Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Existence Is Not Relativistically Invariant—Part 1: Meta-ontology

  • Published:
Acta Analytica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Metaphysicians who are aware of modern physics usually follow Putnam (1967) in arguing that Special Theory of Relativity is incompatible with the view that what exists is only what exists now or presently. Partisans of presentism (the motto ‘only present things exist’) had very difficult times since, and no presentist theory of time seems to have been able to satisfactorily counter the objection raised from Special Relativity. One of the strategies offered to the presentist consists in relativizing existence to inertial frames. This unfashionable strategy has been accused of counterfeiting, since the meaning of the concept of existence would be incompatible with its relativization. Therefore, existence could only be relativistically invariant. In this paper, I shall examine whether such an accusation hits its target, and I will do this by examining whether the different criteria of existence that have been suggested by the Philosophical Tradition from Plato onwards imply that existence cannot be relativized.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. That is, when S and R are the relations of simultaneity and reality-existence (Thyssen 2020, p. 26):

  2. Best supporter: Routley (1980, pp. 389–390, 397–400; 1997, pp. 315–316). The rejection of ‘There Are No Privileged Observers’ is also briefly and positively discussed in Sklar (1974, pp. 272–275); Hinchliff (1996, pp. 129–132 and 2000, pp. S578-S579)—see also Dainton (2010, pp. 331–332) and Thyssen (2020, pp. 52–54)

  3. Other more recent quotations of such an appraisal can be found in Godfrey Smith apud Routley (1980, p. 398); Dorato (2008, p. 60) and Callender (2017, p. 54).

  4. See the Noneism of Routley (1980, pp. 361–409, 707–708 n.2) and the ‘unrestricted presentism’ of Hinchliff (1988), i.e. the ‘relativized presentism’ of Hinchliff (1996, pp. 130–131; 2000, p. S578).

  5. Fine (2009) prefers to use the word ‘reality’ rather than ‘existence’: roughly, while existence logically corresponds to the ‘thin’ and ontologically unloaded sense of the quantified expression ‘there is’ (Fine does so to keep the orthodox and Quinean terminological usage), reality corresponds to its ‘thick’ and ontologically loaded meaning.

  6. It is no surprising at all, Kit Fine is a ‘crypto-Meinongian’, sometimes he defends some version of Meinongianism (see Fine 1984, esp. p. 96 and, even if it is less obvious, Fine 2005b), sometimes he explicitly distances himself from Meinongianism (Fine 2009, p. 172).

  7. On Routley’s Plurallism and SR, see Routley (1997, pp. 315–316).

  8. It should be remarked that Fine (2005a, p. 283 n.5) argues for the fact that the plurality of possible worlds of Lewis (1986) is not semantically analogous to the pluralistic reality defended in Fine (2005a), that is, Fragmentalism is formally not alike to Modal Realism (for instance, Modal Fragmentalism does not involve a counterpart semantics as Modal Realism). Routley (1997, p. 24) too distances himself from Lewis’ pluralism.

  9. On this point, they follow Descartes (amongst others) who had always refused to provide a definition for existence, see AT IX-2 28–29 and Bardout (2013, p. 417).

  10. See Chalmers (2022, pp. 108–115, 480–481) for a listing of reality-criteria very similar to Routley’s listing of existence-criteria and mine: causal power, mind-independence, non-illusoriness, genuineness, observability, measurability, theoretical utility, actuality, truth, factuality, objectivity, evidence-independence, originality, fundamentality, etc. On the meaning of ‘reality’ from a philosophical-linguistic standpoint, see also Reynolds (2006).

  11. On this point, see Routley (1980, p. 702) and Berto (2013, p. 63).

  12. Kant, AK 3.400: ‘every existential proposition is synthetic’. AK 3.93 includes existence (Dasein) and non-existence (Nichtsein) amongst the a priori categories (under the higher-order category of modality that also includes the two pairs < possibility, impossibility > and < necessity, contingency >) of Understanding of which the attribution is synthetic rather than analytic (and so, of which the attribution is not trivial). Kant’s reading of ‘existence’ (which is only a logical predicate, it has no determining import—such a distinction being very close to the Meinongian dualities < characterizing vs. non-characterizing properties > and < nuclear vs. extranuclear properties > , see Routley 1980, pp. 180–187, 264–268, and is reminiscent of Hume, THN, I.2 s.6) is a kind of modal criterion (A1), see AK 2.72–77, 3.400–402. (‘AK’ stands for ‘Akademie-Ausgabe. Kant Gesammelte Schriften herausgegeben von de Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften’)

  13. Such a criterion of existence appears in late scholasticism, see Bardout (2013, pp. 430–431).

  14. See Marion WMJ, pp. 908–910 for a very short presentation of the debate between actualism and possibilism.

  15. Cf. Williamson (2007, pp. 73–133) on the role of common understanding in philosophical debates. Of course, philosophers disagree about almost everything, but, even when they disagree, they share some uncontroversial understanding of the technical words they use (they do not ‘change the subject’, as Quine 1986, pp. 80–85 says, while they support a heterodox view in a philosophical or logical quarrel).

  16. See also Fine (2005a, p. 271; 2005b, p. 325, 343).

  17. Routley (1980, pp. 204–207) distinguishes between the (actual) factual world T and the (actual) referential world G, the objectual domain of the second being inhabited only by existent items, while the objectual domain of the first includes both existent and non-existent items. Therefore, insofar as all true sentences in G are pure extensional statements about existing items, a true sentence about things that do not exist like ‘the round square is round’ is false in G, but true in T: there are facts about the round square in T, but not in G.

  18. See Fine (2003) for an overview, and Fine (2005b) for a discussion about modal facts.

  19. Indeed, the proponents of suppositional logic (e.g. Buridan, Lambert of Auxerre, Marsilius of Inghen, William of Sherwood, Peter of Spain, Albert of Saxony, and Paul of Venice) use a proto-Meinongian device called ‘ampliatio’ to select non-existing items as referents within true propositions. Translated in modern philosophical dialect, ampliation is a contextual extension of the scope of quantifiers beyond what presently and actually exists (the opposite device of restrictio being a contextual reduction of their scope). Usually, those who accept ampliative logics (the philosophers mentioned above contra Ockham) believe that tense (‘was’, ‘will be’), modal (‘can’, ‘may’, ‘is possible’), and intentional (‘is conceived’, ‘is imagined’, ‘is understood’) verbs possess an ampliative force that permit to ‘quantify’ over past, future, merely possible or imaginary items. For the use of ampliation in relation to medieval semantic theories of truth, see the discussion of the nine ways for a proposition to be true in Paul of Venice (1978) Logica Magna: de veritate et falsitate propositionis.

  20. Azzouni (2004, pp. 15–122; 2010, pp. 45–49; 2017, pp. 30–132, esp. pp. 77–82)

  21. See Aristotle, Physics, IV.1 208a29-31 for an old testimonia about such an idea: to exist is to be in some physical place. For an early defence of the thesis that existence means nothing but having a spatio-temporal spot, see Crucius (1753, §§46–48) criticized in AK 2.76–77

  22. See Routley (1980, pp. 710–712) on the ‘location’ of plural objects made by stipulation.

  23. See Marion WMJ, pp. 929–936 for a brief discussion of such a contingentist puzzle.

  24. See Routley (1980, pp. 759–764); Berto (2013, pp. 61–83) and Priest (2016, pp. xxvii-xxix, 135–137, 155), they explicitly follow the criterion from Plato, Sophist, 247d8-e4, 248c1-5.

  25. This Medieval view (famously customized by Heidegger with his concept of Ek-sistenz), according to which to exist (or ‘to ex-sist’) is to ‘stand out’, is briefly discussed in Kahn (1966, p. 256) and, more recently, in Gabriel & Priest (2022, pp. 35–36, 105–106).

  26. Kant, AK 2.73–74, 3.401 is reminiscent of such a linkage between existence and being posited: ‘Being is obviously not a real predicate, i.e. a concept of something that could add to the concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing or of certain determinations in themselves’. (AK 3.401, translation from Guter P. & Wood, A. W.)

  27. See Williamson (2013) and Hale (2013, pp. 127–131), contra Salmon (1989) and Wedgwood (2007, pp. 212–220).

  28. For the record, another view can be linked to Empiricist and Berkeleyan ones, namely that of Hacking (1983) according to which to exist is to be manipulable, i.e. to be able to be used to effectively interfere with the world (in Hacking 1983, p. 23 words: ‘so far as I’m concerned, if you can spray them then they are real’ … so electrons and other theoretical items are real).

  29. To borrow the joke from Russell (1905, p. 485): ‘by the law of excluded middle, either “A is B” or “A is not B” must be true. Hence either “the present King of France is bald” or “the present King of France is not bald” must be true. Yet if we enumerated the things that are bald, and then the things that are not bald, we should not find the present King of France in either list. Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig’. (Russell’s answer is obviously quite unsatisfactory).

  30. Provisionally, Routley (1980, pp. 720–732) attempts to revise such a position to make it more satisfactory.

  31. The brute Characterization Postulate (CP) needs to be amended to address various challenges. Routley (1980) revises CP by distinguishing characterizing from non-characterizing properties (or nuclear and extranuclear properties), while Berto (2013) and Priest (2016) defend that CP must be modalized as follows: for any condition α[x] with free variable x, some item exactly satisfies α[x] at least at some intentionally accessible world. For a survey, see Berto (2013, pp. 85–151).

  32. This conclusion is far for having limited consequences only in metaphysics of physics (special and general relativity, gauge theories, etc.). Another hot spot, for instance, is the question whether virtual or digital objects exist in the full sense of the term or not. On this fashionable topic nowadays, see the opinionated Chalmers (2022).

References

  • Azzouni, J. (2004). Deflating existential consequence. A case for nominalismOxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Azzouni, J. (2010). Talking about nothing. Numbers, hallucinations and fictionsOxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Azzouni, J. (2017). Ontology without borders. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bardout, J.-C. (2013). Penser l’existence. I. L’existence exposée – Époque médiévale. Paris: Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumgarten, A. G. (1757). Metaphysica, Editio IV, Hale Magdeburgicae, Impensis Carol. Herman, Hemmerde.

  • Berto, F. (2013). Existence as a real property. Springer, Dordrecht: The ontology of meinongianism.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Berto, F., & Plebani, M. (2015). Ontology and metaontology. A contemporary guide. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bliss, R., & Priest, G. (2018). The geography of fundamentality: An overview. In R. Bliss & G. Priest (Eds.), Reality and its structure (pp. 1–33). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Callender, C. (2017). What makes time special? Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chalmers, D. J. (2022). Reality+. Virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy. London: Allen Lane.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crucius, C. A. (1753). Entwurf der notwendigen Vernunft-Warbeiten, wiefern sie den zutfälligen entgegen gesetzt werden, Leipzig.

  • Dainton, B. (2010). Time and space (2nd ed.). Durham: Acumen.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dorato, M. (2008). Putnam on time and special relativity: A long journey from ontology to ethics. European Journal for Analytic Philosophy, 4–2, 51–70.

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (1984). Critical review of parsons’ non-existent objects. Philosophical Studies, 45–1, 95–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (2001). The question of realism. Philosophers’ Imprint, 1–1, 1–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (2003). The problem of Possibilia. In M. J. Loux & D. W. Zimmerman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (pp. 161–179). Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (2005a). Tense and reality. Modality And Tense (pp. 261–320). Oxford Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (2005b). Necessity and non-existence. Modality and Tense (pp. 321–354). Oxford Clarendon Press, Oxford.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (2009). The question of ontology. In D. J. Chalmers, D. Manley, & R. Wasserman (Eds.), Metametaphysics (pp. 157–177). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fine, K. (2012). Guide to ground. In F. Correia & B. Schnieder (Eds.), Metaphysical Grounding (pp. 37–80). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gabriel, M., & Priest, G. (2022). Everything and nothing. Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gödel, K. (1949). “A remark about the relationship between relativity theory and idealistic philosophy”, Feferman, S. (ed.). 1990. Kurt Gödel. Collected Works, vol. 2(pp. 202–207). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

  • Goodman, N. (1978). Ways of worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and intervening. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hale, B. (2013). Necessary beings. An essay on ontology, modality, and the relations between them. Oxford University Press, Oxford. (pagination: Paperback edition of 2015).

  • Heidegger, M. (1927). Sein und Zeit, in 1977. Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 2, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main.

  • Heidegger, M. (1928). Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, in 1978. Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 26, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main.

  • Hinchliff, M. (1996). The puzzle of change. Philosophical Perspectives, 10, 119–136.

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Hinchliff, M. (2000). A defense of presentism in a relativistic setting. Philosophy of Science, 67(Suppl), S575–S586.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinchliff, M. (1988). A defense of presentism, PhD Thesis, Princeton University.

  • Iaquinto, S., & Torrengo, G. (2022). Fragmenting reality. An essay on passage, causality and time. London: Bloomsbury.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kahn, C. H. (1966). The greek verb ‘to be’ and the concept of being. Foundations of Language, 2, 245–265.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Bihan, B. (2018). Contre les défenses du présentisme par le sens commun. Igitur Arguments Philosophiques, 9–1, 1–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. (1986). On the plurality of worlds. Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marion, F. (2022). Seyn, ἕν, 道: Brevis tractatus meta-ontologicus de elephantis et testudinibus. Revue Philosophique de Louvain, 119–1, 1–51.

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Marion, F. (2023a). Modalité et changement: δύναμις et cinétique aristotélicienne. PhD dissertation, Université catholique de Louvain.

  • Marion, F. (2023b). Welcome to the modalist jungle. Potentiality-based modality: Semantics and metaphysics, Draft. = Supplementary Essay 2 in Marion pp. 917–945.

  • McDaniel, K. (2017). The fragmentation of being. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Meinong, A. (1915). Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit. Beiträge zur Gegenstandstheorie und Erkenntnistheorie = 1972. Haller, R., Kindinger R. & Chisholm, R. M. (eds.), Alexius Meinong Gesamtausgabe. Bd. 6. Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, Graz.

  • Nozick, R. (2001). Invariances. The structure of the objective world. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA-London.

  • Paul of Venice (Paulus Venetus). (1978). Logica Magna, Part. II Fascicule 6: Tractatus de veritate et falsitate propositionis & Tractatus de significato propositionis (eds. Del Punta, F. & McCord Adams, M.), Oxford University Press, Oxford.

  • Priest, G. (2016). Towards non-being. Second Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Prior, A. N. (1957). Time and modality. Being the John Locke Lectures for 1955–6 delivered in the University of Oxford. Oxford Clarendon Press, Oxford.

  • Putnam, H. (1967). Time and physical geometry. Journal of Philosophy, 64–8, 240–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H. (1981). Reason, truth and history. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. O. (1968). Ontological relativity. The Journal of Philosophy, 65–7, 185–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. O. (1986). Philosophy of logic (2nd ed.). Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Quine, W. V. O. (1948). “On what there is”, in 1953. From a logical point of view. 9 logico-philosophical essays (pp. 1–19). Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.

  • Reynolds, S. L. (2006). Realism and the meaning of ‘real.’ Noûs, 40–3, 468–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Routley/Sylvan, S. (1980). Exploring Meinong’s jungle and beyond. Australian National University, Canberra.

    Google Scholar 

  • Routley/Sylvan, S. (1997). Transcendental metaphysics. The White Horse Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, B. (1903). Principles of mathematics. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell, B. (1905). On Denoting. Mind, 14, 479–493.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salmon, N. (1989). The logic of what might have been. Philosophical Review, 98, 3–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaffer, J. (2009). On What Grounds What. In D. J. Chalmers, D. Manley, & R. Wasserman (Eds.), Metametaphysics (pp. 347–383). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sellars, W. (1962). Time and the world order. In H. Feigl & G. Maxwell (Eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Vol. 3, pp. 527–616). University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sklar, L. (1974). Space, time, and spacetime. University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smart, J. J. C. (1979). “The reality of the future”, typescript. Canberra.

  • Thyssen, P. (2020). The block universe. A philosophical investigation in four dimensions. PhD dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

  • van Inwagen, P. (1998). Meta-ontology. Erkenntnis, 48, 233–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Varzi, A. C. (2005). Ontologia. Roma-Bari: Editori Laterza.

    Google Scholar 

  • Voltolini, A. (2006). How ficta follow fiction. Springer, Dordrecht: A syncretistic account of fictional entities.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wedgwood, R. (2007). The nature of normativity. Oxford Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, A. N. (1929). Process and reality. Macmillan, London: An essay in cosmology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, A. N., & Russell, B. (1910). Principia mathematica (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, D. C. (1962). Dispensing with existence. Journal of Philosophy, 59–23, 748–763.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T. (2007). The philosophy of philosophy. Blackwell.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T. (2013). Modal logic as metaphysics. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, C. (1730). Philosophia prima sive ontologia. Frankfurt-Leipzig (= GW II.3).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Supérieur de Philosophie/Centre De Wulf-Mansion, Université catholique de Louvain, Place du cardinal Mercier 14, bte L3.06.01, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Florian Marion

Authors
  1. Florian Marion
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Florian Marion.

Ethics declarations

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

‘Part. 2: Philosophy of Science’ shall be a companion paper written with Kévin Chalas (Institut supérieur de Philosophie/CEFISES, Université catholique de Louvain) whom I would like to thank for helpful discussions.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Marion, F. Existence Is Not Relativistically Invariant—Part 1: Meta-ontology. Acta Anal (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-024-00586-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-024-00586-3

Search

Navigation