Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
Institut für Philosophie
KS 501.519 Willard Van Quine (Textinterpretation)
Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil.
WS 2015
Quine’s Solution for the Problem of Nonexistence
06
19.06.2015
Der Unterzeichnete erklärt hiermit an Eides statt, diese Arbeit selbständig und unter Heranziehung keiner anderen als der angegebenen Hilfsmittel erstellt und die Arbeit nicht bereits einmal als (Teil einer) Prüfungsleistung abgeliefert zu haben.
19.06.2015
1 Introduction
The following essay is entitled Quine’s Solution for the Problem of Nonexistence and is for the course Willard Van Quine (Textinterpretation). In this paper I am going to examine Quine’s famous essay On What There Is on the topic of negative singular existence claims. My goal is to illustrate how Quine solves this problem and to show why I think his method is superior to other methods.
The structure of my essay will be as follows: Firstly I will outline the main problems of negative singular existence claims. Secondly I will explain how Quine argues against different objections. Thirdly I will explain the structure and the main points of Quine’s method. Finally the essay will end with a summary of the most important points.
2 Plato’s Beard
In the beginning of his essay On What There Is Quine postulates the question of what there is and answers immediately that there is everything.1 This question summarizes the basic task of ontology. Even if there are different ways to use the term ontology the most common definition would be that ontology is the science of what there is. This simple question causes some of the biggest problems in philosophy.
In his paper Quine tries to solve some of these problems. One of the major problems is the problem of nonexistence and in the following essay I will try to show to you how Quine solves this problem.
Quine thinks that even if we all can agree to his answer that there is everything, what basically means “that there is what there is”2, there is no consensus about what there is in detail. There are different opinions and theories on what there is. Quine thinks that if he wants to disagree with something another philosopher says there is, he’s in a bad position, because he has to talk about something that in his opinion doesn’t exist.
But if he can talk about something, this thing has to have some kind of being and therefore some kind of existence.3
“This is the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato’s beard; historically it has proven though, frequently dulling the edge of Occam’s razor.”4
This riddle is from Plato’s dialog Sophist, which deals with the problem of nonbeing referring to a poem of Parmenides. In his Dialog Plato says that the big problem is that if I am following Parmenides I couldn’t even think about non-being. If I am doing so, this leads to a contradiction because then the non-being must hold some kind of being otherwise I couldn’t talk or even think about non-being.5
So the problem Quine postulates is how I can appropriate the predicate of non-being to an object that is not? If I am doing this, isn’t it that the object must have some kind of being. For instance if I’m saying that ‘Harry Potter doesn’t exist’, Harry Potter must have some kind of being, otherwise I can’t even talk about Harry Potter. If I’m talking about Harry Potter some philosophers would argue that the name must refer to some kind of being.
If Harry Potter would refer to nothing, the sentence ‘Harry Potter doesn’t exist’ would make no sense, because I would make a statement about an empty name. If this is true, a statement like ‘Harry Potter doesn’t exist’ would be contradictory. On the one hand I am claiming that Harry Potter doesn’t exist, but on the other hand Harry Potter must exist in some way, because otherwise I couldn’t talk about Harry Potter.
Quine offers some solutions to this problem and in the following essay I want to look at them in detail and discuss them.
3 Pegasus is not an Idea in our Mind
First Quine gives an example for this problem. In his example he wants to make the claim that Pegasus doesn’t exist. Pegasus as most people know is a fictive character of Greek mythology that is a flying, winged horse. I think all sane people would agree that Pegasus doesn’t exist at least in the sense, that Pegasus is not an object of flesh and blood in space and time.
Quine now introduces us to the fictive philosopher McX, who has a different ontology than Quine. McX postulates that the claim Pegasus doesn’t exist is false because if we talk about it we’re implying that there is something with the name Pegasus. Pegasus must hold some form of being because the name Pegasus must refer to something. Since it is clear that we cannot say that Pegasus exists as an object in space and time, McX concludes Pegasus could only exist as an idea in our mind.
Quine thinks this statement would be confusion. If we deny Pegasus, we are not talking about the idea of Pegasus in the mind of human beings; we are talking about a physical object, a flying horse. If I am saying Pegasus doesn’t exist I don’t claim that I don’t have the idea of a flying horse in my mind. I am claiming that I don’t think there is an object called Pegasus that is a flying horse from Greek mythology.
Quine is not saying that there is no idea of Pegasus in his mind and he’s also not saying that he has an idea from Pegasus in his mind. Quine is talking about an entirely different thing. There may be the idea of Pegasus in our minds, but Quine didn’t claim that the idea in our minds of Pegasus doesn’t exist; he simple said that Pegasus doesn’t exist.6 This statement becomes clearer if we transfer it in another example.
We can easily distinct between the Schloßberg and the idea of the Schloßberg. The Schloßberg in contrast to the Schloßberg idea is a real object in our space and time, we can see it and can touch it; it’s a physical thing. It would cause a lot of confusion if we don’t separate these two things.
I think if Pegasus would be an idea in our mind, we would have another problem. If we’re saying we can only talk about things that have some kind of being, it seems clear to me that we also only could think about things that have some kind of being. But an idea in my mind means that there is something I am thinking about. So how could something I am thinking about refer to something I am thinking about? For me it seems likely that this would lead to a contradiction.
Besides this confusion, there is another of which Quine thinks it cause the argument that Pegasus exists as an idea in our mind. McX confuses meaning with naming. Because McX thought there must be Pegasus in some form or otherwise it wouldn’t have a meaning.7. We can find a similar distinction by Frege. He distinguishes sense from reference. For instance “The descriptions ‘the morning star’ and ‘the evening star’ denote the same planet, namely Venus, but express different ways of conceiving of Venus and so have different senses.”8 So Quine thinks to talk about Pegasus is not meaningless but Pegasus has no reference to an object.
4 Pegasus is not an unactualized Possible
In the next passage Quine introduces us to a second fictive philosopher, called Wyman, whose philosophy is partly based on Meinong. The main similarity is that both think that there are indeed objects that do not exist and that there are different ways of being, but there are also big differences between Wyman and Meinong. The main difference is their view on impossible objects.
Meinong thinks impossible objects are not meaningless, “because every object that is thinkable or can be mentioned has ‘being’.”10 In contrast Wyman thinks that impossible objects are meaningless because they contradict themselves.
Like Meinong Wyman thinks that if I am using a subject in sentences like Pegasus doesn’t exist the subject must refer to something. Wyman doesn’t think that Pegasus refers to an idea in our mind. He thinks that Pegasus is an unactualized possible. If we’re saying that Pegasus doesn’t exist, we’re not saying that Pegasus is not; we’re saying that Pegasus is actually not.
For Wyman the word exist expresses actual being and even if Pegasus doesn’t exist it could still subsist. Pegasus, Wyman thinks, might not exist in the present but it has some kind of being, it subsists and is an unactualized possible. Quine thinks this a wrong use of the word exist. If we say that Pegasus doesn’t exist, we are saying that there is no such entity in space and time.
But Wyman thinks that Pegasus could be even if it does not exist, because he uses the word only for actual existence. If Pegasus is but doesn’t exist it has to be an unactualized possible.11 This approach is very similar to that of Meinong who thought, similar to Wyman, that “being has two modes, to wit existence, which is linked with time, and mere subsistence, which is timeless.”12
The main difference between Quine and Wyman is that Wyman thinks that existence is not the same as being. For me it seems obvious that existence and being is the same because there simple is nothing that doesn’t exist and is at once. Van Invagen writes on this topic:
“In sum, there are no things that do not exist. This thesis seems to me to be so obvious that I have difficulty in seeing how to argue for it. I can say only this: if you think that there are things that do not exist, give me an example of one.”13
So the only possibility to solve this problem is to don’t use the word existence. Because of this problem Quine thinks that it makes no sense for him tho speak of existence, because Wyman uses the word in a different way. He decides to use only the word is, since it means for him the same as existence.14
Quine now brings his first argument against the theory of Wyman is, that “Wyman’s overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely.”15 In this passage Quine refers to Ockham’s razor. He thinks we should have only entities that are needed and for him there is no such thing like an unactualized possible. Being can’t be separated in existence and subsistence. So from Quine’s perspective there is no necessity to have entities as unactualized possibilities.
Another argument Quine brings against Wyman’s theory is that I can’t make clear distinctions between different possible things, I can’t know if they are alike, identical or different. So he argues that it would be a better idea if we just “limit modalities to whole statements.”16 For Quine it wouldn’t make a sense to have a universe with possible entities in it.
The main problem is that it is not possible to clearly identify an unactualized possible.17 Quine thinks even if we could identify the position of a possible entity like my new possible TV on the table, we couldn’t clearly identify the unactualized possible object.18
Besides he thinks this theory is pointless, if we just change the example from a fictive thing like Pegasus to an impossible thing like a round square cupola. Such a thing couldn’t even be unactualized possible; because a round square cupola isn’t thinkable and a contradiction in itself. Wyman could say that there are also unactualized impossible things but this would lead him in a contradiction, because nothing can be square and round at the same time.
“Moreover, the doctrine of meaninglessness of contradictions has the severe methodological drawback that it makes it impossible, in principle, ever to devise an effective test of what is meaningful and what is not. It would be forever impossible for us to devise systematic ways of deciding whether a string of signs made sense [ .] or not.”20
It seems like for Wyman a term like the round square must have a reference to have meaning, so he needs an object that can be named. If I am following Wyman it seems clear that then a sentence like the round square cupola doesn’t exist makes no sense. Quine thinks that Wyman makes the same confusion like McX, he confuses naming with meaning.21 This is a topic that seems to be very important to Quine and therefore I will revisit it later.
5 The commonsense Position
As I mentioned above, I think indeed that it is wrong to separate existence from being, but there is another theory following the meiongian idea of nonexistent objects that I want explain because it presents an interesting approach to solve this problem. This theory is from Richard Routley and he calls it the “commonsense (noneist) position”22. Routley thinks there is no need to say that Pegasus or the round square has any being at all, because it is just no problem to talk about nonentities.
For Routley Pegasus is also not an unactualized possible, Pegasus has no existence in any form. But of course Pegasus names something, but it simple names something which does not exist, Pegasus, the flying horse from Greek mythology.25 Routley thinks it is a difference if I am talking about some fictional object or an object in the real world. Routley thinks Pegasus doesn’t exist in the real world but the name Pegasus refers to an object in a fictional story.
So there must be a fictional world in which an object called Pegasus is. Reicher follows that such a theory would lead to the statement:
“Es gibt nur eine aktuale (‘reale’) Welt, aber zusätzlich viele fiktionale Welten. Das geflügelte Pferde nur in einer Fiktion existieren, bedeutet, dass es geflügelte Pferde nicht in der aktualen Welt, wohl aber in (mindestens) einer fiktionalen Welt gibt.“26
In his essay Routley doesn’t say that Pegasus exists in a fictional world, but I think he implies it, because he says that things like Pegasus name something, for instance Pegasus names the fictional flying horse from Greek mythology.27 If Pegasus names an object from a fictional world, this object must have some sort of existence in the fictional world, even if it doesn’t have existence in the real world.
For me it seems like a contradiction if I am saying that a name refers to something that doesn’t exist. Following Quine it would be smarter to say that Pegasus has a meaning but doesn’t name anything. Routley thinks that this approach is wrong. He thinks that there don’t need to be any confusion with meaning and naming, because he could simply say that Pegasus names something that doesn’t exist.29 For me this makes no sense.
It seems to me that Routley suggests that a name like Pegasus refers to a nonexistent object. I can’t see how Routley’s theory could solve the problems we are facing with nonexistence statements, because in my view a name couldn’t refer to a nonexistent object. If I am following Quine we could say that the name Pegasus refers to nothing, but Routley thinks this is wrong.
I think the problems remained the same and I can’t see how Routley’s noneist position solves any problems.
6 Russell’s Theory of Description
In the next passage Quine discusses his own approach to solve Plato’s Beard. Because his theory is for the most part led by Russell’s theory of description I will discuss Russell’s theory first and afterwards I will discuss Quine’s addition to Russell’s theory.
“By a ‘denoting phrase’ I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the centre of mass of the Solar System at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth.”30
Quine is interested in one form of denoting phrases the definite descriptions; these are phrases that describe one definite singular object, phrases like the present King of France. These phrases are marked by the definite article the, which is a signal for uniqueness.31 Russell’s theory of singular descriptions can be seen as a solution for the problem of how to use singular terms without committing us to nonexistent objects and even impossible objects, like the round square.
Russell’s approach is an analysis of descriptions of particular objects. Quine writes:
“It involved defining a term not by presenting a direct equivalent of it, but by what Bentham called paraphrasis: by providing equivalents of all desired sentences containing the term. In this way, reference to fictitious objects can be simulated in meaningful sentences without our being committed to the objects.”32
If I have a denoting phrase like the round square doesn’t exist this sentences would mean in the theory of descriptions: it is not the case that there is exactly one x which is square and round at the same time. In this sentence I don’t have a singular term anymore and the predication has been transformed to a quantification. So Plato’s Beard would be solved because I don’t have names that refer to non-existent objects anymore.33
I can use this theory also for Pegasus: “To say ‘Pegasus doesn't exist’ means to say ‘it is not the case that there is exactly one x which is a flying horse of Greek mythology’.”34 So first I have to transform the proper name into a description and then I can eliminate the singular terms with Russell’s theory. The problem is that sometimes it could be difficult to find a proper description therefore Quine thinks that this theory is mostly suitable for complex descriptive names.
Quine describes Russell’s method as follows:
“The names to which Russell’s theory directly applies are complex descriptive names such as >the author of Waverley< [ .] Russell analyzes such phrases systematically as fragments of the whole sentences in which they occur. The sentences ‘The author of Waverley was a poet’ for example, is explained as a whole as meaning ‘Someone (better: something) wrote Waverley and was a poet, and nothing else wrote Waverley’.”35
So we can say that there is no need of an objective reference for a phrase to be meaningful, because in Quine’s example names are substituted for bound variables, like in this example ‘someone’ or rather ‘something’. These words don’t refer to a specific object but of course are meaningful. Quine describes this as follows:
“the burden of objective reference which had been put upon the descriptive phrase is now taken over by words of the kind that logicians call bound variables, variables of quantification, namely, words like ’something’, ‘nothing’, ‘everything’. These words, far from purporting to be names at all; they refer to entities generally, with a kind of studied ambiguity peculiar to themselves.”36
The result of this is that I can use Russell’s descriptions to talk about things that don’t exist without committing me to the existence of these things. For instance I can say that something like a round square doesn’t exist without presupposing that there must be something of that I say it doesn’t exist. Such at description would be meaningful and not nonsense like Wyman argues.
“When a statement of being or nonbeing is analyzed by Russell’s theory of descriptions, it ceases to contain any expressions which even purports to name the alleged entity whose being is in question, so that the meaningfulness of the statement no longer can be thought to presuppose that there is be such an entity.”37
Russell’s theory can be seen as an opposite standpoint to Meinong. In Meinong’s object theory we’re committing us to an object if we’re using a denoting phrase, but this is a big problem for Russell. For instance if we’re saying the flying horse from Greek mythology doesn’t exist we are claiming that there is this object is and is not at the same time, therefore Meinong’s theory would lead to contradiction.38
7 Quine’s Addition to Russell’s Theory of Description
Quine thinks that Russell’s theory is a good possibility to solve Plato’s Beard but he thinks it could be difficult to use this method on things like Pegasus. Things like Pegasus aren’t definite descriptions so how can we use Russell’s theory for proper names. Quine thinks we simple have to turn the proper name Pegasus to a definite description. For instance we could transform Pegasus to a phrase like the flying horse from the mythology of ancient Greece.
“If the notion of Pegasus had been to obscure or so basic a one that no pat translation into a descriptive phrase had offered itself along familiar lines, we could still have availed ourselves of the following artificial and trivial-seeming device: we could have appealed to the ex hypothesi unanalyzable irreducible attribute of being Pegasus, adopting, for its expression, the verb >is-Pegasus< or >pegasizes<.
The noun >Pegasus< itself could then be treated as derivative, and identified after all with a description: >the thing that is-Pegasus<, >the thing that pegasizes<.40
This is an interesting approach because it could avoid the common problem caused by proper names of how to transform names like Pegasus to a definite description. There could be cases where I am just not able to do so, because I don’t know enough about the proper name I use or my description would be too broad. For instance my description of Pegasus could lack of information.
Maybe the only thing I know about Pegasus is that it is a figure from Greek mythology, but this property applies to a lot of different things. It even could be possible that I don’t know any definite descriptions to a name, like Quine remarks41.
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