Friday, November 16, 2018

Ways of being and quantifying

Pluralists about ways of being say that there are multiple ways to be (e.g., substance and accident, divine being and finite being, the ten categories, or maybe even some indefinitely extendible list) and there is no such thing as being apart from being according to one of the ways of being. Each way of being comes with its own quantifiers, and there is no overarching quantifier.

A part of the theory is that everything that exists exists in a way of being. But it seems we cannot state this in the theory, because the "everything" seems to be a quantifier transcending the quantifiers over the particular ways of being. (Merricks, for instance, makes this criticism.)

I think there is a simple solution. The pluralist can concede that there are overarching unrestricted quantifiers ∀ and ∃, but they are not fundamental. They are, instead, defined in terms of more fundamental way-of-being-restricted quantifiers in the system:

  1. xF(x) if and only if ∀BWoBbbxF(x)

  2. xF(x) if and only if ∃BWoBbbxF(x).

The idea here is that for each way of being b, there are ∀b and ∃b quantifiers. But, the pluralist can say, one of the ways of being is being a way of being (BWoB). So, to use Merricks’ example, to say that there are no unicorns at all, one can just say that no way of being b is such that a unicorn b-exists.

Note that being a way of a being is itself a way of being, and hence BWoB itself BWoB-exists.

The claim that everything that exists exists in a way of being can now be put as follows:

  1. x(x = x → ∃BWoBbby(x = y)).

Of course, (3) will be a theorem of the appropriate ways-of-being logic if we expand out "∀x" in accordance with (1). So (3) may seem trivial. But the objection of triviality seems exactly parallel to worrying that it is trivial on the JTB+ account of knowledge that if you know something, you believe it. Whether we have triviality depends on whether the account of generic existence or knowledge, respectively, is stipulative or meant to be a genuine account of a pre-theoretic notion. And nothing constrains the pluralist to making (1) and (2) be merely stipulative.

Suppose, however, your motivations for pluralism are theological: you don’t want to say that God and humans exist in the same way. You might then have the following further theological thought: Let G be a fundamental way of being that God is in. Then by transcendence, G has to be a category that is special to God, having only God in it. Moreover, by simplicity, G has to be God. Thus, the only way of being that God can be in is God. But this means there cannot be a fundamental category of ways of being that includes divine and non-divine ways of being.

However, note that even apart from theological considerations, the BWoB-quantifiers need not be fundamental. For instance, perhaps, among the ways of being there might be being an abstract object, and one could hold that ways of being are abstract objects. If so, then ∀BWoBbG(b) could be defined as ∀BAb(WoB(b)→G(b)), where BA is being abstract and WoB(x) says that x is a way of being.

Coming back to the theological considerations, one could suppose there is a fundamental category of being a finite way of being (BFWoB) and a fundamental category of being a divine way of being (BDWoB). By simplicity, BDWoB=God. And then we could define:

  1. BWoBbF(b) if and only if ∀BDWoBbF(b) and ∀BFWoBbF(b).

  2. BWoBbF(b) if and only if ∃BDWoBbF(b) or ∃BFWoBbF(b).

Note that we can rewrite ∀BDWoBbF(b) and ∃BDWoBbF(b) as just F(God).

5 comments:

Trevor Giroux said...

Dr Pruss, if generic existence is defined by the more fundamental divine existence and finite existence does that mean that generic existence wouldn’t exist if God didn’t create anything with finite existence?

Alexander R Pruss said...

God would still generically exist. On this story, x exists generically iff either x exists divinely or x is created by God. Well, God exists divinely or God is created by God (because God exists divinely).

Trevor Giroux said...

Would this generic existence still cause a problem with divine simplicity? It seems that Gods generic existence is distinct from his divine existence even if the generic existence is dependent on divine existence. Or could we say that some distinctions are compatible with simplicity as long as they are not limitations on Gods act of existence in the way that a distinction between essence and existence or substance and accident would be a problem?

Alexander R Pruss said...

I think that as long as the ground of existence is the same, there is no problem. On anyone's view, God is both (a) God and (b) God or a bicycle. But although both apply to God, the ground of both applying to God is the same, namely God's divinity.

Trevor Giroux said...

Could this same idea be used to allow for metaphysical complexity in God? It seems that those who want to say that God has parts could say that although God is complex his parts are all grounded in his divine nature. Or maybe this is just a different version of divine simplicity.