It is the thesis of Stephen Maitzen's Stop Asking Why There's Anything that the Leibniz question, 'Why is there anything, rather than nothing at all?' is ill-posed as it stands and unanswerable. Maitzen's point is intended to apply not only to the 'wide-open' formulation just mentioned but also to such other formulations as 'Why are there any concrete contingent beings at all?' I will discuss only the latter formulation. It is defensible in ways that the wide-open question is not. Call it the modified Leibniz question. For Maitzen it is a pseudo-question. For me it is a genuine question. On my classificatory scheme, Maitzen is a rejectionist concerning the modified Leibniz question. The question is not to be answered but rejected as senseless, because of an internal semantic defect that renders it necessarily unanswerable and therefore illegitimate as a question.
My defense of the meaningfulness of the modified Leibniz question does not commit me to any particular answer to the question such as the theistic answer. For there are several possible types of answer, one of them being the 'brutal' answer: it is simply a brute fact that concrete contingent beings (CCBs) exist. When Russell, in his famous BBC debate with the Jesuit Copleston, said that the the universe is just there and that is all, he was answering the question, not rejecting it. His answer presupposed the meaningfulness of the question.
1. Getting a Sense of What the Dispute is About
Maitzen's paper is in the context of a defense of naturalism and an attack on theism. So I have to be careful not to assume theism or anything that entails or presupposes theism. Defining 'naturalism' is a tricky business but it suffices for present purposes to say that naturalism entails the nonexistence of God as classically conceived, and the nonexistence of immortal souls, but does not entail the nonexistence of abstracta, many of which are necessary beings.
To make things hard on theists let us assume (contrary to current cosmology) that the universe has an actually infinite past. Hence it always existed. Let us also assume that the each total state of the universe at a time is (deterministically) caused to exist by an earlier such state of the universe. A third assumption is that the universe is nothing over and above the sum of its states. The third assumption implies that if each state has a causal explanation in terms of earlier states (in accordance with the laws of nature), then all of the states have an explanation, in which case the universe itself has a causal explanation. This in turn implies that there is no need to posit anything external to the universe, such as God, to explain why the universe exists. The idea, then, is that the universe exists because it causes itself to exist in that later states are caused to exist by earlier states, there being no earliest, uncaused, state. We thereby explain why the universe exists via an infinite regress of universe-immanent causes and in so doing obviate the need for a transcendent cause.
If this could be made to work, then we would have a nice neat self-contained universe whose existence was not a brute fact but also not dependent on anything external to the universe. We would also have an answer to the modified Leibniz question. Why are there any CCBs given the (broadly logical) possibility that there not be any? Because each is caused to exist by other CCBs.
The five or so assumptions behind this reasoning can all be questioned. But even if they are all true, the argument is still no good for a fairly obvious (to me!) reason. The whole collection of states, despite its being beginningless and endless, is (modally) contingent: it might not have existed at all. So, despite every state's having a cause, we can still ask why there are any states in the first place.
The fact that U always existed, if it is a fact, does not entail that U must exist. If I want to know why this universe of ours exists as opposed to there being some other universe or no universe at all, it does no good to tell me that it always existed. For what I want to know is why it exists at all, or 'in the first place.' I am not asking about its temporal duration but about its very existence. Why it exists at all is a legitimate question since there is no necessity that there be a universe in the first place. There might have been no universe, where 'universe' stands for the sum-total of concrete contingent beings all of which, on the assumption of naturalism, are physical or material beings. And it seems obvious that the fact, if it is a fact, that every state has a cause in earlier states does not explain why there is the whole system of states.
The dispute between Maitzen and me can now be formulated.
BV: The question 'Why are there any CCBs at all? is a legitimate question ( a meaningful question) that cannot be answered in a universe-immanent or naturalistic way as above where every CCB is causally explained by other CCBs.
SM: The question 'Why are there any CCBs at all?' is not a legitimate question (not a meaningful question) except insofar as it can be reformulated as a question whose answer can take a universe-immanent or naturalistic form.
2. Maitzen's Argument For the Meaninglessness of the Modified Leibniz Question
The argument begins with considerations about counting. Maitzen arrives at a result that I do not question. We can counts pens, plums and penguins, but we cannot count things, entities, or concrete contingent beings. Or at least we cannot count them under those heads. The reason is quite simple. The first trio of terms is a trio of sortals, the second of dummy sortals. Sortals encapsulate individuative criteria that make possible the counting of the items to which the sortals apply. Thus it makes sense to ask how many cats are on my desk. The answer at the moment is two. But it makes no sense to ask how many CCBs are on my desk at the moment. For to answer the question I would have to be able to count the CCBs, and that is something I cannot do because of the semantic indeterminacy of 'CCB.' When one counts cats one does not count the proper parts of cats for the simple reason that the proper parts of cats are not cats. (Pre-born babies inside a mother are not proper parts of the mother.) In fact, it occurs to me now that a necessary condition of a term's being a sortal is that it be such that, if it applies to a thing, then it does not apply to the proper parts of the thing. When I set out to count CCBs, however, I get no guidance from the term: I don't know whether to count the proper parts of the cat as CCBs or not. It is not that I or we contingently lack the ability to count them, but that the semantic indeterminateness of 'CCB' makes it impossible to count them. Things get even hairier -- you will forgive the pun -- when we ask about undetached arbitrary parts (e.g., Manny minus his tail) and mereological sums (e.g., Manny + the cigar in the ashtray).
All of this was discussed in greater detail in earlier posts. For now the point is simply that the question 'How many CCBs are there?' cannot be answered due to the semantic indeterminateness of 'CCB.' And since it cannot be answered for this semantic reason, the question is senseless, a pseudo-question.
So far, so good. But then on p. 56 of Maitzen's paper we find the following sudden but crucial move: "These considerations, I believe, also show that the question ‘Why is there anything?' (i.e., ‘Why is there any thing?’) confuses grammatical and logical function and hence necessarily lacks an answer . . . . " The main weakness of Maitzen's paper, as I see it, is that he doesn't adequately explain the inferential connection between the counting question and the explanation question, between the 'How many?' question and the 'Why any?' question. I cheerfully concede that it is senseless to ask how many CCBs there are if all we have to go on is 'CCB' as it is commonly understood. (Of course there is a difference between 'thing,' say, and 'concrete contingent being.' The first is a bit of ordinary English while the second is a term of art (terminus technicus). But this difference does not make a difference for present purposes.) But why should the fact that 'CCB' is a dummy sortal also make the 'Why any?' question senseless? For that is precisely what Maitzen is claiming. 'Why is there anything?' is senseless because "the question's reliance on the dummy sortal 'thing' leaves it indeterminate what's being asked." (p. 56)
But wait a minute. What is being asked about CCBs in the second question is not how many, but why they exist at all. Why should the fact that we cannot assign a precise number to them render the second question senseless? I know that there are at least two CCBs. Here is one cat, here is another (he said Mooreanly). Each is a concrete contingent being. So there are at least two. If there are at least two, then there are some. If there are some, then 'CCBs exist' is true. Since it is true, it is meaningful. (Not every meaningful proposition is true, but every true proposition is meaningful.)
To put it another way, 'CCBs exist' is a (closed) sentence. It expresses a complete thought, a proposition. It is not an open sentence like 'Xs exist.' The latter is no more a sentence than a dummy sortal is a sortal. Unlike 'CCBs exist,' it cannot be evaluated as either true or false. So, while 'CCB' lacks the semantic determinacy of a sortal, it is not wholly semantically indeterminate like the variable 'X.' It makes a semantic contribution to the sentence 'CCBs exist.'
Now if it is meaningful to assert that CCBs exist, despite their number being indeterminate, then it is also meaningful to ask why CCBs exist, despite their number being indeterminate. Now it is meaningful to assert that CCBs exist. Therefore, it is meaningful to ask why they exist, despite their number being indeterminate.
Although the uncountability of CCBs is a good reason to think that 'How many CCBs are there?' is senseless, it is not a good reason to think that 'Why are there any CCBs?' is also senseless.
My point is that it is a non sequitur for Maitzen to move from
a. 'How many CCBs are there?' is a senseless question
to
b. 'Why are there any CCBs?' is a senseless question.
(a) is true. But one can hold (a) consistently with holding the negation of (b).
How might Maitzen respond?
3. 'Concrete Contingent Being' as a Mere Covering Term
For Maitzen, 'CCB' is "only a covering term for pens, plums, penguins . . . ." (p. 57) and other instances of sorts. It doesn't refer to anything distinct from pens, plums, penguins, cats, human births, explosions, and so on. In other words, 'CCB' does not pick out a special sort -- an uber-sort, if you will -- the instances of which are distinct from the instances of genuine sorts. And so 'CCB' does not pick out a sort whose instances elude natural-scientific explanation and therefore EITHER require some special explanation by God or some other entity transcendent of the physical universe OR are such that their existence is a brute fact. As Maitzen puts it, "there aren't any contingent things whose explanations outstrip the explanations available for the individuals covered by the covering term 'contingent things.'" (p. 58) The 'Why any?' question "has no content until we replace referentially indeterminate words with genuine sortals." (p. 59)
If Maitzen is telling us that CCBs are not a sort of thing distinct from ordinary sorts, then he is right, and I agree. Suppose we we have a complete list of all the sorts of thing in the universe: pens, plums, pussycats, penguins, and so on. It would be absurd if someone were to object: "But you forgot to list the concrete contingent beings!" That would be absurd since each pen, plum etc. is a CCB, and there is no CCB that is not either a pen or a plum or, etc. But it doesn't follow that a sentence in which 'CCB' occurs is without content.
It is simply false to say that the 'Why any?' question "has no content until we replace referentially indeterminate words with genuine sortals." (p. 59) Right here is where Maitzen makes the mistake that invalidates the move from (a) to (b). He conflates the partial semantic indeterminacy of dummy sortals with the total semantic indeterminacy of variables. Compare:
- Why are there any penguins?
- Why are there any concrete contingent beings?
- Why are there any Xs?
The first two questions are genuine, despte the fact we can count only penguins. The third question is pseudo since it has no definite sense.
Note finally that we cannot replace the second question with a long disjunctive question like 'Why are there either penguins or plums or pussycats or pens, or . . . ?' For suppose you had a complete naturalistic answer to the latter question. You could still meaningfully ask why there are any CCBs at all as opposed to none at all, and why these rather than some other possible set.
There is more to say, but tomorrow's another day, and brevity is the soul of blog.
Bill: Thanks for your beautiful summary, analysis, and critique. Section 3, especially, helps distil the issues between us. You ask, "Why are there any CCBs at all?" Suppose I respond, "There are cats, and cats are CCBs, so if I explain why there are cats I've explained why there are CCBs." Your rejoinder, I presume, would be "No. Explaining why there are cats doesn't explain why there are any CCBs at all, any CCBs in the first place. And don't try explaining why there are dogs, because that doesn't address my question either."
You wrote, "If Maitzen is telling us that CCBs are not a sort of thing distinct from ordinary sorts, then he is right, and I agree." Excellent. Maybe the problem is that we disagree about how "existence explanations" must work. If you ask me why there are any cats, I have a chance of giving you a correct explanation. But if you ask me, "Why are there any cats-or-dogs?" all I can do is try to explain why there are any cats and why there are any dogs. If you object, "That wouldn't answer my question, which is a more general question than either of those partial explanations could answer," then of course I'm at a loss. I think the modified Leibnizian questioner is making the mistake that you would make if you rejected my cat-explanation and my dog-explanation as answers to your heterogeneous cats-or-dogs question: the mistake of treating cat-or-dog as a kind (or sort) of thing whose existence deserves its own explanation. As you and I agree, 'CCB' doesn't name a kind of thing; it's at most a heterogeneous covering term like 'cat-or-dog'. A fortiori, 'CCB' doesn't name a kind of thing whose existence deserves its own explanation. But it's just such an explanation that the modified Leibnizian questioner seems to demand.
Posted by: Steve Maitzen | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 05:05 AM
Hi Bill and Steve,
I'd like to propose the following toward a clarification of the problem. If I am repeating what anyone has already said on another thread, forgive me, but it seems to me that Steve's questions suggest he hasn't considered this.
The modified Leibnizian question does not ask for an explanation of a kind so much as it asks for an explanation of some aspect of the existence of ordinary particulars of some kind or other, such as cats (the favorite example of this blog). And an explanation of the existence of particulars of some kind or other may not suffice as an answer to this Leibnizian question.
For example, explaining the existence of cats by reference to some process of evolution does not explain all aspects of their existence, because it leaves the contingency of their existence untouched; this is obvious because the evolutionary process which brought about cats is itself contingent, having taken place as it did because of the interactions of contingent beings.
The modified Leibnizian question does not ask for an explanation of the existence of some particular kind of beings -- contingent beings -- but rather asks for an explanation of some undeniable and real aspect of the existence of beings with which we are familiar, regardless of their kind.
Posted by: Steven | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 09:54 AM
Steven,
Excellent comment. >>The modified Leibnizian question does not ask for an explanation of a kind so much as it asks for an explanation of some aspect of the existence of ordinary particulars of some kind or other . . .<< That's exactly the right way to put it. This is a point that I hadn't made yet in my discussion with Dr Maitzen but which eventually would have to be made to make my/our position clear.
This is where the modified Leibniz question connects with questions about the nature of existence. It may well be that Maitzen accepts some version of the thin theory and that this why he thinks he can collapse the modified Leibniz question into a question or questions resolvable by natural science.
I expect that further discussion with Maitzen would lead to diagreement about what existence is.
I agree completely with your last paragraph. I don't believe anyone ever thought of CCBs as a separate sort or kind distinct from ordinary sorts. So that's a bit of a straw man. The term 'CCB' targets the existence of the instances of ordinary sorts in its aspect as contingent.
Our basic view (if I may speak for both of us) is that explanation in terms of empirical causation will never amount to an explanation of the very existence of the items that stand in empirical-causal relations so that, IF there is an explanation of the existence of these items, then the Cause or Ground cannot be a 'horizontal' cause among empirical causes, but must operate 'vertically' from outside the empirical-causal nexus.
If there is no such 'vertical' Ground, then the existence of the universe (the totality of CCBs) is just a brute fact as old Russell once said. Ground or no Ground, the modified Leibniz question is a genuine question that cannot be replaced by any naturalistically tractable question or questions.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 03:26 PM
Steve M,
I concede that I haven't adequately explained why the modified Leibnizian question doesn't collapse into one or more naturalistically tractable questions. That should be undertaken in a seperate post and will require getting into the nature of existence and the nature of causation.
For now a brief comment. We agree that 'CCB' doesn't name a kind of thing. But it doesn't follow straightaway that it is a mere heterogeneous covering term like 'cat-or-dog.' After all, it seems clear that one could not specify the meaning (sense) of 'CCB' by means of a long disjunction of terms for the sorts instantiated in the actual world, e.g. x is a CCB =df x is a or a dog or a pen or a plum, etc. For there are other possible worlds in which there are CCBs but no cats or dogs or pens or plums, etc.
Suppose I stipulate that 'cog' shall refer to any animal that is either a cat or a dog. I could do that. I could also stipulate that 'sog' shall refer to any instance of a sort instantiated in the actual world. It seems clear that 'sog' and 'CCB' do not have the same sense. But they would have the same sense if 'CCB' were a mere covering term as you suggest. I conclude that 'CCB' is not a mere covering term.
There is also the point that Steven makes above which is the crux of the matter. On that, later.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 04:32 PM
By the way, be sure to check out Peter's long comment in the earlier thread.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 04:34 PM
Hang on a minute!
Steven wrote -- and Bill surprisingly endorsed -- the following: "The modified Leibnizian question does not ask for an explanation of a kind so much as it asks for an explanation of some aspect of the existence of ordinary particulars of some kind or other.... For example, explaining the existence of cats by reference to some process of evolution does not explain all aspects of their existence, because it leaves the contingency of their existence untouched."
Are you guys telling me that the modified Leibnizian question is something like (a) "Why are cats contingent?" or perhaps the more general (b) "Why are CCBs contingent?" Now, (a) is strange ("Why aren't cats necessary beings?"), like something a confused cat-lover might wonder, and (b) is well-nigh senseless. Please tell me I'm misunderstanding you, and please set me straight about your position.
Posted by: Steve Maitzen | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 04:35 PM
Steve,
I think the points you make in this most recent comment are mistaken.
The modified Leibnizian question proposes the contingent existence -- the existing-but-not-having-to-exist -- of some concrete particulars as a philosophical problem to be explained. This is what I meant when I said that the modified Leibnizian question seeks an explanation of some aspect of the existence of concrete particulars of this kind or other: it is their existing despite not having to, this aspect.
The question, as well as the questions you give as examples, is not senseless as you say; they are all perfectly intelligible, though I think you have a confused understanding (or perhaps none at all) of their sense. Cats exist contingently because they were brought about contingently by something else capable of producing effects contingently, e.g. the evolutionary process that actually took place; they don't exist necessarily because they cannot explain their own existence, neither does anything necessarily cause them to exist. Contingent concrete beings, i.e. concrete beings that exist but do not have to exist, exist contingently because ultimately they are brought about by something that does not exist contingently (otherwise it would be a part of their number) but is capable of producing effects contingently; they do not exist necessarily because they cannot explain their own existence, neither does anything necessarily cause them to exist. This is the Leibnizian answer to the Leibnizian question.
Posted by: Steven | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 06:34 PM
Steve,
No one asks why cats are contingent beings rather than necessary beings. (One could of course reasonably ask what it means to say of a cat that it is a contingent being.)
And of course 'Why are CCBs contingent?' is a pointless question since CCBs are defined as contingent.
What wants explaining is not the contingency of what contingently exist, but the existence of what contingently exists. Now apparently, you think that this can be explained by empirical causation.
I deny that. But this requires a separate post.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 07:11 PM
Steven: Look, I quoted your own words, which turn out to have been misleading. Despite what you wrote, it turns out you weren't in fact asking "for an explanation of some aspect of the existence" of cats (etc.); instead, you were asking why cats (etc.) exist even though they needn't have existed. But that's utterly familiar territory; it's where my objection starts. So your comment doesn't advance the discussion at all, which is why I remain surprised that Bill endorsed it (twice). But at least it doesn't take the discussion sideways, as it would have had you meant what you wrote.
Bill: See immediately above. The language Steven in fact used ("some aspect of the existence") implies that it's the contingency itself whose explanation is being sought. Somehow you've brought us back to the starting move: the Leibnizian questioner asking for an explanation of "the existence of what contingently exists" (your words). I've already addressed that move, at great length now.
Posted by: Steve Maitzen | Friday, June 08, 2012 at 04:27 AM
Bill, Dr. Maitzen, Steven,
Let me try to make some sense of what I take to be Steven's and Bill's point, on the one hand, and Dr. Maitzen response, on the other.
Steven says:
"The modified Leibnizian question does not ask for an explanation of a kind so much as it asks for an explanation of some aspect of the existence of ordinary particulars of some kind or other, such as cats (the favorite example of this blog)."
And what aspect of the existence of ordinary particulars exactly needs explaining? I suppose the answer is: their contingent existence. And what kind of property of cats is their contingent existence? I suppose we can say that the property in question is a complex property such as: cats have the property of existing-even-though-they-might-not-have-existed. Notice the modal character of this property.
The dispute seems to me as follows.
Dr. Maitzen thinks (I take it) that an adequate scientific explanation of the process that caused cats to exist also provides an adequate explanation for why cats have the modal property of existing-even-though-they-might-not-have-existed.
Steven and Bill think that the two questions: i.e., 'Why cats have the property of existing' and 'Why cats have the property of existing-even-though-they-might-not-have-existed?' are so fundamentally different that an adequate explanation for the former cannot be an adequate explanation for the later.
We can restate the point in terms of possible worlds. To say that cats exist-contingently is to say (roughly) that they have the complex modal property of existing in the actual world while not existing in some other possible worlds.
Steven and Bill want an explanation why cats have this moral property. Dr. Maitzen thinks that an explanation of the non-modal 'cats exist' suffices to explain their modal property as well.
(I wonder how illuminating my proposal is?)
Posted by: Account Deleted | Friday, June 08, 2012 at 08:27 AM
Peter,
That's not my view. I'll try to explain it in a separate post.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Friday, June 08, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Peter: Nor is that how I'd respond to it if it were Bill's view.
Posted by: Steve Maitzen | Friday, June 08, 2012 at 11:06 AM
Bill: "That's not my view."
Dr. Maitzen: "Nor is that how I'd respond to it if it were Bill's view."
Interesting!
So perhaps someone could enlighten me first as to what Steven meant when he said that what needs to be explained is an aspect of contingent existents such as cats and that the ordinary evolutionary explanation (which explains I presume why cats exist) would not suffice to explain this aspect.
And, second, isn't the term contingent a modal property? And if it is, then isn't it the case that if something has this property and it exists, then it then has the complex property of existing-even-though-it-might-not-have-existed.
And, thirdly, Steven said:
"The modified Leibnizian question proposes the contingent existence -- the existing-but-not-having-to-exist -- of some concrete particulars as a philosophical problem to be explained. This is what I meant when I said that the modified Leibnizian question seeks an explanation of some aspect of the existence of concrete particulars of this kind or other: it is their existing despite not having to, this aspect."
So perhaps someone could explain to me how is my interpretation of what Steven said, with which Bill apparently concurred, is different than what Steven says in the above quote. In particular, perhaps someone can explain how the following two properties are different:
Steven: "the existing-but-not-having-to-exist"
Peter: "existing even-though-it-might-not-have-existed"
Steven says about his property that it is this property of ordinary particulars which needs to be explained. I say the same about what he said. How is what I say different than what he says?
As for Dr. Maitzen reply quoted above. Well, see his reply to Steven and Bill posted above: Friday, June 08, 2012 at 04:27 AM.
Posted by: Account Deleted | Friday, June 08, 2012 at 04:08 PM
I was a bit too eager to agree with Steven above since what he said, as it stands, is open to misunderstanding.
I said: "The term 'CCB' targets the existence of the instances of ordinary sorts in their aspect as contingent."
I have a new post up and I would like to see if Steven N. agrees with it. I suspect he will. I suspect Steve M. will not agree. And I suspect Peter will neither agree not not agree, but ask questions.
Ain't philosophy grand?
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Friday, June 08, 2012 at 04:54 PM