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The Methodology of NonexistenceAuthor(s): Terence ParsonsReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 76, No. 11, Seventy-Sixth Annual Meeting of theAmerican Philosophical Association, Eastern Division (Nov., 1979), pp. 649-662Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2025698 .

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THE METHODOLOGY OF NONEXISTENCE 649

THE METHODOLOGY OF NONEXISTENCE *

T is a part of our recent philosophical heritage that there is no I good reason to believe in nonexistent objects, and, indeed, that

any serious and detailed theory that invokes such objects must conflict with obvious truths. These points have been made over and over, but I think that they have never been made conclusively. With regard to eliminating the apparent need for nonexistent objects, the standard treatment has been to focus on techniques for handling artificial examples (e.g., "the king of France") rather than more natural cases ("Sherlock Holmes," "objects" of de re beliefs, etc.). And the popular refutations of theories about nonexistent objects either attack straw men (perhaps because of a scarcity of other tar- gets), beg questions, or are invalid; occasionally they even substitute ridicule for reasoned argument. Recently there has been an increas- ing realization of this situation, and this has prompted a spate of attempts to produce theories of nonexistent objects which meet (some of) the traditional apparent needs without reducing to ab- surdity or triviality. These accounts should be welcomed by friends and foes alike. Suspicions concerning nonexistent objects will never be overcome without a detailed account of what they are like. And, on the other hand, detailed accounts lend themselves more readily to real refutations than do terse and abstract accounts. Further, we need to see whether the apparent traditional needs for nonexistent objects are satisfied by invoking them, and, if so, how. If these theories can be even moderately successful, this will set a goal for those philosophers who wish, by some ingenious means, to do equally well without invoking the nonexistent.

With those goals in mind I have recently tried to develop a theory of nonexistent objects--initially in some articles, and more recently in a book, Nonexistent Objects.- I'll discuss my own account briefly below, but the bulk of this paper will be devoted to more general

* To be presented in an APA symposium on Nonexistence, December 30, 1979. Linda McAlister and Kit Fine will comment; see this JOURNAL, this issue, 662/3, for an abstract of McAlister's paper; Fine's paper is not available at this time.

I am indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for support for research on which this paper is based, and to Karel Lambert for comments. Limi- tations on space have resulted in a very terse exposition.

I Forthcoming from Yale University Press, hereafter abbreviated "NO". The articles are "A Prolegomenon to Meinongian Semantics," this JOURNAL, LXXI, 16 (Sept. 19, 1974): 561-580; "A Meinongian Analysis of Fictional Objects," Grazer Philosophische Studien, I (1975); 73-86; "Nuclear and Extranuclear Properties, Meinong and Leibniz," Nou's, xii, 2 (May 1978): 137-151; "Referring to Non- existent Objects," Theory and Decision, forthcoming.

0022-362X/79/7611/0649$01.30 ?D 1979 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.



650 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

methodological issues. I'll begin with an historical analogy. COMPARISON WITH SET THEORY

Naive set theory is based on the assumption:

(S) For every wff 4(x) with free variable x, there is a set consisting of exactly those things which satisfy 4(x).

This principle legitimizes the axiom schema:

(SI) (3 y) (x) (xey _0 (x))

for every wff 4(x). As is well known, this schema, in unrestricted form, is inconsistent; this was shown by Russell in his famous paradox. Just take O(x) in (S') to be (xEx), and the result is inconsistent in classical predicate logic.

Naive object theory can be given a similar formulation:

(0) For every wff O(x) with free variable x, there is an object that satisfies O(x).

This principle legitimizes the axiom schema:

(?') (3 x) 0 (x)

for every wff 4 (x). And this too was refuted by Russell at about the same time; or at least he showed the way. Just let 4(x) be Ax&

Ax; substituting in (0') yields a sentence that is inconsistent in ordinary predicate logic.

[Actually, Russell's discussion was formulated in terms of definite descriptions, and aimed at what he took to be a theory of Meinong's. The principle he attacked could perhaps be formulated as:

(DD) Any definite description refers to an object that satisfies the description.

For example, 'the gold mountain' refers to an object that is both gold and a mountain; 'the round square' refers to an object that is both round and square. This legitimizes the schema2:

(D DI) 0 ( (lx)0 (x))

where the definite description is treated as a genuine "quantifiable" term. So interpreted, (DD') entails (0') by one application of exis- tential generalization.3]

The "crises" in naive set theory and naive object theory are similar in form and in historical setting, but the histories of the two the-

2 This notation is intended to represent the result of replacing every free occur- rence of x in O(x) by (1x)+(x).

I Actually it is not clear exactly what principle Russell took himself to be at- tacking. He said it was Meinong's, but neither Russell nor Meinong formulated it clearly, and certain of Meinong's replies indicate that they did not have the same theory in mind. The argument I give is not Russell's, but rather an adaptation of his; see NO, ch. ii.



THE METHODOLOGY OF NONEXISTENCE 65I

ories diverged markedly after Russell's refutations. Naive set theory evolved into several versions of sophisticated set theory, and "set theory" now flourishes; naive object theory languished, and "object theory" is now an object of ridicule. Why the difference? It was not because there aren't any more sophisticated versions of object theory; Meinong himself indicated some directions that sophistication might take. There was Russell's prestige, of course, and his tendency to attribute so many of his successes to his theory of descriptions, a theory that supposedly eliminated the need for any actual reference to nonexistent objects (though no general proof of this was ever given, or even attempted). But I suspect that the deciding factor had to do with the applications of the respective theories. The need for sets was felt within the most prestigious discipline in our culture: mathematics; whereas the clearest apparent need for nonexistent objects is in the (philosophical foundations of) literary criticism (fictional objects) and psychology (objects of thought), two of our "softest" fields. I intend to take all the applications seriously, ignor- ing questions of prestige.

In hindsight we can see that the application of set theory to mathematics has not been perfect. As applied to "classical mathematics" (arithmetic and analysis) most popular set theories embody over- kill; the sets posited in ZF, for example, far outrun the sets needed to yield the classical results. Yet as applied to "modern" mathematics (e.g., algebra) such theories don't provide "enough" sets.4 It is fair to expect something similar from recent developments in object theory. Refined versions will likely yield objects that outrun the known applications, and will fail to yield objects that some would anticipate. For example, both proponents and critics have sometimes focused on the slogan: "Every thought has an object."5 Unfortun- ately this has various interpretations. It can be interpreted as saying that every thought is about something, in a de re sense of aboutness. This is logically consistent, but psychologically implausible. A more popular interpretation is to construe it in a mixed de dicto/de re manner, something like: "For every thought that is (de dicto) about an F, there is an object which is F and which the thought is about (in some sense)." But for any kind of thing Fwe can "think about an F" in a de dicto sense of 'think about', and this interpretation of the slogan leads to principle (0) discussed earlier. The proposal is radical and exciting, but is also inconsistent. Just as we have had to give up

4 Cf. W. S. Hatcher, "Foundations as a Branch of Mathematics," Journal of Philosophical Logic, i, 3 (August 1972): 349-358.

Cf. Alexius Meinong, "The Theory of Objects," in Roderick Chisholm, ed., Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (New York: Free Press, 1960).




certain "sets" that we might naturally have expected (e.g., in ZF, "the universal set"), we may also have to give up certain "objects" that we might naturally have expected (e.g., "the object that is square and also such that it is not the case that it is square").

THREE POPULAR APPROACHES

The most popular approach to the issue of nonexistence is to suppose that there is no such thing as something that doesn't exist and to ''paraphrase" apparent reference to nonexistent things in terms in which no such reference takes place. This has the status of a pro- gram, and one that has never been systematically carried out. It has been extensively discussed elsewhere, and I will not comment on it here; instead I'll focus in this section on three other approaches.

One natural idea is to preserve (0) or (DD), but to alter classical logic so as to avoid the inconsistency, or else to avoid objectionable consequences of the inconsistency. This idea is sometimes attributed to Meinong.6 The trouble with this idea, as Richard Routley has pointed out,7 is that you need practically no logic at all to get in trouble. For example, let 4(x) be 'x exists & x is golden &r x is a mountain', and (O') yields that some gold mountain exists, with no additional logic at all. Perhaps the idea is viable, but it needs some very subtle working out.

A second idea is to retain the principle that every definite description denotes an object, but not necessarily an object that satisfies the description. This lets us retain the view that there is such a thing as "the gold mountain that exists," without being committed to the consequence that that object is a gold mountain that exists (it is, perhaps, a gold mountain that, in spite of its "defining condition," does not exist). This is Routley's approach, and it has the apparent advantage of allowing for arbitrary objects of thought: "A person can suppose anything [= any object] he likes, only it won't always consistently possess all the supposed features."8 The problem with this approach, at the present time, is not that it says anything incorrect, but that it stands in need of more development. All by itself, the principle that every definite description denotes something is even consistent with the orthodox view that there is nothing that doesn't

6 On the ground that he urged giving up "the principle of contradiction" [ Uber die Stellung der Gegenstandstheorie im System der Wissenschaften, section 3; re- printed in Gesamptausgabe (Graz: Akademische Druk- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1973)]. But it is not clear whether he meant by "the principle of contradiction" what modern researchers would mean.

7 "Three Meinongs," draft manuscript. Routley's own argument applies to a slightly less restricted principle than (O').

8 Exploring Meinong's Jungle, draft manuscript. Revised version to appear in his Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1979.




exist. This principle is satisfied by any theory of definite descriptions that "supplies" conventionally chosen referents for otherwise denotationless definite descriptions.9 The view needs to be supple- mented by some account of which definite descriptions denote objects that satisfy the description and which do not.'0

(In my own work I've found it confusing to utilize definite descriptions that denote the "wrong" object-i.e., that denote objects that do not satisfy the description-and so I've just followed the free- logic route and abandoned the view that all definite descriptions must denote. But I think this may be primarily a linguistic question, or one of formulation, and not a serious ontological disagreement with the view just sketched.)

A third view that many are attracted to is quasi-Fregean. On this approach, "objects" are taken to be quite different in kind from existing concrete things: they mediate reference to existing things, much as Fregean senses do, but they are totally disjoint from, say, ordinary physical objects.'1 This view is attractive to many because of its familiarity, and also because a deeper analysis shows that it doesn't actually commit its proponents to nonexistent objects at all; it only commits them to abstract objects. For example, the sentence:

Sherlock Holmes does not exist.

may be paraphrased explicitly in terms of senses, as:

The concept, Sherlock Holmes, does not determine any existing thing."2 And the sentence,

Conan Doyle is the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

I Such theories are usually chosen to simplify the logic of existents, not to shed light on nonexistents; as a result they typically do not get the truth values of statements concerning nonexistents right. For example, most such theories do not both make 'Sherlock Holmes is the chief character of Conan Doyle's novels' true and also make 'Zeus is the chief character of Conan Doyle's novels' false.

10 This question is much discussed in Routley, Exploring Meinong's Jungle, op. cit.; see also NO, especially sec. 4 of ch. v.

X1 This is not Meinong's view; for him, concrete physical objects are paradigm examples of objects. He invokes "mental contents" to mediate reference to objects, though his reference to "completed incomplete objects" suggests otherwise; see J. N. Findlay, Meinong's Theory of Objects and Values (New York: Oxford, 1963), chs. I and VI. David Woodruff Smith, in "Meinongian Objects," Grazer Philosophische Studien, I (1975): 43-71, argues that, in spite of this, the theory is inevitably isomorphic to Frege's. Hector-Neri Castafieda has a quasi-Fregean theory in which "guises" mediate reference to concrete objects (which are, in spite of their concreteness, "semi-lattices of guises"). See his "Thinking and the Struc- ture of the World," Philosophia, iv, 1 (January 1974): 3-40, or "Perception, Be- lief, and the Structure of Physical Objects and Consciousness," Synthese, xxxv, 3 (July 1977): 285-351.

12 Cf. Alonzo Church, "An Outline of a Revised Formulation of the Logic of Sense and Denotation, Part II," Noi2s, viii, 3 (May 1974): 135-156.




actually says: Conan Doyle bears such and such a relation to the concept, Sherlock Holmes."3

This proposal seems to me ill motivated. The rationale for invoking Fregean senses has to do with cognitive contents and the analyses of nonextensional contexts, a rationale that is independent of nonexistence. For example, although

Holmes is the principal character of Doyle's novels.

is true, the sentence: Holmes is a detective.

has a different cognitive content from that of the sentence:

The principal character of Doyle's novels is a detective.

A Fregean with no prejudice against nonexistent objects would explain this by saying that although 'Holmes' and 'the principal character of Doyle's novels' have the same reference, they have divergent senses; but, on the quasi-Fregean view being discussed, they either lack reference entirely or else refer to different things (different concepts). Of course, an ad hoc analysis of this particular example could be given which would avoid this, but in either case a neat theory has been messed up just to avoid nonexistents. But there's no good reason to avoid them.

This brings me to a more basic criticism of the quasi-Fregean theory: it doesn't exist. Such an approach is often alluded to as the right approach to take, and there are ample resources within a Fregean ontology to work with. But as far as I know no one has actually developed such a theory. Such a development would require attention to the "new" relations needed (cf. fn 13) and some discussion of particular applications, such as the question, Which concept is the concept, Sherlock Holmes?

According to Meinong, you and I and Sherlock Holmes are all objects. In the next section I will sketch my own theory, which fol- lows in this tradition; this will be used in later sections as a vehicle for discussion of problems and applications.

13 Note that the relation in question cannot be the "creator of" relation, since the relation in question holds between Doyle and an individual concept, but it is not the concept that Doyle is said to be the creator of. Compare Church's remarks concerning "seek" in footnote 20 of the Introduction to Introduction to Mathemati- cal Logic (Princeton, N.J.: University Press, 1956). Spelling out the quasi-Fregean approach would involve analysis or explanation of this and similar relations (these are all examples of what I call "extranuclear relations"; see below in text). Cas- tanieda would analyze this example by means of his "consociation" relation, but this too needs explanation, for all that Castanieda says about "consociation" is that it is an equivalence relation that somehow involves thought.




A QUASI-MEINONGIAN THEORY

Meinong distinguished two kinds of properties: Sein properties, such as existence and nonexistence, and Sosein properties, such as being golden and being a mountain. A rough account of his theory is that he accepted something like principle (O') or (DD') for descriptions containing appropriate combinations of Sosein properties, though not for descriptions containing Sein properties (Russell's example of "the existent gold mountain" unfairly treated a Sein predicate as a Sosein predicate). Meinong also distinguished 'is possible' and 'is complete' from Sosein predicates, and I have suggested that de re uses of intentional idioms, such as 'is thought about by Meinong', and certain other predicates (e.g., identity and difference), be distinguished as well. With these extensions, the terminology "Sein versus Sosein" becomes inappropriate, and I have followed J. N. Findlay in calling Sosein predicates nuclear predicates, and the rest extranuclear. 14

The theory I want to discuss here is expressly limited to concrete objects some of which exist and some of which do not. It is not intended to deal with, say, nonexistent sets or numbers. Its basic ontological hypotheses are:

(1) Objects are the same if and only if they have the same nuclear properties, and

(2) For any set of nuclear properties, there is an object that has exactly the nuclear properties in that set.15

Principle (2) has as a consequence that there is an object that has goldenness and mountainhood and no other nuclear properties, and this will be a golden mountain; principle (1) distinguishes this object from any mountains that aren't golden (including all existing mountains) and from other gold mountains that have additional nuclear properties, e.g., tallness.

This account rests heavily on the issue of what properties there are and how they are to be classified into nuclear and extranuclear. With regard to this latter issue, although the terminology is unfami- liar I think the distinction itself is familiar to practically everyone who has attended to questions of nonexistence, regardless of their position on the issues. For example, Gilbert Ryle, in one of the classic papers in opposition to nonexistent objects,16 was led to distinguish

14 For a discussion of these issues see Findlay, op. cit., and Meinong, op. cit. 15 Actually in the official development of the theory (in NO) the reference to sets

of nuclear properties may be avoided, and (2) may be replaced by: (3x) (p) (px --+(p)), for any +(p) not containing x free.

16 "Imaginary Objects," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suvol. pp. xii (1933): 18-43.




predicates like 'exists', 'is imaginary', and 'is fictional', which he called "status," or "quasi-ontological," from ordinary predicates "that stand for qualities, states, etc." Routley followed Meinong (roughly) in using the terms 'characterizing' versus 'ontic'.'7 Cas- tafieda does not make an explicit distinction, but he sketches different ways to represent English predications in his symbolism; the cases where he utilizes his "consubstantiation" symbol are cases where he is symbolizing what I call nuclear predicates, and the other cases all involve what I am calling extranuclear predicates."8 There is such a uniformity in practice among researchers of such divergent approaches that I have faith that there is a natural distinction to be made, and one that is intuitively fairly clear-at least when we are dealing with simple predicates; for logically complex cases see below.

I'll mix in further exposition of the theory with the discussion of applications and issues in the next two sections.

APPLICATIONS

One of the weaknesses in the tradition of nonexistence is due to the lack of detailed worked-out applications. One possible application has to do with the objects of de re intentional idioms. People admire and are amused by Sherlock Holmes, worship Zeus, discuss the unicorn they dreamed about."9 As Gail Stine has argued, orthodox philosophers have consistently failed to be convincing in their arguments that we need not countenance nonexistent entities in account- ing for such talk.20 But where do these entities that we worship, admire, dream about, and discuss come from? Well, one principal source is stories; many of them are characters of fiction, of legend, of myths, of dreams, or of "accounts" that are portrayed in repre- sentational art.21 In terms of the theory sketched in the last section I have suggested that a character of a story be identified with the object that has exactly those nuclear properties which the character has according to the story. This is somewhat vague, and needs lots of spelling out, but even at this level we can address certain pecu- liarities of fictional objects that any theory must accommodate in some manner; particularly their incompleteness and their occasional impossibility.

Their incompleteness has often been commented on. Any existing person must either have the property of baldness or have the prop-

17 In Exploring Meinong's Jungle, op. cit. 18 Cf. both works of Castafieda cited above. 19 I represent de re uses of such verbs by extranuclear predicates. 20 "Intentional Inexistence," Journal of Philosophical Logic, v, 4 (November

1976): 491-510. 21 These are discussed in some detail in NO, ch. vii.




erty of having hair, but a character of fiction may lack both of these if the story leaves it open. The theory sketched in the previous section allows for objects of this sort. Actually, few theories have trouble with incompleteness,22 but impossibility is trickier. Stories can attribute to their characters impossible properties or combinations of properties, either intentionally or inadvertently, and it is sometimes difficult to excise the inconsistency without doing violence to the plot (if you remove 'Quagmire squared the circle', the story may no longer make sense, for why then did he thereby amaze the mathe- maticians of the day?). The theory sketched above is libertine enough to allow objects to have impossible properties or combinations of properties without thereby requiring that they have all properties. (By an "impossible combination of properties" I mean a set of nuclear properties such that it's impossible for any object to exist having all the properties in the set. When I call an object "impossible" I mean that in the actual world it has an impossible combination of properties (even though it doesn't exist in the actual world); I do not mean that it has the de re property of necessary nonexistence, which is another matter altogether.23)

Allowing for impossible objects in this manner allows us to escape Russell's objection concerning "the round square"; such an object is round and square, but we may not conclude from its being round that it is not the case that it is square, and so we may not conclude that the round square violates the law of noncontradiction. (For more on negation, see below.)

A theory of objects may also provide a framework within which other philosophical theories may be interpreted (e.g., Plato's theory of Forms, and Leibniz's theory of monads) but I will not discuss those here.24 I am sure that others will be aware of possible applications that I have not considered.

PROPERTIES AND RELATIONS

Most theories that deal with the phenomena of nonexistence (including those which do not countenance nonexistent objects) make heavy appeal to properties and relations. In this section I'll mention two problems about properties and relations which are especially associ- ated with nonexistence. For specificity, I'll discuss these within the

22 Many "orthodox" theories address this issue. Cf. David Lewis, "Truth in Fiction," American Philosophical Quarterly, xv, 1 (January 1978): 37-46; Peter van Inwagen, "Creatures of Fiction," ibid., xiv, 4 (October 1977): 299-308; Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Worlds of Works of Art," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, xxxv, 2 (Winter 1976): 121-132; J. Woods, The Logic of Fiction (The Hague: Mouton, 1974).

23 Cf. NO, chs. i, iv, v, viii. 24 Cf. Findlay, op. cit., and NO, ch. viii.




context of the theory that was sketched above, but most of them will arise, I think, in any theory that addresses the same phenomena.

Suppose that we can clearly distinguish nuclear from extranuclear properties in simple cases; we still need to face "complex" cases. Being blue is nuclear, but what about not being blue? If kicking is an ordinary nuclear relation, is kicking Socrates a nuclear property? The first question has to do with logically complex properties, and the second with relational properties; I'll discuss these in turn.

Suppose we say that one property is a complement of another just in case any object that has the one lacks the other, and vice versa. Then, on the theory sketched above, any complement of any nuclear property is not itself a nuclear property. Nuclear properties either do not have complements or else have complements that are extranuclear. The argument is simple: suppose that p and p are complements, and that both are nuclear. Then, by principle (2) above, some object has both p and p, contradicting the assumption that they are complements. This means that if being F is a nuclear property, then, on the most natural interpretation, 'the property of not being F' does not stand for a nuclear propery (I assume that it stands for an extranuclear property that is a complement of being F). Similar arguments show that 'the property of being both F and G' does not stand for a nuclear property possessed by exactly those objects which are both F and G, etc.

If principle (2) has such bizarre consequences, shouldn't it be re- jected? I think not. In the first place, the consequences are not particularly unnatural. Logically complex properties have long been viewed with suspicion, though there is a tendency to accept them. The present theory accords with both the suspicion and the tendency: negations of ordinary (nuclear) properties are not themselves ordinary properties, though they are properties. A similar motivation comes from set theory, which is almost the only well-worked-out theory of "universals" that we possess. In the most popular versions of set theory (e.g., ZF and NBG) no set has a "negation" (i.e., a set- theoretic complement) which is a set.

More importantly, this special treatment of complex properties serves to avoid pitfalls that need avoiding in dealing with nonexistence. For example, William Rapaport has sketched and motivated a theory intended to deal with nonexistence; the theory is proved inconsistent by means of an argument which makes crucial use of logically complex properties.25 Castafieda avoids a similar inconsistency, essentially by denying that the negation of a property is a comple-

2It "Meinongian Theories and a Russellian Paradox," No's, xii, 2 (May 1978): 153-180.




ment of that property.2- And Routley has long advocated a use of property negation which makes "non-P" not a complement of "P," in order to deal with Meinongian examples like "the nonsquare square. '27

It is curious that there appear to be no pairs of English nuclear predicates such that one member of the pair is even apparently a complement of the other. "Antonyms" (e.g., 'young' and 'old') are practically always restricted to a given subset of things. It may be fruitful to exploit this fact in supposing that every word in the English dictionary stands for a nuclear property if it

(i) would be naturally represented in the predicate calculus as a predicate appropriate to concrete objects, and

(ii) does not fall into any of the "extranuclear" categories listed two sections above, and

(iii) is not a technical philosophical term, is not an evaluative term (such as 'good'), and is not a comparative or superla- tive.28

Such an assumption may seem a bit capricious, but at least it fleshes out the theory by providing a lot of examples.

A second problem has to do with the logic of relations. If 'kicked Socrates' stands for a nuclear property, then lots of objects have this property. For example, by principle (2), various purple unicorns have it. But then, was Socrates kicked by a purple unicorn, and, if so, why didn't he notice it?

There are a host of decisions to be made here, and different ways of making them lead to different kinds of theory. I have assumed that, if R is a nuclear relation and x an object (existent or nonexistent), then the result of "plugging up" R with x in either places does yield a nuclear property. This, together with principle (2), suggests an abandonment of an assumption that is normally made in the logic of relations when only existing objects are taken into account. In particular, we may now acknowledge cases in which an object x has the property got by plugging up R's second place with an object y, without y having the property got by plugging up the first place of R with x (provided that x is an unreal object). For example, a nonexistent purple unicorn may have the property of kicking Socrates without Socrates having the property of being kicked by it.29

26 "Philosophical Method and the Theory of Predication and Identity," Nous, xii, 2 (May 1978): 189-210.

27 Cf. Exploring Meinong's Jungle, op. cit. 28 Regarding the latter, see NO, ch. vi. 29 James K. Mish'alani, in "Thought and Object," Philosophical Review, LXXI,

2 (April 1962): 185-201, suggests treating this phenomenon by giving up the



66o THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Suppose we say that "x bears R to y" just in case both x and y have the properties got by plugging up R with the other (in the appropriate places). Then the theory in question holds that:

No existing object bears any nuclear relation to any nonexistent object (though this prohibition does not extend to extranuclear relations, such as "worships" or "is different from"), and

Existing objects may bear nuclear relations to one another, as may nonexistent objects.30

These are not obvious truths, and other choices could perhaps be made. The trouble with most other accounts is not that these questions are answered incorrectly, but rather that they are not ad- dressed at all. But the questions are especially important where applications are concerned. It's just as important that Holmes lived with Watson as that he is a detective.

OBJECTIONS TO OBJECTS

I have been discussing a type of enterprise that may seem to many to be prima facie absurd. After all, theories of nonexistent objects can be "refuted" in advance of any detailed development! I will close by replying briefly to three such objections which have been urged on me with great conviction by various people.

(i) "'There are objects that don't exist' isa contradiction, because 'there are' just means 'there exist'." Rejoinder: they don't mean the same at all. This objection gets its force, I think, from people not knowing what it would be like for there to be a thing that doesn't exist. But that can be changed. Someone can, perhaps, learn "what it would be like" for there to be things that don't exist by becoming acquainted with a detailed description of what it would be like.

(ii) "By Occam's razor, it is theoretically preferable to dispense with nonexistent objects." Rejoinder: unadorned appeals to Oc- cam's razor have (or should have) absolutely no force at all. There is no prima facie reason to suppose that the universe contains a small number of things, or a small number of kinds of things. There is no prima facie reason to believe that a theory that endorses a smaller number of things, or kinds of things, or employs a smaller number of primitives, is simpler or likelier to be true or likely to yield more insight than another. Theories should not be compared by counting entities, kinds of entities, or primitives. If, in a given case, consider-

principle that if x bears R to y then y bears the converse of R to x. I've found no need to abandon this principle.

30 This principle is important in reconstructing a theory of Leibnizian "monads" that "mirror" the worlds in which they appear; cf. NO, ch. VIII.



THE METHODOLOGY OF NONEXISTENCE 66i

ations of this kind do make one theory better than another, then that point should be made, and the particular reasons should be given; but different cases will require different explanations. And in no case does citing "Occam's razor" add anything to the critique.3"

(iii) "There is no principle of individuation for nonexistent objects; thus they cannot be countenanced."32 Rejoinder: The problem here is what is meant by a "principle of individuation." In the theory I have sketched, all objects (existent and nonexistent alike) obey the principle that x = y if and only if x and y have the same nuclear properties [this was principle (1) above (655)]. But those who ask for a "principle of individuation" generally want more than this. And there are two problems here: What more is wanted, and Why? Let me explain. The notion of a principle of individuation is meant to apply neutrally to any proposed type of entity whatsoever: sets, properties, physical objects, numbers, living things, minds, nonexistent concrete things, points, spaces, etc. But 'principle of individuation' is technical jargon that needs to be explained. The trouble is, there simply is no explanation of what it means that would let a neutral observor apply it to "new" categories of (proposed) things. We have been given some examples by W. V. Quine :33

For sets: x = y if and only if x and y have the same members. For physical objects: x = y if and only if x and y occupy the

same region of space(-time).

But no procedure has even been hinted at that would allow the examples to be generalized to new cases. So far, 'analyticity' has been more fully explained than 'principle of individuation'. This makes the second question virtually impossible to deal with. Why not countenance a type of entity even without a "principle of individuation" ? If there is a reason for avoiding this, it has never been given.

In conclusion: we don't yet possess any detailed accounts of how to explain away apparent reference to nonexistent objects. Nor do we yet have any really detailed theories about nonexistent objects which would let us judge the extent to which such apparent reference can be genuine. But theories that endorse nonexistent objects are much

31 I am not saying here that Occam's razor is a principle that may be outweighed by other considerations in certain situations; rather it is, by itself, totally weight- less-it has, at best, heuristic value.

32 Cf. Karel Lambert, "Impossible Objects," Inquiry, XVII, 3 (Autumn 1974): 303-314. Routley replies in "The Durability of Impossible Objects," Inquiry, xix, 2 (Summer 1976): 247-251.

33 "On the Individuation of Attributes," in Alan Ross Anderson, Ruth Barcan Marcus, and Richard M. Martin, eds., The Logical Enterprise (New Haven: Yale, 1975).




more promising than is generally thought. I have tried to indicate some of the issues that will need to be faced by either approach.

TERENCE PARSONS

University of Massachusetts/Amherst

A QUASI-BRENTANIAN THEORY OF OBJECTS *

ME EINONG's Theory of Objects developed out of Brentano's insights that every mental phenomenon must be related to something as object, and that these objects need not

exist. The domain of Theory of Objects was thus even broader than that of Metaphysics, for while metaphysics is the study of what is, Theory of Objects studies nonexistent objects as well.

Recently there has been renewed interest in developing theories of nonexistent objects from such people as the Routleys and Ter- ence Parsons. They often say they are reviving or reconstructing Meinong's Theory of Objects. What they then proceed to do is to reconstruct only a small fragment of his theory.

Parsons, for example, calls his a "quasi-Meinongian" theory, but then says, "The theory I want to discuss here is expressly limited to concrete objects, some of which exist and some of which do not" (655). Of course there are no rules about how closely a "quasi-X-ian" theory is supposed to resemble an X-ian theory, but it seems to me that Parsons' theory constitutes quite a drastic departure from the spirit and scope of Meinong's theory when it limits itself to con- sideration of concrete objects only.

Parsons offers no justification for this limitation. If he did, he might want to argue that concrete objects are the only possible objects of mental acts. Such arguments were developed by Brentano in reaction against Meinong's theory of objects in the early part of the century. In fact, Parsons' theory seems to me more accu- rately described as a "quasi-Brentanian theory" than as a "quasi- Meinongian" one. That is because Brentano's later philosophy, which is called Reism, can be viewed, like Parsons', as a theory of objects which is limited to concrete objects, both existent and nonexistent.

* Abstract of a paper to be presented in an APA symposium on Nonexistence, December 30, 1979, commenting on a paper by Terence Parsons, this JOURNAL,

this issue, 649-662.

0022-362X/79/7611/0662$00.50 C) 1979 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.



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