at another’. Th ey have various proper- has the properties he is characterized as ties at diff erent worlds, but they are just having not at this world, but at those themselves. (Th us, technically, they are worlds that realize the way I represent not world-bound entities, but functions the world to be when I read the Holmes from worlds to identities.) But, it may be stories. And Vulcan has the properties it replied, they may have diff erent identi- is characterized as having at those worlds ties […] at diff erent worlds. What makes that realize the theory of the nineteenth- the different identities pertain to the century scientists who postulated its exis- same object? One can, in fact, ask exact- tence. (84) ly the same question about any aspect of an object. A (concrete) object has diff er- I would like to raise the following objection ent colours (or heights, or weights) at dif- to this proposal. When I talk about Sher- ferent worlds. What makes the diff erent lock Holmes, then I talk about a (fi ctitious) colours (or heights, or weights) pertain to object of the actual world. If there are (mere- the same object? Well, that’s just the way ly) possible worlds, then there are surely pos- things are at that world: at that world, sible worlds in which the character to which that object has that colour (or height, or I refer with the name “Sherlock Holmes” does weight). Same for identity. Th at an object not exist. Even worse, particularly in those has a certain identity is just how things are worlds in which the Holmes-stories are “real- at that world. (90) ized”, the fi ctional character Sherlock Holmes does not exist (since in the world of Conan I must confess that I do not understand how Doyle’s stories, there is no Conan Doyle who these remarks answer the above question of writes detective stories). transworld-identity. It seems as if Priest con- According to Priest’s theory, a name like siders the question not as meaningful at all. “Sherlock Holmes” is used to refer to a “real But I can’t see why that should be the case—at person” who exists in other (non-actual) least within a theory that rests on the assump- 256.
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