Abstract
Queen Anne is dead. That sentence expresses a truth; it does so because its subject term refers to someone — Queen Anne — who satisfies its predicate, and therefore — if death is the end of existence — no longer exists. But then what is left for ‘Queen Anne’ to refer to?
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Notes
I am indebted in these paragraphs and elsewhere to Nathan Salmon, “Existence”, in Philo-so phical Perspectives 1: Metaphysics, ed. James Tomberlin (Atascadero, 1987 ).
Ruth Barcan Marcus, “The identity of individuals in a strict functional calculus of second order”, Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 12 (1947); Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Oxford, 1980), pp. 3–5.
Allan Gibbard, “Contingent identity”, Journal of Philosophical Logic, Vol. 4 (1975).
Compare Russell’s reply to the question after Lecture V of “The philosophy of logical atomism”, at p. 99 of the reprint in Russell’s Logical Atomism,ed. David Pears (London, 1972).
Some arguments used in defence of existence as a predicate, such as those in John Mackie, “The riddle of existence”, Aristotelian Society,Sup. Vol. 50 (1976), are also applicable to the case of objecthood.
Kripke (1980), p. 108n. For more on this style of argument see Timothy Williamson, “Equivocation and Existence”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,Vol. 88 (1987/8), at pp. 111–14.
Strictly speaking the argument assumes that =, and =2 obey reflexivity and the identity of indiscernibles in the sense of necessarily satisfying them, otherwise =1 and =2 would not have been shown to be necessarily equivalent. That is permissible, for strictly speaking identity should be characterized as necessarily the smallest reflexive relation, that is, the relation which is necessarily reflexive and at least as small as any reflexive relation. Without the modal gloss, no relation is uniquely singled out.
A reflexive relation is here understood as one that any object (existent or not) has to itself.
David Wiggins, Sameness and Substance (Oxford, 1980), at pp. 109–11 and 214–15.
G.E. Hughes and M.J. Cresswell, An Introduction to Modal Logic (London, 1968), at p. 190.
See Nathan Salmon, “The logic of what might have been”, Philosophical Review, Vol. 98 (1989), at p. 30.
Strictly speaking the argument assumes that E1 and E2 obey the objecthood principle in the sense of necessarily satisfying it, otherwise they would not have been shown to be necessarily equivalent. That is permissible, for strictly speaking objecthood should be characterized as necessarily the largest property, that is, the property which is necessarily at least as large as any property. Without the modal gloss, no property is uniquely singled out. A parallel argument about existence is discussed at pp. 115–17 of Williamson (1987/8).
Compare Robert Stalnaker, “Complex predicates”, Monist, Vol. 60 (1977).
See Saul Kripke, “Semantical considerations on modal logic”, Acta Philosophica Fennica,Vol. 16 (1963), reprinted in Reference and Modality,ed. Leonard Linsky (Oxford, 1971), where the relevant passage is at pp. 67–8.
A similar case is Joseph Almog, “Logic and the world”, Journal of Philosophical Logic, Vol. 18 (1989). The non-contingency of objecthood may provide a theoretical justification for the claim that structural traits of the world are essential to it, without which Almog suggests we are not entitled to assume that logical truths are necessary. Of course, some candidates for contingent logical truths remain, such as those of the form “A if and only if actually A”, but these are perhaps less deeply contingent.
Williamson (1987/8), at pp. 117–22.
See Wiggins (1980) at pp. 27–36 on the need for such distinctions.
The conclusion resembles one of Ramsey’s. For recent discussion of his arguments see Allen Hazen, “A fallacy in Ramsey”, Mind,Vol. 95 (1986), and Almog (1989). On the present view, the number of existents remains a contingent matter, in a sense.
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Williamson, T. (1990). Necessary Identity and Necessary Existence. In: Haller, R., Brandl, J. (eds) Wittgenstein — Eine Neubewertung / Wittgenstein — Towards a Re-Evaluation. Schriftenreihe der Wittgenstein-Gesellschaft, vol 19/1. J.F. Bergmann-Verlag, Munich. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-30086-2_15
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