the FULLNESS of BEING A New Paradigm for Existence 2 barry miller university of notre dame press Notre Dame, Indiana © 2012 University of Notre Dame Miller pod fm_Mill00_i-xii_FIN 6/25/12 1:05 PM Page iv Copyright © 2002 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Paperback edition published in 2012 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Barry, 1923– The fullness of being : a new paradigm for existence / Barry Miller. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-268-02864-4 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 13: 978-0-268-03527-3 (pbk : alk. paper) isbn 10: 0-268-03527-x (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Ontology. I. Title. bd311 .m55 2002 111'.1—dc21 2001004288 ∞ This book was printed on acid-free paper. © 2012 University of Notre Dame 2 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 second- level predicate but of existence as no more than a Cambridge prop- erty 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 as- sumptions are eschewed, and when the possibility of a radically dif- ferent 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 in- dividual’s properties, albeit far from invariant from individual to in- dividual. Finally, it is a story that culminates in showing how perfectly good sense can be made of the notion ‘the fullness of being.’ ix © 2012 University of Notre Dame 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 be- longs 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 All Saints Day, 2000 University of New England, Australia © 2012 University of Notre Dame The Fullness of Being © 2012 University of Notre Dame © 2012 University of Notre Dame 2one The Question about ‘Exists’ and Existence Like many philosophically interesting notions, existence is no less fa- miliar 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 con- crete 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 walk- ing, 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 Presum- ably, his targets include such diverse philosophies as those of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, Paul Weiss, and 1. 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. 1 © 2012 University of Notre Dame 2 the fullness of being 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 expres- sion ‘exists’ is not predicable of them. In so doing, his avowed aim is ‘to destroy the foundations of an enormous amount of meta- physics.’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 con- tributions from other sources as well. 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 ac- count 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 cen- tral mistake in this area is to treat Being as a particularly deep subject mat- ter.’ 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. .’ Dic- tionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 4. 5. Ibid. © 2012 University of Notre Dame The Question about ‘Exists’ and Existence 3 multiplicity of uses may or may not reflect any multiplicity of senses rather than merely differences of force, Frege had reasons for think- ing 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. • 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 ‘(∃x)(x = Socrates)’, and the latter as ‘(∃x)(x is a crocodile).’ • The ‘is’ of generic implication, e.g., ‘A crocodile is a reptile’, ren- dered as ‘(x)(crocodile(x) ⊃reptile(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) predica- tion, 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 refer- ence, 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 sin- gular referring expressions; and concepts are the referents of predi- cates (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. © 2012 University of Notre Dame 4 the fullness of being difference being that properties (concepts) are incomplete entities whereas objects are complete.7 In an atomic proposition like ‘Socrates is wise’ the name ‘Soc- rates’ 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.