What is Remembering?

 

 

 

Not much philosophical attention has been paid to the concept of remembering, in contrast to perceiving and communicating (as well as thinking, reasoning, knowing, believing, imagining, willing, intending, acting, feeling, consciousness, and other concepts). How should remembering be conceived? Nabokov entitled his autobiography Speak, Memory: this provides a suggestive starting-point for inquiry into remembering. It suggests that memory works by communicating with the conscious subject—sending messages for conscious recall. Memory speaks to us: that is what remembering is—receiving information transmitted from stored memories. Remembering is hearing messages about the past; it is listening to the past (or information about it). Call this the “communicative model”: the idea is that just as we receive messages from other minds in acts of interpersonal communication, so we receive messages from the part of our own mind known as memory. Remembering is a receptive act, rather like hearing someone speak; but it results from a productive act, like acts of speech themselves. Remembering is listening to a voice within. We should interpret “hearing” and “listening” broadly here, since the deaf can remember but don’t have the power of hearing audible speech. Remembering is a symbolic communicative act, but not necessarily one based on the sense of hearing.

            Perhaps the best way to motivate this theory is to link memory to thought. If we are already predisposed to accept a language of thought, it is no giant leap to extend this conception to memory. Memory clearly interfaces with thought, and if thought is symbolic, then so is memory. Thoughts mingle with memories as they well up from the unconscious, so it is likely that they share a symbolic medium. The mingling is like a conversation between two voices—the voice of memory and the voice of thought. There is a LOT and a LOM and they inter-translate. This theory stands opposed to the theory that remembering is perceiving what lies in memory—that conscious recollection is sensing or apprehending memory traces. Call this the “perceptual model”: memory doesn’t actively communicate its contents; its contents are passively perceived by the remembering subject.  [1] According to the perceptual model, Nabokov should have entitled his memoir Let Me Have a Look, Memory: we scan our memories, as we scan a perceptual scene; they don’t speak to us. Remembering can be modeled either on interpersonal communication or on sense perception. Does memory talk to us or do we gaze at it? Is it an agent or an object?

How can we decide between these two theories? One way is to consider the role of the will in remembering. We can try to remember but we can also try to forget, and we can fail at both. Memory might choose not to speak or it might choose to speak too much: it can either refuse to yield up the information we seek or it can give us information we don’t want. We have limited powers when it comes to accessing our memory, as if we are contending with another agent, possibly with its own agenda. It is hard to square this with the perceptual model: just as we can open or shut our eyes and see or not see, so we should be able to access or block perception of memory at will. Objects of perception don’t actively thwart our will, unless they too have will; but memory appears to have a mind of its own, at least some of the time. It can be cooperative or uncooperative. Consider how memory intrudes into dreams, selecting and trimming, acting like an autonomous agent: it isn’t that dreams are perceptions of memories, driven by the conscious wishes of the dreamer. There is something like a gatekeeper that controls what memories get into the dream and what don’t. It is not so different in waking life: a traumatic memory may insist on making an appearance no matter how much its possessor may try to suppress and banish it. Yet a pleasant or useful memory may remain hidden and inaccessible no matter how hard you try to bring it to awareness. When Nabokov writes, “Speak, memory” he is asking or requesting his memory to speak to him, knowing full well that it may be reluctant to do so; he could equally write, “Don’t speak, memory” if his memory is plaguing him with the past. This is not how we think of a perceptual object—as if it needed to be coaxed into cooperating. We know that memory is active and self-organizing, reconfiguring itself over time, sometimes dramatically so; it is also agent-like in its discretionary powers, sometimes declining to yield up its secrets, sometimes gushing too much. It can be frustrating and infuriating, like a wayward speaker who insists on saying either too little or too much. Nor is its accessibility merely random—there is a method to its disclosures, though it can be hard to divine what that is. This is where we venture into Freudian territory, but there is no need to buy into the whole Freudian apparatus to recognize that what we remember or forget is related to our emotions. Memory is a kind of intentional system, much like a communicating agent; it is not like a passive object of perception, waiting indifferently to be scanned or searched. It speaks or it remains silent, while a perceptual object sits there neutrally.

            It is anyway strange to think of remembering as like seeing a memory—as a brain scientist might see a memory trace in the brain. Surely we don’t literally sense our memories, scrutinize them, view them from different angles. Nor do we introspect them. We are more the recipients of their publications: they speak and we listen, or they remain silent and we hear nothing. The memory system is an active component of the mind, interacting with other components (thought, language, emotion): what is remembered is what is actively delivered to the conscious mind. Memory issues bulletins or keeps its cards close to its chest, according to inscrutable principles (dreams being the clearest example of this inscrutability). It isn’t that it sits there passively awaiting our inspection, playing no role in determining what is remembered. It may even see fit to transmit false memories that deceive the conscious mind—like a speaker who tells lies. Memory can fabricate and confabulate, like the most imaginative and untruthful of speakers, sending us wildly misleading messages. It seems to be doing so on purpose. It isn’t just a storehouse of inert items through which we rummage. It actively asserts that p, truly or falsely, aiming to secure our assent, purporting to be a source of knowledge.  [2] It is more like an orator trying to persuade than a tree standing stiffly before our eyes. One might even come to view one’s memory as a congenital liar, constantly purveying falsity, propaganda, and prejudice. Memory is notoriously susceptible to the promptings of emotion—the original unreliable narrator. It makes things up as it goes along. It can do this only because it operates like a speaker.

            Memory has two jobs: it stores information unconsciously and it transmits information to consciousness. There is not much point in doing the first job if the second is not performed. This duality is analogous to the standard communicator: she contains a store of information (knowledge) as well as the ability to transmit that information to another person. She may be reluctant to transmit the information or she may be enthusiastic about it, as in the case of memory; she may also be good or bad at information transmission, as people have good or bad powers of recall. The structure is the same in both cases. What differentiates them is that we have a full-blown agent in one case but not in the other—an actual person doing the transmitting. In the case of memory we can say that we have a quasi-agent, since memory acts like an intentional system, but it is stretching the point to suggest that memory is a person. Can we find a way to make the analogy complete? Here goes: memory involves a past selfthat speaks to you. At a certain time of your life you had certain experiences and these were laid down in memory, more or less permanently; you later recall them, as your memory communicates its contents. The memories refer back to an earlier time in the life of a person, possibly long ago. Consider a memory that stems from childhood, well before your mature self has formed: isn’t it just as if your childhood self were speaking to you across the years? Doesn’t the memory embed that earlier self in all its innocence and naivety? The memory is saying to you, “I had this experience”. Or rather, your previous self is saying that—sending you a message in a bottle from the past. It is you speaking, or a self that preceded your present self. The memory is a speech act from a previous person. The speech act is delivered by an actual agent—a previous self no less. Such memories have a peculiar charm and magic to them, precisely because they hail from a remote self. In that memory you can hear your old self remotely speaking to you. That self speaks to you through memory. Persons and memories are bound together, so a memory message is connected to a particular past person.

            When I say that memory operates like speech I don’t mean to restrict the means of communication to the standard devices of natural language. The language of memory could take many different forms: it needn’t consist of a pairing of sound and meaning (or a pairing of gesture and meaning in the case of sign language). It could employ sensory materials in the messages it sends—mental images of the past: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. No doubt many of our memories are clothed in such sensory materials. But that does not invalidate the communicative model or favor the perceptual model (these are not sensory images of memories, but of past events  [3]); it merely tells us that the medium of communication is sensory. Memory employs sensory elements to form the messages it transmits to consciousness—hence their characteristic phenomenology. Its speech acts incorporate pictorial constituents (if that is the right way to view mental images). It need not all be bloodless syntax in an arcane computational language, or insistent voices in the head. Memory can send us messages about the past in the form of visual pictures. The important point is that the means of transmission is like communication (not like perception): it is kind of telling, a letting know, a sharing of information. It is not like the imprinting of an object on a sense organ. Memories speak to us; they don’t present themselves for perceptual inspection. Remembering is like hearing someone talk. It is not like perceiving traces of the past inscribed on a mental parchment.  [4]

 

Colin McGinn   

  [1] This is sometimes called the “searchlight” theory—remembering by directing a light on the contents of memory. By contrast, the communicative model compares remembering to utterance: memories as reports of the past. 

  [2] Thus knowledge of the past emerges as a kind of testimony-based knowledge: we know about the past because we have heard testimony about it—because memory has spoken to us. We don’t know about it by (currently) perceiving it.

  [3] I am not ruling out a perceptual model of our psychological relationship to past events, just our relationship tomemories of such events. I don’t favor that model of memories of events, but it is compatible with the communicative model of remembering itself: we see past events by being told about them. Memory speaks to us and we thereby become perceptually acquainted with the past. This would be the analogue of perceiving a present object by being told about it—perception by means of testimony. This is a strange idea, no doubt, but not incompatible with viewing memory as speech.

  [4] The classic idea of a memory trace invites the perceptual model—we detect these traces by a process of internal scanning. The trace is like a visible footprint left by the past. But this model is not obligatory and it fails to capture the active and selective nature of memory. No doubt there are states of the brain that correspond to memories, but it is a further step to identify the two. And the existence of such brain states is quite compatible with the idea that remembering is essentially a communicative process (there are obviously correlated brain states in individuals that communicate). The important point is that remembering is a kind of listening: thus the aptness of Nabokov’s title. In remembering your mind speaks to you of the past.  

                                               

 

 

Agnosticism and Skepticism

 

 

Consider a tribe of natural-born agnostics concerning the existence of the external world. This tribe regards it as plain common sense that they do not know whether there are any external objects. They have no inclination to believe in external objects, but neither do they disbelieve in them—they are comfortably neutral on the question. (We may also suppose them to be agnostic on other matters too: other minds, the future, the past, whether there are any gods). They agree that it is possible that external objects exist, but they have no positive tendency to believe in them. At the same time they are not agnostic about the existence of their own minds: they are firmly convinced that they have minds and they take themselves to know many truths about their minds. They are not dogmatic agnostics! We can suppose that the tribe takes up a whole planet populated by (say) 6 billion people; there are no other tribes on the planet that accept the existence of an external world. Agnosticism is simply taken for granted, not disputed, universally shared. If you ask them about their state of knowledge, they will tell you that they are certain that agnosticism is the right position; nothing else is rational. They will point out that they are not agnostic about their own mental states, because these are directly given to them, and then note that no such direct knowledge is possible for the material world (if there is such a thing). Confronted with our habitual beliefs about the external world, they would declare us credulous epistemic dupes. These folks are cautious to the marrow.

            What do the philosophers of this tribe do with their time? They are certainly not skeptics like our skeptics: there are no positive beliefs held by their compatriots about the external world that they can deem unwarranted. They are not skeptical about widely held beliefs of this type, since there are no such beliefs to be skeptical about. No one believes in an external world, so there is no need to urge epistemic caution with respect to such beliefs. There is no point in philosophy classes that set out to disabuse the young of the dogma of the external world, because no one accepts that dogma—it would be like taking coals to Newcastle. So are the epistemologists out of business on the agnostic planet? Is there nothing they can disagree with? Is there no demand for their services? Like philosophers everywhere, they take it as their duty to question widely held beliefs, but the beliefs that exist on their planet are not like the beliefs that exist on our planet. Still, some beliefs exist there—so there is something to question. What might they fasten on?

I envisage two lines of questioning that might occur to them: first, questioning people’s confidence in their judgments about their own minds; second, questioning people’s confidence that agnosticism about the external world is the only reasonable position. There might be professional epistemologists on this planet whose reputations are built around these two lines of questioning. The universal agnostics will wonder why people subscribe to such a sharp contrast between the mind and the external world, pointing to cases in which (they claim) people make mistakes about their own minds. Thus we have skeptics with respect to knowledge of the internal world—they are skeptical of the generally held belief that knowledge is possible here. Then we have those philosophers skeptical of agnosticism about the external world: they question the belief that the external world cannot be known. In the culture of the tribe this kind of philosopher is deemed the more radical: for in that culture agnosticism about the external world is so deeply entrenched that any attempt to question it is immediately suspect. At least the first kind of philosopher doesn’t attack the very roots of their belief system; she merely suggests extending their general agnosticism all the way down. That seems to them epistemologically commendable: it is good not to overreach in matters of knowledge attribution, and it is salutary to be reminded that even in the securest of domains there is always room for doubt. These skeptics have their heart in the right place, merely preaching a general caution that is taken as gospel elsewhere. Their motto is: It’s always better to be cautious than wrong.

            But those who suggest that agnosticism about the external world is a false doctrine are another kettle of fish: for they are claiming to have knowledge that it is manifestly impossible to have. Everyone agrees (save the odd madman) that no one can know that external objects exist–no matter how much it may seem that they do (and things don’t really seem that way to deep-dyed agnostics); and yet these so-called “philosophers” keep insisting that they can and do know that. This strikes ordinary hardworking people as a laughable conceit, wildly counterintuitive on its face, and vaguely unethical to boot. It therefore provides good material for radical professors giving university classes to susceptible young minds. Government officials regularly complain that professors are trying to convince the young that they can know that they have a body. Outrageous! Any fool can see that such knowledge is impossible; to suggest otherwise is to undermine the very fabric of civilization—built as it is on the incontrovertible principle that it is wrong to believe that which cannot be proven. To claim knowledge of an external world is to fly in the face of centuries of hallowed tradition, as well as conflicting with the innate Light of Reason. But those wayward philosophers stubbornly maintain that they have arguments for their subversive views, paradoxical as their arguments may sound. Some claim that external objects are really constructions from sense data, and we can know of their existence. Others hold that inference to the best explanation justifies belief in an external world. Yet others maintain that they know intuitively that external objects exist, or that God has disclosed this fact to a select few. Interestingly, no one is ever persuaded by these arguments, except in a feebly academic sense. They may accept the existence of an external world while closeted in the study, but when they return to ordinary life they slip back into their habitual agnosticism (and in truth the philosophical arguments are just not very good). It is just so much more natural to believe that human knowledge is limited, and that nothing can be inferred from the existence of an inner world about the existence of an outer world. The philosophical arguments may be ingenious and fun to think about, but they do nothing to dislodge the deep-seated agnosticism of our tribe. Their natural caution is not so easily shattered.

            The lesson is that philosophical skepticism exists against a cultural (or biological) background of generally held assumptions—it is skepticism with respect to a particular body of entrenched beliefs. In our case the body of beliefs entails that there is an external world and that it has a certain character—we take ourselves to know things about this world. The skeptic questions our general confidence in these beliefs. In the case of the agnostic tribe the body of beliefs entails that nothing can be known about an external world—and that this fact can itself be known. The skeptic then questions this assumption, holding that the external world can be known to exist. This is equally a form of skepticism, since it questions a widely held belief—it is skeptical with respect to that belief. There is no such thing as skepticism tout court—as if the only conceivable kind of skepticism questions the belief that certain things can be known. Some skepticism questions the belief that certain things can’t be known. It all depends on the culture in which the skeptic operates. If a culture believes that the existence of the gods can be known, but not the existence of the self, then skepticism will take a very different form in that culture. The skeptic here would claim that the existence of the gods cannot be known, but the existence of the self can be. Someone who denies that the existence of external objects can be known is not ipso facto a skeptic—since no one may contest that claim. The skeptical philosophers on the agnostic planet defend knowledge of the existence of the external world, but they are nevertheless skeptics—relative to that culture. The naturally agnostic people are not skeptics, because they challenge no generally accepted beliefs. It never even occurs to them to believe in external objects, so their agnosticism is not a rejection of anything believed. Agnosticism is not in itself a form of skepticism—it merely asserts that certain things can’t be known.  [1] To be a skeptic you have to challenge something that is generally believed, but what is believed can vary from case to case. Skepticism is culturally relative: to be skeptical is to be skeptical with respect to the beliefs of a culture. Skepticism is essentially an attack on entrenched beliefs, not a set of beliefs in its own right. This is why epistemic caution can be an object of skepticism, as well as epistemic recklessness.

 

  [1] If you say that we can’t know about galaxies beyond the reach of light or exactly how many dinosaurs there were, you are not a skeptic—since no one disagrees with you. A skeptic needs an opponent, preferably a large group of them.

 

 

 

One Substance

 

 

Spinoza’s view that there is just one substance is immensely attractive, but can we give any argument for it? How do we rule out many-substance views? We are accustomed to considering dual substance views such as Descartes’ dualism of mind and matter, but these don’t exhaust the field. We can formulate a fourfold substance metaphysics: Kantian things-in-themselves which are not spatial, perceptible matter which is spatial, finite minds such as our own, and the infinite mind of God. Arguments can be given to show that these are four fundamentally different kinds of substance; and of course we could reduce the number to three by omitting God or noumena. In principle there is no limit to the number of distinct substances there could be (we could add abstract substance if we so desired); we are not restricted to monism and dualism. We could stipulate a world in which there is a plurality of (types of) substance even if ours is not such a world. The question is what could count against the idea of a world of many substances.

            What would count in favor of it is causal isolation. If two substances could not causally interact, that would indicate that they have fundamentally different natures, so different that any causal commerce between them is ruled out. This is the case for the abstract and the concrete: here causal interaction seems out of the question (the abstract entities aren’t even in space and don’t change). If our minds cannot interact with the mind of God in such a way as to change it, then that is a reason to suppose that the substance of God is not like our substance. Similarly, if mind and body cannot interact that would suggest that these are distinct substances: they don’t interact because they are not of such a nature that they could interact. Causal isolation is evidence of a diversity of fundamental nature. All physical things can in principle interact with each other, so they belong to a single category of substance; but if some could not, that would be a reason to suspect diversity of substance. If we came across a world that exhibited marked causal isolation between mind and body, or between our minds and God’s mind, that would indicate that we are in the presence of distinct substances.

            The standard objection to Descartes’ dualism is that such different substances could not possibly interact. How could a substance whose essence is extension cause changes in a substance lacking extension? And how could extensionless thoughts bring about changes in extended bodies?  [1] Yet mind and body do interact, so there can’t be a duality of substances. This suggests a criterion of identity for substances: substances are the same if and only if they can causally interact. If they can’t interact they are not the same, and if they can they are. Now the question is how causality actually operates in our world—does it connect everything with everything? It doesn’t connect the abstract to the concrete, so here we have deep ontological diversity; but it does connect mind and body (and it might connect noumena and phenomena or finite and infinite spirits). So we can argue as follows: since mind and body causally interact they must be of such a nature that they can so interact, but that requires a commonality of nature at a deep level. It can’t be that the whole nature of matter is extension (or gravity or electricity) while the whole nature of mind is lack of extension (or lack of gravity or electricity); there has to be some common ground at some level.  [2] Thus these attributes must be aspects of an underlying substance that unifies what we call mind and matter—essentially Spinoza’s position. If we reject causal interaction between mind and body, we can insist on a duality of substance (as with Leibniz’s pre-established harmony); but if we allow it, then we face the question of what makes it possible. If causation runs right through the world in a single giant web of causal connection, then the world must be fundamentally unified, i.e. there is just one substance. And it does appear so to run.

            This doesn’t mean that we can conceive the world as unified, except in a very abstract sense; our concepts and perceptual perspective may block us from appreciating its unified nature. But we can appreciate that causation runs through everything with no causal blocks (not counting the abstract), so we have a basis for supposing substance monism. If a subjective percept is caused by an objective stimulus, then cause and effect must share an underlying nature—the two must belong to the same “world” (similarly for noumena and phenomena, or our minds and God’s mind). Hume called causation the cement of the universe; well, it is a universal cement—a thread that sews everything together (to change the metaphor).  Things cannot differ that much if they are in regular causal connection with each other—if interaction is natural to them. For causation must work intelligibly not magically (that’s why we balk at action at a distance): causes cannot bring about effects in things that share no properties with them. If A and B are radically different kinds of thing, they cannot causally communicate—which is why Descartes’ dualism has so much trouble with causal interaction. He has defined matter and mind in such a way that they cannot interact, since their entire essences are antithetical to each other. It would be different if, in addition to extension and thought, he had credited matter and mind with further properties that bring them together; then he could maintain that the interaction works by means of these further properties, whether known or unknown. The problem is that he has defined the two in such a way that their whole nature is distinct. Where Spinoza sees two modes of a single underlying world substance, Descartes sees an irreducible duality of substances: but then he has no account of causal interaction. He is trying to have it both ways. But granted causal interaction, a unity of substance is the indicated conclusion. Causation dissolves ontological distinction. A causally connected world is an ontologically unified world.

 

  [1] Note that there is not supposed to be a problem about causation within each domain; in particular, it is not supposed that the immaterial mind is incapable of causal relations involving itself alone (thoughts causing other thoughts). The problem concerns causal relations across substance boundaries, in which cause and effect are of vastly different types.

  [2] The cause must have an active power capable of bringing about the effect it does, and the effect must have a passive power which makes it capable of being brought about by that type of cause; both powers must have a basis in the categorical properties of cause and effect. We can’t just jam any two kinds of thing together and call them cause and effect: they have to suit each other in order to be joined as cause and effect.

                                   

 

 

Existence and Action

 

 

The word “action” has both a narrow and a wide interpretation: in the narrow sense it means human (or animal) intentional action (OED “the process of doing something to achieve an aim”); in the wide sense it includes actions of inanimate objects (OED “the effect or influence of something such as a chemical”). Most simply an action is a “thing done”, where the agent can be a psychological creature or a physical object. In this latter sense we find such phrases as, “action at a distance”, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, “the action of acid on a substance”, “the principle of least action”, “chemical action and reaction”, “action potentials”, and so on. Clearly the concept of action can be applied quite broadly and without solecism.

            A comprehensive metaphysics should find a place for this broad notion. Not only are there physical objects, physical properties, and physical events (as well as psychological); there are also physical actions. Physical objects do things, as well as being a certain way. Matter acts as well as is. One can envisage a metaphysics in which action, both physical and mental, is given pride of place—not merely events but actions proper. We already have “process metaphysics” (contrast “substance metaphysics”) and there are some who would jettison the ontology of objects for one of events; well, we could have “action metaphysics”, or at least a metaphysics that includes actions as a fundamental general category. For some reason philosophers have tended to view matter as passive, in contrast to mind, but a more active view of it is certainly possible. This metaphysics would explore the nature of physical action, relate it to intentional action, and ask which interactions (nota bene) involve action. For example, it might be wondered whether all action is action on something and thus relational, or whether the concept of energy is integral to the concept of action, or whether causation is a type of action in the broad sense. Are there basic physical actions, how are physical actions individuated, is acting-on a transitive relation? One can imagine a whole philosophical industry devoted to “action metaphysics”.

            Delicious as that subject may be, I am concerned here with a more specific question. Be warned that it is, or will seem to be, a very odd question, possibly even a meaningless question. It is this: Is existence an action? Is existence a thing done? Is “exists” a verb of action? When something exists, is that an action performed by the thing? To be sure, it is not an intentional action, but is it an action in the broad sense just adumbrated? And the answer I propose to give (deep breath!) is that existence is an action: not simply that existing things act, let it be noted, but their existence is itself a type of action. We may speak of “the act of existence” and not merely of “the fact of existence”.  [1] Existence is not just an attribute; it is an active attribute. Why might anyone think such a thing?

The first point to note is that “exists” is a verb not a noun or adjective: thus it connotes activity—like “swims”, “lives”, “breathes”, etc. It is not like “red” or “male” or “tall”, which do not connote activity but simply property-hood. The second point to note is the etymology of the word “exists”: it comes from a Latin word meaning, “stand forth, come forth, arise”. These are action verbs, suggesting the onset of bodily presence or salience—as when an object looms up out of the fog boldly advertising its existence. Thus there is linguistic evidence for the active nature of existence, though such evidence is obviously far from conclusive. How might we bolster it?

First consider non-existence. Non-existence is no kind of action. It is not a thing done. It is an omission, a thing not done. Non-existence is like non-swimming: an absence of action. It takes no effort not to exist, nothing positive or creative. A non-existent thing does not need to do anything in order not to exist. Contrast the creation of an existent thing: that requires action, production. When a thing comes to exist an action is performed—something is brought actively into being. This is obviously true for human (and divine) artifacts, but it is also true of objects created by “acts of nature”—such as planets, volcanoes, animals, and selves. The act of creation is the act of converting non-existence into existence. The big bang was an act that created the entire physical universe. Who or what performed this act? According to some, it was an intentional agent; but we can also credit acts to nature itself—natural acts. Objects act, but nature also acts, through its objects. We may as well say that the universe acts when actions are performed within its precincts, though it does so via its several parts—just as we say that a human being acts, though only in virtue of certain of his or her parts. In any case, creation is active: but what about preservation? Once a thing comes to exist does its activity cease? Does it continue to exist without any further activity? No: it must constantly ward off the forces of destruction. This is obvious for organisms–hence the “survival of the fittest”, i.e. the continued existence of the organisms best capable of resisting destruction. But it is also true for inanimate objects; they too are subject to all sorts of destructive forces—weather, corrosion, collision, fire, decay, and entropy. Nothing is forever. Existence is one long battle against antithetical forces. Maybe the whole physical universe will one day vanish in a puff of smoke (“the big puff”). Things only continue in existence because they have destruction-resistant properties such as rigidity, impenetrability, and cohesion. If they didn’t, they would perish in short order.

So we can say that objects act  (operate) in such a way as to lead to their continued existence: they play an active role in their preservation (mainly by reaction). They don’t disintegrate at the first breath of air. Existence is active destruction-resistance. If you imagine history greatly speeded up, this fact would be more evident: you would see all the forces acting on the object over time from inception to destruction, and its dogged resistance against the onslaught. Consider a tree branch that survives being made into a piece of furniture, as well as all manner of bangs and scrapes, finally succumbing to fire: the branch would appear to be engaged in a frantic struggle against inimical forces. If things had no resistance to destruction, they would be gone as soon as they arrived; they persist only because they have properties that keep them in existence. But all this talk is action talk: objects actively preserve themselves—their very existence depends upon it. Some objects intentionally preserve themselves, but all objects naturally preserve themselves—it isn’t just a happy accident that things persist. The act of existence is an act of self-defense: the object must react to what it interacts with in such a way that it emerges intact–if dented, bent, scorched, or bloodied. Existence is an act because extinction is a threat. Nature acts on an object and it acts back. Our concept of existence is thus the concept of a positive achievement. To exist is to withstand the effects of time—to prevail against the agents of annihilation. That is no mean achievement, and it deserves the name of action. Existence is a feat–hence an act.  [2]

            Here is a potential counterexample: numbers. Numbers exist, but where are the forces of destruction they have defeated? Numbers have no need to ward off destruction, so what acts do they perform to ensure their continued existence? They exist blissfully without effort (they are not an endangered species). But aren’t numbers the exception that proves the rule? For numbers are precisely things for which the concept of existence has been disputed: numbers don’t really exist—not like tables and chairs, animals and stars. They are not active at all and so cannot exist in the verb-like sense—there is no activity in them (but there is activity in every natural thing). Numbers are, we can say, but they do not exist—so it has often been thought. If we are to apply the word “exists” to them, it must be in a second-class or metaphorical sense. This feeling is explained by the present theory of existence: numbers don’t act; they simply are. They don’t act on each other or on the physical world; their “existence” is a foregone conclusion not a positive achievement (note that they are also not created by any act). Numbers are beyond action, so beyond existence in its primitive sense. Existence in the natural world takes place against a background of non-existence—the nothingness before, the threat of nothingness during, and the nothingness after–but numbers don’t emerge from, are threatened by, or collapse into non-existence. The “language game” of existence-talk doesn’t apply to them. So they confirm, rather than confute, the account of the concept of existence suggested here.  [3]

            It has often been remarked that existence is not like other properties—not just another property alongside shape, color, weight, etc. This is sometimes thought to favor the second-order (quantifier) theory of existence and disfavor the first-order (predicate) theory, but the action theory has another explanation: existence is an act not a state (characteristic, feature, attribute). Being red or square or a man is not an action (hence these properties are ascribed by adjectives or nouns), but existing is an action and hence is expressed by a verb. Existence involves the action of self-preservation, and that is very different from other properties. From a metaphysical point of view, existence is sui generis: it is an act (a thing done)—not a quality or trait. Existing is something an object does, while being red or square or a man is something that an object is. Existence is a very unusual property—indeed, a very unusual act.  [4]

 

  [1] I came across the phrase “act of existence” in Nabokov’s King, Queen, Knave (1928), p. 202, and it set me thinking. It struck me as both surprising and apt (very Nabokovian). I could also cite Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” which hints at the idea of existence as action: it seems to mean, “Should I carry on being or should I put an end to being?” The question gains power by representing existence as a kind of decision—a revocable act, a project that could be abandoned.

  [2] We can imagine a world in which objects are powerless against the prevailing destructive forces, perishing as soon as they arrive on the scene; they just don’t have a nature that permits them to persist—a mere gust of wind will consign them to oblivion. In such a world there would be little use for the concept of existence.

  [3] There is a lot to be said about existence in mathematics that I have not gone into (especially the use of the so-called existential quantifier); my point is just that it is not clear that the case of numbers refutes the action theory of existence because it is such a special case.

  [4] It should be noted that categories such as “property” and “act” are highly general and in danger of blurring distinctions. There is so much variety within these categories, accompanied by a compulsion to seize on paradigms. I call existence a “property” and an “act” and immediately risk misguided assimilations; what I am really doing is drawing attention to similarities. I have put the point ploddingly by saying simply that existence is an act; I could say more cautiously that it is act-like or act-ish.