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Kant And The Question “Is Existence A Predicate?”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1975

J. William Forgie
J. William Forgie*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Extract

Kant gave a two-fold answer to the question, ‘Is existence a predicate?’. His view that existence is not a first-level predicate, i.e., a predicate of objects like horses, stones, and you and me, is widely known. What is not so well-known, however, is his claim that existence is a second-level predicate, a predicate of concepts or of a collection of predicates. In this paper I hope to show why his arguments for both claims are unsuccessful.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 563 - 582
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1975

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References

1 “Beweisgrund” can be found in Kant's, Werke, ed. by Cassirer, E. (Berlin, 1922), vol. II, pp. 67–172.Google Scholar This particular passage occurs on p. 76. Translations from this essay are mine.

2 In this paper all translations from Kant's writings render ‘Vorstellung’ as 'conception’ and’ Be griff’ as ‘concept'. In the body, however, I will make no distinction between the two, speaking at all times in terms of concepts. This will avoid unnecessary complexity, for so far as I can see, when he discusses the question whether existence is a predicate, Kant puts no special weight at all on the word ‘Vorstellung'. For example, one of the arguments to be found in this passage from “Beweisgrund” is stated using ‘Vorstellung'. Yet in the first Critique, as we shall see, essentially the same sort of argument, involving the same sort of considerations, is stated using’ Begriff'. Also see the second paragraph of section III below. In the last passage quoted there, Kant apparently uses 'Vorstellung’ and ‘Be griff’ indifferently.

3 In talking about God's pre-creation concept of Caesar, Kant indicates that predicates “of time and place” may be in such a concept. Presumably, then, in a complete concept of an individual we will find such predicates as “weighing 70 pounds at t1,““weighing 180 pounds at t3,” and “living in Rome at t2.“

4 I shall assume that concepts are instantiated only by things which exist.

5 Some commentators have taken Kant's arguments that existence is not a predicate to rest on the claim that a thing must exist in order to have any predicates at all, i.e., that existence is a necessary condition for having predicates. See, for example, Malcolm, Norman “Anselm's Ontological Arguments,” in Knowledge and Certainty (Englewood Cliffs, 1963), p. 144Google Scholar; and Barnes, Jonathan The Ontological Argument (London, 1972), p. 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But Kant's talk here of merely possible beings having predicates would indicate that that interpretation is mistaken.

6 Critique of Pure Reason, tr. by Smith, Norman Kemp(London, 1958)Google Scholar, B627.

7 Kant's claim that the hundred real thalers “do not contain the least coin more“ than the hundred possible thalers may misleadingly suggest that he is interested only in comparing the number of coins of the real and the possible thalers. But I take him merely to be mentioning an example of a respect in which one hundred real and one hundred possible thalers are alike. For passage II begins with the claim that “the real contains no more than the merely possible.” And this seems to commit Kant not just to the view that one hundred real and one hundred possible thalers contain the same number of coins (or that they each have the predicate “containing one hundred coins” or “being one hundred in number“). It seems to commit him also to the view that any predicate “contained“ by the real thalers is also contained by the possible thalers. Of course, just how this enters into his argument remains to be seen.

8 This kind of argument was used by Aquinas and by Caterus in attacking versions of the ontological argument. It has recently been given forceful expression by Shaffer, Jerome in “Existence, Predication and the Ontological Argument,“ Mind, vol. LXXI (1962), pp. 307–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Perhaps we can also include here the remark in the “thalers‘( passage: ”… the object as it actually exists, is not analytically contained in my concept … .”

10 Here I am taking issue with an assumption shared by Plantinga and Coburn in their recent exchange on Kant. (See Plantinga, Alvin “Kant's Objection to the Ontological Argument,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. LXIII (1966), pp. 537– 546Google Scholar; and Coburn, Robert C.” Animadversions on Plantinga's Kant,” Ratio, vol. XIII (1971), pp. 19–29.Google Scholar) Plantinga interprets Kant as holding that existence can be included in a concept of a thing. Coburn, after suggesting that this is precisely what Kant denies, goes on to argue that Kant was wrong to deny it. Both commentators assume ─ I believe wrongly ─ that Kant understands the expression 'existence is in such-and-such concept’ in what I have called the weak sense.

11 Of course one might try to argue that: (a) it is possible to have a concept of N such that every predicate N would have were it to exist is weakly and non-vacuously included in that concept; (b) existence cannot be weakly and non-vacuously included in any concept; (c) therefore, if N exists, existence is not one of its predicates. Leaving aside the question of how (a) might be defended, I cannot find this kind of argument in Kant.

12 See Frege, Gottlob The Foundations of Arithmetic(New York, 1960), pp. 64–65.Google Scholar For a discussion of Frege's, argument see my “Frege's Objection to the Ontological Argument,” Nous, vol. VI (1972), pp. 251–265.Google Scholar

13 If existence is really a second-level predicate, than it cannot be weakly included in a concept of a thing. Only first-level predicates can be so included. We will then have a univocal sense ─ the weak sense ─ in which “being white” can, while existence cannot, be included in a concept of a merely possible being or of any being at all. The arguments discussed in sections I and II might then be more plausible than they otherwise appear to be. But if those arguments depend for their plausibility on the claim that existence is a second-level predicate, then they are superfluous. For it presumably follows from that claim alone that existence is not a first-level predicate.