garcia romero vivere viventibus.pdf

7/27/2019 GARCIA ROMERO VIVERE VIVENTIBUS.pdf

1/28

Vivere viventibus est esse?

The Relevance of Life for the Understanding of Existence

Marcela GARCA (Mnchen)

Traditionally, analytic ontology is almost exclusively concerned with the ques-tion what is there? and accepts only one sense of being, namely the one expressedby the existential quantifier, that is, existence as instantiation of general terms. Inthis way, analytic ontology excludes the possibility of further questions regardingexistence, e. g. what is it for an individual to be?, what does its existence consistin?,in virtue of what does it exist?. The aim of this paper is to show the relevance oflife for the conception of existence: when we take living beings into account, someweaknesses of a quantificational approach to existence become clearer. This maylead to a broadening of the ontological inquiry in order to move beyond the merelyquantificational sense of being and beyond the merely extensional question of whatthere is.1 My aim here is therefore not first and foremost an ontology of living beingsbut rather to explore the significance of living beings for ontological inquiry.

There has long been a certain uneasiness with the quantificational notion of ex-istence. Some of the authors that criticize its exclusive consideration find that thenotion of being or existence found in the history of philosophy is not exhaustedby the quantificational account. One example that is often given of a different no-tion of being is that of a well-known Aristotelian passage,for living beings to be isto live, propagated in medieval philosophy as the dictum vivere viventibus est esse.

I take an existential reading of the dictum (being in the sense of existing) as astarting point to consider the connection between living and existing. At firstglance, this connection between life and existence would seem to run into twoproblems: (a) what can it mean to say that, for some things, existing has the samereference as living? would we need to admit that being can have different senses?;(b) it would seem to turn being into a real predicate in case life were a real predi-cate.2 In order to clarify these difficulties, I discuss the positions of two contempor-ary philosophers, Peter van Inwagen and Michael Thompson, who, for differentreasons, address what it is to live, and its relevance to ontology.

1 An extensional question in contrast to intensional questions concerning what it means to exist.2 Under real predicate I mean Kants notation of a predicate that serves to further determine a concept,

that is, in Freges vocabulary one of the characteristic marks (Merkmale) of the concept that are at the sametime properties (Eigenschaften) of those things that fall under that concept.

Phil. Jahrbuch 119. Jahrgang / II (2012)


2/28

Michael Thompson suggests the possibility of finding forms of predication (andtheir corresponding forms of being) that represent a zooming-in from more ab-stract forms recognized by Frege. He thinks that life is to be understood as one ofthese specific forms or categories and not as a series of first-level properties. In thissense, life is a specific form of being, a peculiar way of an object falling under aconcept, rather than a real predicate.

I will argue that the consideration of living beings provides strong arguments fora richer notion of existence that cannot reduced to the mere instantiation of generalterms, but allows us to find more specific senses of being and to move beyond thequestion what is there? to the questions what is it for something to be?,3 and invirtue of what does it exist? Such a rich notion of being, which is at play in Aristo-telian tradition, allows for the consideration of different senses of being. I suggestthat these different senses not only correspond to different categories but that theyreveal a grounding structure which would be ignored if the different senses of beingwere to be expressed as first-level predicates. For the rich notation of being, thedistinction between what is fundamental and what is derivative cannot be sepa-rated from what it means to exist.

1. A Thin Notion of Being

One of the most important divisions between continental and analytic philo-sophy has to do with the nature of being4, writes Peter van Inwagen in the Intro-duction to his essays on Metaphysics. He goes on to characterize the way each ofthese philosophical traditions understands being: the analytic tradition would favora thin conception of being, while a thick conception of being would predominatein continental philosophy.5

Let us begin with a brief review of the development and characteristics of the thinnotion of being. Van Inwagen himself holds a thin notion of being (to say thatthere are Xs is to say that the number of Xs is 1 or more) 6 and he rejects the thickordensenotion of being on the grounds that it confuses the nature of things withtheir existence, and turns being into a real predicate in Kants sense.

1.1 Not A Real Predicate

Indeed, beginning with Frege, the analytic tradition develops and radicalizesKants thesis that being is not a real predicate that is, existence does not add

348 Schwerpunktthema: Beitrge zu einer Philosophie des Lebens

3 This is the Aristotelian formulation. We might paraphrase as what does a things existence consist in? orwhat does it mean for something to exist?4 Van Inwagen (2001), 4.5 Van Inwagen attributes the terms thin and thick conception of being to Prof. W. VerEecke, but theterms are reminiscent of Ryles distinction between thick and thin descriptions (Ryle (1971), 480ff.)made famous by Geertzs application of the concept to ethnography. I will come back to Ryles distinction

below.6 Van Inwagen (2004), 4.



3/28

any content that further determines the concept of a thing. For some analytic phi-losophers not only is existence not a real predicate but no predicate at all, that is, itcannot be said of an object as a first-level predicate.

Second-Level Existence

Frege considers existence as a higher-level concept, that is, as a concept underwhich no objects fall but in which other concepts fall.7 Existence is thus a predicatethat holds for concepts and not for objects. Frege thinks that existential judgmentssuch as there are humans mean that the concept is not empty, that is, at least oneobject falls under this concept (x is human, Fx). For Frege, other expressions likehumans exist or some existents are human are misleading because they give theimpression that exist or existent would have some sort of content. He considersthese expressions (exist, existent) redundant when they refer to objects.8 If LeoSachse exists is understood as referring to the objectLeo Sachse andaffirming hisexistence, then negating the existence of an object would be contradictory, becauseit would presuppose reference to an object while at the same time denying theexistence of the referent.Existence understood as a first-level predicate would bea mere tautology, since it cannot be negated. In contrast, a sentence with the formthere are Fs (where F is a concept) is not self-evident and can be negated mean-ingfully.9With the conception of existence as property of concepts, Frege avoids inhis view the tautology of singular existential judgments as well as the inconsistencyof negative existential judgments.

We see Frege following Kants conception that being is not a real predicate whenhe writes: as soon as the word exists is given a content that is said of an indivi-dual, this content can be made into the mark of a concept under which that indivi-dual falls of which existence is said10. In this way, it would be possible to take forinstance the concept centaur and understand existence as a mark of this concept:11

I would not accept anything as a centaur that didnt exist outside of my mind; Iwill not call mere representations or feelings in me a centaur 12. However, it wouldonly be redundant to consider existence as a mark of concepts that can neverthelessbe empty (such as centaur). Instead, existence is not a mark but a property of a

Vivere viventibus est esse? 349

7 Objects (the meaning of proper names) fall under concepts (the meaning of predicates). Concepts may inturn fall in concepts of a higher order. Cf. Frege (1983), 61. Quotes from this work are my translation.8 If Sachse exists is to mean the word Sachse is not an empty sound, but refers to something, then it iscorrect that the condition Sachse exists must be fulfilled. This is not a new premise, however, but the self-evident presupposition for all our words. The rules of logic presuppose always that the words in use are notempty, that propositions are expressions of judgments, that we are not playing with mere words. As long asSachse is a man is an actual judgment, the word Sachse must refer to something [] (Frege (1983), 67).9 If the sentence Leo Sachse is is self-evident, then there cannot be the same content in is as in thethere are from the sentence there are humans, because the latter does not say something self-evident(Frege (1983), 69).10 Frege (1983), 74. For an analysis of Freges Kantian inspiration, cf. Llano (2005), 60ff.11

For Frege, the marks of a concept are the properties of the things that fall under the concept.12 Frege (1983), 74.



4/28

concept, namely the denial of the number nought (Verneinung der Nullzahl) re-garding its instances.13

Quine and Quantification

Quine continues and in a way radicalizes the Fregean proposal to avoid exists asfirst-level predicate. He suggests that we examine the ontological commitments of aparticular theory. Those things that are the values of its variables, the referents of itspronouns, are what this theory considers existent within its framework. Certainly,when we deny the existence of something,non-existence is not a predicate of anything but rather tells us that none of the existents is of that kind. In the same way,when we affirm the existence of something what we say is that some at least one of the existents is of the kind in question.

Quine interprets the particular quantifier as an existential quantifier that ex-presses what can count as the value of a bound variable. An existential proposition(there are humans) thus means that there is something that falls under the concepthuman; that being human is instantiated: (9x) Fx. The quantifier used is theparticular quantifier, in other words, it expresses a particular judgment: some atleast one are human. In this operation one quantifies or particularizes over every-thing that there is: at least one of the existents. The domain of quantification iseverything: I mean exists to cover all there is, and such of course is the force ofthe quantifier.14 Existence is presupposed in the domain of quantification.

However, in contrast to Frege, Quine admits singular existential judgments. Fregethinks a judgment of the form Socrates exists is a tautology, and paraphrasing itinto there is Socrates makes no sense. By use of the quantifier, Quine is able toanalyze this singular existential judgment as something is Socrates. In this way,Quine also avoids applying exists to individual objects as a first-level predicate.Through his method, however, Quine radicalizes Russells suggestion of paraphras-ing singular terms as general predicates:15

The equation x=a is reparsed in effect as a predication x=a where =a is the verb, the Fof Fx. [] Socrates becomes a general term that is true of just one object, but general inbeing treated henceforward as grammatically admissible in predicative position and not inpositions suitable for variables. It comes to play the role of the F of Fa and ceases to playthat of the a.16


13 Cf. Frege, (1961), 64f.14 Quine (1969), 100.15 Quine develops Russells approach: a sentence can be meaningful without presupposing the existence ofits subject. Notwithstanding Freges developments, the treatment of non-existent objects had remained aproblem. Russell suggests a solution in that he analyzes proper names as disguised descriptions.The kingof France is bald is analyzed in a way that king of France isnt understood as name of an object but as apredicate. There is one thing (and only one) that is both king of France and bald. This sentence is false:there is no object that makes it true. So it becomes possible to use such apparent names without under-standing them as naming expressions that would presuppose the existence of their objects. That is, singu-lar terms must not name in order to be significant. Negative existential judgments must not be inconsis-

tent. Cf. Quine (1953), 9.16 Quine (1960), 179. Cf. also Quine (2008), 499; and Quine (1992), 28: Once our language is regimented



5/28

Quine maintains that even singular existential judgments can be treated as gen-eral ones by reparsing proper names as descriptions. Should this be impossible, thenone would simply take the property of being the bearer of this name (the propertyof being Pegasus or being the thing that is Pegasus) as substitute of the propername. This would however imply that it is possible to eliminate proper names infavor of quantifiers and predicates.

In other words, there is a dissolution of singular terms in Quines account. Straw-son criticizes the fact that Quine is not able to satisfactorily explain the substitutionof definite singular terms through variables of quantification, since such singularterms, for instance proper names, have, in contrast to variables, an identificatoryfunction.17 Quine accepts the consequence of losing this identificatory function:

[] the identificatory work of singular terms must be seen as separable from their referen-tial or ontological work. []. In Word and Objecta conspicuous effect of regimentation is that

a predication of the form Fa, with identificatory singular term in the a place, goes over intothe symmetrical form (9x)(Fx.Ax). A uniqueness clause regarding A may still be added, butthe identificatory work of singular terms has lapsed.18

Indeed, Quine turns Socrates into a general predicate, so that in the end hisindividual existential judgments follow the model of existence as instantiation ofgeneral properties: Something falls under the concept Socrates.

In this way, the existential import of the quantifier points to variables that remainultimately indefinite and the weight comes to rest on the general terms that tell uswhich Fs are instantiated. Quine can thus be said to further develop Freges andRussells approach insofar as existential judgments rather tell us of what kind

(Beschaffenheit) the presupposed indefinite existents are.With Freges understanding of existence as second-level predicate said of con-

cepts and Quines reparsing of individuals into general terms, the emphasis is on theF of the Fx: What kind of thing is the existent x? What concept is instantiated?

Which set has more than zero members? The focus is thus on the extensional aspectof ontology: on what there is. But the question what it means to exist, which alsobelongs to ontological inquiry, remains in the background.19


to fit the predicate calculus, moreover, it is easy and instructive to dispense with singular terms altogether,leaving variables as the only link to objects. The underlying principle here is the equivalence of 9x (Fx

and x=a) to Fa; for this enables us to maneuver every occurrence of a into the context a=, and then totreat that context as an indissoluble predicate A, absorbing the singular term. Singular terms can still berecovered afterward as a convenient shorthand, by introducing singular description in Russells way anddefining a as ix(Ax).17 Cf. Strawson (1969), 115. Quines suggestion of using the quantifier for individual existential judgmentsimplies turning the proper name into a description, which is itself problematic (cf. Kripke (1980)) andchanges the sense of the expression: we are not referring to the existence of Socrates himself, but to anyobjects which might fall under the description we have chosen for Socrates. Geach has argued as well thatQuine falls into a confusion of logical levels at this point, since the x in there is and in x is F plays adifferent logical role. The gap in there is used this way (in the sense of French il y a and German es gibt)can be filled only by a predicable expression, not by a proper name, Geach (1980), 162. Cf. on this pointalso Miller (1973), 202ff.18

Quine (1969b), 321.19 Cf. Tugendhat (1967), 485.



6/28

Something called the science of being would obviously be concerned with the intension,as opposed to the extension, of being. The science of being as such is concerned with thequestion of the meaning of there is and being (and related terms like exists). []. Thequestion of the meaning of being is of fundamental philosophical importance, whatever the

science or study that addresses it may be called.20

Quine strives to establish criteria for evidence of existence, but he does not thinkit possible to ask what exists might mean beyond the quantifier. 21

Regarding the meaning of existence itself our progress [in respect to Carnap, M. G.] is lessclear. Existence is what existential quantification expresses. There are things of kind F if andonly if (9x) Fx. []. We found an explication of singular existence a exists, as (9x) (x=a); butexplication in turn of the existential quantifier itself,there is, there are, explication of gen-eral existence, is a forlorn cause. Further understanding we may still seek even here, but notin the form of explication. We may still ask what counts as evidence for existential quantifi-cations.22

So, in summary, the thin notion of being can be characterized by the followingtraits. It represents only an extensionalstandpoint by answering the question whatis there?. When we consider that some things are F, G, H, we presuppose theirexistence: some [existent] things are F, G, H without asking the intensional ques-tion what it means for them to exist. Rather, we are saying something about thekind or quality (Beschaffenheit) of some existents. In this sense, the thin notion ofbeing focuses on the Fs, that is, on predicates or properties that are instantiated, noton what it means to exist for the individual things in themselves, that is, on howthey exist, what their existence consists in or in virtue of what they exist. Some

questions that belong to ontological inquiry cannot be addressed adequately ifbeing is limited to its thin notion. Furthermore, the thin notion of being considerswhether certain general terms (predicates, functions, properties) are instantiated.Thus, there are certain phenomena that the quantificational apparatus does notgrasp properly, e.g. singulars, as mentioned above, or mass terms.23

1.2 The Uneasiness Regarding the Thin Notion of Being

In fact, the analytic thin notion of being was developed precisely with the goal, atthe beginning of the twentieth century, of avoiding metaphysical notions that lack


20 Van Inwagen (2001), 3.21 We look to bound variables in connection with ontology not in order to know what there is, but inorder to know what a given remark or doctrine, ours or someone elses, says there is; and this much is quiteproperly a problem involving language. But what there is is another question (Quine (1953) 15f.). Or in afurther passage: To be is to be the value of a bound variable. More precisely, what one takes there to be arewhat one admits as values of ones bound variables. []. So, whatever more one may care to say aboutbeing or existence, what there are taken to be are assuredly just what are taken to qualify as values of x inquantifications (Quine (1992), 26f.).22 Quine (1969a), 97. Cf. also Quine (1992), 26f.; 36.23

For the problem of mass nouns or, better, non-count terms, cf. Laycock (2010): If we do not refer toany single individual or any identified individuals when we use water, to what, then, do we refer?



7/28

clear criteria of application (being,existence are paradigmatic ones), and this ledto a treatment of existence that allowed for rules of logical operation without anextended metaphysical discussion about what it is to be. Nonetheless, the questionwhat it means to exist has been discussed from time to time and in the last few yearshas regained the center stage of discussions. A certain malaisewith existence un-derstood exclusivelyas quantification;24 with the thin, univocal notion of being,has been voiced by several philosophers.25 Geach, for instance, denies that there isis the only sense of exists. He speaks of actuality (the Fregean Wirklichkeit) as afirst-level sense of existence said of individuals that act or undergo change.

It is a great misfortune that Russell has dogmatically reiterated that the there is sense ofthe substantive verb to be is the only one that logic can recognise as legitimate; for theother meaning present actuality is of enormous importance in philosophy, and only harmcan be done by a Procrustean treatment which either squeezes assertions of present actualityinto the there is form or lops them off as non-sensical.26

However, it hasnt been all that clear just what the uneasiness consists in. Whatexactly is the problem with the thin notion of being, what is missing in this ac-count? Quines approach does make singular existential judgments possible. How-ever, Quines solution has the effect of turning the individual to which a propername refers into a description, a collection of predicates that are instantiated.

Would the problem be solved just by allowing the use of existence as a first-levelpredicate alongside higher-level existence, in other words, by the acknowledgmentthat there is more than one meaning, use or sense of existence? 27 Or by acknowl-edging that the existence of the individual that in turn instantiates or falls under a

concept has been presupposed?28Still, the question is what it might mean to speak of different senses of being (justdifferent uses of the same word mere equivocity or something more profound?)and how these two senses would be related to each other.29 Since it seems clear thatthe quantifier is just the regimented form of there is, the question is whether thereis exhausts the meaning of existence.


24 Indeed, the contemporary landscape in meta-metaphysics may be described as featuring a centralQuinean majority, amid a scattering of Carnapian dissidents. Few other positions are even on the map(Schaffer (2009), 350).25 Cf. Geach (1994a), Llano (2005), McGinn (2000), Miller (2002), Tugendhat (1967).26 Anscombe/Geach (1961), 91f.27 Geach (1994b) and Miller (1975) argue in this direction.28 Cf. Tugendhat (1967).29 McGinn (2000) makes a simple proposal in this respect: second-level existence implies always a first-level one. Of course, even these demands are problematic inasmuch as simply allowing for a first-level useof exists alongside the higher-level one would question the univocity of existence and might bring otherproblems with it: Meinongianism and the problem of existence as real predicate. For instance,E! indeedseems to function as a real predicate. And in this way, this notion is still susceptible to Freges critique (that

even if we include is existent in the concept of a thing, the number of its instances can still be zero).Moreover, we would have a broader universe of things of which those things that E! are a subspecies.



8/28

2. Vivere viventibus est esse

Several philosophers who are unsatisfied with the thin notion of being refer tothe Aristotelian dictum that for living beings to be is to live ( to de zn tois zsi toeinai estin; vivere viventibus est esse)30 as an example of a way of understandingbeing or existence that has been disregarded by the analytic tradition.31 Geach, forinstance, argues that not all existential propositions have the same logical status.He argues that, although in some of these propositions exists is not used as agenuine predicate (e.g.: Cerberus does not exist; Dragons do not exist), thereare still some cases where it certainly is a genuine predicate of individuals: thesense of exist in which one says that an individual came to exist, still exists, nolonger exists, etc.32

It is worth noticing that as regards living beings to be has the same reference as to live,

vivere viventibus est esse. This may confirm us against sophistical attempts to show that theverb to be in this sense is not a genuine predicate of individuals. Poor Fred was alive and isdead: how could one argue that this is not a genuine predication about poor Fred? And whatdifference does it make if we say instead poor Fred was, and is not?33

For Tugendhat, it is the individualizing weight of the notion of existence thatwas ontologically interesting in traditional ontology.34 He speaks of the way theexistential quantifier presupposes the existence of objects. The sense of existencethat belongs to singular objects is the sense of existence that has always been re-levant to metaphysics and is the one involved in the consideration oflifeas authen-tic sense of being.35

In other words, these philosophers defend a sense of exists that is not capturedby the existential quantifier, and they see in the Aristotelian dictum an expressionof this sense of existence (the thick notion of being) that pertains to individuals.

I propose to look at the Aristotelian slogan and the reasons one could have foraffirming that life is a sense of being. That might help us to consider a notion ofexistence that takes the perspective of the individuals that exist into account (andnot just the Fs that are instantiated or not) and makes it possible to ask what anindividuals existence consists in. We can then explore whether a plausible thick


30 de An. II 4, 415b13.31 Cf. Berti (2005); Geach (1994a); Llano (2005), 247; Tugendhat (1967), 487; Spaemann (2010), 11.32 Geach (1994a), 58.33 Geach (1994a), 59.34 Cf. Tugendhat (1967), 487.35 Existenz in dem zweiten Sinn betrifft hingegen die solcher Anwendung zugrunde liegenden unbes-timmten Gegenstnde, auf die man pronominal hinweisen kann, z.B.dies ist,ich bin. []. Und faktischscheint von Quine dieser zweite Existenzbegriff implizit durchaus anerkannt zu werden, wenn er sagt: zusein heit so viel wie der Wert einer gebundenen Variable bzw. mglicher Bezugspunkt eines Pronomen zusein. Dieses Sein gilt von den einzelnen Gegenstnden. []. In diesem to be scheint nun aber derjenigeSinn von Existenz zu liegen, der in der Metaphysik seit jeher der eigentlich relevante war. Der Satz z.B.,

eigentliches Sein lasse sich nur als Leben denken, ist nur in diesem Sinn von Existenz zu verstehen.(Tugendhat (1967), 487).



9/28

account of being can be developed that avoids the pitfalls of treating being as a realpredicate. I then mean to ask how this thick notion of being is related to the thinone, that is, whether there is room for the Aristotelian notion of being alongsidethethin notion. Finally, I consider some advantages of such a rich notion of being.

2.1 The Aristotelian Dictum

In De Anima, Aristotle makes the claim that for living beings to be is to live.There is in the literature a fair amount of discussion of possible interpretations ofthis sentence which rotate around a predicative and an existential use of being.The predicative reading follows the thesis that, for Aristotle, to be is always to besomething or other:36

1) for living beings to be [a living being], is to live(i. e. a living being is onlya living being when it is alive)

The existential interpretation takes being here not first and foremost as beingsomething or otherbut as simplybeing, that is, existing:

2) for living beings, being [that is, existing] is living37

The second reading considers life parallel to existence: what existing consists infor living beings is living. The existential reading raises interesting questions aboutthe connection between existence and life and whether each of these terms canhave different senses. There has been some discussion on whether Aristotle himselfdistinguishes between these two uses of to be: the existential and the predicativeone.38 Some scholars maintain that he conflates both uses. If that were the case,then Aristotles different senses of being would indeed, as van Inwagen suggests,derive from a conflation between the existential and the predicative use of is.39


36 Owen (1965), 77, presents the argument that, for Aristotle, the existential use of is (the 1place or

complete expression) can always be expanded into different types of categorial predication (a 2placeexpression): to be is always to be either a substance of a certain sort, or a quality of a certain sort, or aquantity of a certain sort. For a discussion of Owens famous position, cf. Brown (1994) and Menn (2008*).According to Kahn (2009), 142, this is a characteristic feature of Greek ontology. He considers the ancientunderstanding of existence, securely anchored within predication, to have the advantage of a fixedsemantic frame of reference rather than being in danger of floating free without definite meaning likemodern quantificational existence. Cf. Stekeler-Weithofer (1986), 122; 131ff. for an interpretation ofAristotle that also underlines the requirement of clarifying the domain before questions of existence.37 A living being exists exactly then, when it is alive. Cf. Hbner (2007), 110; Schark (2005); Hennig(2007).38 For a classic study of existential judgments in Aristotle, cf. Mansion (1946).39 Berti (2002) argues that, while there is no confusion, the different senses apply to both the predicative

and the existential uses of being. He sees the reason for this in the fact that being cannot be a genus,according to Metaph. B 3.



10/28

However, as David Charles and Stephen Menn have argued recently, there is suffi-cient textual evidence that Aristotle does indeed distinguish an existential from apredicative use of being.40

I will assume the existential interpretation of the dictum as a starting point toconsider the relevance of life to discussions about existence. As Geach and othersunderline,being would have here the thick sense that belongs to individuals andnot the thin there is sense. According to this picture, we would have two ways ofunderstanding being: the thin one (expressed by the existential quantifier) and thethick one, which in turn allows for different senses of being, insofar as it allows fordifferent questions beyond the merely extensional what is there. In the particularcase of living beings, life and being are different ways of referring to the sameexistence in a thick sense. Nonetheless, the idea of life as sense of being runs intoserious difficulties. There are two obvious problems:

a) Being is broader than lifeAt first glance, it seems difficult to accept the claim that life is a sense of being:

being certainly has a broader extension than life. If to live were to substitute tobe in the case of living beings, we would have a notion of being that seems toneedlessly oversaturate the determination of what it means to be.

And if we accepted life as a sense of being, then we would at least end up withseveral senses of being. Of course, the thin notion of being is clearly univocal. AsFrege puts it: the difference in the judgments there are humans and there aresquare roots of 4 does not lie in the there is but in the difference of the conceptshuman and square root of 441. This is correct: if existence only means that theextension of a concept is not empty (denial of the number nought regarding itsinstances)42, it can only be univocal. For this reason, the proponents of the thinnotion of being have rejected the possibility of other notions of existence or beingalongside the quantificational one, including existence as said of the individual.The question, then, is whether an existentialuse of being that is not merely univocalis possible. Can exists have different senses?

While existence implies the instantiation of general terms, it must not be reducedto this phenomenon. The reason for this is that individuals cannot be reduced tobundles of properties; therefore the existence of individuals cannot solely consist inthe instantiation of general terms. In other words, the quantificational account ofexistence does not necessarily exhaust what we can saymeaningfully about exis-tence.43 For instance, the intensional question (what does it mean for something to


40 Cf. for instance Aristotle, APo. II 1, 89b3335: we seek some things in another fashion e.g. if acentaur or a god is or is not (I mean if one is or not simpliciter and not if one is white or not). And knowingthat it is, we seek what it is (e.g. so what is a god? or what is a man?); cf. also APo. II 2, 90b12ff. where hedistinguishes between celestial bodies being without qualification (hapls) and being something. Cf.Charles (2002), 112 and Menn (2008*).41 Frege (1983), 64.42 Cf. Frege (1961), 64f.43

In this sense, I agree with Geach when he writes that the sense of existence expressed in there is doesnot exhaust what we can say about existence or being (cf. footnote 26).There is does not exhaust exists. I



11/28

exist) requires us to consider the things existence beyond the mere ascertainingthat some F is instantiated.

Those who maintain the strict univocity of existence consider the assumptionthat there are different senses a confusion of the existential with the predicativeuse of is. Thus, Peter van Inwagen argues that any difference between, say, whatit is for a table to exist and what it is for an animal to exist is not due to a differentsense of existence, but to their different natures.44 They exist in the same sensebecause existence is nothing but the denial of the number nought and, therefore,univocal.

[] the thick conception of being is founded on the mistake of transferring what belongsproperly to the nature of a chair or of a human being or of a universal or of God to thebeing of a chair. To endorse the thick conception of being is, in fact, to make (perhaps forother reasons; perhaps in a more sophisticated way) the very mistake of which Kant accusedDescartes: the mistake of treating being as a real predicate.45

Otherwise, we would have to maintain a different sense of exists for each kind,which would be absurd and would indeed amount to a conflation between existenceand predication. Is it possible to understand thick existence in a way that does notimply this confusion?

b) Being is not a real predicateIf being existence is not a real predicate, that is, if it does not add any

predicative content to the concept of a thing, then the question whethersomethingexists is independent of the question what it is. At first glance, it would seem that

life refers to what something is, but not to its existence as such. The question iswhether the Aristotelian position commits us to treat existence as a real predicatein case life is a real predicate, a characteristic mark of a concept under which livingbeings fall. I agree that existence cannot be considered a real predicate. I shallargue that life must not be understood as a real predicate either, that it answersthe question how something exists or in virtue of what it exists, rather than justwhat it is.

What kind of intensional aspects would turn existence into a real predicate? Inwhat follows, I will consider whether life can be understood as a sense of being in away that does not imply mere equivocity and does not confuse existence with pre-

dication. In other words, what is it about living that might count as a sense ofexisting and not just as part of the nature, the what something is, independentof whether it exists or how?


accept for the purposes of this essay that being is the same as existence, that is, I do not agree with thebroadly Meinongian stance of understanding existence as a subspecies of being. But I dont think thatbeing orexistence onlymean there is. Besides, the notion of thin, univocal existence is mainly derivedfrom the negation of existence and related paradoxes. As Miller (1975) argues, there is no reason to assumethat existence and the denial of existence should be understood in a perfectly parallel way.44 The vast difference between me and a table does not consist in our having vastly different sorts ofbeing (Dasein, dass sein,that it is); it consists rather in our having vastly different sorts of natures (Wesen,

was sein,what it is). van Inwagen (1998), 235.45 Van Inwagen (2001), 4f.



12/28

2.2 Unity

Many things can be the value of a bound variable in a colloquial sense, but notstrictly, not independently of any observer. We might ask whether there is a more

radical sense of individuality that does not rely on some subjects parceling ofreality. Possible candidates for this kind of individual existence are living beings.Indeed, living beings seem to possess unity and individuation in their own right, ina way that is different from any inert artifact or natural object. Living beings ac-tively maintain their unity, which requires that they distinguish themselves fromthe environment and interact with it.

Let us now turn to an influential metaphysical conception that relies on the thinnotion of being and underlines the relevance of life, as peculiar form of unity andself-identity, to questions regarding existence. In his book Material beings, vanInwagen famously discusses the special composition question: in what circum-

stances is a thing a proper part of something46, or more exactly when is it true that9y the x

scompose y?47 The views he develops in this work have certain conse-

quences that suggest an intimate connection between life and existence. The mostprominent consequence is that there are no tables or chairs or any other visibleobjects except living organisms48. Van Inwagen reaches this conclusion because,as he says, he takes the unity and persistence of material objects seriously. 49 I willbriefly consider the connection between existence and unity at play in this work.

In this book, van Inwagen applies Quines criterion strictly and consistently: if tobe is to be something (a something), then among material beings only indivisibleparticles [simples] and living beings exist, because only these are a something.

Indivisible simples and true composites (living beings) have intrinsic unity andidentity.50 For van Inwagen, there is something (such that F) is to be understoodin a strong sense as there is onething or there is a singlething (such that F). In thissense, existence implies unity.What is there? means what is one?.

Indeed, van Inwagens proposed answer to the special composition question,when is something composite?, is that only living beings are. All other examplesof visible objects are not one according to him, but many. The full form of theproposed answer is:

(9y the xs

compose y) iffthe activity of the x

sconstitutes a life (or there is only one of the x

s)51

An organism has an intrinsic nature that determines how it is to change itsparts with the passage of time52, in contrast to mere external forces in the case of


46 Van Inwagen (1990), 20.47 Van Inwagen (1990), 30.48 Van Inwagen (1990), 1.49 Cf. van Inwagen (1990), 18.50 Cf. van Inwagen (1990), 98.51

Van Inwagen (1990), 82.52 Van Inwagen (1990), 98.



13/28

tables or rocks. In this sense, even simples can be assimilated to organisms, sincetheir intrinsic nature is that they have no parts.

Thus, van Inwagen can be said to take Quines stance one significant step furtherby requiring observer-independent unity as criterion of what can count as value ofa bound variable, or as a something.53

If there were no human beings or Martians or whatever then there would be stars andelectrons and mountains if and only if there are stars and electrons and mountains in actu-ality. Our conceptual activity may involve a lot of boundary drawing, but drawing a bound-ary around a filled region of space does not make it the case that there is some onething thatexactly fills that region. If the mutual causal operations of the things in that region can dothat, they need no help from the mental activities of external observers, and if they cant dothat, no external activities can help them to do it.54

Thus, to be sure, van Inwagen doesnt mean that tables and rocks are second

class citizens of the world or not substances, but that there are none. They are justnot there at all. Nothing is a table. There is no one thing that just exactly fills thisregion of space.55 In ordinary language one may speak of such virtual objects,but in order to speakas a metaphysician, van Inwagen will give a paraphrase intolanguage about simples and their arrangement. According to van Inwagen, this isnot an exigence that goes beyond quantificational existence: there is an x such thatx is F requires this strict unity and identity independent of an observer.

As it turns out, being an organism implies having unity independent from anobserver, due to an intrinsic nature. However, we dont have to understand life as afirst-level property said of an alreadyexistent object. Rather, nothing can be said to

be an object or the value of a bound variable, unless it has this kind of unity. Life as this kind of unity is inseparable from what the existenceof living beings con-sists in. Taken this way, life as a sense of being does not necessarily imply existenceas a real predicate.

Not So Thin After All

In short, for van Inwagen, unity that is observer-independent belongs to what-ever exists. Actually, this is not such a thin notion of being after all. A thinnernotion would be for instance that of Jonathan Schaffer. He claims that being inde-

pendent of an observer (mind-independence) is not a trait that belongs to what itmeans to exist but already to what something is, and whether something is fun-damental or not. Thus, existence for Schaffer is so thin that it can be extremelypermissive: an atheist can say that God exists, she just wont consider God to be


53 It is all decided at the point where the domain is defined (what is included in everything). Perhaps onecould make the Carnapian objection that the restriction of observer-independent unity was already adeparture from a truly universal domain, that is, a definition of a particular category.54

Van Inwagen (1990), 139.55 Van Inwagen (1990), 104.



14/28

mind-independent but rather a fictional character.56 The disagreement is onlyabout whatGod is.57

In contrast, although van Inwagen argues for a thin notion of being, and con-siders differences to belong to the nature of things, he still thinks that a propertylike observer-independent unity does not belong to such a nature (was) but to thefact that(dass) something exists. For him, the requirement of observer-independentunity still stems from the question what counts as value of a bound variable?(what is there?): I agree entirely with Quine about the nature of being and themethod one should use in trying to determine what there is. I disagree with himalmost entirely about what there is.58 However, it seems that such a strong connec-tion between unity and existence does tell us something about what it means toexist, and van Inwagen does not reject this intensional question.59

As mentioned above, a possible objection against different senses of being wouldbe to say that whatever is added to a thinnest conception of being does not belongto existence but is a contentful, predicative addition that belongs to what some-thing is, to its nature. This is indeed van Inwagens argument. However, as it turnsout, van Inwagens own conception of existence is not so thin after all. He enrichesor thickens his notion of being at the onset: observer-independent unity does nothave to appear as a real predicate among others because it is already implied in thex, in what it is to be something at all, independent of any further features.

Schaffers proposal, on the other hand, involves a very permissive, because maxi-mally thin, notion of existence, and a hierarchical structure of grounding, of what isfundamental. It is here, and not within existence, that Schaffer aims for ontologicaleconomy: the least number of fundamental entities or substances should ground asmany derivative entities as possible. In van Inwagens picture the result is some-what similar. Although he only admits things with intrinsic unity and identity, andrejects the existence of heaps, like, for instance, chairs, he still keeps them asforms of arrangement of simples, and refers to them as virtual objects whichdont exist as such but can be paraphrased into language about simples at anymoment. In that sense,chairs and the like are also grounded in simples or in livingbeings that he considers existent.

Notwithstanding their differences, both authors share a thin notion of being. Incontrast, from the Aristotelian perspective, as I will argue below, the structures ofgrounding or ontological dependency are not completely alien to what it means toexist.


56 Cf. Schaffer (2009), 359.57 Of course, Schaffer is taking here God as a proper name, and not as a concept.58 Van Inwagen (2001), 3.59 Cf. footnote 20. In a way, one gets the impression that van Inwagen is trying to pursue non-Quineaninterests with a Quinean instrumentarium that is not quite adequate for these endeavors. As Schaffer

writes, the post-positivist Quinean view is (by design) unsuited for the traditional questions (Schaffer(2009), 354).



15/28

2.3 Activity

However, van Inwagen does not seem to sufficiently explain why or how themyriad activities of simple particles compose a single life, a well-individuated

event. What is it to constitute a life? 60 In his use, life denotes the individual lifeof a concrete organism, it is a count-noun.61 He seems to presuppose the unitypeculiar to life as a well-individuated, homogeneous event that neverthelessstems from the activities of myriads of simples. Where does unity stem from? 62

Van Inwagen does stress the difference between mere change or movement anda life as a self-directing, self-maintaining, well-individuated event. He justdoes not dwell on these characteristics and how they come about (for instance, whatdoes self-directing mean here, who is directing what: is it the particles subatomicones, is it the organs, is it the whole?) What exactly is the subject of vital activ-ity?63 He does not explain whether the activity is the activity of the simples or parts,

or the activity of the organism as a whole.While van Inwagen with activity means just change undergone by particles,64

Michael Thompson, on his part, greatly stresses the difference between mere move-ment, that is, change in terms of physicochemical processes, and living operations.Indeed, he means to understand life in such a way that action can be seen as amore specific form of life process: action and agency [as]: a certain turn that de-terminate life-forms can take65.

But Thompson points to the difficulty of characterizing this distinction. He thinksit cannot be done by considering the reflexivity of self-movement (a move thatmany philosophers have taken in the attempt to define life). Self-movement is a

vague notion insofar as the reflexive does not sufficiently specify what exactly therelation between thing and event is: a bird might move itself as it might move apiece of straw, it can move its own parts, and it can be moved by somethingother, for instance, by a prey.

And in general, if A moves B, then the mereological sum of A and B in some sense movesitself, or some of itself. Some self-movement, then, is other-movement, some self-move-ment is movement-by-another; and some non-self-movement is self-movement after all. 66

Thompson understands vital operation not as self-movement, then, but asphase in a life-process, in relation to a particular unity between events within a


60 What is the ground of my unity? That is, what binds the simples that compose me into a single being? Itseems to me to be plausible to say that what binds them together is that their activities constitute a life, ahomeodynamic storm of simples, a self-maintaining, well-individuated, jealous event (van Inwagen(1990), 121).61 (f. van Inwagen (1990), 83.62 Van Inwagen (1990), 87.63 Van Inwagen writes, for instance, that a life imposes on the particles of matter whose activities consti-tute it, a kind of activity. So there are the activities of the particles and the kind of activity imposed onthem by the life, cf. van Inwagen (1990), 89; 92. Young, whom van Inwagen quotes at this point, speaks ofthe activity that a man imposes upon his elements. It is not clear, then, what the subject of the activity is.64 Van Inwagen (1990), 82.65

Thompson (2008), 28.66 Thompson (2008), 45.



16/28

life-process, a unity that cannot be explained merely in terms of physics. Rather, hethinks that only in starting out from the wider context of the life-form or speciescan we understand a certain movement as a vital operation and thus as an activityof the whole living being and not just of its components. Thompsons example isthat of mitosis, which in the case of amoebas means reproduction and in the case ofhuman beings mere self-maintenance. The functional description depends on thecorresponding life-form.67

If we start out from the physicochemical components and processes, it is notpossible to show how and in what sense a certain set of these processes constitutea singleliving individual.68 So, according to Thompson, there is a crucial differencebetween the mere movement or change that something undergoes, and vital opera-tions that can only be identified as such once we grasp an individual as bearer of acertain life-form. The detour through form allows us to distinguish between merechange, that is, mere physical process, and vital operation that in his eyes is anactivity that in some cases can be further specified as action.

In a way, the problem of the individuals unity is not solved through recourse to abundle of properties (F, G, H) but rather through a higher-level unifying element,the life-form. It is the detour through form that allows us to understand some ofthese processes as vital operations or activities which in turn require the unity ofthe organism as a whole. In the end we come back to the point underlined by vanInwagen: existence of living beings is only understandable as the existence of trulyunified composites or wholes whose existence does not consist in just being a sumof parts. While both Thompson and van Inwagen agree that the existence of livingbeings is peculiar, Thompson goes one step further: the fact that living beings mustbe approached through this detour tells us that life is not simply a first-level pre-dicate like any other.

In fact, Thompson criticizes attempts to arrive at a definition of life based on aseries of characteristic conceptual marks. What this attempt ultimately amounts to,according to him, is that different abstract categories are put into higher gear tobecome vital concepts such as organism, organ, organization, life process, vitaloperation. The attempt to define them leads to circularity because we are not ableto determine this higher gear, that is, the specific form of these notions that per-tain to living beings, without presupposing life. What Thompson suggests is toadopt a wider perspective, a wider context, and concentrate on the particular kindof genus that is a life-form without defining it circularly as vitalgenus.

In order to isolate this kind of genus he recurs to the representation of life whichrequires a particular kind of judgments, natural historical judgments, which inturn include a particular kind of genus, the life-form or species. Judgments aboutliving beings have a logical form of their own. Natural-historical judgments express


67 Thompson (2008), 55.68 It is interesting that if the only categories we have to apply are those of chemistry and physics, there isan obvious sense in which no such succession of goings-on will add up to a single process [] Physics and

chemistry, adequately developed, can tell you what happens [] in any circumstance but it seems thatthey cannot attach any sense to a question What happens next? sans phrase (Thompson (2008), 41).



17/28

a peculiar form of unity and temporality that cannot be reduced to a more general,abstract falling under concept F or instantiating F.

The canonical form of these judgments would be:

The S is (or has or does) F[e.g. The yellow finch breeds in spring]

A judgment about an individual organism can only be understood through theattribution of a life-form to the organism as in This S and natural-historical judg-ments of the form The S is/does/has F, where the common noun S is a life-form-word and F a vital operation:

This S (x is an S)The S does/has F*

*F is not here attached to an individual variable. While we say The S is F(under normal circumstances, that is), we might say but this S is not F (and isnevertheless an S).

A living being is not defined as an x that instantiates some definite list of pre-dicates (since it is not clear exactly which predicates would belong to the definitionof life). Instead, a living individual can only be characterized as such by taking adetour that identifies it as member of a life-form or species. 69

Life is at least not simply the F to an x70 without further specification. As BorisHennig notes, that something is a living being is not added as a property to analready existent thing, but rather says something about how it exists71.

In this way, Michael Thompson argues that life is nota real predicate but rather tobe approached through its representation in a peculiar kind ofjudgment. This solu-tion parallels Freges suggestion of understanding existence as what is expressed inparticular judgments and not as a first order predicate belonging to the concept of athing: The existence expressed through the words there is is not contained in theword exists but in the form of the particular judgment. 72 However, Thompsondevelops this Fregean strategy further and discovers forms of falling under orinstantiating that cannot be adequately reduced to Fregean terms. Although this


69 An organism or individual living thing, finally, is whatever falls under a species or bears a life-form(Thompson (2008), 76f.). Every thought of an individual organism as alive is mediated by thought of thelife-form it bears Thompson (2008), 81.70 As contrast, cf. Shields (2002), who expresses not just life but being as F of Fx.71 Hennig (2007), 82. My translation.72 Frege (1983), 74. Frege writes: every particular judgment is an existential judgment. His example is:some bodies are light is the same as there are light bodies. The contrary transformation (to obtainparticular judgments from existential ones) is sometimes difficult, he writes, because one must divide theconcept (for instance human) into two marks (animal and rational), so that there are humans

means the same as some animals are rational (cf. Frege (1983), 70). Or one would look for a most generalconcept (some beings are human) which could not have any content.



18/28

form of predication and the category it expresses were not included among Fregeanforms, it is a pure form of thought that grasps a corresponding form of being. Inother words, Thompson is not just inserting an intermediate level S between thatof the x and the F. He underlines rather the judgment, the kind ofthoughtthat isrequired to understand something as a living being, and herewith a form of beingthat is proper of living things.

Of course, we can regard the living being more abstractly, as instantiating certainproperties. However, it is possible to go deeper and be more specific in a way thatdoes not apply to all cases of 9x Fx. What is different when we think about livingbeings is that there is a peculiar relation between the individual and the generalterm expressed by a peculiar kind of judgment about living beings. This kind ofrelation, this kind of instantiation, is not found elsewhere and it could not applyto non-living things. In other words, the question to ask regarding living beings isnot whetherthe Fs are instantiated but instead exactly how they are instantiated.

3. Life as a Sense of Being?

After considering van Inwagens and Thompsons reflections, we are in a positionto go back to the question what it could mean to say that life is a sense of being andhow this notion could contribute to an understanding of existence that is richerthan the thin notion of being, standard in the analytic tradition.

Both van Inwagen and Thompson further develop the thin notion of beingthrough consideration of life. In the case of van Inwagen, the question what is the

value of a bound variable, what is a something, is understood as the question whatis exactly one and why. With van Inwagen we can see how the strict application ofthe quantifier sense of being still leads to a further question: not only is a conceptinstantiated, but is the thing that instantiates onesingle thing, in itself, indepen-dent ofourboundary drawing? If living beings are the only visible things with strictself-identity (due to an intrinsic nature that determines how they exchange theirparts in the course of time), and simples can be assimilated to organisms in thissense, then life must not be regarded as a first-level predicate but can be regardedas a sense of existence.

In Michael Thompsons work, the Fregean intuition that existence is expressed ina kind of judgment is developed further toward the insight that life, too, is ex-pressed in a peculiar kind of judgment, and that vital activity is not explainable asmere physico-chemical change, but requires the consideration of the wider perspec-tive of a life-form or species. In this way, what it means for living beings to existcannot be grasped through a merely quantificational approach, but requires a morespecific question: how exactly are the predicates (the Fs) that hold of the individualinstantiated. Life is not one of the characteristics of an already constituted indivi-dual but a peculiar way of instantiation grasped through a particular kind of judg-ment or thought.73


73 Cf. also Hennig (2007), 83.



19/28

Both approaches (the questions what is exactly one?, how exactly does an in-dividual fall under a general term?) enable us to consider existence beyond instan-tiation. To ask what is there? and come up with a series of instantiated properties isonly the thinnest possible perspective on existence. When we take living beingsinto account and ask what their existence consists in, we realize that there is moreto this peculiar existence than the general terms they instantiate. In Thompsonswords, there is more than one possible sense of being something. 74

As mentioned above, there would seem to be two obvious problems with thenotion of life as sense of being. Let us now consider if these problems can beavoided.

a) If life is a sense of being, then existence cannot be univocal. But what couldsenses of being mean? Mere equivocal uses of the word? 75

Certainly existence would not be understood univocally in this case. However,equivocity is not the only alternative. There is a possible way of conceiving thesedifferent senses of being without confusing them with different natures or realpredicates. We might undertake a further specification of senses that neverthelessdo not fall outside of what it means to exist even if they go beyond the quantifiersanswer to the question whether a general term is instantiated. More belongs toexistence than the mere what is there?, i.e. of what quality are the existents?These other aspects reflect questions such as what does existence consist in forsomething or in virtue of what does something exist.

With different senses of being, we wont have a least common denominator(LCD) conception of being. An LCD conception applies to all that exists, leavingnothing out, and excludes any aspect that doesnt apply to all existents. The inten-sional question for the LCD approach is what to include as criteria of existence,without going so far in the requirements that the extension becomes too reduced,and without leaving out aspects that are crucial to existence. For instance, the casecould be made that Quines to be is to be the value of a bound variable or quanti-ficational existence are something like the LCD notion of being: to be means at thevery leastto be the value of a bound variable.

Perhaps it might prove useful on this point to consider that life is not an LCDnotion according to Aristotle. He does not come up with a LCD concept of living,where life would mean something like, for instance, metabolism, which charac-terizes all living beings across the board.76According also to Michael Thompsons


74 Cf. Thompson (2008), 18.75 This is the direction of Putnams arguments against univocity of existence from the standpoint ofconceptual relativity: How can the question whether something exists be a matter of convention? Theanswer, I suggest, is this: what logicians call the existential quantifier, the symbol (9x), and its ordinarylanguage counterparts, the expressions there are, there exist and there exists a, some, etc., do not havea single absolutely precise use but a whole family of uses (Putnam (2004), 37).76 Aristotle, de An. II 2, 413a266: We resume our inquiry from a fresh starting-point by calling attentionto the fact that what has soul in it differs from what has not in that the former displays life. Now this wordhas more than one sense, and provided any one alone of these is found in a thing we say that thing is living

viz. thinking or perception or local movement and rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay andgrowth. Hence we think of plants also as living, [].



20/28

views, life cannot be definedas a fixed series of characteristics, since the key doesnot reside in the particular set of predicates but in the peculiar way the living beinginstantiates them through the context of the life-form. Rather, Aristotles concept oflife makes it possible to consider that for a human being to live means thought aswell as deliberate action, while for a worm to live means movement and sense oftouch, and so on. What is gained by this view is the possibility of integrating withinlife activities that are specifically human, e.g.thought, instead of excluding themfrom a humans being alive. Thought must not be excluded from what it means tolive, even if not all living beings are able to think.

In a parallel way, Aristotelian tradition regards life as paradigmatic sense ofbeing, but does not exclude other senses of what it is to be. There is no attempt toobtain an LCD notion of being just as there is no LCD definition of life.77 In a similarmanner, the property of observer-independent unity due to activity must not beexcluded from what it means to be for those objects that have it, even if there areother things which dont have such unity.

b) Does life as a sense of being imply existence as a real predicate?When we consider the objections against the thick notion of being, one of the

main points is that we should avoid turning being into a real predicate. In fact, thetwo authors I have discussed offer good reasons to avoid understanding even lifeasa real predicate. If we are able to avoid this problem regarding the notion of life,there is no reason why life as a sense of being should require conceiving existenceas a real predicate.

In van Inwagens account, a life is a unity even more basic than the organism: thesimples are caught up in a life, the whole organism as part of itself is caught up inits own life. Life is not a real predicate of an individual. Furthermore, MichaelThompson explicitly sees life as a form of being. There is no definition of life asa series of predicates under which living beings fall simply as objects fall under aconcept. Indeed, not every single living thing fulfills the series of characteristicsthat are usually included in the attempt to define life. Life does not consist in aseries of characteristics but rather in apeculiarway of instantiating these predicatesas expressed in a very particular kind of judgment.

3.1 Senses of Being: a Grounding Structure Beyond Categorial Sorting

To what kind of differences do different senses of being refer, then, if not differ-ences in the nature of things? One possibility is to have different senses of existen-tial being that correspond to different categories.78 Life as different form of being(Thompson) is a categorial difference: a peculiar way of existing and a way of


77 Aristotle is not attempting to give a reductive semantic analysis of the verb to be. [] Rather, he is

seeking to defend the claim that exists has different but related senses [] (Charles (2002), 114).78 This is the position advanced by Owen (1965) and Charles (2002).



21/28

singling something out as observer-independent (an sich, per se). Living beings aresingled out as having their criteria of intelligibility in their own nature. 79

In this sense, the question what existence consists in or what it means to existfor different categories could point in the direction of different senses of being thatare not different natures or real predicates of things: to exist as a substance is notthe same as to exist as a property. To exist as a property means to inhere in asubstance, whereas to exist as a substance requires independent, separate exis-tence. The question then, for the Aristotelian, is not just what there is, but how itexists.80 When we refer to something as living being, we single it out in a particularway. Concepts through which we single things out are sometimes called sortal pre-dicates, but the point here is precisely that they are not really predicates.81

A problem with this approach arises if these senses of existence only play the roleof sorting objects into categories. In that case, they would amount to restrictedquantifiers82 that can always be translated into expressions formed with an unrest-ricted existential quantifier and necessary predicates that correspond to the differ-ences between categories.83 In other words, the differences between categories canbe expressed as belonging to somethings nature, not to its existence.

Do we lose anything when we express different senses of being through differentpredicates? What we lose is the expression of a grounding structure in the judg-ment. We lose the possibility of zooming-in, as Thompson says, when he suggeststhat there are particular forms of judgment that can be considered specific subformsof Freges more abstract ones. The step of zooming-in is a deepening, intensifica-tion, condensation, of what it is to be. So it is not false to say that living beings fallunder a concept or that they exemplify this and that property, but we can becomeincreasingly specific regarding their peculiar form of being.

In this sense, from the Aristotelian point of view, it is not enough to say F existsand F is a quality. Rather, strictly speaking, for F to exist is for S to be F.84 For aquality F to exist is for a substance or for the appropriate subject to be F.85 For

Aristotle, as Stephen Menn has underlined, different senses of existence (1placebeing) correspond to different modes of 2place being: grammatikffi is in theway peculiar to qualities because S is grammatik@ according to the kind of 2place being signified by quality-predications86. Since F or F* [the abstract F orthe concrete F*, M. G.] is only because some substance S is F*, and since this in turn


79 The concept of a living being is the concept of a being whose proper functioning can be measured oncriteria that only result from consideration of its own nature (Hennig (2007), 90). My translation.80 Cf. Corkum (2008), 76.81 Hennig (2007), 83. My translation.82 McDaniel applies this strategy to Heideggerian ways of being, cf. McDaniel (2009), 302ff.83 This is in fact van Inwagens objection to McDaniels proposal regarding Heideggerian ways of being.Cf. van Inwagen (2012*).84 Cf. Menn (2008), 12fn.85 Menn (2008), esp. 115, refers to this step as an inference from the 1place to the 2place use of is

but not as Owen understands it, i.e. not as the categorial sorting of F as in F is a quality.86 Menn (2008), 12.



22/28

presupposes that S is, 1place being will be said pros hen, primarily of substancesand derivatively of the various kinds of non-substances.87

That is, different categories and their different senses of being are expressed injudgments that make a grounding structure visible.88 For this reason, it is importantto underline Michael Thompsons point that having a life-form cannot be ex-pressed as a predicate through the most abstract form of judgment 9x Fx, butrequires a peculiar form of judgment.

While Thompson follows Aristotle with his notion of species as form, he consid-ers the form as a general term, and the natural historical judgment as one thatmarks a categorial difference. In Aristotle, however, we find also the individualaspect of the form as actualityof the potentially living body. This individual formof a living being is not an abstractdefinitory concept but rather its soul, which isresponsible for the operations that keep the organism alive and in existence. Indeed,when Aristotle writes that for living beings, to be is to live, this comes in thecontext of clarifying that the cause of their being is the cause of their being alive,i.e. their soul.89

The ontological dependence relation between a substance and its properties isdifferent from that between a substance and its form: the properties are ontologi-cally dependent on the substance; they are, because the substance is.90 The substan-tial form, on the other hand, is not in the same sense dependent on the particularsubstance; on the contrary, the particular is dependent on the form: it is (i.e. ex-ists), because the form determines the matter to move in a certain way.91 In the caseof living beings, the soul as form is the cause of unity of the material constituents, itunifies and organizes matter through its principle of activity.92 The soul is the firstactuality of a body capable of life.93

For Aristotle, the soul is thus the primary substance as the actuality of a livingbeing.94 It is the essence (ti n einai) of a living being because it is the answer to the


87 Menn (2008), 12.88 [] it will not be enough to establish univocality by pointing to similar patterns of inference involvingexists (such as the claim that from Fa we can infer that both a and the property F exists). For they[philosophers interested in the metaphysical grounding of existence claims] will seek some understandingof why these inferences are valid, and for this they will turn to a metaphysical account of what it is forsubstances or properties to exist (Charles (2002), 125f.).

89 The soul is the cause or source of the living body. The terms cause and source have many senses. Butthe soul is the cause of its body alike in all three senses which we explicitly recognize. It is the source ofmovement, it is the end, it is the essence of the whole living body. That it is the last, is clear; for in every-thing the essence is identical with the cause of its being, and here, in the case of living things, their being isto live, and of their being and their living the soul in them is the cause or source. Further, the actuality ofwhatever is potential is identical with its account (De An. II 4, 415b13).90 Metaph. Z 1, 1028a 2331.91 Cf. Buchheim (2002), 228f.92 But the soul is the cause of being to living things by being the cause, to some S, of the fact that it isliving, and Aristotle is here applying his rule that the ousia of F is the cause of the fact that F exists, i. e. thecause, to some appropriate S, of the fact that it is F (or F*) (Menn (2008), 14).93 De An. II 1, 412a27f.94

Indeed, that which exists primarily (in the different senses of primary) is actuality, cf. De An. II 1,412b9; Metaph. Q 8, 1049b1112.



23/28

question in virtue of what it exists. I can only briefly refer here to this aspect ofAristotelian metaphysics, but it is relevant to the difference between thin and thicknotions of being. The investigation of substance asks why is this matter thus,95 thatis, the question what is it for something to be refers to the causeof its existence:96

not just a set of properties but the conditions that make it capable of instantiatingproperties at all. According to Aristotle, the investiagtion of essence thus presup-poses existence97: before we askwhatit is to be for something, it must be clearthatit exists. We might say that essence qualifies being not so much as the what but asthe how or why something is; perhaps as an adverb modifies a verb. In this sense,the Aristotelian question what it is to be for something is not reduced to the ques-tion what it is that could be answered with a series of first-level predicates, butincludes also an understanding of whyor in virtue of what an individual exists.

3.2 Thick And Thin Descriptions

Finally, are thin and thick existence incompatible? Can they complement eachother? Or is the thick notion of being an alternative to the thin notion of being? Itseems that, if they are answers to different questions (what is there? and what is itto be?), they shouldnt be incompatible but complementary, as long as they are notunderstood exclusively.98

For some purposes it might be useful to recur to the thin notion of being andignore the perspective of what it is to be for an individual, but ultimately it seemsthe thick notion of being is able to account for the thin notion of being and not theother way around.

Take the example of Ryles thin and thick descriptions of winks. The thinnestpossible layer is a twitch of the eye, and a thicker description of the same externalfact is a wink, followed by an even thicker reading that is a parodyof a wink and soon)99. The winker is not doing two things: twitching andwinking, he is only doingone thing that allows for the different layers of description.100 Although Ryle istalking about possible descriptions, the reality in question allows or doesnt allowa thicker description. The perspective that can only see a twitch of the eye cannotexplain the different possible layers (wink, parody of wink, rehearsal of parody, etc),but the thick perspective can understand what a mere twitch is.


95 Cf. Metaph. Z 17, 1041b99.96 Cf. Metaph. Z 17, 1041b28.97 Cf. APo. II 7, 92b88.98 There is no problem making room for existence questions on the Aristotelian view rather, the pro-blem is finding any room for grounding questions on the Quinean view (Schaffer (2009), 363).99 Two boys fairly swiftly contract the eyelids of their right eyes. In the first boy this is only an involun-tary twitch; but the other is winking conspiratorially to an accomplice. At the lowest or the thinnest levelof description the two contractions of the eyelids may be exactly alike. From a cinematograph-film of thetwo faces there might be no telling which contraction, if either, was a wink, or which, if either, was a meretwitch. Yet there remains the immense but unphotographable difference between a twitch and a wink

(Ryle (1971), 480).100 Cf. Ryle (1971), 481.



24/28

The thinnest description of what the rehearsing parodist is doing is, roughly, the same asfor the involuntary eyelid twitch; but its thick description is a many-layered sandwich, ofwhich only the bottom slice is catered for by that thinnest description. 101

In a similar way, the thick notion of being allows for different senses, some whichhave more depth than others, without excluding the thin notion. So in a way, whenwe talk about nested spheres (with Thompson) or pros hen meaning (Aristotle),we can understand the flat notion better once we take the deeper notions intoaccount.

Why should we limit existence to the thinnest description available? Schafferwrites: Permissivism only concerns the shallow question of what exists. One canand should still be restrictive about the deep question of what is fundamental, andone still owes an account ofhow these very many things exist in virtue of what littleis fundamental102. I agree with Schaffer that the mere question what is there is a

shallow one, and it is the question what is fundamental that allows for greaterdepth. However, it seems Schaffer still keeps some of the Quinean ontological flat-ness insofar as he separates these two questions. On the one hand, existence is thinand permissive, on the other hand comes the question of grounding. The hierarch-ical differences for Schaffer belong to the natures of the things in question. How-ever, if being or existence have different senses, being or existence itselfis notunivocal. Whenever I assume the deeper perspective that allows for a primarysense of being, I will be able to distinguish what is fundamental from what is deri-

vative or in a secondary sense. Whenever I take the thin perspective that does notdistinguish what it is to be for something or in virtue of what something exists,

then I will not be able to see the distinctions, and I will not even be able to envisionhow a structured scala could emerge from the flat domain. It is only from the thickstandpoint that I am able to see the differences in depth of being and the way thatsome of the spheres emerge by zooming-in or by intensification out of the moreabstract mode of consideration.

If we understand being in the Aristotelian dictum in its existential use, and canconceive of life as a sense of being, then the point is precisely that we dont have toseparate existence from life. We dont need to have a flat, thin notion of being andthen pack life into differences of nature or real predicates. Existence itself hasdifferent senses.103

4. Advantages of a Richer Notion of Being

It seems, then, that the notion of life as a sense of being brings up some aspects ofexistence that the existential quantifier does not exhaust. What do we gain, ulti-mately, with a richer notion of being? To sum up, I shall briefly mention four points:


101 Ryle (1971), 482.102 Schaffer (2009), 361.103

The fact that a living being lives cannot be split into two facts that are independentof each other: onthe one hand, that it exists, on the other that it is a living being (Hennig (2007), 82). My translation.



25/28

a) Different questions beyond the extensional what is thereAs I have noted, the thin notion of being is characterized by concentrating ex-

clusively on what there is. By broadening our perspective on existence, we mighttake on other questions that belong to the study of being, such as: what it is forsomething to be, what existence consists in, in virtue of what something exists.Not only our notion of being but the whole ontological inquiry becomes richer andmore varied.

b) Grasping of relevant differences in the way things existAs mentioned above, the different senses of being would not refer to different

properties or different natures of things, but to differences regarding what theirexistence consists in. These are differences of categories and can be said to belongto existence. In this sense, we might say that living beings exist in fact in a primarysense, that is, to use Aristotelian vocabulary, they are substances104. From the pointof view of the thick notion of being, other things that do not have unity indepen-dent of an observer still exist, but they do so in a lesser or even derivative way. Inthis way, van Inwagens strategy of admitting talk of chairs only as improper lan-guage that should be paraphraseable when speaking ontologically, fits the notionthat things like chairs exist but only in a non-primary sense.

David Charles sums up this advantage when he comments on a possible objectionregarding the interpretation that Aristotle maintains different senses of exists:

Similarly, it will be said, there are many different ways in which different types of entitymay enter into the realms of existence (some by the substance route, some by the quality

route, etc.), but all will in the end arrive in the same place. They will all be existents. In eachcase the number of the relevant existents will be greater than zero. Why should existsdiffer in sense while traveling does not? [] the analogy rests on the assumption that, justas Rome is the endpoint of all the journeys mentioned, so there is one thing, existence,which is achieved by all existents. But this is precisely what Cautious Aristotle is concernedto deny. In his view, what it is for a substance to exist will be different in kind from what itis for a quality to exist. While the existence of a quality depends on its belonging to somesubstance, the existence of a substance does not depend on its belonging to anything. Thisdifference in metaphysical understanding of what it is for qualities and substances to existis reflected (according to Cautious Aristotle) in the differing senses of the verb to exist inthese cases.105

In fact, Aristotle considers different senses of being that are not only limited todifferences among categories, but reflect a more varied, plural ontology than asingle hierarchy of nested spheres.106


104 Charles (2002), 113.105 Charles (2002), 125.106 Aristotle gives different divisions of senses of being: Metaph. G 2, 1003b110; D 7, 1017a8b9; Z 1,

1028a1113; H 2, 1042b2228; Q 10, 1051a34b3. Cf. Llano (2005), esp. 111182, for a useful comparisonof analytic and Aristotelian senses of being.



26/28

c) Grounding in relation to existenceThese categorial senses of being play a role in the structure of grounding that is

important to philosophers like Schaffer, but which he does not relate to existence atall. However, as Charles argues, different senses of being that are not merely equi-

vocal but structured according to a focal meaning, will appeal to philosophers whothink that a full account of what we understand in grasping terms such as existshould reflect our understanding of the metaphysical grounding of existenceclaims.107 The rich notion of being does not exclude distinctions of fundamentality.For this reason, it allows for differences in depth and thus different senses of being.

d) Individual, per seexistenceA further advantage of the thick notion of being is to be able to address the

existence of the individual, what it means for something to be, instead of justconsidering its existence from our point of view as drawers of boundaries andthinkers of sets. In contrast to the thin notion of being, it is existence per seoransich that can have different senses. The denial of the number nought cannot havedifferent senses because it also cannot grasp what it is to be for the thing itself.

With the thick notion of being we take the step from the merely extensional to theintensional consideration of existence, and also from our position as observers andspeakers to the perspective of an existence of the thing itself. In fact, van Inwagenintends to take this step when he speaks of metaontology as intensional approach108

and when he develops a strict notion of being that includes observer-independentunity. But the thin notion of being that he defends does not seem to be the bestsuited one for this purpose.

While Quine made ontology respectable in the analytic tradition, he still focuseson the problem inherited from logical positivism: which terms have a reference?The question for him is what is there?, understood as of what kind or quality arethe existents? Instead of asking whether a certain word is being used to name, heasks whether something or other is F, where F can be any predicate, includingsingular proper names or category words. This approach makes it possible to levelany different types of variables and any predicates assigned to them, and this hasadvantages from the standpoint of logical operations. However, it seems that ontol-ogy should also be able to ask what it is to be beyondthe mere being the referenceof a term in a language that has been adopted. At least it should be possible to askthe question what existence consists in for something, and if we do, there is noontological reason to reduce the individual we are considering to an indistinct xand flatten all possible predicates (categorial differences, grounding hierarchies) tothe same level. We are able to ask what it means for something to exist, and not justwhat it is for something to be the reference of our term. In that case, the aspect ofthe individuals per seexistence comes into play. Indeed, an ontological considera-tion of living beings leads to a de-flattening of what began as a mainly logical


107

Charles (2002), 125f.108 Cf. footnote 59.



27/28

under

garcia romero vivere viventibus.pdf

Documents