LEWIS AND SYLVAN ON NONEISM

Arthur WITHERALL University of Melbourne

1. Introduction

Several years ago David Lewis wrote a paper titled "Noneism or Allism?"l in which he attacked the idea that Richard Sylvan's (alias Richard Routley) rehabilitation ofMeinong's theory of objects was truly what it was supposed to be. Lewis argued that Sylvan was not really a noneist, and that he should be interpreted as claiming that all of the objects that philosophers consider controversial actually exist (rather than none ofthem, as the name "noneism" implies). This is a drastic re-interpretation of Sylvan's work, and if it were true it would mean that he did not successfully rehabilitate the theory of objects at all. It would entail that he and Meinong were among the greatest "entity-multipliers" in the history of philosophy, which was the accusation originally made by Gilbert Ryle. 2 This is exactly what Sylvan tried to show was not the case, so if Lewis is correct, the cen• tral project of Exploring Meinong s Jungle and BeyomP (hereafter "the Jungle Book") must be seen as a failure, at least from the point of view of those that Lewis calls "the orthodoxy". Unfortunately, Richard Sylvan died in 1996, without having con• structed a reply to Lewis. Although it is therefore difficult to say what kind of a reply he would have made, I believe that I can offer some significant criticisms of my own. I do not claim to represent Sylvan as such, but I claim to be sympathetic to his project, and in

1. D. Lewis "Noneism or Allism?" in Mind Vol. 99, January 1990, pp. 23-31. 2. G. Ryle, "Review onN. Findlay, 'Meinong's Theory of Objects"', in Ox• ford Magazine 52, 1933-34, pp. 118-20. 3. R. Routley Exploring Meinong s Jungle and Beyond: An Investigation of Noneism and the Theory of Items, Australian National University, Canberra, 1980. 182 this respect I can do something towards refuting Lewis' claims. This is an important defensive task to perform for a Meinongian, because although Lewis' argument does not assail the details of Sylvan's philosophy, it threatens to restore the old orthodox view of Meinongian metaphysics as 'committed' to an unreasonably bloated ontology, and thus to re-instate a serious misinterpretation of the whole enterprise. In assessing Lewis' paper, it must be kept in mind that he does not address any a/Sylvan s arguments. He is only concerned with whether Sylvan should be seen as a true noneist or as an allist, with respect to the question of which controversial items exist. Nevertheless, in neglecting Sylvan's arguments, Lewis is de• flecting attention away from the substance of his position, and cast• ing him as the defender of something unintelligible. I will show why this attack ultimately fails. Lewis argues that there is a set ofpossible worlds and possible ob• jects which really and truly exist, but he insists that they are not ac• tual. In the Jungle Book and in many other places, Sylvan argues that there is a set of objects, including objects that are impossible, which really and truly are objects because they have specific properties, but he insists that they do not exist. This sounds like a sort oftermi• nological difference, but we should not be misled by any perceived similarities in the common use ofthe words 'exist' and 'actual'. Nei• ther Lewis nor Sylvan take these terms to be synonymous. Further• more, there are detailed differences which make it clear that these two philosophers hold distinct positions. For Sylvan, all nonexistent objects have a place in the actual world, for this is just the world at which truth is determined (and there are truths about nonexistent ob• jects).4 But clearly there is nothing parallel to this notion in Lewis' metaphysics, which both eschews nonexistent things in general and does not allow possible worlds orpossibilia as constituents of the ac• tual world. Moreover, while Lewis follows Quine in his ontological methodology, Sylvan argued in detail that Quine is wholly mistaken about ontology. Finally, Sylvan was an unabashed rationalist, whereas Lewis has the temperament of an empiricist. Although it is true that Lewis is a deviant empiricist in some respects, for he is pre• pared to countenance possibilia, this is a very superficial similarity

4. Ibid., pp. 202-205.