Abstract
Chapter 2 established that existence is not a property of individuals. This chapter engages the question whether existence is a property of properties of individuals, the property of being instantiated. We will be examining two main versions of this instantiation account of existence, the identitarian and the eliminativist. That there are two versions of the instantiation account is reflected in the ambiguity of ‘Existence is a property of properties’ and ‘Existence is instantiation.’ Do these dicta presuppose, or do they deny, singular existence? Do they encapsulate an analysis of what it is for an individual to exist, or do they remove existence from individuals entirely?
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Notes
A specific individual is not one that is specified by anyone or named by anyone, but simply a particular individual. A specific individual may not have a name, or indeed may be unnameable.
Note that the property of being the wisest Greek philosopher is multiply exemplifiable in the sense that in different possible worlds different individuals exemplify it.
As we saw, this still does not alleviate the circularity problem.
Cf. A. Plantinga, “The Boethian Compromise,” American Philosophical Quarterly,vol. 15, no. 2 (April 1978), pp. 129–138.
Cf. Robert M. Adams, “Actualism and Thisness,” Synthese 49 (1981), pp. 3–41.
G. W. F. Hegel, Phaenomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1952), pp. 79–89.
Cf. Robert M. Adams, “Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. LXXVI, no. 1 (January 1979), pp. 5–26.
Cf. G. E. L. Owen, “Aristotle on the Snares of Ontology,” in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle,ed. Renford Bambrough (London, 1965). See also Alan Code, “The Philosophical Significance of the Middle Books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” University of Dayton Review, vol. 19, no. 3 (Winter 1988–1989), pp. 81–91.
Robin Attfield, “How Things Exist: A Difficulty,” Analysis, vol. 33, no. 4 (March 1973), p. 142. to Recall Russell’s comparison of existence with the property of being numerous.
Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. 65.
Gottlob Frege, “Dialogue with Puenjer on Existence,” Posthumous Writings, trans. Peter Long and Roger White (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 53–67.
Gottlob Frege, “On Concept and Object” Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege trans. Peter Geach and Max Black (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), p. 50.
“We can say that the meanings of the word `exist’ in the sentences `Leo Sachse exists’ and `Some men exist’ display no more difference than do the meanings of `is a German’ in the sentences `Leo Sachse is a German’ and `Some men are Germans’.” Gottlob Frege, “Dialogue with Puenjer on Existence” in Posthumous Writings, trans. Peter Long and Roger White (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 66.
According to Russell, “If you say that `Men exist, and Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates exists’, that is exactly the same sort of fallacy as it would be if you said `Men are numerous, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is numerous’, because existence is a predicate of a propositional function, or derivatively of a class.” “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism” in Logic and Knowledge (New York: Capricorn Books, 1971), p. 233. Russell repeats the point in Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1971), p. 164. He goes on to say (p. 165) that “a exists” is a “mere noise or shape, devoid of significance” and that “…by bearing in mind this simple fallacy we can solve many ancient philosophical puzzles concerning the meaning of existence.” Russell applies this to the Ontological Argument in A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1945), p. 787: “I think it maybe said quite decisively that, as a result of analysis of the concept `existence,’ modern logic has proved this argument [the Ontological Argument] invalid. This is not a matter of temperament or of social system; it is a purely technical matter.”
J. L. Mackie, “The Riddle of Existence” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume L (1976), p. 257.
It might be wondered whether what I am calling an equivocation might also, and perhaps better, be thought of as an analogy, specifically, an analogy of attribution rather than an analogy of proper proportionality. Accordingly, individuals exist properly speaking whereas concepts, properties and the like exist to the extent that they apply to, or are instantiated by, individual existents. This, however, has the unwelcome consequence that there are no uninstantiated properties, a consequence that does not accrue if we take the equivocity approach. For present purposes we need not decide between analogy and equivocity; we need only reject univocity.
Peter Geach, “Aquinas” in Three Philosophers (Basil Blackwell & Mott Ltd., 1961), pp. 90–91.
Gottlob Frege, “Dialogue with Puenjer on Existence” in Posthumous Writings, trans. Peter Long and Roger White (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 66.
Posthumous Writings, op. cit., p. 64.
Milton K. Munitz, Existence and Logic (New York University Press, 1974), pp. 87–88.
Dennis E. Bradford, The Concept of Existence: A Study of Nonexistent Particulars (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1980), p. 83.
Gottlob Frege, Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, op. cit., p. 104.
This is not to say that there are not other criticisms to which this argument succumbs.
Cf. W. V. Quine, “On What There Is” in From a Logical Point of View (New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 2.
“…existence is not an attribute. For, when we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists: so that if existence were itself an attribute, it would follow that all positive existential propositions were tautologies, and all negative existential propositions self-contradictory; and this is not the case.” A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover Books, 1952), p. 43.
C. J. F. Williams, What is Existence? (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 37 ff.
Brian Davies, “Does God Create Existence?” International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XXX, no. 2 (June 1990), p. 152.
Some sets are self-membered (e.g., the set of all things not in my pocket); some sets are nonself-membered (e.g., the set of all philosophers). Now consider R, the set of all non-self-membered sets. Is R self-membered or not? Clearly, R is self-membered if and only if R is non-selfmembered, which is a contradiction.
Fred SommersLi`Existence and Correspondence-to-Fact,“ in Formal Ontology, eds. Roberto Poli and Peter Simons (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996), p. 132.
“On What There Is,” op. cit., p. 15.
W. V. Quine, “Existence and Quantification,” Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 97.
“On What There Is,” op. cit., p. 6.
W. V. Quine, Philosophy of Logic, 2„ 0 ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 25.
W. V. Quine, Word and Object, 8°i ed. (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1973), p. 178. 4° Ibid.
“On What There Is,” op. cit., p. 8.
Ontological Relativity, op. cit., p. 94.
Cf. C.J.F. Williams, op. cit, pp. 164, 216.
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Vallicella, W.F. (2002). Is Existence a Property of Properties?. In: A Paradigm Theory of Existence. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 89. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0588-2_4
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