Unnecessary existents

Abstract

Timothy Williamson has argued for the radical conclusion that everything necessarily exists. In this paper, I assume that the conclusion of Williamson's argument is more incredible than the denial of his premises. Under the assumption that Williamson is mistaken, I argue for the claim that there are some structured propositions which have constituents that might not have existed. If those constituents had not existed, then the propositions would have had an unfilled role; they would have been gappy. This gappy propositions view allows for a plausible response to Williamson's argument. Additionally, a slight variant of the gappy propositions view allows for plausible defense of Linguistic Ersatzism from the problem of contingent non-existents (also known as the problem of aliens).

Keywords::

• existence
• non-existence
• propositions
• Williamson
• aliens

Notes

^1. There have been several responses to this style of argument, some of which predate Williamson's paper and others of which postdate it. Plantinga (1983) believes that a proposition can exist without the thing of which it's about existing. A defender of Plantinga's view may reject premise (3). Prior (1977), Fine (1985) and Adams (1981) believe that there are two senses of ‘true’ in modal contexts. A defender of Fine and Adams may claim that premises (1) and (2) equivocate. Rumfitt (2003) and Efird (2009) believe that there are some true necessities that are not necessarily true. A defender of this view may reject premise (1). Among those who accept the conclusion of the argument, though not necessarily on the basis of the argument, are (of course), Williamson (1990), (1998), (2000), (2002), (2013) and also Linsky and Zalta (1994), (1996).

^2. The views advanced here may also be employed to solve certain problems faced by the presentists, in particular, the problems of temporary existents and temporary non-existents. The gappy propositions solution to certain similar presentists problems is considered and rejected by Markosian (2004). However, Markosian's objections to the gappy propositions solution does not apply to the view I advance here.

^3. In the remainder of this essay, I will ignore the ‘in a context’ qualification. This is merely done to conveniently simplify our discussion. This simplification should not significantly impact the main points that I wish to make.

^4. A fuller story must be told about how declarative sentences express particular propositions. Unfortunately that story will have to wait for another time. I will note, though, that some of the augmentations I'm going to make to the metaphysical package will throw a wrench into the standard story about how declarative sentences express particular propositions.

^5. This view is introduced by Kaplan (1989) and defended by Braun (1993) and Salmon (1998).

^6. The claim that P is true but possibly not possibly true is practically a rejection of the modal system B, which includes as theorems any instance of Φ → ▪◊Φ. I say ‘practically’ because some may not accept as equivalent the claim that P is possibly not possibly true and the claim that possibly, it's not possible that P. But, I do accept that equivalence and believe that the plausibility of B provides further support for my argument. Especially given that B is one of the weakest normal systems of modal logic; metaphysical possibility should verify the axioms of B.

^7. One might claim that someone else might have played the subject role in the proposition that Obama is tall if Obama had not existed. But, there is no particular individual that it could have been. Suppose, for example, that Romney would have filled the subject role in the proposition that Obama is tall if Obama had not existed. Then if Obama had not existed, then the proposition that Obama is tall would have been the proposition that Romney is tall. But, since it's possible both that Romney is tall and that Obama doesn't exist, then it looks like the proposition that Obama is tall could have been true even if Obama had not existed! That's clearly absurd. What if something that couldn't have been tall would have filled the subject role of the proposition that Obama is tall if Obama had not existed. What if, for example, Larry the electron would have filled the subject role? Then, if Obama had not existed, then proposition that Obama is tall would have been the proposition that Larry is tall. But, the proposition that Larry is tall would have been necessarily false if Obama had not existed whereas the proposition that Obama is tall would have been merely contingently false if Obama had not existed. So, the proposition that Obama is tall couldn't have been the proposition that Larry is tall and, so, Larry could not have played the subject role in the proposition that Obama is tall if Obama had not existed.

^8. The thesis that fictional characters can't possibly exist can be defended using argument similar to those advanced by Kripke in (1980) and (2013). The view that fictional characters can't possibly exist, however, is not defended by Kripke.

^9. This problem of contingent non-existents was first raised by McMichael (1983). Lewis (1986) presents the problem as one aimed at Linguistic Ersatzism and broadens the problem to include alien properties. Hazen (1996) and Nolan (2002) both extensively discuss the problem of contingent non-existents.

^10. Solutions to this problem which do not involve rejecting the claim that there are contingent non-existents have been advanced by Heller (1998), Nolan (2002), and Sider (2002).

^11. I am assuming that for any proposition p, p is about x only if x is a constituent of p. Alternatively, one might have thoughts that p is about x only if had p been non-gappy, then x would have been a constituent.

^12. Thanks to Ben Caplan, Sam Cowling and Chris Tillman for discussing these issues with me.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Spencer

Joshua Spencer is an assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is interested in the metaphysics of material objects, space, time, modality, fundamentality and meaning.