GE Morton wrote: ↑September 2nd, 2022, 12:21 pmConsul wrote: ↑September 1st, 2022, 10:07 pm
If something I think about doesn't exist, I still think of it.
Objects of thought needn't be mere objects of thought, since I/we can think both about existent things and about nonexistent ones.
Begs the question. If it exists "in thought," it exists in some sense. You're just (arbitrarily and unnecessarily) restricting "exists" there to physical ("external world") existents. That restriction renders much of common (and highly useful) speech meaningless; i.e., you're forced to deny that love, anger, ideas, thoughts --- all conscious phenomena --- exist.
No, I am
not using "existence" synonymously with "physical existence"! I am not
definitionally restricting the scope of existence to any particular sort of existents (entities). (If my physicalist worldview is true, it isn't true
by definition.)
Anything that is not only an object of thought or imagination exists. Therefore, there are no fictional entities, because they are
mere (nothing more than) objects of thought or imagination, with being nothing more than an object of thought or imagination not being a way of being but of
nonbeing.
What "exists in thought" is nothing more than
thought itself, because "to exist in thought" can only mean "to exist as a thought"; and nothing but a thought can exist
as a thought. Unless what is thought about/of, i.e. the object of thought, is itself a thought, objects of thoughts are nonthoughts. When I think of Sherlock Holmes, I think of a person, and persons are nonthoughts.
GE Morton wrote: ↑September 2nd, 2022, 12:21 pmConsul wrote: ↑September 1st, 2022, 10:07 pmI do not "postulate" nonexistent thought-objects, because I do not claim self-contradictorily that nonexistent thought-objects exist. I'm merely claiming that some of my/our thought-objects don't exist, which is different from claiming that there (really) are nonexistent thought-objects.
"I'm merely claiming that some of my/our thought-objects don't exist" --- by which you mean, "Don't exist as physical (external world) entities." Right?
Once again: WRONG!
Nonexistent objects of thought exist
as nothing, not even as nonphysical entities, since they don't exist
at all.
GE Morton wrote: ↑September 2nd, 2022, 12:21 pmWhy not just add that qualifier, rather than denying that unicorns don't exist in any sense? Surely you'll agree that "thought objects" exist (as thought objects). If a unicorn is a thought object, then doesn't it exist as such?
No, because unicorns are imaginary creatures that have no form of being, existence, or reality, which fact doesn't prevent me/us from imagining them. Unicorns don't exist
as thought-objects, and they don't exist
as something else either, simply because they don't exist
at all.
Being an object of thought means nothing more than
being thought about/of by somebody or some people, and there are no such "passive properties". There is only the "active property" of
thinking about/of something/some things. When I think of a unicorn, I have the active property of
thinking of it, but the unicorn I think of doesn't have the passive property of
being thought about by me. I call it an object of thought, simply because it is what I think about/of. What makes it true that unicorns are objects of thought is
my thinking about/of them rather than their being thought about/of by me.
Being an object of thought or imagination is not an existence-entailing property, and it is not even a genuine property at all. I can certainly think of existent things as well, but existing is not a necessary condition for a thing's being thought of, for its being an object of thought.
GE Morton wrote: ↑September 2nd, 2022, 12:21 pm" . . . which is different from claiming that there (really) are nonexistent thought-objects." "Nonexistent thought objects" is oxymoronic. It implies a "thought object" which is not thought.
No, it doesn't. The phrase
"unthought thought-object" is certainly a contradiction in terms, but the phrase
"nonexistent thought-object" is not.
GE Morton wrote: ↑September 2nd, 2022, 12:21 pmConsul wrote: ↑September 1st, 2022, 10:07 pmMoreover, there are different kinds of existents, but no different meanings of "existence". Existing as an elephant is different from existing as a mouse, simply because elephants are different in kind from mice, and not because they exist in different senses of "exist". Existence is a genus with exactly one species, so to speak: Existence is existence, and there aren't any lower or higher forms of it—"subsistence" or "supersistence".
Actually I agree with that --- but only because I take "existence," "to exist," to have a meaning different from the one you assume. In my view, to say something exists is just to say that we can construct true and informative propositions about it. If we can construct true and informative propositions about Frodo Baggins, then Frodo exists. If we can construct true and informative propositions about quarks, then quarks exist. As long as we can construct true and informative propositions about the luminiferous ether, then the ether exists. When it turns out some of those propositions are false, the ether ceases to exist. The problem with "exists" is not one of ambiguity of the concept, but in mistaking the ontological category to which some existent belongs, or imputing properties applicable to one category to existents in another category.
"Informativeness" can mean
"mere meaningfulness", and it can mean
"meaningfulness plus truthfulness". Correspondingly, there is a distinction between information
as mere, i.e. truth-independent, semantic content and information
as truth-dependent knowledge. Dis- or misinformation is information in the former sense but not in the latter. If everything I tell you is false, I have conveyed meaning to you but no knowledge.
As for your definition of "exist", the question is whether there are any "true and informative propositions" about things which arguably don't exist—in which case your definition would turn out to be inadequate. Is there any
knowledge of nonexistents?
There certainly is knowledge of our
existent representations of nonexistents, of
how we represent them to be; but can there be any knowledge of
how they are (in themselves), of their essence or nature?
I think there cannot be any
factual knowledge of the essence or nature (
Sosein) of things lacking existence (
Dasein), but there can be
counterfactual knowledge of them. For example, don't we know that
if unicorns existed, they would have four legs? Isn't the counterfactual proposition <If unicorns existed, they would have four legs> informative and true
despite the nonexistence of unicorns?
I could construct many other counterfactual truths about nonentities with the following general form:
"If x/Xs existed, then x/Xs would be Y/Ys."
For example, if Wookiees (and the planet Kashyyyk) existed, then they would be a species of tall, hairy humanoids that were native to the planet Kashyyyk. Isn't this an informative and true proposition about Wookiees, albeit a counterfactual one?
Okay, you could qualify your definition by saying that something or some kind of thing exists if and only if there can be
factually/non-counterfactually true propositions and corresponding
factual/non-counterfactual knowledge about it.
The truth of non-counterfactual propositions depends on the existence of (what David Lewis calls) their subject matter, i.e. what they are about or refer to; so truth is existence-dependent in this regard, but does existence—what exists and what doesn't exist—depend on our ability to "construct true and informative propositions" about it?
I can imagine a possible world where many (kinds of) things exist, but the conditions there are such that there cannot live anybody there who is able to acquire true information or knowledge of the facts in that world. Given this plausibly consistent imaginary scenario, I'm skeptical about the adequacy of your definition of "exist", because it makes existence dependent on and determined by our
cognitive/epistemic capacities. A world devoid of knowing minds isn't thereby devoid of existing things!
GE Morton wrote: ↑September 2nd, 2022, 12:21 pmConsul wrote: ↑September 1st, 2022, 10:07 pmThere is a difference between an object of thought and the thought of an object.
Heh. That "difference" is pretty subtle. Contrived, even.
Subtle
yet relevant—not "contrived"!
GE Morton wrote: ↑September 2nd, 2022, 12:21 pmConsul wrote: ↑September 1st, 2022, 10:07 pmExistent objects (of thought) aren't necessarily represented by some kind of signs or other, but nonexistent ones are.
True. But that is the difference between physical, "external world" existents and phenomenal existents; not between existence and non-existence.
If the idealistic doctrine that being is being perceived or being otherwise represented mentally were true, then
both existents and nonexistents would be "necessarily represented by some kind of signs or other", by "ideas", as Locke would say. But I think it is false that what exists and what doesn't exist depend on and are determined by our minds (our conceptual or propositional representations, our perceptions, our cognitions)—except for man-made sociocultural existence with its institutions and organizations.