Maverick Philosopher

Defending Barry Miller against Herman Philipse: Existence as a First-Level Property, Part III

This is the third in a series.  First installment, second, Philipse's review.

Herman Philipse's strongest argument against Barry Miller's claim that existence is a a first-level property, a property of individuals, is the absurdity objection.

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.

Miller must accept (b) since he does not countenance nonexistent items in the manner of Meinong. He agrees with Frege, Russell, and Quine that everything exists. If so, then non-existence cannot be a real property of individuals. Otherwise, there could be an individual x such that x both exists and does not exist. That would be absurd, i.e., logically contradictory.

Miller must therefore reject (a).  Now let's hear what Philipse has to say.

Miller replies to this argument [the absurdity objection] by claiming that whereas existence is a real property of individuals, non-existence is merely a Cambridge property. He proposes the following criterion for deciding whether the lack of a real property implies the presence of a real complementary property: "Lack of a real property F would bespeak the presence of a correlative real property non-F only if F and non-F were determinates of . . . one determinable property" (p. 23, quote from Miller). Since there is no determinable of which both existence and non-existence are determinates (like red and not-red may both be determinates of the determinable colour), non-existence is not a real property, but rather a Cambridge property. Hence, Miller rejects the [major] premise of the absurdity objection.

I do not think that this refutation is convincing. Why endorse Miller's criterion? A person could just as well propose a similar criterion for deciding whether we are talking about real properties: all real properties are either determinates of determinables, or determinables of determinates. Since this is not the case for existence, existence cannot be a real property. Furthermore, non-existence cannot be a Cambridge property, contrary to what Miller claims. He defined a Cambridge property as a property the presence or absence of which does not make a real difference to the individual that has it. Is it true, or is it even meaningful to say, that it makes no real difference to the goddess Athena whether she has the property of non-existence or not? Moreover, whereas all Cambridge properties are relational (p. 29), non-existence is not relational.

Philipse makes three counter-arguments in the second of the quoted paragraphs.   

The second is question-begging and is easily dismissed. Miller rejects such Meinongian objects as the goddess Athena. So no question can arise with respect to it as to whether or not it has the property of non-existence.  

The third counter-argument is this: All Cambridge properties are relational; non-existence is not relational; ergo, non-existence is not a Cambridge property.  This begs the question at the major premise. If Miller is right, not all Cambridge properties are relational: non-existence is a Cambridge property that is not relational.

The first-counter-argument is also question-begging. The argument is:  "all real [non-Cambridge] properties are either determinates of determinables, or determinables of determinates"; existence is not  a determinate of a determinable, etc; ergo, existence is not a real property.  Miller will simply run this argument in reverse: because existence is a real property, the major premise is false.

What we have here is (at least) a standoff.  Philipse has failed to refute Miller. Can Miller refute Philipse?  Perhaps not. If so, then we have a standoff. Miller's view is a contender. It is at least as good as the Fregean and Meinongian views. But all three views are open to objections. 

Defending Barry Miller against Herman Philipse: Existence as a First-Level Property, Part II

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.

Defending Barry Miller Against Herman Philipse, Part I: Existence as a First-Level Property

In his Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews  review of Elmar J. Kremer's Analysis of Existing: Barry Miller's Approach to God, Herman Philipse presents the following sketch of  Miller's cosmological  argument  a contingentia mundi for the existence of God:

1. Existence is a real first-level accidental property of contingent individuals.

2. Concrete contingent individuals are distinct from their existence.

3. This distinction implies a paradox, unless:

4. All existing concrete contingent individuals are caused to exist by a necessarily existing and therefore uncaused individual that is identical with its existence, and this is God.

5. At least one concrete contingent individual exists, e.g., the dog Fido, or the universe.

6. Hence, God exists (from 1-5).

Philipse is unimpressed with the argument.  He rejects (1) as well as (2)-(4).  In this entry I will confine myself to a discussion of Philipse's rejection of (1), and indeed to just one of his arguments against (1).  

It is obvious that Miller's cosmological argument cannot get off the ground unless existence is a property of  contingent individuals in some defensible sense of 'property.'  This is what Philipse appears to deny.  He appears to endorse the Frege-Russell view according to which 'exist(s)' is always only a second-level predicate and never an admissible first-level predicate, where a first-level or first-order predicate is one that  stands for a property that is meaningfully attributable to concrete individuals.   On the Frege-Russell view, then,  existence is not a first-level property, but a property of properties, Fregean concepts, Russellian propositional functions or some cognate item.   But this dogma of analysis -- as I call it --  (i) flies in the face of the linguistic data and (ii) brings with it troubles of its own. (See my "Existence: Two Dogmas of Analysis" in Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics, eds. Novotny and Novak, Routledge 2014, pp. 45-75)

That we predicate existence of concrete individuals seems as obvious as anything.  That we do so is a datum that ought to be  presumed innocent until proven guilty of incoherence or contradiction.  We predicate existence of individuals using proper names, demonstratives, pronouns, and pure indexicals as in 'Socrates exists,' 'This exists,'  'She exists,' and 'I exist.'   'Socrates' is a proper name. 'This' is a demonstrative.  'She' is a pronoun. 'I' is a pure indexical.  Many of these first-level predications of existence are true.  And if true, or false, then meaningful.  This is evidence that 'exist(s)'  functions as a meaningful first-level predicate in singular sentences such as 'Scollay Square no longer exists' and 'Copley Square still exists.'   The linguistic data suggest that 'exist(s)' has a use as a meaningful first-level predicate in the the way that 'numerous' has no use  as a meaningful first-level predicate. 

(Bertrand Russell made a brave but unsuccessful attempt at assimilating existence to numerousness by arguing that, just as it would be the fallacy of division to argue that Socrates is numerous from the premises that he is a philosopher and that philosophers are numerous, it would also be the fallacy of division to argue that Socrates exists from the premises that he is a philosopher and that philosophers exist. Following Frege, he held that 'exist(s)' is never an admissible first-level predicate.)

Consider the Cartesian cogito ergo sum.   It terminates in the proposition, sum, I am, I exist. The proposition is true, hence meaningful. First-level predications of existence would thus appear to be meaningful.  When I think the thought that I exist, I attribute to myself the property of existence. This is prima facie evidence that existence is a property of individuals in a suitably broad sense of 'property.'  Of course, when I say of a thing that it exists, I am not adding to its description or to the list of its quidditative determinations. So existence is not a property of individuals in that sense.  The following is a non sequitur:

Existence is not a quidditative property of individuals.

Therefore

Existence is not a property of individuals at all, but a property of properties, the property of being instantiated.

It doesn't follow, because existence might be a non-quidditative property of individuals.  The premise is obvious and contested by no one; but one cannot leap straightaway from it to the Fressellian doctrine which removes existence from individuals entirely and installs it at the level of concepts/properties/propositional functions.  

It is well known, however, that certain puzzles arise if we treat 'exist(s)' as a genuine first-level or first-order predicate.  And so a defender of (1) needs to be able to rebut the arguments against the view that 'exist(s)' is a genuine first-level predicate and existence a genuine first-level property.  Philipse claims that  if even one of these arguments contra is sound, then (1) cannot be sustained. 

Let us consider a famous argument from Kant who is widely regarded as having anticipated Frege.  Philipse writes,

Finally, does Miller succeed in refuting the Kantian argument to the effect that existence is not a real property? According to this argument, it is always possible to assert of one and the same entity (described by a list of its properties) both that it exists and that it does not exist. It follows from this plausible premise that existence cannot be a property (Critique of Pure Reason, A600/B628). Miller answers by stipulating that although existence is a real first-order property of concrete individuals, it differs from all other properties in two respects. First, existence does not add anything to what the individual is, and second, it does not add anything to an antecedent reality (p. 38). In my view, however, this stipulation amounts to changing the ordinary meaning of the term 'property', so that Miller's reply to Kant commits a fallacy of ambiguity. I conclude that Miller does not succeed in establishing that existence is a real accidental first-level property of concrete individuals.

This response is a total misunderstanding.  Kant does not show that existence cannot be a property; what he shows, if he shows anything, is that it cannot be a real property where a real property is a determining property, and where "a determining predicate [property in contemporary jargon] is a predicate [property] which is added to the concept of the subject and enlarges it." (A598 B626) 

Let the concept be cat. This relatively indeterminate concept can be further determined and made more specific by adding  real or determining properties to it such as male, short-haired, black, five-years-old, and so on.  Kant's point is that existence is not a property that could be added to this, or any, concept to further determine it.  Existence is not a determining property. And in that sense it is not a real property.  To predicate it of an individual leaves its whatness (quidditas) unaltered. Existence is not a quidditative determination.

Suppose the process of determination were taken to the max such that our cat concept becomes fully determinate in the sense that if anything in reality were to instantiate it, exactly one individual would instantiate it.  The concept would then be so specific as to be individuating. But it would not follow that anything in reality does instantiate it.  And if anything in reality were to instantiate it, then that individual would be quidditatively indistinguishable from the concept.  The concept and its object, it there is one, would coincide quidditatively. (A599 B627)  This is why Kant says that "the actual contains no more than the merely possible." The concept expresses the mere possibility of a corresponding object; whether there is a corresponding object, however, is an extra-conceptual matter.   

You can see how this puts paid to the Cartesian ontological argument "from mere concepts." No doubt the concept of God is the concept of a being possessing all perfections. But even if existence is a perfection ( a great-making property in Plantinga's lingo) in God, existence is not contained in any concept we can wrap our heads around, and so cannot be analytically extracted from any such concept.  Hence we cannot prove the existence of God by sheer analysis of the God concept. No concept in he mind of a discursive, ectypal intellect, not even the concept of God,  is such that by sheer analysis of its content one could prove the existence of a corresponding object.  

The point that Philipse misses is that Kant's claim that existence is not a real, i.e., determining property of individuals is consistent with Miller's claim that existence is a real, i.e., non-Cambridge property of individuals. Philipse mistakenly thinks that if existence is not a determining property of an individual, then it is not a property of an individual.  That is the same non sequitur as was exposed above.  If existence is not a quidditative property of individuals, it does not follow that that it is not a property of individuals, but a property of properties.

Kant's argument does not refute Miller's (1) above.

Review of Barry Miller, A Most Unlikely God

I reviewed A Most Unlikely God in Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review (vol. XXXVIII, no. 3, Summer 1999, pp. 614-617).  Prof. N.M.L Nathan  expressed an interest in reading it, so here it is.

A Most Unlikely God: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Nature of God. By Barry Miller. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996, viii + 175 pp. $27.00.

This is the sequel to Professor Miller's From Existence to God: A Contemporary Philosophical Argument (Routledge, 1992). (See my review in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, vol. LXVII, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 390-394.) In that book he presents a version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God that does not rely on the principle of sufficient reason in any of its forms. A central upshot of that argument is that God as uncaused cause of the universe must be Subsistent Existence, i.e., a being not distinct from its existence. The notion that anything whatever could be non-distinct from its existence is of course an exasperatingly difficult one, and is rejected as incoherent by many, along with the doctrine of divine simplicity of which it is an integral part. An ontologically simple God is a most unlikely God since he is one in whom there is no real distinction between form and matter, act and potency, essence and existence, or individual and attribute. Since Miller's theistic argument terminates in the affirmation of a simple God, it is essential to his overall project to show the coherence of the very idea of a simple God and to rebut the numerous objections that have been brought against it. That is the task of the book under review.

Chapter 1 contrasts Miller's approach with the 'perfect-being theology' of the Anselmians. For the latter, God's perfection is construed as his possession of a maximally consistent set of great-making properties or perfections. Omnipotence is an example of a great-making property, and is taken by Anselmians as the logical maximum of a property that can be had by creatures. Thus Socrates is powerful, but God is maximally powerful. Miller rejects this approach to divine perfection in that it implies that such terms as 'powerful,' 'knowing,' 'loving,' etc., can be used univocally of God and creatures. (p. 2) On the Anselmian approach, the gulf between God and creatures is not an absolute divide, and thus God on this approach fails to be absolutely transcendent. The God of the Anselmians is thus "discomfitingly anthropomorphic." (p. 3)

Miller's alternative is to think of the greatest F not as a maximum or limit simpliciter in an ordered series of Fs, but as the limit case of such a series. (p. 4) Whereas the limit simpliciter of an F is an F, the limit case of an F is not an F. Consider, for example, the series: 3-place predicable, 2-place predicable, 1-place predicable. Since a predicable (e.g.,'___is wise') must have at least one place if it is to be a predicable, a 1-place predicable is a limit simpliciter of the ordered series of predicables. Although talk of zero-place predicables comes naturally, as when we speak of a proposition as a zero-place  predicable, a zero-place predicable is no more a predicable than negative growth is growth. 'Zero-place' is thus an alienans adjective like 'negative' in 'negative growth' and 'decoy' in 'decoy duck.' Zero-place predicable is thus not a limit simpliciter of the series in question, but a limit case of this series: it is not a member of the series of which it is the limit case. It nevertheless stands in some relation to the members of the series inasmuch as they and the way they are ordered point to this limit case. (p. 8)

The idea, then, is that God's power is not the maximum or limit simpliciter of an ordered series of instances of power, but the limit case instance of power. This implies that God's power is not an instance of power any more than a zero-place predicable is a predicable. No doubt this will shock the Anselmians, but in mitigation it can be said that God's power, though not an instance of power, is that to which the ordered series of power-instances points, and is therefore something to which the members of that series stand in a definite relation.

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 engage the problem of how it could be that God is his existence. If sense can be made of this identity, the problem of how God can be identical with his non- existential properties should present no special difficulty. The story begins with Socrates who is spectacularly distinct from his existence. Of course, Socrates can be distinct from his existence only if there is some sense in which existence is a property of him. Since Frege, Russell and their epigones deny this, holding instead that existence is always a property of concepts or propositional functions, Miller devotes Chapter 2 to showing that there are first-level uses of '___exists'  and thus that existence is a first-level property of contingent individuals. Miller makes a strong, and to this reviewer's mind convincing, case for this view.

But given that existence is a first-level property, it does not follow straightaway that it is a real (non-Cambridge) property. One is tempted to wonder what existence could 'add' to Socrates, and tempted to conclude that it could 'add' nothing and thus that existence is a Cambridge property. But so to conclude would be to labor under a false assumption as to how an individual is related to its existence. Chapter 3 argues that Socrates is not related to his existence in the way he is related to his wisdom. His wisdom inheres in him as subject; but it makes no sense to think of his existence as inhering in him as subject: "Socrates' existence could not inhere in him unless there was a sense in which he himself was real logically prior to his existence." (p. 30) And there is no such sense, as Miller goes on to argue. Plantinga's haecceities come in for a drubbing (pp. 31-32), and in general it is plausibly argued that individuals are inconceivable before they exist. That is, before Socrates came to exist, there were no de re possibilities involving him.

So although Socrates individuates his existence, i.e., makes his instance of existence distinct from every other such instance, Socrates cannot actualize his existence in the way he actualizes his wisdom: Socrates is logically posterior to his existence in respect of actuality. (p. 33) This seems right: Socrates' existence is what 'makes' him exist. But how can Socrates be logically posterior to his existence in respect of actuality and also logically prior to his existence in respect of individuation?

This question has an answer if Socrates is related to his existence, not as subject to what inheres in it, but as bound to what it bounds. A bound is logically posterior to what it bounds in respect of actuality, but logically prior in respect of individuation. Consider two blocks of ice cut from the same larger block. The two blocks are individuated by their bounding surfaces, which are logically posterior in respect of actuality to the blocks they bound. Bounds are parasitic on what they bound. But the bounding surfaces are logically prior in respect of individuation to the blocks they bound. This is a creative, if not wholly unproblematic, solution to what I am convinced is a genuine problem, namely, the problem of how existence can belong to an individual without being related to it as to a subject.

We are now in a position to understand the notion of Subsistent Existence as an identity of limit cases (Ch 4). Having seen that Socrates is the bound rather than the subject of his instance of existence, we form the notions of the limit case instance of existence and of the limit case bound of existence. "The notion of Subsistent Existence, then, is the notion of the entity which is jointly and identically the limit case instance of existence and the limit case bound of existence." (67) But doesn't this amount to the self-contradictory claim that some bound of existence is identical with the instance of existence which it bounds? No, because 'limit case' is an alienans adjective; a limit case bound of existence is not a bound at all, nor is a limit case instance of existence an instance of existence.

The rest of the book is an elaboration of this basic idea. Chapter 5 shows how God can be identical with his non-existential properties. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the bearing of the simplicity doctrine on divine cognition, willing, and causation. Chapter 8 addresses the possibility of literal talk about a simple God. Miller attempts to show that on the limit case account of God's simplicity, "...absolute transcendence does not entail total ineffability..." (p. 154) Chapter 9 concludes the work.

There are some minor errors in the book, one of which should be mentioned. On p. 1, n. 1, Miller ascribes to Alvin Plantinga the view that God has no nature. This is a mistake, as Miller readily conceded when I pointed it out to him in correspondence. Plantinga of course holds that God has a nature; what he denies is that God is identical with his nature.

Minor errors aside, this work is the best defense of the divine simplicity to date. Anyone who thinks that this doctrine is obviously incoherent or easily dismissed should read this book -- and think again.

Related articles

A Question About God and Existence

Again on 'God + World = God'

Book Notice: Elmar J. Kremer, Analysis of Existing: Barry Miller's Approach to God

I recall a remark by Hans-Georg Gadamer in his Philosophische Lehrjahre to the effect that the harvest years of a scholar come late.  That  was certainly true in the case of the Australian philosopher Barry Miller (1923-2006).   His  philosophical career culminated in a burst of productivity.  In roughly the last decade of his long life he published a trilogy in philosophical theology: From Existence to God (1992), A Most Unlikely God (1996), and The Fullness of Being (2002).  I reviewed the first two in the journals and made substantial comments on a manuscript version of the third.  Miller kindly acknowledged my help at the end of the preface of the 2002 book.  So I was pleased to be of some small service on Miller's behalf by refereeing Kremer's manuscript for Oxford UP and supplying the blurb below when it was accepted by Bloomsbury.

 

Reviews of Analysis of Existing

“Barry Miller’s philosophical theology clearly shows how a philosopher can think rigorously about God without caving into fashionable and facile refutations of theism. In this study of his writings, Elmar Kremer provides an exemplary account of his sophisticated arguments while discussing their value and cogently defending them against a number of objections. Kremer’s welcome book is both a fine introduction to Miller and a significant contribution to philosophy of religion.” –  Brian Davies, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, USA,

“Barry Miller was a brilliant philosophical theologian with an original argument for, and development of, the Thomist idea of God as the entity whose essence is existence. Unfortunately Miller's ideas have not been given the attention they deserve. In part this is because he made few concessions to the reader. In this book Elmar J. Kremer provides the 'clear, well-developed exposition' that Miller's ideas deserve. I recommended it highly to all interested in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, or theology.” –  Peter Forrest, Retired Professor of Philosophy, University of New England, Australia,

“Barry Miller's penetrating work in philosophical theology has not received the attention it deserves. It is therefore with pleasure that I recommend the first book-length treatment of Miller's work, Elmar J. Kremer's Analysis of Existing: Barry Miller's Approach to God.” –  William F. Vallicella, Retired Professor of Philosophy, USA,

“Kremer's book consists of philosophically acute, painstaking scholarship. It is a very fine introduction to Miller’s highly original work on the metaphysics of theism.” –  Bruce Langtry, Senior Fellow in Philosophy, The University of Melbourne, Australia,

A Review of Barry Miller's From Existence to God

I have reviewed two of Barry Miller's books. My review of A Most Unlikely God appeared in Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review (vol. XXXVIII, no. 3, Summer 1999, pp. 614-617). My review of From Existence to God appeared in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (Summer 1993), pp. 390-394, I post a version of the latter here.

Barry Miller, From Existence to God: A Contemporary Philosophical Argument (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. x + 206. $42.50.

I

Arguments for the existence of God a contingentia mundi usually proceed by way of some version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), where this embraces principles of intelligibility and causality. Professor Miller's book is a bold but rigorous defense of a contingency argument that makes no use of any of these controversial principles. He thus evades the standard objections to PSR-based arguments. The engine driving Miller's argument is Non- Contradiction, a principle he deploys at various stages of his treatment. (cf. pp. 172-174) Accordingly, his central thesis is that there is "a hidden contradiction in claiming both that, say, Fido exists and that God does not." (p. ix)

If so, the existence of God should follow by dint of sheer analysis of what it is for a concrete individual to exist, in the presence of the uncontroversial premise that concrete individuals do in fact exist. By 'God' Miller understands the god of classical theism, a being that is the uncaused sustaining cause of the universe, where "The Universe is everything existing which either is a concrete individual or is individuated by individuals." (p. 131) This uncaused cause is unique, identical with its existence (and thus subsistent existence), metaphysically (not logically) necessary, and an individual only in an analogical sense of this term. (p. 137) Thus the above definition of 'universe' does not imply that God is in the universe. God cannot be an individual in the strict sense since He is not distinct from his existence; but He is nevertheless a concrete entity since capable of causal activity. (p. 126) The 'omni-properties' (omniscience, etc.) are not discussed. Thus Miller starts here below with existing concrete individuals, works his way up to the uncaused cause of their existence, and only then embarks on a discussion of those of the divine attributes relevant to the analysis of existence. This in marked contrast to the usual procedure of beginning with a definition of 'God' and then considering whether anything satisfies the definition.

A central challenge Miller faces is to show that the existence of concrete individuals is not a brute fact, where "a brute fact is by definition one for which any explanation is simply unnecessary." (p. 79) He meets this challenge by arguing that the existence of concrete individuals would harbor a contradiction if taken to be a brute fact. Given this putative contradiction, an inquiry into how it is possible that any such individual exist becomes logically inescapable. It turns out that the contradiction can only be removed if the existence of concrete individuals is not a brute fact but is dependent on something
external to them. (p. 84)

Wherein lies the contradiction? Consider Fido's existing. On Miller's preferred analysis, Fido's existing has two constituents, Fido and Fido's existence. Whereas Fido is a complete entity, one capable of independent existence, Fido's existence is a property-instance and therefore incomplete: incapable of independent existence, it requires a complete entity for its "individuation." (p. 38, n. 22) As constituents, Fido and his existence are ontologically, not chronologically, prior to Fido's existing in the sense that "...Fido's existing must be constructible conceptually from Fido and his existence." (p. 10) But such a construction would make no sense if Fido could not be conceived prior to Fido's existing. Yet chapter 3 ("The Inconceivability of Future Individuals") issues in precisely this conclusion: "Fido could neither be referred to nor conceived of before he existed." (p. 11)

Thus a contradiction emerges at the heart of concrete individuals: Fido's existing is a complex whose ontological constituents are such that one of them (Fido) must be and cannot be conceived prior to Fido's existing. Fido must be independently conceivable if he is to be available for the conceptual construction; but he cannot be so conceivable since "prior to its existing no concrete individual could be conceived of by anyone or in any way." (p. 42)

To establish that there is this contradiction, Miller must first of all develop a constituent ontology of individuals. This he does in chapter 2, "Sense Structure and Ontology." The analysis is pushed further in chapter 4, "Existence is a Real Property." Here he argues (convincingly to my mind) against the dominant Frege-Russell line that 'exists' and cognates are never legitimately predicable of individuals. The upshot is that existence is a first-level property.

Further argument is to the effect that it is a real (as opposed to a 'Cambridge') first-level property. Miller is now in a position to think of Fido's existing as built up from two constituents, Fido and Fido's existence. But what is Fido in distinction from his existence? One way to think of this is in terms of the question, What was Fido before he came to exist? Was he conceivable or referrable-to before he existed?

Chapter 3 defends the thesis that concrete individuals can neither be conceived of nor referred to prior to their existence, not even by God. This implies that, prior to Socrates' coming to exist, there was no de re possibility of his coming to exist. Thus there are no singular propositions about future individuals; all such propositions are general. (p. 42) Further implications are that the coming into existence of an individual is not the actualization of a merely possible individual, or the exemplification of any such exotic property as a Plantingian haecceity.

Now if Fido is inconceivable before he existed, then, "he cannot be conceived of except as existing or as having existed..." (p. 62) If so, how can Fido be a constituent of his existing? The result of chapters 2 and 4 thus contradicts that of chapter 3.

Given the obvious fact that Fido does exist, the contradiction in Fido's existing must be merely apparent. But if the analyses in chapters 2, 3 and 4 are correct, Fido's existing can neither be a brute fact needing no explanation, nor a fact explainable in terms of its constituents. So Fido's existing must be "dependent upon something other than either it or its constituents." (p. 84) This is the thesis of chapter 5, "Why existence? The penultimate answer."

The ultimate answer is provided in chapter 6, where it is argued that nothing is amiss in the idea of a causal regress that terminates necessarily in an uncaused cause. A causal series terminates necessarily if its members are intrinsically such that the series must terminate. (pp. 98-99) I take it that the series of causes that reaches back some 13-15 billion years ago to the Big Bang (assuming the truth of current cosmology) is a contingently terminating series: there is nothing in the nature of an ordinary physical event-cause that necessitates that a series of such causes should terminate, or should not terminate. So if there are no necessarily terminating causal series, there is no hope for a contingency argument that does not apply some version of PSR to an initial event like the Big Bang.

The main challenge Miller faces in showing the possibility of necessarily terminating causal series derives from Hume's contention that in an infinite series of causes each member is wholly explained
by the preceding member without any member being uncaused. If so, there is no a priori reason why a causal regress must terminate. To the objection that this would leave the series itself unexplained, the Humean rejoinder is that the explanation of each member by the preceding member suffices to explain the series as a whole. Miller responds to Hume's challenge by distinguishing five types of causal series. The justice of Hume's remarks is admitted with respect to types I-III. But types IV and V are argued to escape Humean censure.

It is impossible in the short space allotted to summarize Miller's intricate and carefully argued discussion of causal series. But perhaps the gist of it can be rendered as follows.

Miller needs a causal series that is both explanatory and necessarily terminating. But if a series is such that each of its members is caused by that which precedes it and causes that which succeeds it, then that series cannot be necessarily terminating. "Series IV and V, however, are cases of causal series in which each part neither is caused by that which precedes it, nor causes that which succeeds it . . ." (p. 111) How? Let a be the cause of Fido's existing, and suppose (to put it roughly) a is caused to exist by b, b by c, c by d, and d by m. Miller's idea is that when properly formulated, what causes a to exist is not b, but b inasmuch as it is caused to exist by c inasmuch as it is caused to exist by d inasmuch as it is caused to exist by m. (p. 112) Now m must be an uncaused cause, says Miller, on pain of the series' no longer being able to cause anything. (p. 112)

Having thus arrived at the uncaused cause, the remaining chapters consolidate and elaborate this result. Chapter 7, "The Uncaused Cause," argues that the ground of the uncaused cause's status as uncaused is in the lack of "any distinction between itself and its existence" (p. 117) and defends this consequence of the doctrine of divine simplicity against charges of incoherence. Miller also addresses the question whether the universe might be the uncaused cause, and concludes that it cannot since it is distinct from its existence, and what is so distinct can exist only if caused to exist. (p. 135)

Chapter 8 ("Necessary Existence") explains the sense in which God's existence is necessary "in terms of the more basic notion of something's lacking any distinction from its existence." (p. 148)

Chapters 9 and 10 treat, respectively, "Objections to the Contingency Argument" and "The Contingency Argument Misconceived." The book concludes with three appendices in support of chapters 2, 3 and 4 respectively, and a useful index.

The production job is reasonably good, although the quality of the paper inspires little confidence in its ability to resist the onset of yellowing. I note only four typographical errors: p. 1 has 'prologomena' instead of 'prolegomena.' P. 35, line 16 sports 'Fido's existing' in place of 'Fido's blackness.' P. 38, n. 22, line 6 shows 'predicate' where it should have 'property.' And a spot check of the index revealed on p. 202, col. I, line 7 a reference to p. 74 when it should be to p. 76.

II

Miller's book is a significant contribution not only to philosophical theology, but also to metaphysics and the philosophy of language. He engages a fundamental question ("How ever can it be that the Universe does exist?" (p. 1)) and he does so in a clear and rigorous manner. Equally important, he develops a line of reasoning which has been largely ignored in the theistic renaissance of recent decades. Along the way, a number of dogmas come under fire, among them the dogma held by atheists and theists alike that the doctrine of divine simplicity is incoherent. Miller leaves no doubt that he is historically informed, but does not allow himself to be led down exegetical sidetracks. All in all, an exciting and important work.

I conclude with a couple of critical comments, offered in the spirit of a request for clarification.

Miller's contingency argument is motivated by "the recognition that to accept Fido's existing as a brute fact would be to accept that Fido and his existence were simultaneously both constituents and non-constituents of Fido's existing."(p. 116) Suppose we take a closer look at this putative contradiction. Given that they are constituents, Fido and his existence are ontologically, not chronologically, prior to Fido's existing. (p. 10) But if Fido is ontologically prior to Fido's existing, how is this priority contradicted by the fact, if it is one, that Fido is inconceivable until he exists? Fido's being nothing, not even a possible entity, chronologically prior to his existing seems logically compatible with his being ontologically prior to his existing, and therefore a constituent of his existing. The fact that "...Fido's existing should be conceptually constructible from Fido and his existence" (p. 83) seems consistent with Fido's being "disqualified [from being the starting point of the construction] by being inconceivable until he has completed his existence." (p. 83) A conceptual construction is presumably not a temporal process, despite Miller's talk of "beginning" the construction, moving through its "steps" and "stages," (p. 81) and "finishing" it. (p. 82) This talk is surely to be taken nontemporally. If so, it is not clear why Fido cannot be both ontologically prior and chronologically simultaneous with his existing. Surely Miller is not equivocating on 'prior'?

A second point concern's Miller's oft-made admission that Fido's existing admits of more than one legitimate analysis. (p. 37, n. 18, p. 81) Miller's analysis generates a contradiction; but if there is a legitimate analysis that does not generate a contradiction, would this not undercut Miller's argument? He would not think so, since "The nub of the argument is that a legitimate analysis cannot generate an insoluble paradox." (p. 81) But isn't the fact, assuming it is a fact, that Miller's analysis issues in a contradiction, together with the fact that alternative legitimate analyses are available, prima facie evidence that his analysis is illegitimate? It seems that for Miller's argument to work he must show, or at least render credible, the view that his analysis is the only legitimate analysis.

W. F. Vallicella

Honoring Barry Miller

I honor him in the best way a philosopher can be honored -- by carefully studying his works,  thinking his thoughts, and building upon them.

Are There Logically Simple Propositions?

Leo Carton Mollica e-mails:

 

Your most recent post (for which many thanks) inspired the below-expressed argument, and I was curious as to your opinion of it . . . . I think it has something behind it, but right now I feel uncertain about my examples in (2).

 

0. There is something curious about the relation between a proposition or declarative sentence and the terms or words that compose it: the list L ("Christ," "Judas," "betrays") clearly differs, at the very least in not having a truth value, from the sentence "Judas betrays Christ," yet nothing immediately presents itself as the ground G of this difference. One plausible candidate for G is some kind of union or togetherness amongst the members of L present in "Judas betrays Christ" and not in L itself, but this proposal is open to a serious challenge.

 

1. Suppose we accept Barry Miller's thesis, from "Logically Simple Propositions," that some declarative sentences have only one semantic element. His favorite such sentence is the Romanian "Fulgura," whose only constituent word translates (if I remember aright) the English "brightens," and which is interesting in requiring no actual or implied subject to form a complete sentence (like "It's raining" in English, but without the dummy subject).

 

2. Now, the lone word in "Fulgura" seemingly can occur outside any proposition. If, for example, someone were to ask me to recite my favorite Romanian word, or to translate "brightens" into Romanian, it would be strange to take me as telling them something false, or to have them respond "No, it isn't," upon my replying with "fulgura." There would, however, be nothing strange about the sentence "Fulgura" being false and someone telling me as much. [. . .]

 

3. Even in such simple sentences, therefore, there is a distinction between the sentence and the words contained therein, for one can be had without the other. But the ground of this distinction cannot be any union or togetherness among the words that enter into the sentence for the simple reason that no union or togetherness amongst items can be had without distinct items to unify or bind together. It can, therefore, be at least plausibly argued that the general ground of the difference between a sentence and its constituent words is no kind of union or togetherness.

 

I take Mr Mollica's basic argument to be this:

 

a. If there are logically simple sentences/propositions, then the problem of the unity of the sentence/proposition is not one that arises for every sentence/proposition.
b. There are logically simple sentences/propositions.
Therefore

c. The problem of the unity of the proposition is not one that arises for every sentence/proposition.

 

My response is to reject (b) while granting (a).  I discussed the question of logically simple sentences/propositions with Barry Miller back in the '90s in the pages of Faith and Philosophy.  My "Divine Simplicity: A New Defense (Faith and Philosophy, vol. 9, no. 4, October 1992, pp. 508-525) has an appendix entitled "Divine Simplicity and Logically Simple Propositions."  Miller responded and I counter-responded in the July 1994 issue, pp. 474-481.  It is with pleasure that I take another look at this issue. I will borrow freely from what I have published.  (Whether this counts as plagairism, depends, I suppose, on one's views on diachronic personal identity.)

 

A.  A logically simple proposition (LSP) is one that lacks not only propositional components, but also sub-propositional components.Thus atomic propositions are not logically simple in Miller's sense, since they contain sub-propositional parts.  A proposition of the form a is F, though atomic, exhibits subject-predicate complexity.

 

B. Miller's examples of LSPs are inconclusive.  Consider the German Es regnet ('It is raining').  As Miller correctly notes, the es is grammatical filler, and so the sentence can be pared down to Regnet, which is no doubt grammatically simple.  He then argues:

 

Now there is no question of Regnet being a predicate; for as a proposition it has a complete sense, whereas as a predicate it could have only incomplete sense. Hence, Regnet and propositions like it seem logically simple. (Barry Miller, "Logically Simple Propositions," Analysis, vol. 34, no. 4, March 1974, p. 125.)

 

I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that Miller is confusing propositions with the sentences used to express them.  Regnet and fulgura are grammatically simple.  But it scarcely follows that the propositions they express are logically simple.  What makes them one-word sentences is the fact that they express propositions; otherwise, they would be mere words.  So we need a sentence-proposition distinction.  But once that distinction is in place then it becomes clear that grammatical simplicity of sentence does not entail logical simplicity of the corresponding proposition.

 

C.  It is also unclear how any intellect like ours could grasp a proposition devoid of logical parts, let alone believe or know such a proposition.  To believe that it is snowing, for example, is to believe something logically complex, albeit unified, something formulatable by some such sentence as 'Snow is falling.'  So even if there were logically simple propositions, they could not be accusatives of minds like ours.  And if propositions are defined as the possible accusatives of propositional attitudes such as belief and knowledge, then the point is stronger still: there cannot be any logically sinple propositions.

 

D.  So it seems to me that 'the problem of the list' or the problem of the unity of the sentence/proposition is one that pertains to every sentence/proposition.  It is a problem as ancient as it is  tough, and, I suspect, absolutely intractable.  For a glimpse into the state of the art, I shamelessly recommend my June 2010 Dialectica article, "Gaskin on the Unity of the Proposition."