A curious thing about the ontological problem is its
simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’
It can be answered, moreover, in a word-‘Everything’ -and everyone will accept
this answer as true. However, this is merely to say that there is what there
is. There remains room for disagreement over cases; and 80 the issue has stayed
alive down the centuries. Suppose now
that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology.
Suppose McX maintains
there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently
with hi8 own point of view, dlescribe our difference of opinion by saying that I
refuse to recognize certain entities. I should protest, of course, that he is
wrong in hi8 formulation of our disagreement, for I maintain that there are no
entities, of the kind which he alleges, for me to recognize; but my finding him
wrong in hi8 formulation of our disagreelment is unimportant, for I am
committed to considering him wrong in hi8 ontology anyway. When I try to
formulate our difference of opinion, on the other hand, I seem to be in a
predicament. I cannot admit that there are 8ome ~things which McX countenances
and I do not, for in admitting that there are such things I should be
contradicting my own rejection of them. It
would appear, if thii~ reasoning were sound, that in any ontological dispute
the proponent of the negative side suffers the disadvantage of not beiing able
to admit that hi8 opponent disagrees with him. This is the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense
be, otherwise what is it t,hat there is not?
This tangled doctrine might be
nicknamed Plato’s beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling
the edge of Occam’s razor. It is some
such line of thought that leads philosophers like McX to impute being where
they might otherwise be quite content to recognize that there is nothing. Thus,
take Pegasus. If Pegasus were not, McX argues, we should not be talking about
anything when we use the word; therefore it would be nonsense to say even that
Pegasus is not. Thinking to show thus that the denial of Pegasus cannot be
coherently maintained, he concludes that Pegasus is.
McX cannot, indeed, quite persuade himself
that any region of space-time, near or remote, contains a flying horse of flesh
and blood. Pressed for further details on Pegasus, then, he saуs that Pegasus
is an idea in men’s minds. Here, however, a confusion begins to be apparent. We
may for the sake of argument concede that there is an entity, and even a unique
entity (though this is rather implausible), which is the mental Pegasus-idea; but
this mental entity is not what people are talking about when they deny Pegasus. McX never confuses the Parthenon with the
Parthenon-idea. The Parthenon is physical; the Parthenon-idea is mental
(according anyway to McX’s version of ideas, and I have no better to offer).
The Parthenon is visible; the Parthenon-idea is invisible.
We cannot easily
imagine two things more unlike, and leas liable to confusion, than the
Parthenon and the Parthenon-idea. But when we shift from the Parthenon to
Pegasus, the confusion sets in-for no other reason than that McX would sooner
be deceived by the crudest and most flagrant counterfeit than grant the nonbeing
of Pegasus. The notion that Pegasus must
be, because it would otherwise be nonsense to say even that Pegasus is not, has
been seen to lead McX into an elementary confusion. Subtler minds, taking the
same precept as their starting point, come out with theories of Pegasus which
are less patently misguided than McX’s, and correspondingl;y more difficult to
eradicate. One of these subtler minds is named, let us say, Wyman. Pegasus,
Wyman maintains, has his being as an unactualized possible. When we say of Pegasus
that there is no such thing, we are saying, more precisely, that Pegasus does
not have the special attribute of actuality.
Saying that Pegasus is not actual
is on a par, logically, with saying that the Parthenon is not red; in either
case we are saying something about an entity whose being is unquestioned. Wyman,
by the way, is one of those philosophers who have united in ruining the good
old word ‘exist’. Despite his espousal of
unactualized possibles, he limits the word ‘existence’ to actuality-thus
preserving an illusion of ontological agreement between himself and us who
repudiate the rest of his bloated universe. We have all been prone to say, in
our common-sense usage of ‘exist’, that Pegasus does not exist, meaning simply that
there is no such entity at all. If Pegasus existed he would indeed be in spalee
and time, but only because the word ‘Pegasus’ has spatio-temporal connotations,
and not because ‘exists’ has spat&temporal connotatians.
If spatio-temporal
reference is lacking when we afhrm the existence of the cube root of 27, this
is simply !because a cube root is not a spatio-temporal kind of thing, and not
because we are being ambiguous in our use of ‘exist’.’ However, Wyman, in an
ill-conceived effort to appear agreeable, genially grants us the nonexistence
of Pegasus and then, contra,ry to what toe meant by nonexistence of Pegasus, insists
that Pegasus is. Existence is one thing, he says, and subsistence is another.
The only way I know of coping with this obfuscation of :issues is to give Wyman
the word ‘exist’. I’ll try not to use it again; I still have ‘is’. So much for
lexicography; let’s get back to Wyman’s ontology.
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