Hypothesis: There is no fundamental quantifier that includes within its domain both God and something other than God. (Obviously, this is inspired by Jon Jacobs' work on apophaticism.)
The hypothesis is compatible with saying in ordinary English that both God and human beings exist, and that nothing (not even God) is a unicorn. But if we speak Ontologese, a language where all our quantifiers are fundamental, we will need to modify these locutions. Perhaps we will have a fundamental divine existential quantifier D and a fundamental creaturely quantifier ∃, and if in Ontologese we want to give the truth conditions for the ordinary English "Nothing is a unicorn", we may say something like:
- ~Dx(Unicorn(x)) & ~∃x(Unicorn(x)).
- Dx(Alive(x)) or ∃x(Alive(x)).
Of course, it could be that Ontologese doesn't just have a single quantifier for creatures. It might, for instance, have "metaphysically Aristotelian quantification": a quantifier ∃ over (created) substances and a subscripted quantifier ∃x over the accidents of the substance x. In that case, "Nothing is a unicorn" will have truth conditions:
- ~Dx(Unicorn(x)) & ~∃x(Unicorn(x)) & ~∃x∃xy(Unicorn(y)).
- Dx(Alive(x)) or ∃x(Alive(x)) or ∃x∃xy(Alive(x)).
Now, it may seem wacky to think of a quantifier D that quantifies only over God. But it shouldn't seem so wacky if we recall that Montague-inspired linguistic classifies names as quantifiers (they correspond to functors that lower the arity of a predicate, after all).
Now this leads to an interesting question. Speaking in the ontology room, where we insist that our language cut at the joints, should we say "God exists"? That's a choice. We could adapt the English "exists" when used in the ontology room to go with the fundamental quantifier D or the fundamental quantifier ∃.
We might want to, this being the ontology room after all, make the decision that we will adapt words to the most fundamental meanings we can. But in some sense surely the divine quantifier D is more fundamental than the creaturely quantifier ∃, so in the ontology room we could say: "Only God exists." It is said that Jesus said to St Catherine of Siena: "I am he who is, and you are she who is not." Maybe St Catherine's mystical theology room wasn't that different from the ontology room.
Or we might want to keep as many of the ordinary existence claims unchanged, and so say "Photons exists". Then we might want to say something like "God does not exist but divinely-exists."
But since the ontology room isn't the ordinary context, this is really a matter of decision. My own preference would be to say "Only God exists" in the maximally fundamental ontology room, but to spend a lot of time in less fundamental ontology rooms, ones in which one can say "God exists" and "Photons exist" but not "Holes exist" or "Tables exist."
I am not clear on the logic of fundamentality. (I do not know what this concept is supposed to be doing.) Is it apriori that there is a most fundamental "layer"? Is it apriori that there a least fundamental layer? Are there only two layers, or a bunch of nested ones? Are there different ways of being non-fundamental (being created, being an accident, being a plurality, being composed) and if so is that reflected in the structure of the quantifiers? (Note these will modify each other: something could be an accident of an object composed of a plurality of creatures.) Are we sure that fundamentality is not dense, that is, if A is more fundamental than B, might there always be a C such that A<C<B?
ReplyDeleteOnly on a very limited subset of assumptions will multiplying quantifiers get you anything useful.
I like how it allows us to capture a sense in which God does not exist, but also a sense in which nothing but God exists. Cool stuff.
ReplyDelete"We might want to, this being the ontology room after all, make the decision that we will adapt words to the most fundamental meanings we can. But in some sense surely the divine quantifier D is more fundamental than the creaturely quantifier ∃, so in the ontology room we could say: "Only God exists." It is said that Jesus said to St Catherine of Siena: "I am he who is, and you are she who is not." Maybe St Catherine's mystical theology room wasn't that different from the ontology room."
ReplyDeleteIf someone is in the ontology room and does not know how God exists can they say it is a fundamental truth that God exists differently than creatures?
Mark:
ReplyDeleteI guess so. They might say ~Dx(x=x) or something like that. But more likely they will think that the divine quantifier is a piece of nonsense.
Hello, Professor Pruss speaking of God, I enjoyed your book on actuality, possibility and worlds.
ReplyDeleteI had a question though from a person that I'm debating and I just want to make sure I understand you correctly.
I wrote this to him
"from this example written in Pruss' book Suppose that C is some collection of fundamental laws that permits different things in different circumstances. But then there would need to be further metaphysical laws as to what the laws in C collectively permit under what circumstances, and barring a vicious regress of more and more basic laws, there would have to be fundamental laws specifying what the laws in C permit. And these laws couldn't be in C, since then the laws in C would not permit different things in different circumstances. In conclusion, it C permits different things in different circumstances, then C does not contain all the fundamental laws, in the way that Co does. Thus, what Co permits could not be different, and hence modality could not have been different. And that is what the axiom S5 says" this was in pg 16 and 17 of your book
he replied
"Pruss's argument doesn't address why Co is more than the null set.
You've still given no justification for Co necessarily being nonempty"
What would be your response here?
True: I was assuming there are fundamental metaphysical laws.
ReplyDeleteSuppose one says there aren't any. Maybe one says that there aren't any metaphysical laws. If so, then much of our philosophical discussion is moot.
Suppose, though, one thinks there are metaphysical laws, but none are fundamental. Let D be disjunction of all the metaphysical laws. Could D have failed to be true?
, in which case the subject matter in the book is rather moot, or one says that there are infinitely many of them, arranged in some kind of a regress.
Thank you,
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying, so if we dismiss the fact that there aren't any metaphysical laws then there really is no point to arguing about anything really.