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Abstract
According to Crane’s schematicity thesis (ST) about intentional objects, intentionalia have no particular metaphysical nature qua thought-of entities; moreover, the real metaphysical nature of intentionalia is various, insofar as it is settled independently of the fact that intentionalia are targets of one’s thought. As I will point out, ST has the ontological consequence that the intentionalia that really belong to the general inventory of what there is, the overall domain, are those that fall under a good metaphysical kind, i.e., a kind such that its members figure (for independent reasons) in such an inventory. Negatively put, if there are no things of a certain metaphysical kind, thoughts about things of that kind are not really committed to such things. Pace Crane, however, this does not mean that the intentionalia that are really there are only those that exist. For existence, qua first-order property, is no metaphysical kind. Thus, there may really be intentionalia that do not exist, provided that they belong to good metaphysical kinds.
Acknowledgements
In this paper I reprise and fully articulate points already expressed elsewhere (Voltolini, Citation2006a). I thank all the participants to the Workshop on Intentionality that was held at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on 4–5 February 2010, where this paper was originally presented, for their comments and criticisms. Moreover, let me thank Friederike Moltmann and above all Elisabetta Sacchi, with whom I have several times discussed these issues. Finally, let me thank both some anonymous referees and especially Rasmus Thybo Jensen for many helpful comments that have definitely helped me in clarifying my views.
Notes
1 Following Crane himself (2001a, p. 39), I will here draw no difference between intentional states and intentional events, i.e., between mental particulars without a temporal part and mental particulars with a temporal part. A fortiori, I will draw no difference between intentional states or events and intentional acts, the latter traditionally counting as intentional events under an intentional description. Let me call thoughts all such mental particulars.
2 For this understanding of a metaphysical thesis see for example Thomasson (1999).
3 This conception is not Meinong’s. If Meinong is taken as a defender of a metaphysical approach to intentionalia as mere intentionalia, then for him intentionalia are entities that neither exist nor subsist. Yet since Meinong thought that objects are given before they are thought of, then one may take him as a sort of precursor of Crane’s ST (even though, unlike Crane, he would admit all intentionalia in the overall domain). In this perspective, for Meinong an intentionale may be a concrete actual entity, a concrete possible entity, a concrete impossible entity, or an abstract entity, depending on which of any such entities is really thought of in the thought involving such an intentionale.
4 The distinction between free and bound idealities comes from Husserl (1972/1948, p. 267), but it can also be found in Ingarden (1973/1931). Following Ingarden (1973/1931), Thomasson (1999, p. 89) literally calls mere intentionalia ‘purely intentional objects’ and distinguishes them from ordinarily existing intentionalia. In the same vein, by mere intentionalia McGinn (2004) and Moltmann (2013) mean nonexistent intentional objects, which for them are rather mind-dependent entities.
5 Cf. Crane (2001a, pp. 15–17).
6 This paragraph elaborates things originally said in Voltolini (2009).
7 Cf. Thomasson (1999, pp. 7, 140, fn. 3).
8 By equating the overall domain with the general inventory of what there is, I do not mean that domain as an universe of discourse, as Crane (2011a) would be prompted to take it. For unlike an universe of discourse, the members of the overall domain are genuine entities.
9 In order for this consequence to follow, when people say ‘things of category C exist’ (for instance, ‘ficta exist’), such a saying does not have to be taken as meaning ‘there is at least one C’. As Fine would put it, such a saying displays a universal, not an existential commitment, i.e. a commitment to all Cs. Thus, it means ‘All things of category C exist’, where ‘exist’ expresses a first-order property of existence (cf. Fine, 2009, p. 167). In the light of what I will say later, I add that this is not a substantial, but a formal first-order property of existence: i.e., a property that is both universal and such that possessing it makes no difference for the thing that has it (for more details on this distinction between different existential first-order properties, cf. Voltolini [2012]).
10 As to entia imaginaria so conceived and the reasons for rejecting them, cf. Kroon (2011). In order to understand what follows, it is crucial that entia imaginaria are not fictional entities.
11 Kriegel (2007, 2008) says that the same also holds for an intentionale that is such that there really is such a thing, such as Jimmy Carter: in apparently thinking of Jimmy, one rather thinks Jimmily. But this complication is irrelevant for my present purposes.
12 This idea is sketched in Crane (2001a, pp. 25–6) and is forcefully reprised in his later (2011b, 2012).
13 Crane also says that the thought is individuated in terms of its intentional object, even if turns out that there really is no such thing (cf. 2001a, p. 29). This terminology is unfortunate, for if an entity is individuated in terms of something else that something else has to figure in the overall ontological domain. Soon later in the book, Crane accepts this ontologically committed sense of individuation. For he says that a thought is individuated in terms of its intentional content, where the intentional content is something the thought is really related to (so, it figures in the overall domain; cf. Crane [2001a], p. 32). So, it would have been better if Crane had resorted to an epistemological sense of individuation by saying that a thought is identified in terms of its intentional object, in the sense that it is by appealing to such an object that we tell that thought from any other thought. As a matter of fact, he explains individuation precisely in these terms, i.e., as ‘distinguishing [an intentional state] from all others’ (2001a, p. 31). Yet as I said, this is merely a terminological point.
14 Cf. Crane (2011b), pp. 24–5.
15 Cf. Crane (2001a), pp. 28–33.
16 For the purposes of this paper, I here remain neutral as to whether, whenever there really is the object a thought is about, not only the thought is related to that object, but the real structure of that thought is made by a relation to that very object. For reasons to believe that, see Sacchi and Voltolini (2012).
17 This property is a substantial property, for – regardless of whether it is universal, i.e., it is possessed by all members of the overall domain – it adds something to its possessor. For more details on this point, see Voltolini (2012).
18 On this, cf. Berto (2012).
19 Cf. Crane (2001a), p. 17. In Crane (2011a, 2012), however, he tries to put this stance aside.
20 Cf. Crane (2001a), p. 24.
21 Cf. Crane (2011a).
22 Crane (2011a) explicitly states that in order to take one such sentence as intelligible or even (in a sense) true, one does not have to commit to the idea that ‘exists’ works in it as a first-order property. Indeed, he says (2012) that a sentence like ‘the round square exists’ can be both intelligible and even (in a sense) true, even if it means ‘there (uniquely) is a round square’. This is correct, yet if the latter sentence is conjoined to the former sentence – as follows: ‘there are some intentionalia that do not exist: e.g., the round square (does not exist)’ – in order both for the whole conjoined sentence to be both intelligible and even (in a sense) true and for the anaphorical link in it concerning ‘exists’ to hold, that predicate must work as a first-order predicate throughout the whole sentence.
23 As he himself points out (Crane 2001a, p. 25). I thank two referees for having attracted my attention to this point.
24 Cf. also Crane (2011a, 2012).
25 Cf. Crane (2001a), pp. 17, 25.
26 Cf. on this also Voltolini (2012).
27 To be sure, Crane might reply that if we say that some intentionalia that are accepted in the overall domain and thereby exist (in the second-order sense of the predicate) do not however exist in another sense, this sense does involve a first-order property which however is not ontologically relevant; this property would just be a property F whatsoever that such intentionalia fail to have (cf. 2001a, p. 25, for this possible reply). Yet I would retort that (1) in this predicament it would nevertheless remain a distinction between intentionalia that do not exist in the second-order sense and intentionalia that exist in the very same sense; and (2) this distinction is utterly parasitic on the distinction between intentionalia that fall under good categories and intentionalia that fail to fall under such categories. It is because an intentionale falls under a category whose members are accepted in the overall domain that such an intentionale exists, in the second-order sense.
28 Vulcan, of course, is just a case in point. Consider directly the case of an intentionale such as the dagger I hallucinate. Since my object of hallucination is a concrete object in the aforementioned sense and moreover we admit concreta, there really is such an intentionale, although it does not exist.
29 For this option, see for example Salmon (2002).
30 See Williamson (1998, p. 267) for a similar example.
31 Such impossibilia would be things that per impossibile were such that it is the case that p and it is the case that not-p, not things that possess both property P and its complement non-P, i.e., entities that violate Excluded Middle in its objectual form. Such entities may well figure in the overall domain, as most Meinongians claim. On this point, see Simons (1990, pp. 182, 185).
32 For arguments against ficta, see for example Everett (2005); for supporters of impossibilia, see for example Priest (2005).
33 Even Meinongians who commit themselves to Meinongian objects such as the fountain of youth or the golden mountain must play here some tricks. They have to say either that the properties involved by such objects are special properties – the so-called nuclear properties, properties belonging to the respective core of those entities (Meinong, 1972/1916; Parsons, 1980) – or that those objects well possess the ordinary properties of being a fountain of youth or of being a golden mountain, yet they possess such properties in a special mode – the so-called determining, or encoding, or internal mode (Mally, 1912; Castañeda, 1989; Rapaport, 1978; Zalta, 1983).
34 For believers in the aforementioned appeal to different modes of property possession (cf. previous footnote), this entailment only holds in the satisfying, or exemplifying, or external, mode, which faces the aforementioned internal mode. Hence, there may well be an entity that internally is a fountain of youth (a golden mountain) and externally fails to exist.
35 For an interesting attempt at constructing one such table by appealing to different dependence relations between items so categorized, cf. Thomasson (1999).
36 In this very complicated conceptual situation, one has not to be led astray by what amount to points of terminology. Earlier (in section 3), I have metaphysically distinguished concreta from abstracta by appealing to a certain modal distinction: roughly, concreta are the entities that may exist, so that some of them actually exist while some others exist merely possibly; instead, abstracta are the entities that necessarily fail to exist. Yet one may instead make a similar tripartition by speaking of contingent concreta as flanked by, respectively, contingent non-concreta and necessary abstracta (cf. Linsky and Zalta, 1996). Now, any terminological choice is good, provided it captures the real distinctions between metaphysical kinds.
37 I take this way of qualifying metaphysical kinds as a mere necessary condition for being a metaphysical kind. For if this way were also meant as a sufficient condition, it would rule out the standard counterexamples for sufficiency, i.e., other a priori yet not metaphysical kinds such as specific mathematic kinds, only if one believed that these latter kinds are such that in order to settle a priori whether they have instantiations one has to previously settle whether there are mathemata in general.
38 Cf. Crane (2001a, pp. 30–1).
39 This argument reminds similar arguments provided by actualists against mere possibilia; see for example Adams (1974). As Crane does not say that all nonexistents are indeterminate objects, the argument cannot be properly ascribed to him.
40 For problems with (2), see for example Routley (1982) and Williamson (2000).
41 On this, cf. Thomasson (1999).
42 For this idea, see for example Parsons (1980).
43 A similar argument may be given for thought-of mere possibilia, since there is a criterion of identity for such entities as well; see Zalta (1988, p. 32) and Priest (2005, p. 115).