Abstract
Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Trenton Merricks has recently raised three objections to combining pluralism with a generic way of being enjoyed by absolutely everything there is: first, that the resulting view contradicts the pluralist’s core intuition; second, that it is especially vulnerable to the charge—due to Peter van Inwagen—that it posits a difference in being where there is simply a difference in kind; and, third, that it is in tension with various historically influential motivations for pluralism. I reply to each of these objections in turn. My replies will help to bring out the true nature of the pluralist’s basic commitments.
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Notes
They have thus endorsed, what I shall call, quantificational pluralism: the view that there are different fundamental ways of being which are most perspicuously represented by different fundamental quantifiers. This view, or one much like it, appears to have first been suggested—and then quickly rejected—by Morton White (1956: 68). It later makes a cameo appearance in W. V. Quine’s Word and Object (1960: 241–242) as the view that the difference between the way in which abstract objects such as numbers and classes exist and the way in which physical or material objects exist is due to ‘a difference in two senses of “there are”’, and appears again in Herbert W. Schneider’s claim that ‘[i]t may be necessary to have several kinds of existential quantifiers in logic, if ontology finds that things have different ways of being’ (1962: 10). It was also explicitly defended by Nino B. Cocchiarella (1969).
Note that all it takes for a quantifier to be restricted here is for it to range over only some of what there is.
See McDaniel (2009: 312, 2017: 34, 55).
See McDaniel (2010a: 635, 637, 2017: 146–147, 149).
It is important to note that while McDaniel (2010a, 2017) ultimately accepts a neo-Aristotelian version of pluralism and thus takes the generic quantifier to be less than perfectly natural, his reasons for doing so seem to have very little to do with trying to accommodate the perceived ontological differences between things. He denies perfect naturalness to the generic quantifier in order to capture the perceived ontological inferiority of various ‘almost nothings’ (such as cracks, holes, and shadows). It is thus not as an ontological pluralist that McDaniel appears to question the naturalness of the generic quantifier, but as an ontological elitist.
See McDaniel (2009: 297–298, 2017: 19). This is John Duns Scotus’ argument from certain and doubtful concepts. See his Ordinatio I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 1–2, nn. 27–29. (See also William of Ockham’s Summa Logicae I, c. 38.) Merricks (2001: 169) alludes to this argument, but attributes it to Benardette (1989: 46–47).
The details of this framework are not essential to my replies. I will only rely upon it, in Sect. 3, to show that there is an intelligible distinction to be drawn between those properties that correspond to ways of being and those that do not. I believe that this distinction could be made intelligible in an alternative framework, although I shall not attempt to prove this here. If, however, it were to turn out that this distinction can only be made intelligible in a modal realist framework, this would provide the pluralist with a novel argument for modal realism.
The distinction between the actual and the merely possible should, I think, be front and center in any discussion of ontological pluralism. For, as Etienne Gilson (1949: 3) points out, ‘the very first and the most universal of all the distinctions in the realm of being is that which divides it into two classes, that of the real and that of the possible’. It is, moreover, one of the clearest possible cases of an ontological difference. Indeed, Kit Fine (2005: 2) takes it to be ‘almost axiomatic that… there is an ontological difference between actual objects and merely possible objects—between actual people and actual cities on the one hand, and merely possible people and merely possible cities on the other’. An object’s status as actual or merely possible thus appears to be absolute: being actual and being merely possible do not seem to be world-relative properties.
A similar picture was developed by Bernard Bolzano, who held that:
in addition to things that have actuality, i.e., the existing ones, there are also others that merely have possibility, as well as those which can never become actual, e.g., propositions and ideas in themselves. ([1837] 2014d: 127/WL 4: §483, 184–185)
See Schnieder (2007) and Menzel (forthcoming) for discussion. It is not clear, however, whether Bolzano ([1837] 2014b: 44–46/WL 2: §142, 64–67), who identifies existence, being, and actuality, should be properly thought of as an ontological pluralist. For he seems to hold that the difference between a merely possible object, an object that is not but could become actual, and an abstract object, an object that is not and cannot become actual, is not a difference in their being, but rather in their non-being. He thus appears to be, what we might call, a meontological pluralist, that is, someone who holds that there are different ways of non-being (μὴ ὄν). See McDaniel (2017: 38) for discussion.
This distinction could be drawn in a number of ways: between an entity’s being, existence, thatness, or Dasein, on the one hand, and its nature, essence, whatness, or Sosein, on the other. I here follow van Inwagen in my choice of terminology (see his 1998: 15, 2001: 4, 2009a: 54–56, 2014a: 21–22, 2018: 216). I should stress that the (complete) nature of an entity should be taken to include both its intrinsic as well as its extrinsic nature. We can thus say, for example, that a house cat and an alley cat have different natures.
Talk of ontological differences owes, as far as I can tell, to the second edition of Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations. See Husserl ([1901/1913] 2001: 17/HU XIX/1 252). I believe that the intuitive, pre-theoretical phenomenon which the positing of ways of being is intended to explain is that of ontological difference. I thus prefer to describe the pluralist’s core intuition directly in terms of ontological differences as opposed to indirectly in terms of the enjoyment of different ways of being.
I shall introduce a third potentially ontological difference in Sect. 3 below: namely, the difference between a past and a present entity.
I shall attempt to explain what it is about these differences that is peculiarly ontological in Sect. 3 below, but for now it should be sufficient to note that they are plausibly taken as ontological.
Genuinely ontological differences should, I think, be distinguished from mere categorial differences. Some philosophers accept categorial differences, but deny that there are different ways of being. Take, for example, Peter van Inwagen (2012). He accepts a two-category ontology, according to which everything is either a substance or a property. But he does not thereby endorse ontological pluralism. For, on his view, categories are, roughly, natural classes whose membership comprises a significant portion of reality, which are not themselves subclasses of any other natural classes (see van Inwagen 2012: 193–194). Or take, for a different example, E. J. Lowe (2006). He accepts a four-category ontology, according to which everything is either an individual substance, a substantial universal, a property universal, or a trope. But he does not thereby accept ontological pluralism. For, on his view categories are, roughly, kinds of entities whose membership is ‘determined by certain distinctive existence and identity conditions whose nature is determinable a priori’ (Lowe 2006: 20). Entities belong to different categories, on this view, because of their different existence or identity conditions. These conditions tell us something about what these entities are. But, given either of these accounts of the nature of the categories, there needn’t be anything genuinely ontological about the so-called ‘ontological’ categories; they might, for all van Inwagen and Lowe have said, simply carve out differences in the nature of the entities that belong to them. Ontological categories are, on these accounts, ontological in name only.
Merricks takes Moore and Russell to ‘give voice to the conviction… that it is false that there is a way of being that concreta and abstracta alike enjoy’ (2019: 601). He says nothing to indicate that this conviction should be taken to be restricted to the case at hand as opposed to being perfectly general. Indeed, the general form of the pluralist’s intuition would need to be understood as a complete denial of ontological similarity in order for the objection to apply, as Merricks claims it does, to all forms of pluralism.
I believe that the distinction between the actual and the merely possible is best captured in a modal realist framework supplemented with absolute actuality. But the details of this framework are not essential to the distinction itself. It can, I think, be endorsed by someone who holds that there are true essentialist claims about entities that do not actually exist. To have an essence or nature, on this possibilist view, is to enjoy what Henry of Ghent calls essential being (esse essentiae). But not everything that has an essence thereby enjoys actual existence (esse existentiae). For while I enjoy actual existence, my merely possible brothers and sisters do not. There is thus an ontological difference between us. But there is an ontological similarity between us as well: we all enjoy essential being. See McDaniel (2017: 263) for discussion.
Merricks (2019: 611 n 20) sees the claim—allegedly stemming from Heidegger, Husserl, and Meinong—that ‘the relevant conviction is justified (or caused by) the phenomenology of certain experiences’ as another ‘species of this motivation’. I will briefly discuss this phenomenological motivation for pluralism in Sect. 4 below.
He thus seems to be in agreement with the Russell of The Principles of Mathematics, who holds that ‘[b]eing is that which belongs to every conceivable term, to every possible object of thought’ whereas ‘[e]xistence… is the prerogative of some only amongst beings’ (1903: 449). This should, of course, come as no surprise given that Russell’s early views on being and existence appear to have themselves been strongly influenced by Moore—as Russell (1903: viii, 1904: 204 n 2) himself readily admits. Indeed, Moore tells us that up until the winter of 1910–1911, he held:
very strongly… that the words ‘being’ and ‘existence’… stand for two entirely different properties; and that though everything which exists must also ‘be’, yet many things which ‘are’ nevertheless emphatically do not exist. (1953: 300)
But if Moore believes that existence is nested in being and that everything that exists has being, but not vice versa, then it should be clear that we can be, as Merricks (2019: 601) puts it, “‘quite certain” that natural objects enjoy a way of being and “equally certain” that that way of being is not enjoyed by two or four’ without also thinking that ‘it is false that there is a way of being that concreta and abstracta alike enjoy’.
This comes out pretty clearly in Russell’s attempts to explain why it is that the relation ‘north of’ does not seem to exist in the same way in which Edinburgh and London exist. For, he writes,
[i]f we ask ‘Where and when does this relation exist?’ the answer must be ‘Nowhere and nowhen’. There is no place or time where we can find the relation ‘north of’. It does not exist in Edinburgh any more than in London, for it relates the two and is neutral as between them. Nor can we say that it exists at any particular time. Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation ‘north of’ is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither mental nor material; yet it is something. ([1912] 1959: 98)
It seems clear that the reason we cannot say that a relation exists in the same sense as a place exists is that relations are not in space or time. This marks, Russell thinks, an important ontological difference between relations and places. But it leaves open the possibility that there is still a kind of ontological similarity between them.
White (1956: 63–66) makes a similar observation.
Merricks (2019: 602) attributes this objection to van Inwagen (2014b: 23). But van Inwagen, as I read him, is concerned with a slightly different objection: namely, that the pluralist appears to take the observation that there is a vast difference between, say, a number and a nightingale to motivate the claim that there is an ontological difference between these entities as well. This, van Inwagen thinks, constitutes ‘a fundamental meta-ontological error’ (2014b: 21). For ‘a vast difference between [two things] must consist in a vast difference in their natures’ (1998: 15, 2009a: 56). But, van Inwagen claims, once we have described the vast difference in the nature of these two things, we ‘have done everything that can be done to describe [the difference between them]. That’s what describing a vast difference is’ (2014b: 23, cf. 2018: 216). See Williams (1962: 757) and Grossmann (1984: 169–170, 1992: 95–96) for similar criticisms.
This, I take it, is the point that Merricks (2019: 602) intends to make by asking the following rhetorical question: ‘why pick ways of being that are correlated with those particular differences among generically existing entities, as opposed to others?’.
These three features are drawn from Heidegger’s ([1927] 1962: 21–24/SZ 2–4) discussion of the three traditional ‘presuppositions’ (or ‘prejudices’) about the nature of being: namely, that being is the most universal of all concepts, that it is indefinable, and that it is self-evident. I have collapsed being’s indefinability and self-evidence under a single heading and have attempted to draw attention to Heidegger’s claim that being is traditionally taken to be ‘the emptiest of concepts’. See Williams (1962: 752–754) for a helpful discussion of the emptiness of being.
It is this emptiness that comes to the fore in van Inwagen’s paraphrase of what he calls ‘an incidental remark of Hegel’s’, which he takes to provide a capsule summary of Heidegger’s three theses: namely, that being is ‘the most barren and abstract of all categories’ (2009a: 51, see also van Inwagen and Sullivan 2014: Sect. 2.1). Van Inwagen does not provide a citation for this paraphrase, but it would appear to be drawn from Hegel’s claim in the Encyclopedia that being is ‘the poorest and most abstract determination’ ([1827/1830] 2010: 101/GW 20: 92). Hegel elaborates on this claim in his Science of Logic:
Being, pure being—without further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself and also not unequal with respect to another; it has no difference within it, nor any outwardly. If any determination or content were posited in it as distinct, or if it were posited by this determination or content as distinct from an other, it would thereby fail to hold fast to its purity. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. —There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure empty intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or, it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing. ([1812/1832] 2010: 59/GW 21: 68–69).
Being can, I take it, be said to be the most barren and abstract of all categories because it is ‘the indeterminate immediate’, ‘[t]here is nothing to be intuited in it’, and ‘[i]t is pure indeterminateness and emptiness’.
The properties of being actual, being concrete, and being abstract are, given my preferred ontological framework, pervasive across the relations that unify concrete possible worlds and abstract possible structures. They are all or nothing. This ensures that these properties enjoy a high degree of generality and can be had by a variety of different entities with a variety of different natures.
But note that while the concept of actuality might be indexical, the property of actuality is not. See Bricker (2006: 63–66).
This orthodoxy can, I think, be adequately captured by the following three theses:
The Neo-Quinean Thesis: being is perspicuously expressed by particular—or existential—quantification.
The Monistic Thesis: being is unitary: there are no ontological differences between any entities.
The Equivalence Thesis: being is the same as existence.
This list is inspired by a similar list due to van Inwagen (1998, 2009a). But I have attempted to isolate, what I take to be, the core neo-Quinean commitments. The neo-Quinean thesis corresponds to van Inwagen’s Thesis 4 according to which the meaning of ‘existence’ is adequately captured by the existential quantifier of formal logic, but removes its apparent commitment to both the claim that being is the same as existence and the claim that being is unitary. This thesis is shared by both neo-Quinean monists and quantificational pluralists alike. Indeed, where these two views differ is over the monistic thesis, which corresponds to van Inwagen’s Thesis 3 according to which existence is univocal, but again removes its apparent commitment to the claim that being is the same as existence and ensures that the thesis concerns being rather than ‘being’. Monists about being hold that being is unitary, while pluralists take it to be fragmentary. This is their main point of disagreement. The equivalence thesis is, however, just the same as van Inwagen’s Thesis 2. It is something that pluralists can, but do not need to deny. Its denial strikes me as fairly plausible if we take existence to be the same as actuality, for being does not seem to be the same as actuality.
Suppose, for example, that the quantificational pluralist were to claim that for every perfectly natural qualitative property, there is a fundamental way of being enjoyed by all and only the entities that have that property. This pluralist might take the quantifier ∃b to range over all and only those entities that are bosons, and thus hold that:
x is a boson if and only if and because ∃by (y = x).
This would, I think, load the quantifier ∃b with whatever qualitative content is had by the predicate ‘is a boson’. It would attribute to the being of a boson what seems to properly belong to its nature.
I am assuming that for the quantificational pluralist, to say that an alleged ontological property is appropriately indefinable is to say that it can only be defined in terms of its corresponding way of being, and that that way of being is perspicuously expressed by a semantically primitive existential quantifier.
Note that this criticism carries over to the neo-Quinean monist as well. For the neo-Quinean monist will presumably admit that:
x has being if and only if and because ∃y (y = x).
But if being were to fail to be appropriately thin, then its thickness would have to somehow derive from the generic way of being perspicuously represented by the absolutely unrestricted existential quantifier. The universality—or absolute generality—of being is not in itself enough to ensure that being is appropriately thin. For, as D. C. Williams (1962: 753) points out, the fact that being ‘applies to everything is quite compatible with its being nevertheless the “richest” of principles, with more “content” than all the ordinary characters put together’. The desired thinness of being must, it seems, not simply derive from its generality, but also from its qualitative emptiness. The neo-Quinean cannot, I think, simply rest content by offering a quantificational account of being, but must also account for the intuitive thinness of being itself.
Merricks (2019: 603–604), when presenting his third objection to pluralism with generic existence, focuses on the arguments that McDaniel classes as logical and theological. He does not mention the phenomenological motivation in this context, but briefly mentions it in a footnote when discussing the pluralist’s core intuition (see Merricks 2019: 611 n 20).
Mulligan (2019: 192–197) argues that many phenomenologists were attracted to a correlationist thesis according to which different ways of being are correlated with different types of mental acts. But since one and the same object can be the target of different types of mental acts, the phenomenological motivation should be consistent with both the claim that many objects enjoy multiple ways of being as well as the claim that there is a type of mental act that can take any object whatsoever as its target.
See McDaniel (2017: 7–8).
See Aristotle’s Metaphysics B.3, 998b22-7.
Note that a different argument for the claim that being is not a genus can be found in Porphyry:
if the existent were a single genus common to everything, all things would be said to be existent synonymously. But since the first items are ten, they have only the name in common and not also the account which corresponds to the name. (Isagore 6.9-11, trans. Barnes 2003: 7)
But the argument here appears to proceed from pluralism—from the claim that there are ten primary ontological categories and, hence, ten corresponding ways of being—to the claim that being is not a genus. Porphyry seems to think that if being were a genus, there would be a single primary category to which absolutely everything belongs. But since there is no such ontological category and, hence, no generic way of being, being is not a genus.
See Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles I, c. 32, and Summa Theologiae I, q. 13, a. 5, co.
See Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae I, q. 3.
Note that we might be able to avoid the argument from divine transcendence by restricting to fundamental (as opposed to positive intrinsic) similarities. But no such restriction would seem to allow us to avoid the argument from divine simplicity.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to David Builes, Dante Dauksz, Arturo Javier-Castellanos, Kris McDaniel, Trenton Merricks, Jason Turner, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and discussion.
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Simmons, B. Ontological Pluralism and the Generic Conception of Being. Erkenn 87, 1275–1293 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00248-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00248-x