Descriptions and Non-Existence

Semantics would be easier if there was no such thing as non-existence (if non-existence didn’t exist). Then we could simply assign an existing reference to any referential-looking term. We wouldn’t have the problem of empty terms: all meaning would be explicable by means of existing entities. We would have a fully denotational semantics, perhaps supplemented by Fregean sense. In particular, we could assign an existing reference to any definite description—we would have no problem of empty descriptions. This problem is what led Russell to propose his theory of descriptions, which reshapes the logical form of description-containing sentences (they are not singular terms at all). That theory would not be needed if non-existence were not a thing. Of course, some philosophers (e.g., Meinong) have denied that so-called empty descriptions are really empty: they propose a kind of shadowy existence (“being”) for things like the golden mountain or the king of France. These things exist in another realm, or in a different way, or to a lesser degree (hence they are said to “subsist”). Russell wasn’t happy with this kind of ontological largesse, so he was thrilled with his shining new theory; but its entire motivation depends on an ontological assumption, namely that some things don’t exist (or subsist either). That is, the attraction of the theory depends on an ontological position or presupposition; it makes semantics depend on ontology (metaphysics). If Meinong were right, we wouldn’t need Russell’s theory—we could just stick to the practice of assigning denotations to descriptions. We wouldn’t need an alternative revisionary anti-referential semantics: quantificational, conceptualist, formalist, fictionalist–whatever avoids an unpalatable Meinongian ontology. All this arises because of the problem of non-existence—a problem in metaphysics. It doesn’t arise by direct consideration of the sentences in question; it arises from elsewhere. It isn’t as if Russell took a long hard look at definite descriptions and saw that they conform to his paraphrase; he inferred that his theory must be true or else we land in ontological hot water (the fetid Meinongian swamp). He deduced semantics from ontology.

But what if he was wrong about the ontology? What if Meinong was right all along? I am not saying he is right; I am just saying that he might be. It is a substantive metaphysical question—and we don’t want our semantics to be hostages to the fortunes of our metaphysics. Suppose for a moment that Meinong is right: then Russell’s theory is unnecessary, a revision without a reason. For there is nothing intrinsic to descriptions that warrants its adoption. This is why no one proposed it before—it looks wrong. It has counterintuitive consequences. It is complicated and contrived. Students find it hard to understand. No one would talk like that. Only the desire to escape the clutches of Meinong could make it seem attractive. To a Meinongian, it seems like a desperate attempt to avoid the obvious truth. Think of it this way: in a possible world in which Meinong is right Russell’s semantics is unnecessary, pointless, and unattractive. If we are actually living in that world, it is bad philosophical linguistics. But surely, we don’t want to take that risk—we don’t want our semantics to hang by an ontological thread. Semantic theories shouldn’t be justified by ontological considerations alone. It would be different if Russell’s theory had other cogent justifications, but in fact its sole motivation derives from (questionable) ontological assumptions (and did Russell ever really refute Meinong?). It is therefore methodologically misguided. It needs to be established on quite different grounds. It’s like trying to justify a non-referential semantics of predicates by insisting that Platonic universals don’t exist; maybe they don’t, but you don’t want to adopt a revisionary semantics of predicates on that basis alone. This is a debatable metaphysical question, not a datum that can be wheeled in to rule out a perfectly natural semantic theory (viz., predicates denote universals). You may have an ontological beef with physical objects, but do you want to keep them out of semantics when they seem like the perfect tool for the job? And you might be wrong about the non-existence of physical objects, in which case you have ejected them falsely from your semantics.[1]Don’t mix up semantics and metaphysics! Don’t let your metaphysical views shape your linguistic views! In particular, you shouldn’t let logical form depend on ontology, which is exactly what Russell does (this is why his theory is so exciting). Grammatical form doesn’t depend on ontology, so why should logical form? The meaning of “the” should not be made to depend on whether the golden mountain exists.

Let me try to make the situation vivid by constructing a thought experiment of a familiar form. Suppose that in the actual world there are no Meinongian objects, and suppose that speakers know this. Russell proposes his theory and everyone is happy with it. Now consider a possible world in which there are Meinongian objects and everyone believes in them. Wouldn’t it be correct to say that Russell’s theory fits the actual world but not the stipulated possible world? We could even suppose that the speakers in both worlds have no opinion on the truth of Meinongian ontology and are precise physical duplicates with the same internal mental states. Then an externalist will want to say that definite descriptions have different meanings in the two worlds in virtue of the external ontological facts, despite the internal identity of the speakers. Logical form will accordingly be different in the two worlds. If we make semantics depend on ontology, this is the kind of result we get. But doesn’t it seem wrong to make logical form depend on such facts? The ontological difference shouldn’t generate a semantic difference in respect of logical form. Russell thinks the lack of existence forces a revisionary logical form, but in the Meinongian possible world there is no such pressure for discerning that kind of logical form. Better to deny that the facts of ontology can determine semantics to this degree. Individual meanings may not be (completely) in the head, but surely logical form is (grammatical form certainly is). Something is wrong with Russell’s methodology.

Suppose you are agnostic about Meinong’s ontology: should you then be agnostic about the semantics of descriptions? If you are an agnostic about God, should you be an agnostic about the meaning of “God”? No, you want a semantic theory that is neutral with respect to such ontological questions. It is true that Russell’s theory is neutral about the existence or otherwise of the objects that the description purports to describe, but it is not neutral in its motivation—it presupposes that Meinong is wrong. That puts the theory in a needlessly precarious position, since the presupposed metaphysics might be mistaken. One wants to be able to defend the theory on less vulnerable grounds, by appeal to the very nature of the description. But its revisionary character makes this difficult (as Strawson in effect pointed out): the description seems very much like a singular term.  We get a rough equivalence in Russell’s paraphrase, but not a precise synonymy. We can’t even apply the word “refers” or “denotes” to the description if Russell is right. So, the linguistic data don’t prima facie support the theory; its support comes from a presupposed anti-Meinongian ontology. And isn’t it true that the historical enthusiasm for the theory came from its anti-Meinongian credentials—its rejection of Meinongian extravagance? But that is a frail basis for a semantic theory—the wrong kind of basis. It’s rather like saying that proper names don’t name people because you don’t believe in selves (perhaps on Humean grounds), proposing instead that they are not singular terms at all. In a way Russell’s theory is not psychological enough (psycholinguistic enough); it relies too heavily on theses concerning things outside the mind. It needs to be more internalist (in a Chomskyan sense)—more about the brain or the cognitive-linguistic system. What empirical evidence is there that definite descriptions are really quantified conjunctions? Where is the cognitive science that demonstrates that linguistic proposal? From this point of view, the rightness or wrongness of Meinong’s ontology looks irrelevant.[2]

[1] What if the speakers of the language are explicit Meinongians, have been for centuries, have it in their genes? Are we to say that their language is Russellian? They will openly disagree with his theory, perhaps regarding it as preposterous, so how can it be the true theory of their definite descriptions? Russell’s ontology is not theirs, and neither is his semantics.

[2] The issue can be compared with possible worlds semantics: how can the existence or otherwise of possible worlds determine the viability of a semantic theory of natural language modal expressions? That is a metaphysical question extrinsic to the syntax and semantics of such expressions. What people think about possible worlds might be relevant, because it concerns psychology, but the actual existence of them seems beside the point. Certainly, it is hard to justify a semantic theory just by asserting or denying a particular ontology. Ontology and semantics are separate domains.

Dumbocracy

It’s official, we are now living in a dumbocracy (OED “government by the dumbest”). We used to live in a democracy, but (as Plato predicted) democracy has an inherent tendency to degenerate into dumbocratic rule. The causes are somewhat mysterious (political scientists are baffled) but it is marked by the rise of ignorance, stupidity, and aphasia. In our case we have decided to go outside the human species for our governing elite. We have a muskrat in charge of federal employment (a muskrat is defined by Wikipedia as “a medium-sized semiaquatic rodent”): the Elon (short for “elongated”) Muskrat is known for its predatory behavior towards vulnerable animals. Then we have the Hegseth baboon noted for its loud cries and general uncouthness. Also, the striped Gabbard bird that feeds on small insects and was once regarded as harmless, accompanied by a croaking and florid Krocodile over at Health. The obscure Homans Simpletons mainly sticks to chasing powerless newcomers around. And, of course, we have the apex scavenger, the greater orange-faced Grump—a kind of bequiffed holdover from the pre-Neanderthal era (previously thought to be extinct but apparently still with us). Some say he is morphologically similar to the definitely dead Adolf monkey, but most taxonomists now classify him along with mythical beasts that mesmerize idiots and fools. This specimen is now the head of our dumbocracy and is indeed ideally suited to the role: he can hardly construct a coherent sentence but he has a world-class sneer and a vicious temper. He is supported by a horde of semi-human sycophants and swamp-dwellers that are terrified of his grunts and lunges. Dumbocracy is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Anger

I read with interest Darwin’s discussion of anger in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (I am very familiar with that emotion, unfortunately). His discusses in detail the expression of anger in bodily posture, hand gestures, and the baring of the teeth. It made me think of Melville’s Billy Budd, a story of accusation and reaction (in case you haven’t read it, Billy is completely innocent of Claggart’s evil accusations). The climax is reached in this terse passage: “The next instant, quick as the flame from a discharged cannon at night, his right arm shot out, and Claggart dropped to the deck”. The blow kills Claggart—“A gasp or two, and he lay motionless”. Asked to explain his action (it is a capital offense), he replies: “I am sorry he is dead. I did not mean to kill him. Could I have used my tongue I would not have struck him. But he foully lied to my face and in presence of my captain, and I had to say something, and I could only say it with a blow, God help me!” Billy is duly executed for the crime, to no one’s satisfaction. Melville’s description is psychologically apt and could be added to Darwin’s list of physical symptoms of anger: Billy’s arm “shot out” as if automatically; his voice impediment prevented a verbal denial, so his motor system took over; its effect exceeded what Billy wished; it was quite predicable given the circumstances. This is what anger, justified anger, moral indignation, may lead to, especially in response to the malicious lie (it is surprising Claggart didn’t anticipate it). A primitive response of Billy’s nervous system triggered his lethal action as a kind of reflex—childlike, maybe simian. Anger obviously has deep roots in the animal mind and excites extreme expression. It is not easily managed. It is wise not to evoke it in others. Its surest cause is evil. Billy Budd’s young life is cut short by the laws of emotional expression in the human animal. Claggart got what he wanted, though he paid with his own life.[1]

[1] I discuss Billy Budd in more detail in my Ethics, Evil, and Fiction (1997), chapter 4, “The Evil Character”. Billy is a naïve young man, full of life and promise, a “bud” of sorts, soon to be nipped by an evil authority figure.

Am I a Naturalist?

There comes a point in every philosopher’s life when he or she asks himself or herself what kind of philosopher she or he (or possibly it) is. So, what kind of philosopher am I? Heretofore, I would have described myself as a rationalist realist mysterian evolutionist—quite a mouthful. But now I think my kind of philosophy can be described more simply: I am a naturalist, in roughly the nineteenth century sense of the word. I rush to add that I don’t mean this in the contemporary sense—one who seeks to naturalize. That is, I am not out to explain things in physical terms (whatever that means), or to offer reductive proposals. I am the opposite of that: I tend to accept things as they present themselves–I am a non-reductive naturalist, a non-dogmatic naturalist. Then what sort of naturalist is that? First and foremost, I reject, avoid, and eschew super-natural suppositions—the approach is not religiously influenced or inflected. God is not wheeled in to provide putative explanations. There is nothing outside of nature (the naturalist believes firmly in nature). Second, the naturalist in my sense practices the art and science of description: describing things as accurately and clearly as possible.[1] He looks hard at the world, and not through distorting lenses (tradition, myth). Moreover, he favors systematic description—the kind that finds similarities and parallels, often at some remove (the more surprising the better). Third, and connected, he is a dedicated taxonomist: he is enamored of classification, categories, species and genus. The zoologist is his model: the philosophical naturalist is a kind of metaphysical zoologist (the world is a type of zoo). He wants to know what is most general, what includes what, how the natural kinds line up with each other. Fourth, he believes in history—he thinks history shapes reality. He looks for antecedents and precursors, origins, causes. His first question is apt to be, “Where does it come from?” The OED indeed defines a naturalist as “an expert in or student of natural history”. He is interested in structure and analysis, to be sure, but he is also interested in ancestry—because natural structures have pasts. He is thus an ardent evolutionist: things don’t just exist; they evolve into existence. Given the philosopher’s interest in the mind, the naturalist philosopher wants to know how the mind came to be—by what stages, from what origins. The naturalist is also a self-naturalist: he thinks the knowing self is a thing of nature, not merely the things it contemplates. He holds that the knowing self is a product of evolution, like other products of evolution, and subject to the same basic laws. The knowing mind came to exist via an evolutionary process, slowly, falteringly, imperfectly. Accordingly, as Darwin sagely remarks, “it is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance”,[2] because we too are subject to the limiting rules of nature. Man does not stand above nature, or outside of it; he is an instance of nature. The naturalist philosopher is therefore prepared to accept mysteries of nature, areas of deep ignorance. He doesn’t judge nature solely by reference to his own perspective on it. Darwin was a naturalist of the biological world; the philosophical naturalist takes this view of the whole of reality. He is thus disposed to pluralism—he recognizes and respects variety. He may even study religion itself as a natural phenomenon—an aspect of human nature. All this, he may intone, is just part of life’s rich pageant—atoms, stars, plants, animals, minds, myths in minds, etc. The naturalist is always a type of scientist not a mystic or magician.

What is a naturalist not? We know he is not religious or ideological or political; he is not so motivated (quaphilosopher). Hume is a naturalist; Berkeley is not. Nor is he axiomatic and purely deductive (like Euclid). He doesn’t enunciate mathematical laws. Thus, Newton is not a naturalist in the current sense, but Darwin certainly is. Darwin ushered in a new type of science that shaped philosophy as much as Newton had earlier. Where once philosophers wanted to be Newtonian, now they wanted to be Darwinian. They had, as we are fond of saying, a new paradigm. They didn’t want to mimic physics and astronomy by going mathematical (i.e., Euclidian); they wanted to go biological (i.e., Darwinian). We had Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica, modeled on Newton, but the “naturalist turn” took its inspiration from Darwin’s Origin and Descent. The naturalist will sometimes use mathematical methods, but he does not construe the world asmathematical: not abstract mechanics but concrete living tissue—behavior not mere motion. So, the naturalist is not beholden to the mathematical (including mathematical logic); he is more interested in the mutable and evolving. Nor is language the key: you don’t study zoology by studying zoological words. No zoologist takes a linguistic turn—though he may take a genetic turn. Similarly, the kind of philosophy I am describing keeps its eye firmly on the non-linguistic world (except when studying language itself). Chomsky took a biological naturalist turn in linguistics—language as an innate attribute of the human organism, an “organ”, not a conventional, culturally dependent set of social constructions. True, language has a formal structure, but so do organisms (see D’Arcy Thompson). And Chomsky is much concerned with evolutionary origins. Wittgenstein, by contrast, is not Darwinian: the Tractatus is Newtonian-Russellian, and the Investigations is social-cultural. The former is abstractly mathematical; the latter is unsystematic and non-evolutionary. I see nothing distinctively Darwinian in Wittgenstein, early or late (did he read any Darwin?). Same for Quine: it’s mostly logicism amplified and dogmatic (“religious”) physicalism. Ditto Davidson. Also, Kripke—modal mathematical logic not mutational logic. Austin, for his part, is preoccupied with acts of human speech, conventionally governed; he is not concerned with the human being qua animal. Frege’s gaze is fixed on mathematical structures not anatomical structures; you would never think that human beings had evolved from studying his work. I would also insist that Darwin is not scientistic in his naturalism—he doesn’t jump to premature theory based on other types of science. He isn’t like a chemist. This is very clear in Expression: in this book he is content to stick to examples and rough generalizations—for the topic permits no more. He is no proto-behaviorist or neuro-psychologist. He is content to describe and freely speculate, not force his material into some preordained scientistic format. It is a matter of an attitude of mind: the naturalist philosopher approaches his subject like a field biologist (though stuck at home in his study)—he wants to describe, classify, find similarities, postulate histories, resolve conundrums. I think this is a distinctive conception of the philosophical mind-set, standing in contrast to other conceptions, though certainly capacious. It is a specific way of being a philosopher—a conceptual botanist, if you will.

Let me illustrate the general conception by reference to consciousness. The naturalist philosopher notices the existence of this natural phenomenon (he doesn’t read about it in some ancient hallowed text). He wonders what kind of thing it is: what is it similar to? It seems dissimilar to other things—bodies, brains, etc. He sets out to describe it, invoking the concepts of intentionality, subjectivity, selfhood, and so on. He wonders where it came from, how it evolved, what its function is. He finds himself puzzled: consciousness seems real enough, no sort of illusion, but it also seems anomalous; it presents itself as a theoretical problem (cf. the platypus). Is it a bird, is it a plane—no, it’s Super-stuff! But what exactly is it about consciousness that produces the problem? Even that is hard to specify. Is intentionality the root of the problem? But that doesn’t seem so hard to explain (biological function is quasi-intentional, isn’t it?). Is it subjectivity? But what exactly is that? Is it the fact that consciousness can’t be understood except by instantiating it (bats and all that)? But is this really what immediately makes us think that there is something special going on here? Wouldn’t consciousness be a felt problem even if grasp of the concept were not thus dependent on instantiating it? What if we could grasp what it’s like to be a bat—would that remove the problem of consciousness?[3] It seems inexplicably inexplicable—we have a problem with the problem, Houston. We don’t seem to be able to say what it is about consciousness that makes it so problematic—yet we are convinced (rightly) that it is. This itself is an interesting fact of nature: our intuitive grasp of the nature of consciousness tells us it is hard to understand, yet we can’t identify what it is about that grasp that produces this impression. We have a kind of blind-spot—or rather blindsight-spot, given that we evidently perceive something that leaves no perceptible trace on our conscious understanding. Our consciousness of consciousness tells us it is problematic, but it doesn’t tell us in virtue of what it is problematic. This is a curious fact of nature—a fact about consciousness of consciousness. To repeat: we can’t locate precisely what it is about consciousness that makes it problematic, though we are convinced that it is. Is there anything else in nature like this (always the naturalist’s question)? Apparently not: we generally know what generates our ignorance when we know we are ignorant—but not in this case. We don’t know whywe don’t know, but we do know we don’t know. We don’t know the source of our ignorance. So, we are ignorant of consciousness and ignorant of why we are thus ignorant. We are also ignorant of the origin of life on Earth, but we have some idea of why this is (it was a long time ago and we weren’t around back then). But in the case of the origin of consciousness, we don’t really know what is standing in the way of our understanding—it just feels like a mystery. It no doubt is a mystery, but that fact is itself mysterious—nothing we can detect in consciousness can be pointed to as generating the mystery. This is a puzzle of nature—not evidence of divinity or some such. The naturalist isn’t fazed by this (though irritated by it) because he knows we are evolved beings, an animal species recently minted, and we can’t be expected to be omniscient. Plenty of things are deeply puzzling to us about life on Earth. And, to repeat Darwin, “it is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance”. The naturalist takes this in stride, frustrating as it may be. He can at least go on to make many interesting observations about consciousness—its taxonomy, its neural correlates, its causal powers, its laws, etc. He can continue being a naturalist about consciosness while admitting the natural limits to his naturalist ambitions.[4]

[1] He is therefore intently concerned with language, making heavy use of the dictionary. He is wary of technical terms promiscuously employed. He abhors lazy inept writing. He yearns for descriptive adequacy, or excellence. Clarity is much prized. Analysis is most welcome.

[2] The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals (1890), p.69.

[3] I am moving quickly through these points, which demand extended discussion; my aim is just to provide an illustration of the naturalist’s method and style. I am delineating a particular meta-philosophy.

[4] It might be wondered how the philosophical naturalist will handle more abstract non-biological subject-matters. In basically the same way: he may scrutinize such concepts as necessity, identity, entailment, and truth and offer accurate descriptions of them, classify them, articulate their relations, resolve puzzles about them. Similarly, he can investigate moral concepts and subject them to naturalist treatment—describing, organizing, classifying, analyzing, tracing through time, resolving puzzles, indicating problems. The same mind-set can be applied to many different subject-matters (the logical menagerie, the moral menagerie). Note that naturalism is not the same as empiricism and fundamentally opposed to it (human experience is not the measure of Nature).