This is the second in a series. Here is the first installment. Read it for context and references. We are still examining only the first premise of Barry Miller's cosmological argument, as sketched by Philipse:
1) Existence is a real first-level accidental property of contingent individuals.
Philipse gave two arguments contra. In my first entry I refuted the weaker of the two. Philipse argued that Kant in 1781 had already put paid to the proposition that existence is a "real predicate," i.e., a real property of individuals. I showed that Philipse confuses two different senses of 'real.' When the Sage of Koenigsberg tells us that Offenbar, Sein ist kein reales Praedikat, he is telling us that it is obvious that being or existence is not a first-level quidditative determination. This is true, whether or not it is obvious. But when Miller tells us that existence is a real property of individuals, he is telling us that it is a non-Cambridge property of individuals. Philipse confuses 'real' in the sense of 'quidditative' with 'real' in the sense of 'non-Cambridge,' and on the basis of this confusion takes Kant to have refuted Miller. The ineptitude of Philipse's 'argument' takes the breath away.
The other argument Philipse gives is not so easily blown out of the water, if it can be so blown at all. He writes:
It is not necessary to discuss here all the attempted refutations Miller puts forward, for the simple reason that if he fails to refute convincingly only one plausible argument to the effect that existence is not a real predicate, his negative strategy is shipwrecked.
Let me take the so-called absurdity objection as an example (pp. 21-23). According to this objection, if existence is an accidental real first-order property of individual entities, so must non-existence be, but this would imply an absurdity. For in order to attribute truly a real property to a specific individual, we must be able to refer successfully to that individual by using a proper name, a pronoun, or by pointing to it, etc. However, we can refer successfully to an individual only if that individual exists or at least has existed, so that non-existence cannot be a real property. Hence existence cannot be an accidental real first-level property of individuals either.
The absurdity objection can be put like this:
a) Existence is a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals if and only if nonexistence is also a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals.
b) Non-existence cannot be a property of individuals: if an individual exists, then it cannot have the property of nonexistence.
Therefore
c) Existence is not a property of individuals.
This is an argument that cannot be dismissed as resting on an elementary confusion. But let's take a step back and formulate the problem as an aporetic triad or antilogism the better to reconnoiter the conceptual terrain.
a) Existence is a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals if and only if nonexistence is also a (real, non-Cambridge) property of individuals.
b) Non-existence cannot be a property of individuals: if an individual exists, then it cannot have the property of nonexistence.
c*) Existence is a property of individuals.
Each of these three propositions is individually plausible. And yet they cannot all be true on pain of logical contradiction. Individually plausible, but collectively inconsistent. So, if we adhere to the law of non-contradiction, one of the propositions must be rejected. Which will it be?
A. The Fregean will reject (c*). A Fregean or Fressellian for present purposes is someone who, first, holds that 'exist(s)' is univocal in sense and second, has only one admissible sense: as a second-level predicate. Thus the general existential 'Cats exist' is logically kosher because it can be read as predicating of the first-level property of being a cat the second-level property of being instantiated. But the singular existential 'Max exists' is not logically kosher and is indeed meaningless in roughly the way 'Max is numerous' is meaningless. For if 'exists' is univocal and means 'is instantiated,' then one cannot meaningfully say of Max that he exists for the simple reason that it is meaningless to say of an individual that it is instantiated. Max could conceivably have an indiscernible twin, but that would not be an instance of him. By definition, the only instantiable items are properties, concepts, and the like. Some will say that the Fregean analysis can be made to work for singular existentials if there are such haecceity properties as identity-with-Max, 'Maxity' to give it a name. Suppose that there are. Then 'Max exists' is analyzable as 'Maxity is instantiated.' But this does not alter the fact that 'exist(s)' is a second-level predicate, and existence a second-level property.
B. The Meinongian will reject (b). A Meinongian for present purposes is someone who denies that everything exists, and holds instead that some items exist and some do not. For the Meinongian, existence is a classificatory principle: it partitions a logically prior domain of items into those that exist and those that do not. For the Meinongian, both existence and non-existence are first-level properties. Existence cannot be classificatory for the Fregean because, for the Fregean, everything exists. And so for the Fregean, there cannot be a property of non-existence.
C. The Millerian -- to give him a name -- rejects (a). A Millerian for present purposes is one who holds, against the Meinongian, that there are no nonexistent items, and against the Fregean that existence is a genuine, non-relational property predicable of individuals. Holding that everything exists, the Millerian cannot admit that non-existence is a real (i.e., non-Cambridge) property of individuals.
In Part III of this series, I will examine Philipse's atempted rebuttal of Miller's rejection of (a). For now I will merely point out that the Meinongian and Fregean positions are open to powerful objections and therefore cannot be used to refute the Millerian view. They merely oppose it. To oppose a theory T with a questionable theory T* is not to refute T. 'Refute' is a verb of success. To refute a theory is to prove that it is untenable. Note also that the Fregean and the Meinongian are at profound loggerheads, which fact undermines both positions. After all, deep thinkers have supported each.
My point, then, is that Philipse hasn't refuted Miller; he has merely opposed him from the point of view of the Fregean theory which is fraught with difficulties. One cannot refute a theory with a theory that is itself open to powerful objections as the Fregean theory is.
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