How do we best honor a philosopher, especially one who has passed on? By taking him seriously as an interlocutor and re-enacting his thoughts, sympathetically yet critically.
What follows is pp. 37-42 of my article, "The Moreland-Willard-Lotze Thesis on Being," Philosophia Christi, vol. 6, no. 1 (2004), pp. 27-58.
Willard on Existence: The Question of Univocity
Dallas Willard endorses a theory of existence that he finds in Husserl: "to exist or have being (which are one and the same thing) is simply to possess qualities and relations." ("Is Derrida's View of Ideal Being Rationally Defensible?" in Derrida and Phenomenology, eds. McKenna and Evans, Kluwer 1995, p. 28) Since members of diverse categories of entity have properties and stand in relations, Willard takes this view to imply an ontological (not just semantic) Univocity Thesis: the Being of beings "is the same in every case: a univocity extending across all ontological chasms, including the real and the ideal, the reelle and the irreelle." (p. 28) To supply some examples of my own, the number 2, a token of the numeral '2,' the type of which this token is a token, the proposition expressed by '2 is an even number,' a pair of rocks, a rock, a Husserlian rock-noema, an act of perceiving a rock . . . all of these exist in the same way or in the same mode. Or perhaps it would be better to say that there are no modes or ways of existence, and of course no degrees of existence. An item either exists or it does not.
To exist, then, is to have properties/relations, and each existing item exists in the same way. But can we move directly from
1. To exist = to have properties and relations
to
2. There are no modes of existence?
This is a valid inference only in the presence of
0. There are no modes of property/relation-possession.
But (0) is not obvious. Why must there be only one way of having properties/relations? Such classical theists as Augustine and Aquinas held to a doctrine of divine simplicity according to which God has his
omni-attributes (omniscience, etc.) by being identical to them. A contingent being such as Socrates, however, does not have his properties by being identical to them, but by exemplifying them. But if God and Socrates differ in the way they have properties, then, given the truth of (1), according to which it is the having of properties rather than the properties had that confers existence, God and Socrates also differ in the way they exist. God is (identical to) his existence; Socrates is not.
One may also question whether Socrates himself has all his properties in the same way. If his whiteness is taken to be an accident of him, then he does not have whiteness in the same way he has humanity. Near the beginning of the Categories (1a20 ff.), Aristotle makes a distinction between what is predicable of a subject and what is present in a subject. Humanity is predicable of Socrates but not present in him, while whiteness is present in him but not predicable of him. Whether or not this view in tenable in the end, its existence shows that one cannot move directly from (1) to (2).
And if the substance/accident scheme is coherent, then of course there are at least two further modes of existence, the mode of existence appertaining to contingent substances, and the mode appertaining to their accidents. Substances exist in se, accidents in alio, namely, in a substance. Substances would have an independent mode of existence, whether absolutely as in the case of God or relatively as in the case of Socrates, while accidents would have a dependent mode of existence. All of this in contravention of the Husserl-Willard commitment to the thesis that the Being of beings is "logically independent of independence. . . ." (p. 30)
Thus the first critical point to be made is that the move from (1) to (2) is a non sequitur without the assumption (0), an assumption which is tantamount to the question-begging assumption that there are no modes of existence. One is not entitled to move directly from (1) to (2).
To put it another way, one could easily hold that to exist = to have properties/relations while holding consistently with this a doctrine of modes of existence. Thus a Thomist could maintain that for both God and Socrates, to exist is to have properties, since, necessarily, neither can exist without having properties, and neither can have properties without existing. Indeed, our Thomist could hold this thesis in its strongest form by identifying existence with the having of properties. Consistently with this, he could also hold that the existence of God is identical with God while the existence of Socrates is distinct from Socrates. There is no inconsistency here because existence construed as the property of having properties/relations is quite clearly distinct from the existence of individuals. Call the former general existence, the latter singular existence. If there are no modes of general existence, which seems obvious, it does not follow that there are no modes of singular existence. Let me explain.
But first a caveat. Strictly speaking, general existence is not existence at all: 'general' functions here as an alienans adjective like artificial' in 'artificial leather' or 'negative' in 'negative net worth.' It is not as if there are two kinds of existence, general and singular. Artificial leather is not leather, but it resembles it closely enough to be confused with it. Similarly, general existence is not existence, but there is sufficient resemblance to the genuine article to beget confusion. If no one ever fell into confusion there would be no need for the phrase 'singular existence.' We would just say 'existence.' 'Singular' in 'singular existence' is not a specifying adjective, but a 'de-alienating' adjective (to coin a term) whose job is to undo the semantic mischief caused by the 'alienating' adjective, 'general,' when it is juxtaposed with 'existence.' In the same way, 'absolute' in 'absolute truth' undoes the semantic mischief caused when 'relative' is brought into juxtaposition with 'truth.'
General Versus Singular Existence
General existence is a property that absolutely everything has. As a supremely general property, general existence, or the property of having properties, is supremely abstract: it abstracts from the specific properties had in specific instances, and it abstracts from the individual havings of these properties. Thus a and b cannot have the (higher-order) property of having properties unless they have certain first-order properties in virtue of whose possession they have the higher-order property; but these first-order properties may be and typically will be different for a and b. Thus it may be that a has the property of having properties in virtue of having F, G, H . . . while b has the higher-order property in virtue of having I, J, K . . . .
Indeed, there are cases in which two individuals share the formal property of having properties without sharing one single 'material' (in the sense of the German sachhaltig) property. The number 2 and a token of the numeral '2' have no 'material' properties in common. The number 2 subsists in serene isolation from the flux and shove of the causal order, something not true of a token of '2.' To press some recently fashionable jargon into service, we may say that the property of having properties -- call it P -- is a supervenient property in the sense that, necessarily, if anything has P, there is a subvenient or base property Q such that it has Q, and necessarily anything that has Q has P. The crucial idea, of course, is that variations in the base properties are logically consistent with strict sameness (univocity) of the supervenient property. (Just as variation in the base properties in respect of which Mary and Martha are morally good persons is consistent with their both being (univocally) morally good.)
Thus general existence is a supervenient property that abstracts from property differences in individual cases. But it also abstracts from the havings of these properties in individual cases. General existence is thereby involved in a double abstraction which completely eviscerates it of all content: abstraction is made from the properties had in individual cases and in the havings of these properties. It should be obvious that these havings are individual havings and thus numerically distinct. Thus a's having of F-ness is distinct from b's having of F-ness. These havings are as distinct as the facts Fa and Fb. Even if you think there is a universal relation Having, this relation is at most the ground of, and not identical to, the particular havings that connect a and F-ness and b and F-ness. The particular connectedness of a and F-ness is numerically distinct from the particular connectedness of b and F-ness, and both are distinct from the ontological ground of the connectednesses, whatever we decide this ground is.
In sum, general existence, involved as it is in the double abstraction lately noted, has absolutely nothing to do with what makes an individual concrete existent exist. That general existence should have no modes is therefore exactly what we should expect. To assert as much would be trivial. But it would not be trivial to claim that singular existence has no modes.
Singular existence is the existence of individuals. It is in every case the existence of some particular thing, the existence of a, the existence of b, etc. Singular existence cannot be existence in general, or existence in abstracto. Singular existence cannot itself exist except as the existence of some definite item, as the existence of a, the existence of b, etc. Moreover, singular existence is not repeated in a, b, etc. in the way a universal is repeated in the things that share it. There are no 'repetitions' or examples of singular existence, strictly speaking. There are no examples of it for the simple reason that singular existence is not a property, and only properties can be exemplified. Not being repeatable, singular existence cannot be a property.
The crucial upshot is that although singular existence is common to all that exists, it cannot be common in the manner of a property. Singular existence therefore has no examples or instances, strictly speaking. Although there are no examples or instances of singular existence, we can say that there are cases of it, and that singular existence itself is a case of it, the prime or paradigm case of it.
The difference between a case and an instance (example) is as follows. Any two instances of a universal property P are qualitatively identical as instances of P; what makes them two is therefore external to their being instances of P. Thus two instances of the universal redness, one in pen A, the other in pen B, are not numerically diverse as instances of redness; their diversity must be grounded in something else, diversity of the pens themselves, perhaps. But it cannot be that any two cases of singular existence are qualitatively identical as cases of singular existence: singular existence is not a quality. Two cases of singular existence differ numerically as cases of singular existence without prejudice to the fact that singular existence is common to all of its cases. This is not a contradiction since singular existence is not a property, and so is not common in the manner of a property. (Compare a common cause: it is common to its effects without being common in the manner of a property they both instantiate. This shows that one cannot assume that the only mode of commonality is property-commonality.) What makes any two cases two is therefore not external to singular existence. Singular existence is implicated in the very individuation of distinct existents. This should come as no surprise given what was said above about aâs having of F-ness being numerically distinct from bâs having of F-ness. Given that these havings are distinct and that the existing of each thick particular is its having of properties rather than a property had, it follows that the two thick particulars are numerically distinct in their very existence.
In sum, once one grasps that (i) it is the having of a property rather than the property had that confers existence, and that (ii) in each case the having of a property is an unrepeatable having, one is in a position to see that (iii) the existing of a is numerically distinct from the existing of b. Thus Socrates and Plato differ in their very existence. Even if they did not differ property-wise, they would differ in their existence. Max Black's famous iron spheres differ in respect of no property or relation, and yet they differ in their existence since there are two havings, one for each sphere, and not one for both of them. If there were one having, then either there would be only one sphere -- contrary to the hypothesis -- or the having would be a universal common to them. But the universal Having (exemplification) relation, as I argued above in critique of Moreland, cannot be what actually connects a thing and its properties. This is not to say that there is no exemplification relation, but that if there is, it cannot play the role of unifier. The ground of particular havings cannot be a universal. Existence itself cannot be a universal, whether a universal relation or a universal property.
Numerical difference is therefore numerical-existential difference. Given that there is a plurality of individuals, and that each differs in its existence from every other one, it follows that existence itself, that which makes them exist, cannot be a property they share no matter how extraordinary it is. Existence itself is implicated in the very individuality of each existing thing as explained above. As such, existence itself cannot be the property of having properties/relations. For this property, being supremely general, can have no bearing on what makes one individual numerically different from another.
This is not to say, but neither is it to deny, that singular existence is the principium individuationis. It is quite natural to say that bare or thin particulars are needed to do the job of numerical differentiation. (J. P. Moreland, Universals, pp. 148-157) But since such particulars cannot exist unless they have properties, and since the having of properties is just what singular existence is, a difficult set of questions arises as to whether numerical differentiation can be assigned to thin particulars or to singular existence or to the two working in tandem. None of this can be pursued here. The main point, however, is that singular existence in some way enters into the very individuation/differentiation of distinct existents.
This implies that each case of singular existence is essentially unique in the manner in which each instance (example) of a property is not essentially unique. A brief excursus into the phenomenology of love will serve to illustrate the crucial distinction between a case of singular existence and an instance of a property. Paramount cases of singular existence are persons.
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