London Ed wants to pin the 'existential fallacy' on me. He writes and I respond in blue:
I am trying to locate the place where we have the real disagreement. It always seems to be about whether a certain type of thing exists or not, rather than basic assumptions. We are agreed about the 'phenomenology', i.e. the truth of sentences like 'Bill is thinking of a unicorn' or 'Peter has an imaginary girlfriend'. And we are agreed (I think) that you are not privileged in the sense that you have access to intuitive or revealed truth or empirical observations that I don't have, such as knowledge of intentional objects, or of their existence. So it remains that our dispute is semantic or logical. There is a disagreement about your move from premisses that we agree upon, to conclusions which we don't. So the disagreement is either semantic (i.e. one or the other of us or both is misinterpreting the meaning of premisses or conclusion) or logical (we both agree on meaning, but disagree on the validity of the move).
I think we both agree that a sentence like (A) below is or could be true
(A) Tom is thinking about a unicorn
We also agree on some or all of the existential premisses below
(B1) Unicorns do not exist
(B2) Nothing is a unicorn
(B3) There are no such things as unicorns
(B4) The world does not contain unicorns
I classify the premisses as follows. The first is properly 'existential' i.e. it contains the verb 'exist'. The second two are categorical sentences with explicit use of the copula 'is'. Christopher Williams claims they are really identical, because Anglo-Saxon doesn't like the verb 'is' beginning a sentence. The fourth doesn't use the copula 'is', although some logicians claim that it embeds it, and is really equivalent to 'the world is such that it does not contain unicorns' or 'the world is a non-container of unicorns' or 'no unicorns are contained-in-the-world'. The fourth also introduces the problematic concept of 'world'. I read it as 'domain of quantification', but that is problematic too.
Anyway, I imagine we agree on at least some of the B-premisses - it would be helpful if you could indicate which, in your view. (Obviously I agree with all of them, as a thin-theorist who believes in the univocity of the existential concept).
BV: I think that there are some further assumptions that Ed is making that need to be clearly stated:
(C1) For any x, x exists iff x is both extramental and extralinguistic.
This is not intended as a definition of 'x exists' but as a clarification of how Ed is using 'exists' and cognates. We could call (C1) the Independence Criterion: the existent is independent of (finite) mind and language.
(C2) It is not the case that some items are nonexistent.
We can call this assumption Anti-Meinong. Alexius von Meinong famously and very controversially maintained that items such as the round square and the golden mountain have no being whatsoever without prejudice to their being perfectly legitimate objects. To assume (C2), however, is to assume that everything exists. Without this assumption, Tom's thinking about a unicorn could be construed as his standing in the intentional relation to a nonexistent item. I am quite sure that any such Meinongian construal of (A) is anathema to Ed. He has that "robust sense of reality" of which his countryman Russell spoke.
I think it is important to appreciate -- and here I expect Ed to object strenuously -- that (C2) is not a truth of formal logic, but a substantive truth, if it is a truth, of metaphysics. For its negation -- Some items are nonexistent -- is not a formal-logical contradiction. 'Some' is a purely logical word: it implies nothing about being or existence. It is a logical quantifier, the particular quantifier, and nothing more. Meinong and the Meinongians (Routley, Parsons, Castaneda, Butchvarov, et al.) may be wrong in their metaphysics but surely they are not contradicting themselves when they say or imply that some objects do not exist, as they would be were they to say or imply that some objects are not objects. Note also that the logical form of 'Some items are nonexistent,' namely, Some Fs are Gs, has both true and false substitution instances, not all false substitution instance as would have to be the case were the form contradictory.
A third assumption Ed makes:
(C3) All logically kosher uses of 'exist(s)' and cognates are univocal.
Call this the Univocity Assumption. It is a semantic thesis that rules out different senses of 'exist(s)' whether equivocal or analogically related. There is exactly one sense of 'exist(s)' and that is the sense specified in (C1). The ontological counterpart of (C3) is the following No Modes of Being assumption:
(C4) There are no modes of being or of existence: everything that exists exists in the same way.
Thus Ed will have no truck with any such distinction as that between esse intentionale and esse reale, merely intentional being and real being. I think that Ed's acceptance of (C4) is at the back of his belief that I commit the 'Existential Fallacy.' More about this in a moment.
(C5) The one legitimate univocal sense of 'exists' is fully captured by the 'existential' or particular quantifier of standard first-order predicate logic with identity.
Anyone who accepts the (C)-assumptions will also accept the (B)-premises, assuming that 'world' in (B4) refers to the totality of what exists, die Gesamtheit der Dinge, nicht der Tatsachen, to turn the Tractarian Wittgenstein on his head.
So why are we disagreeing? In my opinion you are committing the existential fallacy by moving from premisses like (A) which are not existential, to a conclusion which is existential. And in a very odd way indeed, because you justify the move via B-type premisses. I.e. since the term 'unicorn' cannot correspond to any existing object, you infer that it must correspond to some non-actual or intentional object. Thus at some point (supported by other premisses that I don't include here) you move to
(C) Some objects are intentional objects
or something like that. Something which looks a bit like an existence claim, but which cannot consistently be interpreted as an existence claim in the sense of any of the B-sentences above. Otherwise you have committed the 'existence fallacy', i.e. you have moved from premisses which do not assert or imply existence, to a conclusion which does assert or imply existence. Indeed, the 'double existential fallacy'. Not only do the premisses fail to assert or imply the existence of the things asserted or implied in the conclusion, they explicitly assert or imply their non-existence!
BV: What Ed suspects me of is the illicit inferential move from
(A) Tom is thinking about a unicorn
to
(A*) Tom is thinking about something
to
(A**) Something is such that Tom is thinking about it.
We can call the move from (A*) to (A**) the Exportation Move: 'something' is exported from the intentional sphere or context to the non-intentional sphere or context. The first move, from (A) to (A*), strikes me as logically innocuous. Call it Particular Generalization within an Intentional Context, or 'within the brackets' with a nod toward Husserl. If Tom is thinking about a unicorn, he is thinking about something, not nothing! 'Something' is here of course (C1)-existentially neutral. One can particularly generalize within a dream with no commitment to (C1)-existence. A charming feminist appears in a dream and I conclude, hot damn, some feminists are charming! This is consistent with there not being any such feminists in reality.
The Exportation Move is fallacious for Ed because for him 'something' is existentially loaded. 'For some x, x is F' is synonomous in Ed's head to 'There exists an x such that x is F,' where the second sentence asserts existence in the sense clarified by (C1). Now I think there is a clear fallacy in the vicinity, call it the Existential Fallacy, an example of which is the illicit two-step move from
Sally wants a baby
to
Sally wants something
to
There exists an x such that x is a baby and Sally wants x.
In the normal case, when a woman wants a baby, what she wants is not some particular baby already in the world; what she wants is motherhood: she wants to be the receptacle through which a new baby comes into existence. Clearly, the Sally inference commits the Existential Fallacy in the second step. It is plain that if I want something that may or may not exist without prejudice to my wanting it, it does not follow that the object exists in reality apart from my wanting it. The same goes for 'hunting' and 'looking for' and 'pining after' and other intentional verbs.
We need to distinguish among the following three concepts:
1. Existentially neutral particular generalization within an intentional context. This strikes me as a logically kosher move. Suppose I am thinking about a distant relative, Angelo, whom I believe to be alive, but unbeknownst to me died last month. If I am thinking about Angelo, then I am thinking about something despite the fact that Angelo no longer exists. Suppose I am thinking about him while he expires. His dying in no way terminates or alters the object-directedness of my thought. Particular generalization, therefore, is valid within the intentional sphere.
2. Existentially neutral exportation. This too strikes me as logically valid. If I am thinking about Pegasus, then I am thinking about something, not nothing. But that is equivalent to saying that something is such that I am thinking about it, so long as both occurrences of 'something' are existentially neutral. But if the second occurrence were existentially loaded, then the inference would clearly be invalid.
To see this more clearly, let us suppose that Meinong is right and that some items are beingless, Pegasus being one of them. Well, if Pegasus is nonexistent, then surely some item is nonexistent, both within and without the Intentional Context. This should not be surprising since Meinongian objects could be thought of as hypostatizations of merely intentional objects whose mode of being is esse intentionale.
Well, what about such merely intentional objects, objects that have no being apart from the mental acts whose objects they are? If Sam is thinking of something that is merely intentional, does it follow that something outside of the intentional context is such that Sam is thinking of it? This is a difficult question. I don't think I am required to answer it on the present occasion.
3. Existentially loaded exportation. This is an invalid move. Sam cannot search without searching for something, say, the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. Searching for that mine, he is not searching for something immanent to his consciousness: he is searching for something which is such that, were it to (C1)-exist, it would so exist in splendid transcendence of his and everyone's mental states. Nevertheless, Sam's searching for something does not show that he is searching for something that exists in reality.
Ed's complaint may be that I am commiting the Existential Fallacy by engaging in existentially loaded exportation. Well, let's see. One thing is clear: if Tom is thinking about a unicorn, then he is thinking about something, not nothing. He has a more or less definite object before his mind. That object is not nothing; so it is something. This is a phenomenological datum that every theory must cater to or accommodate. To think about a unicorn is not to think about a flying horse or about the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. This object is the object of the mental intention, or, the intentional object. It may or may not exist in reality apart from the mental acts trained upon it. So one cannot infer the extramental existence of intentional object O from O's being an intentional object.
So I have no trouble accommodating Ed's logical insight. His point is that if someone is thinking about something, it does not follow that there exists in reality -- in the (C1) sense -- something about which he is thinking.
So I plead innocent of the Existential Fallacy. Crucial to my defense of talk of merely intentional objects is my rejection of Ed's assumptions (C3), (C4), and (C5). I say that there are different modes of being or existence. When Tom thinks of a unicorn, he thinks of something, not nothing. This item lacks existence in the (C1)-sense. It lacks esse reale. But it enjoys esse intentionale. So while merely intentional objects do not exist in the (C1)-sense -- this is true by definition! -- there is a sense in which they exist. They exist intentionally.
In this way I avoid both the Meinongian position and Ed's draconian reism, all the while doing justice to the phenomenological data.
Obviously there are ways round this, but I would be interested to know what you think they are. You have to start with a sentence like (A), of form 'S-V-O' containing subject phrase 'S' ('Tom'), verb-phrase 'V' ('is thinking about' and object phrase 'O' ('a unicorn'). Then a second sentence denying existence in some sense of things correspond to 'O'. This sentence can only be of the following 3 forms: containing the word 'exist', containing the verb 'is' (or cognate like 'there is/are') or just containing a verb ('contains'). The term 'O' will have to appear somewhere. Finally a conclusion which asserts existence in some sense. To avoid a fallacy, you need to establish that the sense of 'exist' used in the conclusion is different from the sense used in the second premiss.
BV: It seems to me that that is what I have done above. It seems to me that the following propositions are logically consistent:
a. Tom is thinking of a unicorn
b. Unicorns do not exist in the (C1)-sense.
c. Tom's mental state is object-directed; it is an intentional state.
d. The object of Tom's mental state does not (C1)-exist.
e. The merely intentional object is not nothing.
f. The merely intentional object enjoys intentional existence, a distinct mode of existence different from (C1)-existence.
Ed's critique rests on his (C)-assumptions. But they are all reasonably rejected.
You haven't really answered my question, which was, given we both agree that (A) could be true, which of B1-4 do you agree with?
(B1) Unicorns do not exist / (B2) Nothing is a unicorn / (B3) There are no such things as unicorns / (B4) The world does not contain unicorns
Reconstructing the logic of the rest of the post, I think your answer would be that you agree with (B1), i.e. you agree that unicorns don't exist. Judging by your comments on extramental existence, I think you would agree with (B4), when 'the world' is understood as the physical or extramental or non-intentional world. But you disagree with B2 and probably B3 because you don't think that quantifiers are 'existentially loaded'. So you think that some things are unicorns, and your argument for (C) probably looks like this:
(A) Tom is thinking about a unicorn
(B1) Unicorns do not exist
(~B2) some things are unicorns
Then, using some uncontroversial assumptions, such as that everything is either physical or mental, that everything that is physical exists, ergo something that does not exist must be mental, that mental = intentional etc etc., this would allow you to get to
(C) Some objects are intentional objects
At this point, I simply am trying to understand what your argument for (C) is.
Posted by: london ed | Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 07:13 AM
I agree with all of the B-propositions if formulated more precisely as follows:
B1* Unicorns do not exist in reality
B2* Nothing that exists in reality is a unicorn
B3* There are no such existing things in reality as unicorns
B4* The world, as the totality of that which exists in reality, does not contain unicorns.
We cannot assume that the physical world is the same as the extramental world since God is extramental but nonphysical. And the same goes for so-called abstracta. You may be a nominalist, but you cannot rig your terminology in such a way that nominalism falls out as a consequence of the rigging.
I agree with your B2 and B3 as long as you make clear that the quantifiers are existentially loaded.
As I have insisted for many years now, there is no part of 'for some x' that implies (real, extramental, extralinguistic) existence.
You need to tell me whether you accept all of the C-assumptions that I impute to you. That is where the real disagreement lies. I don't go along with your background assumptions.
Posted by: BV | Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 12:20 PM
>>You need to tell me whether you accept all of the C-assumptions that I impute to you.
I am trying to understand an argument that I think you are making. In other words, how you get from A and B to C. Why should my assumptions be of any relevance? I really don’t understand. Anyway, let’s turn to the argument you give at the end (modified slightly, changing ‘exist in the C1 sense’ to ‘exist in reality’).
a. Tom is thinking of a unicorn
b. Unicorns do not exist in reality
c. Tom's mental state is object-directed; it is an intentional state.
d. The object of Tom's mental state does not exist in reality.
e. The merely intentional object is not nothing.
f. The merely intentional object enjoys intentional existence, a distinct mode of existence different from existence in reality.
Some tidying and economising needed. I will take the definite description in (d) as asserting or implying that Tom’s mental state has an object. And I will take (e) to be the equivalent of my C ‘some objects are intentional objects’. Thus
a'. Tom is thinking of a unicorn
b'. Tom's mental state has an object (the unicorn he is thinking of)
c'. Unicorns do not exist in reality
d'. The object of Tom's mental state does not exist in reality.
e'. If a mental state has an an object that does not exist in reality, then it is (def) an intentional object
f'. Tom’s mental state has an intentional object.
g'. some objects are intentional objects.
I may have misunderstood the definition of ‘intentional object’. Can an object be intentional if it does exist in reality? If so, the argument is even simpler.
But can we be clear on this: I am simply trying to understand your argument that some objects are intentional objects. None of my assumptions are relevant, unless they are assumptions about your argument. So, is my formulation of your argument correct?
Posted by: ed ockham | Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 01:30 PM
Ah I have just looked again here. "It is characteristic of certain mental states (the intentional states) to refer beyond themselves to items (i) that are not part of the state and (ii) may or may not exist." Thus existence in reality is not necessary. Then we can dramatically simplify the argument.
a'' Tom is thinking about a unicorn
b'' His mental state has an object
c'' The object of a mental state is an 'intentional object' (def)
d'' Some objects are intentional objects.
QED. The question now is whether the argument is valid. Or does the conclusion simply mean 'sometimes we think about some things'?
Posted by: ed ockham | Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 01:49 PM
More. I think you probably agree that inferences like the one above are invalid when the 'some x' term is existentially loaded. The question is whether they are invalid in any other contexts. I assume you agree that the following is not valid:
(1) It is not the case that for some x, Fx
(2) For some x Fx and it is not the case that Fx
This is because the first could be true, but the second could never be true. We cannot always export the quantifier out of a context (in this case 'it is not the case that'), whether or not there is 'existential loading'. So what about
(3) Tom believes that there is a unicorn in the attic
(4) Some unicorn is in the attic and Tom believes that it is in the attic
Is this valid so long as there is no 'existential loading'? Is your point that there is no unicorn in the attic, i.e. no 'really existing' unicorn, but that there is a non-really existing unicorn there? But then how do you decide whether 'some unicorn is in the attic' is true in the non-existentially loaded sense? To take an example of Mark Sainsbury's: I tell my flatmate there is some beer in the fridge. He goes to have a look, and finds no beer. He returns to complain. I say 'ha ha, my quantifier 'some beer' was not existentially loaded'. But then what makes my statement 'some beer is in the fridge' true, given that it is non-existentially loaded? What are the truth-conditions of non-existentially loaded statements?
Posted by: london ed | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 01:21 AM
Yet more (sorry, this one is really making me think). Aristotle points out that whenever we deny something that another person as affirmed, then in order for it to be a true denial, it must deny exactly what has been affirmed. For example, 'King Charles [meaning Charles II] was not executed' is not the denial of 'King Charles [meaning Charles I] was executed'. So if I say "Tom says that there is a unicorn in the attic but there isn't", I am only denying what Charles says if what he means to affirm when he says 'there is a unicorn in the attic' is what I mean to deny when I say "there isn't". So it absolutely doesn't matter whether 'there is' / 'there isnt' is existentially loaded or not. Thus 'S believes that for some x Fx, therefore for some x Fx' is invalid, simpliciter, because it is always possible that the antecedent is true on account of some belief, and the consequent false because whatever is believed is false, i.e. whatever the believer was thinking, or meant to say, or intended, is false.
For example, if Tom thinks there is a really existing unicorn in the attic, i.e. if his belief is existentially loaded, his belief is false if there is no really existing unicorn in the attic. Or if he thinks that there is a unicorn in the attic in the non-loaded sense, i.e. he thinks that there is either a really existing or non-really existing unicorn, his belief is false if there is no unicorn of any type, really existing or not, in the attic. Thus existential export (i.e. taking a quantifier outside a propositional context) is always invalid, so long as the exported terms have the same meaning as the unexported ones. But we always assume this in logic.
Posted by: london ed | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 02:10 AM
Ed, I can see where you are coming from, but I believe Bill is correct on this one, at least in as much as he is not committing any "fallacy". The reason/argument for this is simply in your assumption that “A” (as Bill labelled it) is a "non-existential" claim; Bill extrapolated on these reasons in depth, but I will summarise: thought has an object and this object exists or if you see this object as merely the result of intention then the intention must exist (essentially for argument sake: intention = thinking); the only counter argument against this (from your side) could be if you then claim "well the intention itself and the object of the intention are distinct" and the intention/thought can exist, but not the object, but this is not so much an argument as an assumption (for there is no proof of such distinction that I believe you could furnish) and thus it comes down to what our "intuition" says...and mine says that there is no distinction between my "intention/thought" and "the object of my intention/thought" (and reversing the train of thought all the way back, this is what Bill's would also say given this train of thought).
You essentially are assuming that "existence" is “solely of one type” and presuming "intention/thought" as somehow either “non-existent” or “reducible to said single type of existence”...I (and Bill I presume) do not make this assumption. Which of these is the right assumption? I don't know (and neither do you)...but there is no "fallacy" on Bill's (or my) behalf for assuming that "existence" is also a property of “thinking/intention” (essentially leading to different “forms/categories” of existence). I believe this is in part what Bill was trying to communicate: that you are wrong for dismissing his thought as “fallacious”, NOT that you are necessarily wrong about your assumption.
In that sense, the best you and Bill can do in this (and I might add it is a very intricate and complex philosophical problem) instance is agree to disagree on two opposing sets of assumptions/postulates, not on any argument/proof presenting an argumentative or structural "fallacy". Of course you can then say “well, isn’t that just essentially what we should say for any philosophical problem” (i.e. it’s not about the arguments themselves, but just about the assumptions), but I don’t agree with that; I believe some philosophical problems lend themselves better to our current set of “philosophical tools” than others, and this problem is not one of those; i.e. we need better philosophical tools (a new way of “philosophically examining”) to solve this problem(and I am working on that and I would urge you and Bill to focus on that as well instead of just essentially debating postulates). This new set of tools must deal with the exact nature of both how we arrive at postulates and the nature of examination/argumentation itself; essentially the question of “what conditions both deduction and induction”. It must transcend Epistemology & Ontology; it must be a new branch dealing with Epistemology and Ontology as two “forms” or “subsets”.
As always though, thank you for the wonderful and insightful blog Bill and for the critical, clear and detailed responses Ed; it is most welcome and stimulating.
Posted by: phil | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 03:27 AM
Thanks for your comment. Phil. As you appreciate, the crux of the matter is whether there are different ways of existing, or different modes of existence. I say there are; Ed assumes that there aren't.
It is because of this assumption that Ed thinks that I am committed to the following fallacious argument:
a. Tom is thinking of a unicorn
Therefore
b. There exists (mind-independently) something such that Tom is thinking of it.
Whereas my view is that when Tom thinks of a unicorn, he is thinking of something, an item that exists merely as the object of Tom's act of thinking, but does not exist mind-independently.
Obviously, I have not committed what Ed calls the Existential Fallacy.
This is not to say that my view cannot be criticized; it can. It just cannot be criticized in the way that Ed criticizes it.
Posted by: BV | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 04:55 AM
>>It is because of this assumption that Ed thinks that I am committed to the following fallacious argument […]
I don't think you are committed to the argument you mention. Please can we be clear about that. As said above, I think you are committed to an argument of the form:
a Tom is thinking about a unicorn
b His mental state has an object
c The object of a mental state is an 'intentional object' (def)
d Some objects are intentional objects.
|s that correct? You seem reluctant to confirm.
I also asked, among other things, what are the truth conditions for non-existentially loaded statements. For example if I say that there is some beer in the fridge even though there really isn't, what makes my non-loaded statement true? And if Tom believes there is a unicorn in the attic, we agree his belief is false if about real unicorns. But what makes his belief true in the 'non loaded' sense?
Posted by: london ed | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 05:26 AM
Bill,
By analogy with your (a)--(f) can we not also consistently assert the following?
Likewise, has the analogy,Posted by: David Brightly | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 09:25 AM
I have a problem with (d). It suggests that 'object' is a genus with real and merely intentional objects as species. Just as I don't believe 'exist(s)' is univocal, I don't believe that 'object' is univocal.
For you, an object is an existent, and vice versa. That is why you find talk of merely intentional objects illicit. You apparently think that because Sherlock does not exist, he is not an object, and therefore not an intentional object.
Posted by: BV | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 09:26 AM
>>I have a problem with (d).
OK - the whole purpose of this is to understand what conclusions we can validly draw from the premiss 'John is thinking of a unicorn'.
Posted by: london ed | Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 09:38 AM