Necessity and Truthful Fictions: Panenmentalist Observations

Necessity and Truthful Fictions Panenmentalist Observations

VIBS Volume 202 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Leonidas Donskis Executive Editor Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno George Allan Gerhold K. Becker Raymond Angelo Belliotti Kenneth A. Bryson C. Stephen Byrum Harvey Cormier Robert A. Delfino Rem B. Edwards Malcolm D. Evans Daniel B. Gallagher Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Francesc Forn i Argimon William Gay Dane R. Gordon J. Everet Green Heta Aleksandra Gylling

Matti Häyry Steven V. Hicks Richard T. Hull Michael Krausz Mark Letteri Vincent L. Luizzi Adrianne McEvoy Peter A. Redpath Arleen L. F. Salles John R. Shook Eddy Souffrant Tuija Takala Emil Višňovský Anne Waters James R. Watson John R. Welch Thomas Woods

a volume in Philosophy and Psychology PAP Mark Letteri , Editor

Necessity and Truthful Fictions Panenmentalist Observations

Amihud Gilead

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009

Cover photo: © Dani Simmonds Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2541-7 © Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009 Printed in the Netherlands

Philosophy and Psychology (PAP) Mark Letteri Editor

Other Titles in PAP Steven M. Rosen. Dimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space, Time, and Individuation. 2004. VIBS 154 Christine M. Koggel, Allannah Furlong, and Charles Levin, eds. Confidential Relationships: Psychoanalytic, Ethical, and Legal Contexts. 2003. VIBS 141 Sandra A. Wawrytko, ed. The Problem of Evil: An Intercultural Exploration. 2000. VIBS 90 Amihud Gilead. Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology. 1999. VIBS 80 Jon Mills and Janusz A. Polanowski. The Ontology of Prejudice. 1997. VIBS 58

In memory of my brother Joel Gilead (1949–2007)

        

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Foreword Mark Letteri Preface ONE

TWO

xiii

1 Metaphysical Modalities 1. Taking Modality Seriously 2. Possibility as Subject and Predicate 3. How is Self-Relationality Possible? 4. Existential Quantification 5. Why Are Pure Possibilities Necessary? 6. How Many Pure Possibilities Exist? 7. The Logical and the Actual: A Comment on Freud and Others 8. Logico-Mathematical Impossibilities and the Possibility of God 9. Actualization as an Aesthetic Failure 10. Relationality and Reality 11. Why Not Modal Fictionalism? 12. Why Not Meinongianism? 13. The Identity of Indiscernibles Under a Panenmentalist Light 14. Panenmentalist Primitives 15. Comments on Haecceitism 16. The Psychical as an Actual Nothingness 17. “In Madagascar There Must Be Some Gigantic Moth” From Ontology to Epistemology 1. Can a Panenmentalist Merely Entertain a Thought? 2. Empiricism, Innateness, and Singularity 3. Panenmentalism Between Platonism and Nominalism 4. Panenmentalism Under the Light of Idealism 5. Is Panenmentalism Leibnizian? 6. The Subject in Itself: Panenmentalism Contra Kant’s Philosophy 7. Hume’s Hypothesis, Kant’s Copernican Revolution, and a Dialogue by Means of Pure Possibilities

15 15 18 21 23 47 49 71 73 75 77 80 83 91 108 112 114 116

121 121 122 125 126 129 135 138

x

THREE

FOUR

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS 8. Omnis Negatio Determinatio Est 9. A Panenmentalist Critical Comment on Putnam’s Externality of Meanings 10. The Explainable: Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Relationality 11. Holism

140 141

Necessities and Truthful Fictions 1. Necessity, Numbers as Individual Pure Possibilities, and Intrinsic Similarity 2. Is Illogical Albeit Aesthetically Necessary Mathematics Possible At All? 3. Artistic Necessities 4. Necessity, Beauty, and God 5. Free Necessity Contrary to Deus ex Machina 6. No Psychical Coincidence, Only Actual Coincidence Exists 7. Truthful Fictions and the Necessity of Life: How Does Literature Make the Contingent Necessary? 8. Philosophy, Pure Possibilities, and Truthful Fictions 9. Mind, Necessity, and Truthful Fictions 10. What Does It Mean to Discover a Necessity?

149 149

Mind and Body 1. The Lecturer’s Bodily Expression 2. Mind to Body Like Mathematics to Physics 3. A Panenmentalist Response to Novel Discoveries in Neuro-Psychoanalysis 4. Body in a Mental Reality 5. “A Sound Body in a Sound Mind” 6. The Meaning and Significance of Smells: A Paradigm-Case of Psychophysical Relationship 7. The Two Senses of Seeing: The Eyes of the Flesh and Those of the Mind 8. A Panenmentalist Comment on Tourette’s Syndrome and Zombies 9. Did Popper Solve the Psychophysical Problem?

183 183 184 187

144 145

157 162 165 166 168 170 176 179 180

200 205 206 208 209 215

Table of Contents

FIVE

Works Cited

xi

10. Difference Does Breed Relationality, Or a Panenmentalist Critique of David Bohm’s Psychophysical View 11. How Can Physical Similarity Actualize Psychical Singularity?

219

Consciousness, Memory, Other Psychical Possibilities, and Some Values 1. Minding 2. What is Consciousness? 3. Weiskrantz’s View on Consciousness, Or What is Consciousness Again 4. Synesthesia, Memory, and Multiple Personality 5. Memory, Remembering, and Temporality 6. Socrates, Vincent van Gogh, and the Presence of the Dead 7. Dialogue and Possibilities 8. How Could Descartes Conceive a Non-Euclidean Triangle? 9. Inspiration 10. “The Static Mind” and Panenmentalism Against “Internal Time-Consciousness” 11. Consciousness and the Actualization of Memory 12. Free Choice and Singularity in Psychopathology, Crime, and Compulsion 13. Why Any Determination of Our Will Must Not Be Actual 14. Experiencing Our Free Will: Between Subjectivity and Objectivity 15. Inner Reality and the Illusion of Inner Space 16. Self-Deception and Secrets We Hide from Ourselves 17. Affinity, Intimacy, and Singularity 18. Real Love, Beauty, and Actualism 19. Equality

229

225

229 229 232 238 245 252 253 255 257 259 265 266 269 272 281 289 291 293 299

305

xii

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

About the Author

317

Index

319

EDITORIAL FOREWORD I assumed the editorship of Philosophy and Psychology several years ago from the highly capable Jon Mills (both a psychologist and a philosopher). He shaped this series into a topical, interesting, and constructive collection of contributions. I am indebted to him for the opportunity to continue the work of developing the series. I am pleased to present Amihud Gilead’s Necessity and Truthful Fictions: Panenmentalist Observations, the first book in the series that I have overseen from start to finish. In recent years, Gilead has produced two exceptionally original theoretical works for Editions Rodopi, Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology and Singularity and Other Possibilities: Panenmentalist Novelties. Necessity and Truthful Fictions extends the intricacies and applications of his first two books, thus offering readers of the series a full range of philosophical insight into the vital concept of “saving possibilities.” Gilead’s work here is boldly global in intent—metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, and other foundational areas of inquiry fall squarely within his purview. He invites us to see reality, personal identity, the physical, knowing, and imagining through the lens of his elemental claim that “everything—all that is or all that exists—is comprised within the mental-possible.” Gilead’s arguments and speculations have prompted me to reflect more assiduously on my own work at the juncture of philosophy and psychology and reinforced my belief in the importance of understanding ourselves as beings of possibility. I am honored to be able to work closely with such a fine author. Mark Letteri Philosophy and Psychology Series Editor

PREFACE: BASIC PANENMENTALIST OBSERVATIONS Regardless or independently of any actualization, each possibility is pure. Our capability of referring or relating to pure possibilities makes us psychical and conscious beings. This capability is what distinguishes psychical subjects from physical objects. Panenmentalism identifies the purely possible with the mental, a special part of which is the psychical. The mental and the psychical are not the same. As an exclusive, singular category or domain of the purely mental-possible, the psychical consists of all possible psychical subjects or minds. Subjectivity, privacy, and singularity pertain exclusively to the psychical. The mental is independent of the psychical. Independently of the psychical, all pure possibilities are mental. Panenmentalism is a novel modal metaphysics, which I first introduced in a previous book (Gilead, 1999). The term “panenmentalism” or “panenpossibilism” means that everything—all that is or all that exists—is comprised within the mental-possible. The physical, which is the actual, is merely a part of the whole of existence. Each being, actual or purely possible, is possible, but not all pure possibilities are actual. The whole of existence, the realm of all pure possibilities, is wider or greater than the actual reality or world. Analogously, panentheism is the theological view according to which the world is a part of God, while God is wider and greater than the world comprised within God (to be distinguished from pantheism, according to which God and the world are identical). Pure possibilities are in the heart of panenmentalism in all its aspects— from ontology and epistemology to axiology or value inquiry. Traditionally, metaphysics has traded with what is beyond the physical or, in panenmentalist terms, beyond the physical-actual. Panenmentalism is a metaphysics in the strict sense, emphasizing that no actuality or actualization restricts or conditions the purely possible-mental. Yet, since the physical-actual is united with its identity-possibility, as we shall soon realize, panenmentalism as a metaphysics does not sever the physical-actual from the mental-possible. Instead, it maintains their unity, as it is especially displayed in the psychophysical unity. The panenmentalist “beyond the physical-actual” entails no transcendence at all. As in Spinoza’s metaphysics, no transcendence splits the panenmentalist realm, including the possibility of God. The panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities is endlessly open. It is metaphysically restricted by one condition only: No two possibilities can be indiscernible or identical. In the realm of pure possibilities any distinction, numerical or otherwise, necessarily makes a qualitative difference. The

2

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

metaphysical principle of the identity of indiscernibles is absolutely valid for pure possibilities. To the extent that pure possibilities are concerned, “indiscernible” and “identical” are interchangeable; they denote one and the same thing. Since the panenmentalist realm is subject to one restriction only, this realm is wider or more comprehensive than the logical realm of possibilities, which is but a part within the panenmentalist whole. In addition to logical possibilities, this whole also comprises illogical and non-logical possibilities. Each possibility is different from any other possibility and, on the grounds of being different from, each possibility necessarily relates to all the others. Since no two possibilities can be identical, each possibility, as particular and different from any other possibility in the entire realm of possibilities, necessarily relates to all the other possibilities and bears a universal significance. As each pure possibility relates to all the others and to the entire realm of pure possibilities as well, this relationality is universal. Nothing in the discernibility of each pure possibility might weaken or qualify this relationality or its universality. Instead, difference and discernibility validate and strengthen universal relationality, not the other way round. Panenmentalist relationality relies upon the difference and discernibility of any pure possibility from all the others, whereas other metaphysical views rest similarity upon common properties. In contrast, panenmentalism has found a way to rest similarity on the difference that entails relationality, for “being different from” entails “relating to.” As the difference or discernibility under discussion is of pure possibilities, to realize that such a difference obviously entails relationality is easier. Pure possibilities necessarily relate one to the other, and each pure possibility contributes something novel and particular to the entire realm of pure possibilities. Because of this, to discuss the realm as well as the relationality of pure possibilities is easier or more obvious than to discuss those of actualities. Equally, to apply the principle of the identity of indiscernibles to pure possibilities is easier or more obvious than to apply it to actualities (consult Section 1.13 below). Singularity is the unique property of psychical subjects, each of whom has a private reality, inaccessible from without. As a psychical subject, each of us is a singular possibility in the entire panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities. Each of us is a singular subject who is, in itself or intrinsically, not even similar to any other subject or possibility. Each of us is wholly other than any other possibility, psychical or not. What can be similar about us is nothing but our inter-relationality. What makes us living in a common reality or world is the relationality of each singular possibility to all the others. Although wholly other than any other possibility, on the grounds of this absolute difference each singular possibility necessarily relates to all the others. This universal inter-

Preface

3

relationality guarantees the possibility of universal communicability, in which solitude does not necessarily lead to loneliness. Singularity is a most difficult thing to grasp. We have to invest much of our intellectual and emotional capability to grasp singularity. For many of us, singularity entails being alone, and being alone often entails loneliness. For this reason, many of us are afraid of singularity, especially of our own. But the truth is that, as we shall see, loneliness and being alone are entirely different, and no real grounds exist for any fear of singularity. Yet this fear, like many illusions, is quite prevalent, so much so that we commonly use the word “idiot” in an extremely pejorative sense, even though “idiot,” like “idiom” or “idiosyncrasy,” may not be pejorative. As indicating differences, not in rank, degree, or grade but in essence, “singularity” and “idiosyncrasy,” which are beyond any comparison or measure, may have no pejorative sense at all. The readers may find much more information about the panenmentalist terms and principles in two of my previous books (Gilead, 1999 and Gilead, 2003). Since I should not assume that the present readers are familiar with my previous books, I have to represent basic panenmentalist principles and assumptions, which may help the readers understand and follow what I argue in this book. I have already presented them elsewhere under a different form (Gilead, 2003, pp. 1–14). The first panenmentalist principle is that the mental is the realm of the purely possible as a whole, whereas the physical is the realm of the actual. No pure possibility can serve as a cause of something and it cannot affect the actual; pure possibilities, however, do determine the mental and obviously affect the psychical. Just thinking of possibilities, even if they remain unactualized, affects us psychically. Only the psychical can be affected by pure possibilities. Only for psychical subjects do pure possibilities mean something. On these grounds, I will argue below that each mind, each psychical subject, is a singular pure possibility whose actuality is a body. By pure possibility I do not mean potentiality. Potentiality—such as the Aristotelian matter—entails dependence on the actual—such as the Aristotelian form, eidos—which is ontologically and epistemologically antecedent and prior. Existing independently of and prior to the physicalactual, pure possibilities are not potentialities, Aristotelian or otherwise. Nor are they dispositions, behavioral or otherwise. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities are a priori individuals, namely, particulars or singulars. In contrast, dispositions, especially behavioral, must have a general nature and must, at least epistemologically, depend on (or come after) a posteriori, actual facts, circumstantial or contingent. No pure possibility is dependent on any a posteriori facts or actualization. Possibilities, pure or otherwise, are by no means abstract or general. What is general or universal about possibilities can be only their relationality

4

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

or significance, which is established only on the basis of the individuality of the interrelating possibilities. Generality has to do with specific relations, connections, or representations of individual possibilities. This holds for “general” concepts, paradigms, types, models, laws, and rules. All such “general” possibilities, serving as relationality or significance of individual possibilities, are meaningless unless entirely dependent on these individual possibilities. Hereafter, I use and mention “individual possibilities” or “possible individuals” synonymously or interchangeably. “Individuals” generally signifies hereafter particulars (whenever entities are concerned) or singulars (whenever psychical subjects or persons are concerned). I do not use or mention “individuals” to specifically signify people, persons, or human beings. Panenmentalism turns any paradigm or type into a paradigm-case or a type-token. Any model or type is a particular possibility relating to similar tokens. Similarity is a specific relation among individual possibilities sharing a generic or sortal relationality, relatedness, or significance. Since any word is general, having a general significance or meaning within a language (which cannot be private), each word generally represents individual possibilities, which as such are not general. For instance, the word “book” is general, yet we must have a particular possibility, or particular possibilities, in mind that this word generally represents or indicates. In reality, no book “in general” can exist, since no possibility of a book can be general but must be particular. Only the significance or meaning shared by the possibilities of all books can be general, and all these possibilities share a specific relationality relating them under a common, general concept. Panenmentalism maintains a unique kind of nominalism. Pure possibilities are as real as actualities, at least as regards the mental and the psychical. The purely possible and the mental as such make one and the same ontological realm that is independent of the actual-physical. Pure possibilities are ontologically prior and epistemologically a priori. We can know them by means of imagination and reflection alone, although in practice knowing or being aware of them may occasionally require experience or intersubjective means, such as dialogue. The apriority or innateness of pure possibilities is absolutely compatible with such a requirement, because the a priori or innate standing of any pure possibility is entirely independent of the way in which it becomes known to us. No matter how you know of any pure possibility, in itself it must be a priori and innate. You may imagine or think of pure possibilities about whose possible actualization you know absolutely nothing. As for the physical, it is undoubtedly actual, and not only possible. As actual, the physical is subject to spatial, temporal, and causal conditions, whereas no pure possibility is subject to any of these conditions. Since temporality, spatiality, and causality are necessary conditions for actualization,

Preface

5

and since the purely possible, whether mental or psychical, is absolutely exempt from any of these conditions to which only the physical is subject, the only possible actualization is physical. By “physical” I mean strictly physical, material, energetic, chemical, or biological. The actual-physical makes the a posteriori realm, which can be known empirically only, by means of experience alone. To exempt the purely mental and the psychical from any spatial condition or localization may sound quite reasonable to you. But to argue that the mental and especially the psychical are exempt from any temporal condition appears to oppose most, if not all, accepted views about the psychical. Can we imagine our psychical life without time and temporality? By all means, provided that we realize that all the temporality about our psychical life is not of it as such but only of its actualization in the body. Time and temporality have to do with the physical realization, namely actualization, of our mind, not with our mind as such, as purely possible-psychical. Everything psychical as such, as purely possible, must be atemporal, and only the physical-actual is subject to time and temporality. Our sense of actuality consists in our acquaintance with the physical. By means of this acquaintance alone we acquire the experience of time and temporality. Without experiencing the physical-actual, we would have no temporal experience. Without the only possible actualization, the physical realization, of our mind as a body, time and temporality would remain merely ideas or pure possibilities for us. This is so, because our psychical life in itself, including our memories and recollections, is necessarily atemporal and not subject to temporal conditions. Atemporality is a necessary condition for remembering. Things remembered are quite different from actual things, which are inseparable from temporality. We do not experience things remembered as events in the past. To recall them we must first remove all temporal distance. Associations, undoubtedly psychically indispensable, may blur all temporal distinctions and fuse them into an atemporal mixture. Such is also the nature of imagination, fantasy, and dreaming, all the more so of anything unconscious. As for the unconscious, no temporal distinctions are applicable at all. The distinction between inner-psychical and external-actual reality brings back temporal distinctions to our awareness, also in remembrance. If someone asks you where you were at a particular moment when you were remembering something and at what time the remembering experience occurred, all such questions make sense only because they refer to your physical, bodily state alone. Your body, the actualization of your mind, is there and then in the place where you are at that moment, whereas your thoughts, memories, feelings, and experiences, and your psychical being as a whole, cannot be located at any place or time. Your psychical states as

6

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

physically realized, as actualities taking place in your body, can be spatiotemporally located. But as psychical alone, as purely psychical, no spatial or temporal location or condition is applicable to them. No thought or experience takes time unless as an actuality in our brain. As an actuality, such a thought or experience is an event in our brain, occurring at a particular time in a particular place that can be precisely located. Yet this event is by no means our thought in its psychical being, namely, as a pure possibility. Panenmentalism leaves changes, processes, events, and occurrences to the physical-actual alone, whereas the mental and the psychical as such are exempt from all these. Since nothing of the mental or of the psychical as such, as pure, is temporal or temporally conditioned, the physical alone is actual. Nothing purely psychical can be actual but only purely possible, and the only possible actualization is physical realization. Since any actuality is also possible, though not every possibility is actual, panenmentalism allows no reduction of the possible to the actual. Actualism, in contrast, confines any possibility to an actuality or, at least, to a property or a state of an actuality, which cannot exist or have any sense independently of the actuality. Panenmentalism systematically opposes actualism of any kind. Just as the realm of the possible is wider or more comprehensive than that of the actual, so more exists to any possibility than its actuality. A pure possibility, say, b, comprises all the possible modifications or changes, actualized or not, that b can undergo while still keeping its identity. Hence, each pure possibility serves as an identity; it is a pure possibility-identity, say, pure possibility-identity b. The mental realm as a whole comprises all possibilities, actualized or not, which, regardless or independently of any actualization, are all pure. The actualized part of the mental-possible is the physical, which, as possible too, is necessarily comprised within the panenmentalist realm of possibilities, within the mental-possible. For, regardless or independently of any actualization, the actual-physical too, as purely possible, is necessarily comprised within the purely mental-possible. In this sense, the purely mental-possible comprises all that exists. Against this background, any actualization limits, confines, restricts, or qualifies the relevant possibility, although not as pure but only as actualized, and so subjects it to causal and spatiotemporal conditions. Whether something is actual or not, its pure possibility necessarily exists, independently of any actuality or actualization, and must be a priori thinkable and knowable. As you will see, panenmentalism associates necessity, necessary existence, and pure, a priori possibilities. This peculiar association is not a mistaken result of confounding epistemology with ontology. It reflects the way in which panenmentalism associates ontological and epistemological considerations. On panenmentalist grounds, I do not accept Kripkean a posteriori necessity (Gilead, 2003, pp. 209–210). Purity, necessity, and apriorism refer, each in its

Preface

7

way, to the independence of pure possibilities, their independence of actual, contingent, empirical, or a posteriori matters. Thus, pure, a priori possibilities necessarily exist, and their independence is equally ontological and epistemological. Panenmentalism leaves contingency to the actual-physical alone (ibid., pp. 131–156), which is only a posteriori, empirically cognized. “Necessity” or “contingency” is habitually considered a modal-metaphysical term, while “a priori” or “a posteriori” is habitually considered an epistemological term. Associating these terms, panenmentalism does not blur the difference between them. The psychical makes a special domain within the possible-mental. Besides and independently of the psychical, the mental-possible consists of concepts, ideas, structures, theories, systems, meanings, significance, and values, unless subjective, private meanings, significance, and values are concerned, all of which are necessarily psychically dependent. Being psychical most closely relates to the purely possible. The only entity affected by pure possibilities is the mind; the only reality that can be determined solely by pure possibilities is the psychical or the mental one. Just to think of a pure possibility, which is not an actuality or of whose actualization we have no evidence, may be sufficient to transform our state of mind quite dramatically. Many of the objects of our willing, wishing, planning, fantasizing, of our fears, anxieties, hopes, intentions, or expectations are pure possibilities, actualizable or not, which affect our mind greatly. Yet pure possibilities change nothing about actualities; pure possibilities cause nothing in actual reality. What makes us psychical and conscious beings is our ability to experience, to be affected by, to conceive, and to be aware not only of the actual but, most of all, of the purely possible. Things are meaningful or valuable for us owing to their pure possibilities and the relationality, attachment, or association of these possibilities to our psychical possibilities. That the objects of our psychical attitudes can be pure possibilities is a received view. But a bold novelty of panenmentalism is that the psychical as such (in itself) is a pure possibility and not an actuality, and that our body is merely an actuality of our mind. Our psychical life is made of singular possibilities, partly actualized in our brain and nervous system. But our mind or psychical life is not identical with our brain and nervous system or with anything biological-physical pertaining to them—structure, organization, properties, potentiality, functions, operation, and activity. Our psychical being is irreducible to our actuality, which must be physical. Materialist-actualist reduction of any kind is entirely incompatible with our deep-rooted experience of psychical life, an experience that has nothing of the nature of illusion in it. To identify or characterize anything psychical as a biological being or activity makes no sense for no physical property can be attributed to anything mental or psychical. For instance, any mental thing, any pure possibility, cannot have weight, color,

8

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

figure, dimensions, or any spatial, temporal, and causal properties, except metaphorically (in poetry, for instance). The psychophysical unity by its nature cannot be considered an identity. All that we are capable of finding in the brain and nervous system must be biological-physical alone, and no purely psychical factors can be considered causes, operations, and effects within the brain and nervous system. Psychical life is actualizable owing exclusively to the functioning or activity of the brain and nervous system. Yet no actualization entails identity. Possibility b, as pure possibility-identity b, is not identical with its actuality, because no actualization can exhaust its possibility: The actual case could always be different and not all the possible modifications or changes under the same possibility-identity are actualized. Equally, cerebral activity makes our psychical life actual and endows it with causal power and efficacy, but this life is not identical with cerebral activity. Analogously, a novel as a mental entity has nothing of the properties or characteristics of the physical-actual book, yet the printed book is the actuality of this novel. The case of our psychical life is analogous. As psychical subjects, we consist of psychical possibilities, not of their actualities, which are physical facts, states, events, or actions. Much more exists to a person’s being than what his or her body, including all its physical manifestations, actualizes or may actualize. In the causal chain actualizing our psychical life, no psychical factor can be found; only biological-physical factors exist there. This causal chain would be meaningless without our psychical life, yet no meaning and nothing psychical can be found within this chain. What unites mind and body into one being is not causality but only the actualization of the mind, which is a singular, psychical possibility. No causal connection can exist between mind and body, for causality is valid for actualities alone, for physical beings alone, all of which are subject to spatiotemporal conditions. Pure possibilities cause nothing, yet causes actualize possibilities and the relationship or connection attaching them together. Anything purely possible-mental is entirely exempt from spatial and temporal conditions. We cannot spatially or temporally locate anything purely possible, mental or psychical. Causality cannot do without spatiotemporal, or at least temporal, conditions and location. Only the physical, the actuality of anything mental or psychical, is spatiotemporally conditioned or located and causally conditioned. Contrary to this panenmentalist view, you may argue that psychophysical interaction or inter-causation is an incontestable fact. Innumerable everyday experiences, familiar to each of us, appear to indicate that our psychical factors or determinations cause bodily and behavioral changes and vice versa. But, in light of panenmentalism, this is only a matter of appearance or wrong interpretation. Besides temporal conditions, causation requires energy, power or force, and specific mechanisms, while causality implies subjecting all these

Preface

9

to patterns or laws. Yet we can coherently envisage any causal mechanism, any energy, or any power or force only under physical terms, not under mental terms or an obscure or enigmatic mixture of both mental and physical terms. Any cause, effect, or event as temporally or spatiotemporally conditioned must be physical, whereas no event, cause, or effect can be mental (for anything purely mental is exempt from temporality and spatiality as well). Physical factors alone can cause events. Unlike events, actions are explicable and intelligible under psychical possibilities, but this does not render actions psychical or mental. As actualities, actions just like events can be only physical. Any causation or causality we veridically know, publicly observe, or can consistently and coherently conceive, is necessarily and exclusively under physical terms. We can intersubjectively, publicly, or objectively detect, follow, observe, and describe causal links only under spatiotemporal and physical terms or distinctions. Energy, power, force, and mechanisms of a mental nature are prevalent, although untruthful, fictions. They are prejudices or beliefs that cannot be rationally conceived or specifically, concretely detected or followed. We cannot put such fictions or beliefs to any valid or objective test, and we should commit them to magical thinking instead. The chain of causes, under which all that takes place in our brain and nervous system occurs, consists entirely of actual, spatiotemporal factors, none of which is mental or psychical. As a pure possibility, no mental or psychical factor can be temporally or spatially located or serve as a link in any causal chain. To argue to the contrary relies upon the wrong assumption that mental or psychical factors and physical factors (say, events) are identical (although under different descriptions). As a result of the above, panenmentalism cannot save the possibilities of psychophysical interaction, but this does not undermine psychophysical unity and interconditionality. All that causally takes place in our nervous system is an actualization of mental and psychical possibilities. Our actions as a whole and especially anything which occurs within our nervous system and muscles, which is relevant to these actions, are senseless or meaningless without these possibilities or without what is meaningful and significant for us. Although our motives, which are psychical possibilities, do not cause our actions, they make them possible, meaningful, and significant. Psychical possibilities, such as our emotions or feelings, can serve as causal possibilities, but not as actual causes. Our psychical possibilities constitute the identity, meaning, and significance of our actions, which are actualized by physical means alone. The causes of my writing this text are not my thinking, intention, or will, but only particular events in my brain, nervous system, or muscles. Yet my writing would make no sense at all, and would be utterly meaningless or reasonless, were it not an

10

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

actualization of my thinking, intention, or will, all of which are psychical possibilities alone. Panenmentalism excludes psychophysical interactionism. Since psychical possibilities and their actualities are not identical, panenmentalism also excludes psychophysical identity of any kind. Panenmentalism entirely commits psychophysical unity to the dependence or supervenience of the physical-actual upon the psychical-possible in all that concerns identity, meaning, and significance, whereas the psychical-possible depends on the physical-actual only to the extent that actualization, causation, or activity is concerned. The causation of our actions derives from two sources: (1) It derives the possibility, identity, meaning, significance, motivation, intentionality, reason, aim, and value from the mental or the psychical alone; and (2) it derives the energy, power, mechanism, activity, and actualization as a whole from the physical-actual alone. Without the first source, no causal explanation for our actions can be found. The readers may now have an idea about the panenmentalist psychophysical view. The mind is a pure possibility, whereas the body is its actuality. The identity of the living body is the mind as a pure possibility. The mind is the pure possibility-identity of that body, and the body partly actualizes this possibility-identity. Since pure possibility-identity and its actuality are different and since no actuality is separable from its pure possibility-identity, the panenmentalist psychophysical view confirms the psychophysical unity side by side with the irreducibility of the mind to the body and vice versa. To show, as I have done above, that the mind is absolutely exempt from spatiotemporality and causality whereas the body is inescapably subject to them, is sufficient to demonstrate that mind and body are definitely irreducible one to the other. As a pure possibility-identity, the mind is “wider” and more comprehensive than the body. The mind comprises, under one and the same identity-possibility, more possibilities than those that the body has actualized and the actualization under discussion is inescapably partial only. A person could be born in another place and at another time and yet be one and the same person and not another person who has another identity. Although mind and body are quite different, they are not two substances or two separate entities. Both are possibilities united under one and the same pure possibilityidentity, under one and the same psychical being or personality. In this way, the panenmentalist psychophysical unity avoids psychophysical dualism, a dualism that poses an unsolvable problem and not a way out to any possible solution. Panenmentalism also avoids the difficulties and the inadequacy of the double-aspect psychophysical view. The major psychophysical difference is not merely of two aspects relating to one and the same thing, which, in itself, regardless of its two aspects, remains mysterious, entirely obscure, or possibly unintelligible. Much more exists to the

Preface

11

psychophysical difference than the difference of aspects. The psychophysical difference, the difference between mind and body, is ontological as much as epistemological. Yet the double-aspect view is doomed to ignore the ontological difference and makes some justice only with the epistemological one. Because panenmentalism leaves causality to the body, to the physical entity, the psychophysical unity has a further solid foundation. I am the cause of my actions not because I am a psychical subject but because I am the actuality, the body, of that psychical subject, of that person. My mind is the source of my reasons or motives to act, but only the actualization of that mind as a body, as an actuality, endows these reasons or motives with causal potentiality and efficacy and makes me the agent of my actions. The same holds for temporality. As a pure possibility, the mind is entirely atemporal; only the actualization of pure possibilities, such as the psychical ones, gives rise to time in actual reality. Only as an actual being, as an agent in actual reality, am I a spatiotemporal and causal being. The identity of this being is a mind as a pure possibility. Although my mind and my body are different beings, they are not two separate beings: As a pure possibility and its actuality, they are necessarily united. I am a person, a psychical subject, actualized as a physical being, as a body. The panenmentalist ontology and epistemology concerning the psychophysical question is well compatible with and necessarily stems from the general ontology and epistemology concerning the entire panenmentalist realm of all pure possibilities and their actualities. Just as actual-physical reality is comprised in that panenmentalist realm, so the body is comprised in the mind, which comprises all the pure possibilities that are open to the body under one and the same pure possibility-identity. In sum, following the first panenmentalist basic principle, I attempted to render the psychophysical problem solvable, avoiding the unbearable cost of reductions, materialist or idealistic, without falling into the dualistic trap or impasse (Gilead, 1999, pp. 5–39). No less problematic are the approaches seeking some psychophysical identity. Although mind, as a pure possibility, and body, as its actuality, are undoubtedly united, they are not identical. In my view, contrary to Spinoza’s view or to the double-aspect view, mind and body are not “one and the same thing” under different descriptions or aspects. As being intimately and intrinsically united, mind or body cannot be a separate substance. Arguing that the mind is a pure possibility and that the body partly actualizes this possibility, panenmentalism sustains the real difference and distinction between mind and body, as much as it sustains their undeniable intimate unity. Mind and body are different yet necessarily connected or united, for the actual and the possible are united. The psychophysical distinction does not lead to psychophysical separation.

12

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

I have no ambition to attempt a solution of the psychophysical problem or to answer the psychophysical question. Instead, panenmentalism keeps the road, possibly an endless road, open and clear, and renders the psychophysical problem solvable. We must look forward to innumerable empirical answers to this old question, but the possibilities of attaining the answers-solutions heavily depend on the antecedent assurance that from the outset no conceptual impasse blocks the way leading, however endlessly, to them. Panenmentalism makes a grand attempt to remove such a conceptual block whose roots are in the traditional philosophical categories in which the psychophysical question has been cast so far. What is so special about psychical possibilities is their singularity. Each psychical possibility exclusively, singularly pertains to a person, by no means to any other person. Each psychical possibility that pertains to one person cannot be even similar to any psychical possibility that pertains to another person. As singulars, two persons cannot be similar; each one of them is singularly unique. With no similarity to another psychical reality, each psychical reality is internal and not accessible from without. Only a person, who “has” or consists of an inner, private, personal, or subjective reality, “has” private access, from within, to this reality that is his or hers alone. No other person can experience the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or volitions of a person but s/he alone. Although no psychical reality is accessible from without, communication between all psychical subjects, between persons, is possible. As any singular possibility must also relate to all the others, from which it must be different, even an entirely idiosyncratic possibility, like any singular possibility, is communicable to all the rest. The primary means of communication is language, and no language is private but must be interpersonal or intersubjective. The interpersonal, intersubjective realm cannot do without similarity, which is yet perfectly compatible with singularity and private accessibility (Gilead, 2003, pp. 43–75). A widely prevalent assumption is that any relationship or relationality should rest on a common background, common denominator, or commensurability. Panenmentalism constitutes a major exception and precedence, for it shows that particularity or singularity is good enough to secure universal relationality and significance. Not to be identical—to be individual or particular—signifies difference; not to be even similar—to be singular— signifies absolute difference. Difference, diversity, or dissimilarity provides grounds enough and is sufficient for relationality or relationship. Since in the entire realm of the possible no two possibilities can be identical or, in the case of two persons, even similar, the difference, diversity, or dissimilarity in question bears universal significance, and the relationality under discussion is universal.

Preface

13

Panenmentalism leaves singularity exclusively to psychical possibilities, not to physical possibilities such as the Big Bang or black holes. The “singularity” of the Big Bang or of black holes is meaningful and significant only under particular physical-mathematical theories. Not so is the genuine singularity of persons, which is altogether theoretically independent and ontologically primary. Everyday experience demonstrates repeatedly that persons are singulars, for no person can experience or “have” what exists in other minds, for each person “has” access to her or his mind alone. In contrast, the “singularity” of the Big Bang or of black holes is discoverable only under physicalmathematical theory, and the meanings and significance of this “singularity” are theory-dependent. This “singularity” has nothing of subjectivity, personality, or of any psychical reality. Being ontologically primary, the singularity of persons provides the grounds for any interpersonal relationality or relationship, whereas the status of anything “singular” under mathematical or physical terms cannot be primary. Mathematical or physical “singularity” draws all it has from, or against the background of, the mathematical or physical relationality under the relevant theories. This kind of “singularity” must be ontologically secondary or derivative. Since psychical subjects are singular, the singularity of each of them necessarily leads to inter-relationality, which embeds or nests them in a common realm of significance and meanings, in which universal communication between them is possible in principle. As an intersubjective or interpersonal relationship, any language necessarily relies on the singularity of each person who can be involved in utilizing the language. Yet no language is private, as no language can exist that is exclusively accessible to one person. Just as natural laws and patterns are not applicable to the “singularity” of the Big Bang or of black holes, so the intersubjective rules or patterns, for instance, logical or grammatical rules or patterns, psychological patterns or structures, do not determine any inner, psychical reality intrinsically. Instead, no intersubjective, interpersonal relationship is possible, unless singular beings—persons—each of whom consists of an exclusive inner reality, exist. Only the intersubjective or interpersonal significance, import, or implication of what privately exists within a person’s mind can be subject to patterns, structures, or rules. Language can capture this significance, endowing it with intersubjective expressions. Language can capture only the intersubjective, interpersonal, or universal significance or meanings of singular possibilities. I have chosen to introduce panenmentalism, which is a systematic metaphysics covering many philosophical fields and themes under one metaphysical roof, in different ways and under different appearances. In the first book (Gilead, 1999), I presented a metaphysical introduction to panenmentalism, applying its epistemological and ontological principles to the

14

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

philosophy of psychoanalysis and other, quite different, areas. Yet it is a systematic view, as the readers can realize by themselves. My second panenmentalist book (Gilead, 2003) made other systematic applications or implementations of the same principles, although the themes and the areas were utterly different from those of the first book. The present book may appear miscellaneous or eclectic but it is systematic. It makes further attempts to realize how far we can go with panenmentalist principles and perspectives, or to what extent a further diversity of ideas is accessible to panenmentalism. In this book I discover novel areas for panenmentalist observations and investigations, the diversity of which is unified under one and the same metaphysical roof and rests upon the basis of the same metaphysical principles and assumptions. Each of the following Sections systematically relates to the others, and many of them contain cross-references owing to the systematic nature of the book. In what follows I will make observations about necessity and truthful fictions. Necessity and truthful fictions are the leitmotif of this book. I choose it to serve as the title for the following panenmentalist observations, some of which are quite long and others are short comments. Since, according to panenmentalism, fictions are pure possibilities and since such possibilities are as real as actualities, fictions may be considered real or truthful. Untruthful fictions are mere illusions, which can only mislead us. By means of truthful fictions we detect meaningful possibilities as well as their necessary relationality that otherwise could not be discovered. I have in mind especially the indispensable contribution of fictions and myths to the discovery of psychical possibilities and meanings and to make us conscious of what is hidden within the depths of our mind (Gilead, 1999, pp. 51–54). Untruthful fictions, in contrast, prepare the ground for mistaking pure possibilities for actualities and contingent, arbitrary connections for necessary ones. Necessity belongs to the a priori realm of pure possibilities and their relationality, which are discoverable by means of truthful fictions. I am grateful to my friends, Saul Smilansky and Meir Hemmo, for reading some sections of the manuscript and commenting on them. I am greatly indebted to Marion Lupu for stylistic improvements. Mark Letteri skillfully and devotedly checked the entire manuscript. I am also indebted to him for writing his kind Editorial Foreword to this book. The love of my wife, Ruthie, was indispensable in making the possibility of this book actual. I dedicate the book to the memory of my dear late brother, Joel Gilead. Joel was the best and the most reliable human being I have ever known. His untimely death has been the greatest loss that my family and I have ever had.

One METAPHYSICAL MODALITIES 1. Taking Modality Seriously Dealing with concepts such as “possibility,” “existence,” “reality,” “contingency,” “actuality,” and “necessity,” modal philosophy has had many varieties. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities are as possible and real as actual things, although other thinkers have not accepted this. Actualists have reduced or confined the possible as a whole to the actual, which, in their view, must be the only possible existence. Other actualists have confined all individual possibilities to actualities, though employing concepts such as possible worlds, namely, the universal “ways” or “modes” in which actualities exist and are perceived. Acknowledging the existence of individual possibilities alone, panenmentalism also considers actual things as possibilities but this by no means exhausts the realm of the possible, for pure or “mere” possibilities are as possible and as real as actualities. As a result, panenmentalism has enlarged the realm of the possible and, respectively, has changed the concept and domain of modality, especially in ascribing existence to pure possibilities no less than to actualities. Other enlargements have been made before, beginning with Kant’s modality. More recently, philosophers have included concepts such as “should,” “must,” and “ought,” in the domain of modality. At least as far as possibilities are concerned, panenmentalism asks for more: Possibilities are not only modes or “ways” concerning things; possibilities are also actual things, namely, actualities, or else purely possible things. All possibilities, however pure or mere, are possible as well as real under the metaphysical absolute condition that no two possibilities are identical. For two possibilities to be identical is both impossible and not real. Undoubtedly, actualities are possible, but why, according to panenmentalism, are they possibilities too? Enlarging or changing the domain, the meaning, and the significance of modality, panenmentalism reveals a new dimension of the modal nature of modality. Possibilities are not only “ways” or “modes” concerning things; they are also things, subjects, or objects. Panenmentalism also differently and originally treats the concepts of reality, existence, and necessity. As you will realize, it sheds quite a new light on the relationship between pure possibilities and necessity. As I will show in Section 1.14, pure possibilities are panenmentalist primitives, which means that panenmentalist modality is irreducible, let alone eliminable.

16

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

So far, philosophers have been used to saying “it is possible that p” (or “p is possible”) or “it is impossible that p” (or “p is impossible), and panenmentalism leaves this fashion of talking intact but adds to it another modal dimension. A, actual or purely possible, is a possibility, which, if purely possible, is both possible and necessary or, if actual, is possible and contingent. For instance, this chair, on which I am now sitting, is a possibility, which is obviously possible, actual, and contingent. The point is that I refer to that chair as a possibility, as far as a possibility is a thing and not only a “mode” or a “way” ascribed to things or propositions. In other words, panenmentalism considers possibilities as referents, actual or purely possible. This does not render modal talking in the traditional sense redundant; on the contrary, taking modality more seriously, panenmentalism adds much to its numerous senses. This panenmentalist addition or enlargement appears not to be compatible with our ordinary use of language. Obviously, we do not say “sit down on this possibility-chair,” but we also do not ordinarily say “sit down on this possible chair,” which may be compatible with the traditional conception of modality. We also do not usually say “look at this possible chair,” although the actual chair, about which we are speaking, is obviously possible in the sense of the traditional modality. The common, ordinary use of language should not confine our philosophical thinking, let alone philosophical novelty or creativity. Philosophically dealing with pure possibilities, to follow the common or ordinary use of language means to put possibilities under actual or actualist restrictions, which panenmentalism strongly opposes. As to the existence of pure possibilities, this issue will concern us in the following Sections, for instance, while dealing with the quantification of pure possibilities (consider Section 1.4 below). But let me argue now that pure possibilities exist not only in a person’s mind, but no less without it, namely, in the realm of the purely possible-mental. A person may discover such possibilities independently existing in this realm. Pure possibilities are considered quite real for people. The pure idea-possibility of something entirely new is quite real although still not actual for the aspiring artist. So are the objects-possibilities of hope, fear, aspiration, and the like for any person. Such pure possibilities, of which no actualities yet indicate, may be among the strongest motives that conduct our life and, as such, they must be quite real for us, although not actual. Yet they are not in our mind only, they are discovered by it, and they are as real as our mind, which is also a pure possibility. Such possibilities exist independently of us, although they exist for us to be discovered. Equally independent is the existence of our mind—as a pure possibility it exists and is real no less than its actuality, namely, the body. The “gravitation” of actualities should not mislead or confuse us. Just as we have learnt how to set things free from the influence of gravitation, we

Metaphysical Modalities

17

should train ourselves how to avoid confinement or restriction of possibilities to actualities, to avoid the actualist fallacy. The modal term “existence” should not be confined to actualities alone, and panenmentalism is quite entitled to expand it also to pure possibilities. But what about the paradoxical result of all this? If everything exists, if any possibility exists (as long as it is not identical with any other possibility), and if, as we shall realize, any pure possibility is necessary (Section 1.5 below), what does not exist? Actualities exist contingently, and the case could be that no actualities would have existed. Undoubtedly, many pure possibilities do not actually exist, namely, they do not exist as actual. Second, that “paradoxical” panenmentalist result is intelligible, at least by way of analogy. Analogously, think of Spinoza’s philosophy, according to which anything real is eternal and necessary and anything possible actually exists, otherwise a possible cause would have existed that would have excluded its actual existence, which results in a self-contradiction. According to Spinoza, anything possible is actual, with which panenmentalism disagrees. Once you replace Spinoza’s actualities or real entities with panenmentalist pure possibilities, you inevitably come to the “paradoxical” conclusion that any pure possibility exists as real, necessary, and atemporal. No pure possibility could have been missing from the entire realm of pure possibilities, as much as nothing could have been missing from the absolutely infinite reality, which is the Spinozistic substance. Lacking anything, no absolutely infinite reality could exist. The entire realm of pure possibilities is as absolutely total as the Spinozistic substance. The major disagreement between panenmentalism and Spinoza’s philosophy is about actualism and logical limitations. Spinoza’s philosophy is entirely actualist, whereas panenmentalism is strongly against actualism of any kind. The panenmentalist realm lacks no possibility at all. Panenmentalism distinguishes between the existence of pure possibilities, which is necessary, and that of actualities, which is contingent. Reality must be complete as far as pure possibilities are concerned, but it could be without any actuality at all. The question of actual reality or existence remains open to experience and observation and cannot rely upon any a priori consideration. Second, Spinoza subjects the absolutely infinite reality to logical conditions, which means that, according to his philosophy, each possibility is logical, and the illogical is merely impossible; this is a dogmatic assumption that many philosophers share. For reasons that will be discussed below, panenmentalism does not confine the metaphysical realm of pure possibilities to that of logical possibilities. The question is whether such a view is intelligible at all. It is, because we are able to relate intelligibly to non-logical or illogical possibilities. These possibilities also relate to our logical possibilities and, on the basis of such relationality, intelligibility is secured. On

18

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

the basis of any difference, including opposition, contrariety, and the like, the relationality of pure possibilities is secured. Absurdities, contradictions, and any illogical or non-logical possibilities are especially different from logical possibilities and necessarily relate to them. On the basis of such relationality, the intelligibility of all those illogical or non-logical possibilities makes sense. We can intelligibly relate to logical absurdities, which, in this way, make sense to us. For instance, we can intelligibly think and speak about a round square, although logic and mathematics currently exclude such a possibility. We are able to deal intelligibly with absurdities. Illogical or non-logical as they are, at least for the moment, we refer and relate to such absurdities in a way that makes sense for us. Likewise, logic makes use of contradictions and absurdities to demonstrate, test, or prove whether arguments are valid or invalid. As involved with a contradiction, any invalid argument is logically impossible. Yet to test whether an argument is valid or not, we make fruitful use of absurdities or contradictions whenever we test the argument by way of reductio ad absurdum. Even within the strict scope of logic we regularly refer and relate to possibilities that are illogical or logically impossible yet make logical sense, as long as they are indispensable to prove or test logical validity. In this sense, reductio ad absurdum arguments are possible even when observing the strict use of logic. Taking modality seriously, panenmentalism also takes ontology most seriously. Mentioning “merely possible entities,” Roderick Chisholm states, “surely, no one who takes ontology seriously would maintain that there are certain things that are merely possible and not actual” (1981, pp. 9–10). Taking ontology most seriously, panenmentalism challenges the dogma of Chisholm and many others, according to which pure or mere possibilities are not existents. 2. Possibility as Subject and Predicate Discussing possibilities, we may think about such propositions: (1) It is possible that a is the case. (2) A is possible. (3) Possibility a is not actual. (4) Possibility a is possible. Proposition (1) employs a modal operator, which is familiar to those who are used to modal logic. Proposition (2) employs possibility as a predicate, while proposition (3) employs it as a subject. In proposition (4), “possible” serves as a self-predicate. Actualists reduce (2), (3), and (4) to (1). If the actual case is such and such, it is still possible that the case is otherwise, say, a. Thus, reducing all the senses of possibility to the modal operator “possible,” such actualists exclude the possibility of pure possibilities and leave all which exists

Metaphysical Modalities

19

to the actual. They are entitled to speak of possible worlds, just because these worlds are the possible ways or variations of the actual world. According to them, a and the like are actual things or subjects that can be otherwise, that can be integrated into possible worlds. They do not consider any pure possibility as a subject or a predicate of such a subject, let alone a selfpredicate. Under such actualism, possibility is only a modal operator, operating on sentences, in which subjects and predicates serve not as pure possibilities at all. Problems with self-predication have haunted philosophers from Plato onward. Actualists have tried hard to get rid of not only (2) and (3) but also (4), and thus have confined the realm of possibilities to the utmost. Actualists have attempted to confine “possibilities” as much as possible, whereas panenmentalism makes a great effort to resist their attempts and to open the realm of pure possibilities much more widely. For another anti-actualist treatment of the possible, sincerely considering the “merely possible,” consult Timothy Williamson (2000). Distinguishing between predicative and attributive reading of possibility, Williamson suggests: “[A]s an adjective of individuals, ‘possible’ means possibly existent: ‘x is possible’ is equivalent to ‘it is possible that x exists’” (ibid., p. 201). He further suggests predicative and attributive readings of “x is a merely possible F” (ibid., p. 202). Contrary to other modal philosophies, panenmentalism assumes each possibility to be a subject, object, thing, existent, being, or reality. Each possibility is also a self-predicate. Thus, each possibility is both subject and predicate that is a self-predicate. Such is the case, as possibilities are obviously possible, and self-predication such as this raises no difficulties for panenmentalism. Nothing is wrong with a question such as “Is this possibility possible?” The question is sensible, for if this possibility were identical with another possibility, it would not be possible, since no two possibilities can be identical. Second, each possibility that we discover, conceive, imagine, or distinguish from others, must be real although the empirical question remains whether it is also actual. In any case, such a question is sensible. Also sensible is the question, “How is this possibility possible?” The question asks whether this possibility is psychical (namely, in our mind only), mental (or intersubjective), or actual. In each of these questions, possibility is a self-predicated subject. Given that reality has different meanings or senses (by and large, possible-mental, possible-psychical, or possible-actual-physical), the last question is equivalent to “In what sense is this possibility real?” As the reader may quite easily guess by now, panenmentalist modality is entirely incompatible with Russellian, Quinean, Davidsonian, or any other settheoretical philosophy. Thus, although “the present king of France is bald” is by no means actual, it is yet a sheer possibility, and to think or speak about, refer or relate to, such a possibility, now or at any other time is quite

20

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

meaningful. Although no king or emperor has recently ruled in France, still this is a possibility, however actually quite improbable, a possibility that cannot be considered entirely and by all means unactualizable. Only the possibility of God can be considered as such (see Gilead, 2003, Chapter Eleven, pp. 213–224). Thus, “the present king of France is bald” is yet an actualizable, however improbably, possibility. Given all these, considering that France has had no kings or emperors since the fall of Napoleon the Third, to think or to speak about such a possibility under different meanings or significance is still quite intelligible; for instance, as a counterfactual possibility, in any literary or other fiction whatsoever, as a joke, or as a metaphor or symbol. The reader, quite aware of the currently actual state, in which no kings or emperors rule in France, can quite understand the sentence and can use it. The criterion for understandability or usability can be quite empirical: Since no language can be private, whenever I can communicate with other people by means of such sentences, whenever I share with them a common intersubjective reality, in which such sentences are not just nonsensical, meaningless, or entirely useless, such a criterion holds. It holds at the price that we truly reject Russellian, Quinean, or Davidsonian set-theoretical philosophy. Instead, we hold to quite another modal philosophy, according to which no sets as such are needed, for the entire realm of pure possibilities— the mental realm as a whole—is more than enough for all our needs concerning quantifiers or quantification. Instead of quantifying over sets, panenmentalism quantifies over all that realm of pure possibilities. In this way, we avoid, it appears, all the paradoxes with which the settheoretical philosophy has been afflicted so much. Panenmentalism appears to be exempt from all these ills. One of them is the aporetic problem of selfpredication, which is at least as old as Plato’s philosophy. If we treat possibilities as subjects and predicates, what about possibility as a modal operator? Modal operators are indispensable for any modal logic. Yet we should strictly distinguish between modal logic and modal metaphysics. One of the basic principles of panenmentalism is never to confine metaphysical possibilities or modal metaphysics to logical possibilities or modal logic. Since possibilities are possible as long as they are not identical, panenmentalism keeps open the widest realm of possibilities, in which alogical, nonlogical, or illogical possibilities exist side by side with logical possibilities. Possibility as a modal operator does not confine or restrict panenmentalism as a modal metaphysics. The realm of metaphysical possibilities is wider than that of logical possibilities, which occupy only a part within the metaphysical realm.

Metaphysical Modalities

21

3. How is Self-Relationality Possible? No two pure possibilities can be identical. Any two pure possibilities are different one from the other. On the basis of this difference, each relates to the other, for being different from leads to relating to. Since nothing can be different from itself or oneself, how can a possibility relate to itself? Not directly or immediately, but only by means of relating to other possibilities that, in turn, relate to it. In this way, panenmentalism avoids all the paradoxes stemming from self-referentiality. Exempt from set-theoretical restrictions, from those of sortal thinking, Platonic, Aristotelian, or any other, we need not face any of these paradoxes. A possibility may refer to itself by means of relating to other possibilities that, in turn, relate to it. No sentence can refer to itself unless by means of relating to other sentences that are different from it. Panenmentalism is constructed on the basis of relationality resting upon differences, not upon similarities within sets, groups, sorts, kinds, species, or genera, which sortal thinking usually requires. Panenmentalists do not begin with similarities; we begin instead with differences laying the ground for common realities and similarities due to inter-relationality. Because of this, panenmentalism is radically revolutionist. Its principles (archai in classical Greek) are quite much unlike those of the great majority of philosophies. Beginning with the difference, relationality paves our way. Plurality is not a problem to be faced, but a fruitful departure point, leading from one pure possibility to all the others. To refer to psychical possibilities, inaccessible from without but privately accessible, does not entail self-reference. Pointing out my psychical referents is not referring to myself as a whole but to my psychical possibilities, each of which is distinct or different from the others. Such a reference relies upon distinction and difference, whereas immediate self-referring does not rely upon any such difference but upon equality or sameness instead, which is the identity of the person in question as a whole. To refer to any of my psychical possibilities does not aim at myself as a whole but at distinct parts of my mind. The relationship between the mind and its parts (or the psychical possibilities within the same mind) is not that of a set and its members. The mind is not a set that includes or comprises itself too. Self-relationality under panenmentalism is entirely exempt from any set-theoretical considerations or commitments, and it is entirely exempt from the notorious paradoxes involved in self-reference. In Section 1.2 above, I briefly treated the self-predication of possibilities. Self-predication is a kind of self-relationality in which we make a special distinction and difference. Asking—“Is possibility a possible?”—we relate it to other possibilities to confirm that it is not identical with any other possibility. If a were identical with any other possibility, possibility a was excluded and should be considered impossible. Second, asking such a question, we make a difference—in what sense is this possibility possible, in the purely mental sense

22

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

or in the actual one? Again, self-predicating a, we relate it to other possibilities, and thus avoid self-predicative classical difficulties. In panenmentalism, self-relationality is by no means Cartesian. You need the other(s) to relate to yourself, to “capture” or recognize your singular identity, and dialogue is an indispensable means to self-knowledge. Think of one of the most difficult phases in a mature person’s life, namely, the stage in which her or his mother no longer recognizes or identifies her or him, as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease eventually takes effect. Think, for instance, of the most beloved son whose mother no longer recognizes him. It is a monstrous crisis as the son is no longer at home; he is misplaced, since his first home on earth, his mother, no longer recognizes him. The primordial relationality, the relationship with the mother, established the first stage in recognizing his identity, which, because of the dementia, has been uprooted to some extent since she no longer recognizes her most beloved son. No two persons can be identical, yet the memory of the mother plays a crucial role in the memory, especially selfmemory, of the son. It plays this role by way of relationality, without which no self-knowledge is possible. No immediate intuition, Cartesian or otherwise, can provide us with such knowledge. Even the sense of self-identity is severely impaired due to the unbearable fact that the mother no longer recognizes her son. Self-esteem is also liable to suffer such harm, which, due to continuous and hard work on oneself, can be repaired by means of successful internalization of the mother’s love, memory, affection, recognition, and the like. Since our mothers endow us with the sense and worth of our singularity (see “Love and Singularity” in Gilead, 2003, pp. 19–41), the harm in question is quite understandable. The significance of any singular being consists of universal relationality, the primary part of which is the relationality of the mother to her children. If the mother no longer recognizes her offspring, the offspring’s name and memory are wiped out to some extent (“may his name and memory be wiped out” is one of the harsher curses in the Hebrew language). To some extent, the offspring thus become out of place, out of the primordial place that human beings have in this world. Obviously, pure possibilities have no place but metaphorically alone, and this metaphor of the mental “place” has strongly to do with relationality and selfrelationality. A person knows his or her place first and foremost in light of the recognition and worth with which the mother’s love endows that person’s singularity. Facing the mother, the forgotten, unrecognized, alienated offspring finds herself or himself in an alien realm, no longer “at home” (uncanny, unheimlich); this is the way Freud characterizes a psychopathological experience in which something of the unconscious strangely interferes with our conscious life. Undergoing such an experience, we must face difficulties in recognizing ourselves, as if something extremely strange for us arises out of our psychical depths. Losing her memory concerning her child, the mother’s lack of

Metaphysical Modalities

23

recognition makes her dearest offspring face his/her alienation or strangeness, although this strangeness belongs intimately to them. The great question—“Who am I?”—starts to bother the offspring again, as if his or her self-knowledge were no longer secure, as if his or her self-identity had become questionable. Especially threatened is the significance of the offspring’s singularity. If this singularity means nothing to the mother, the offspring may face a severe crisis of identity. 4. Existential Quantification In Section 1.2 (“Possibility as Subject and Predicate”) above, I maintained that the entire realm of pure possibilities is more than enough for all our needs concerning quantifiers or quantification. Of special interest is the panenmentalist status of existential quantifiers. At this point especially, panenmentalism is much at odds with any kind of actualism, such as that of Bertrand Russell or that of Willard Van Orman Quine. According to Quine, truth functions and quantification should be discussed separately from modalities and propositional attitudes (such as believing, wishing, imagining, and describing). Panenmentalism, in contrast, attempts to discuss them under one metaphysical roof or in one relational system. As mental objects, pure possibilities are the objects of what is inappropriately termed “propositional attitudes.” As real entities, pure possibilities are subject to quantification as well as to truth functions. Note that, unlike Russell (for instance, 1971, p. 165), I do not take “possible” for “sometimes true,” “impossible” for “never true,” and “necessary” for “always true,” because panenmentalism does not subject pure possibilities to temporality or to temporal conditions, to which the actualphysical alone is subject. Russell takes an actualist stance. Quine takes a similar stance, systematically attempting at dispensing with, even rejecting, all “possible concrete objects, unactualized possibles” (Quine, 1964, p. 245), considering them entia non grata. Russell calls them “unreal objects” (Russell, 1971, p. 169). Contrary to Alexius Meinong, Russell argues that objects such as “the golden mountain” or “the round square” cannot serve as subjects for true or meaningful propositions. Russell denies them any logical being and assumes that, for a want of the apparatus of propositional functions, many logicians, such as Meinong, have been driven to the wrong conclusion that “there are” such unreal objects (ibid.). Again, this view is confined by actualist assumptions that I find entirely wrong. Panenmentalism is entitled to rely on a strict apparatus of propositional functions no less than the logic of Russell or Quine. Maintaining that the “feeling for reality . . . ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies” (ibid., p. 169), Russell confines abstract studies,

24

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

such as logic, to concern only with “the real [actual] world.” Logic is concerned with the actual world “just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features” (ibid.). According to Russell, unicorns or Pegasus cannot logically as much as zoologically exist. Such is the case, according to him, since the realm of the possible, including the logicallyabstractly possible, is nothing but the actual. As he sees it, one reality exists— actual reality. Stating that “there is only one world, the ‘real’ world” (ibid.), Russell should also exclude the notion of possible worlds. What he entitles “feeling for reality” is nothing but “feeling for the actual.” All this makes an actualist fallacy, wrongly confining all possibilities to the actual and denying any existence and reality to pure possibilities. As if imagination, thoughts, literature, descriptions, pictures, and the like all exist within the confinement of the actual world alone. With Russell, nothing actually “exists” in “the world of Shakespeare’s imagination” (ibid.). With him, any existence or any reality can be only in the actual world. Thus Russell writes: When you have taken account of all the feelings roused by Napoleon in writers and readers of history, you have not touched the actual man; but in the case of Hamlet you have come to the end of him. If no one thought about Hamlet, there would be nothing left of him; if no one had thought about Napoleon, he would have soon seen to it that someone did. The sense of reality is vital in logic, and whoever juggles with it by pretending that Hamlet has another kind of reality is doing a disservice to thought. A robust sense of reality is very necessary in framing a correct analysis of propositions about unicorns, golden mountains, round squares, and other such pseudo-objects. (ibid., pp. 169–170) I would like to do such a “disservice” to our thought, and I intensively attempted to raise such a panenmentalist contribution in my previous books (Gilead, 1999, 2003). Had no person thought about irrational numbers, this would not mean that such numbers do not exist. Although irrational numbers, like all numbers, are pure possibilities, they really exist and, as such, are discoverable. Irrational numbers do not exist in the realm of the Pythagorean mathematical possibilities. As pure possibilities, irrational numbers are not treated as existing in the actual world. The actual exists in (within the realm of) the purely possible, not the other way round. In intersubjective realities, independently of any actuality, unicorns, golden mountains, round squares, and the like exist and make sense, and in this respect they are not pseudoobjects but real objects for thought, language, literature, and imagination. As for Hamlet, as a pure possibility, he is discoverable. Shakespeare had to discover, not to invent, it for Hamlet as a pure possibility bears necessities or a necessary relationality. Hamlet by Shakespeare is a truthful fiction by means

Metaphysical Modalities

25

of which alone we can capture or discover the pure possibility Hamlet. As a truthful fiction, Pythagorean mathematics is incapable of discovering or capturing irrational numbers. Other mathematical theories, other mathematical truthful fictions, are capable of discovering such numbers. In any case, irrational numbers, Hamlet, and all other pure possibilities are as real as actualities although in a different meaning of the concept “reality.” We are much in need of a sense of reality that is not confined to the actual. Mentioning the “sense of possibility” in The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil entertained a similar idea (Musil, 1995, pp. 10–13). Our imagination needs such a sense to discover real possibilities-objects, for instance, by means of mathematics. A sense of necessity due to mathematics, logic, or other indispensable theories (which Russell entitles “abstract”) is very much with us, especially in all cases that are independent of actualities. Actualism has done a great disservice to philosophy and to thought in general, whereas possibilism has much more to contribute to them. Contrary to Russell (ibid., p. 170), I should say that in obedience to the feeling of reality that is not confined to the actual, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, much more than the actual is to be admitted. What Russell wrongly entitles “unreal” is nothing but “not actual.” Yet the realm of the possible should not be confined to the actual, contrary to Russell’s philosophy in general and to his theory of descriptions in particular. Does Russell ascribe any significance to the proposition “I met a unicorn”? He considers the word “unicorn” meaningful or significant. The trouble is, according to Russell, with the combination of two words “a unicorn,” which entails that a unicorn exists although no unicorn exists. Thus, the combination “a unicorn” is meaningless or insignificant, whereas the propositions “no unicorn exists” and “no unicorn is real” are always significant and true. Combining the words “a” and “unicorn,” we have a problem to face: “How there can be such a thing [namely, a unicorn] in a world where there are no unicorns” (ibid.). As an indefinite description, “a unicorn” describes nothing, since “there is nothing to describe.” “A unicorn” does not make a subordinate group having a meaning of its own (ibid.). But is it true that “a unicorn” refers to nothing? Not at all, for it denotes a pure possibility, although not actual, which carries a definite meaning and significance in the context of some legends or myths. These legends or myths used to take part in an intersubjective reality of many people in the Middle Ages, and it is translatable into quite different, current intersubjective realities, although we do not share the beliefs about the existence of unicorns. “A unicorn examines itself in the mirror” describes such a reality that is intelligible for us nowadays, without causing any sane person to believe in the actual existence of unicorns. When a girl dreams at night of a unicorn, of which she is afraid, this unicorn of her dream is quite real for her, sometimes

26

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

even after awakening. The dream troubles her, and some other persons may help her understand or interpret her dream to discover what is the real meaning of it for her, and what unicorns, or this particular unicorn in her dream, signify for her, for her psychical reality, to be distinguished from her actual, external reality. What a unicorn means to her is a good question, because a unicorn denotes some meaningful internal object for her, and this object is not a physical-actual one, as much as meanings and significance consist of psychical or mental possibilities and not of actualities. The same holds for witches as intersubjective objects, which by no means are actual. Russell must be blind to all this. “I met a unicorn” conveys something significant, something meaningful, about a person’s subjective or intersubjective reality, not about her or his actual reality. Russell is blind to the implications of the secured distinction between subjective, intersubjective, and objective-actual reality. More than one reality exists. “Existence” has different meanings; “actual existence” is merely one of them. Respectively, we need different kinds of sense of reality: A sense of psychical reality, that of intersubjective reality, and that of objective, actual reality. Each of these kinds of sense is indispensable and each of them is robust enough. To rightly distinguish between these different kinds is an indisputable sign of sanity. To distinguish between a possible and an actual existence (or “existence” and “actual existence”) on whatsoever grounds is extremely rare in the philosophical literature. Identifying nonexistent with merely intentional objects, Colin McGinn indicates “how the representation-dependence of nonexistence can be made consistent with the mind-independence of possibilia— namely, by recognizing that possibilia exist” (McGinn, 2000, p. 39, n. 26). McGinn distinctly states: [M]erely possible entities, such as the younger sister I might have had, really do exist, and did exist before I ever formed the concept of them— thought they do not actually exist. Such entities exist in the realm of the merely possible; their ontological deficiency consists just in the fact that their existence is not actual. When we think that they fail to exist we are confusing existence with actual existence, and it is their want of the latter that explains their difference from ordinary objects like the people around me. (ibid., p. 39) On quite different grounds, panenmentalism accepts a similar stance. Especially closer to it is the existence of possible entities “in the realm of the merely [purely] possible.” All the more so, since McGinn employs modal words not as quantifiers over worlds (ibid., p. 80), thus challenging the belief of the friends of possible worlds that without such worlds “there will be no necessities and too many possibilities” (ibid., p. 71), and switching from

Metaphysical Modalities

27

“world” to “state of affairs” or “maximal state of affairs” (ibid., p. 72). As panenmentalism also considers it, possible existence is by no means deficient in comparison with actual existence. No failure is involved in possible existence, and pure possibilities exist in the robust sense of the term. Pure possibilities are at least as real as actualities. As a matter of precision or truth, pure possibilities are more real than actualities, for they are not spatiotemporally and causally restricted or conditioned, and each pure possibility is “wider” or more comprehensive than its actuality. Thus, I cannot accept McGinn’s view according to which the modal is “strongly dependent” on the actual (ibid., p. 85). In contrast, panenmentalism considers the actual as dependent or supervenient on the purely possible and the necessary, not the other way round. Although McGinn is quite right in stating that only the actual can be causal (ibid., p. 86), which panenmentalism accepts on its grounds, I do not accept his statement that “from a causal point of view, modality is epiphenomenal” (ibid.). From a panenmentalist viewpoint, the identification of cause and effect as well as of the relationality that explains the causal relationship inescapably supervene on pure possibilitiesidentities and their relationality. A further moot point between McGinn’s view and mine concerns the metaphysical status of fictional entities as purely possible. Since panenmentalism considers such entities discoverable and not a matter of mere invention, stipulation, or contriving, they are no less metaphysically possible than other pure possibilities (see Section 1.6 below). Unlike Meinong, Meinongians, and McGinn, I consider unicorns, other mythical creatures, and fictional entities not as nonexistents but as existing pure possibilities, lacking no particularization, individuation, determination, and countability (see below in this Section and Section 1.6). Existence of pure possibilities entails mental or psychical determination, namely, any determination in intersubjective or subjective reality, whereas existence of actualities entails causation, namely, spatiotemporal, causal effectiveness. Existence of pure possibilities (as concrete beings) is entirely exempt from any actuality and from any spatiotemporal and causal conditions as well. Hence, panenmentalism is a possibilism that does not follow Alberto Voltolini’s combinatorial possibilism, according to which “possibilia are actual beings having a merely possible existence” or “when we speak of possible objects or possible entities, this is just a shortened formulation for possibly existing actual entities” (Voltolini, 2000, p. 211). Equally, I do not accept Voltolini’s (or most Meinongians’) distinction between particular quantifier (“there is a nonexistent x”) and existential quantifier (as restricted to actual beings only). The particular quantifier helps Voltolini in interpreting Barcan’s Formula as “there is (non-existentially) an item which might have Fed” (ibid.), allowing for “possible actually nonexistent entities” (ibid., p. 209). Voltolini’s combinatorial possibilism is compatible with a version of (“weak”)

28

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

actualism, whereas panenmentalist possibilism is entirely incompatible with actualism. Also, answering the question, “How many pure possibilities exist?” (Section 1.6 below), panenmentalism does not follow Voltolini’s “relational individual essences,” but relies instead upon the principle that no two pure possibilities can be identical, and only because of their difference do they necessarily relate one to the other. All the more, panenmentalism dissociates itself from such a combinatorial possibilism, assuming that “in order for unactualized possibilia to have being, some actualia or other must have being as well. . . . the individuation chain which links unactualized possibilia with other unactualized possibilia must end up in some actualia” (ibid., p. 216). Finally, although combinatorial possibilism, which “makes possibilia the building blocks of states of affairs, which means that worlds are taken to depend on possibilia, and not the other way round” (ibid., p. 213), is a desirable stance, it does not dispense with the most problematic notion of possible worlds and with transworld entities-identities either. Rejecting all kinds of “unactualized possibles” or “possible concrete objects,” Quine mentions “perplexity over identity” (Quine, 1964, p. 245). Panenmentalism is not afflicted by such a perplexity: If properly carried out, referring to pure possibilities breeds no trouble, logical or metaphysical, unless you believe that actualism is the only possibility to be taken in these matters, which should not be the case at all (cf. Williamson, 2000, p. 204, allowing “to refer to the merely possible”). As an actualist, Quine appears to have no problem in situating, in specifying a position or location of, possible objects. He writes: “Even when a position is specified, as in ‘the possible new church on that corner’, ‘the possible hotel on the corner,’ the identity of position does not make the possible objects identical” (Quine, 1964, p. 245). It does not, for the identity of pure possibilities is not spatiotemporally determined or fixed. For instance, referring to numbers, which are pure possibilities (unlike Quine’s or Nelson Goodman’s “actuals”), we can easily identify any of them regardless of any actual conditioning, spatiotemporal or causal. The identity and identification of any number, as with any other pure possibility, is exempt from causality and causal conditions. With panenmentalism, unlike with actualism, modality, pure possibilities (also as the objects-referents of what is inappropriately entitled “propositional attitudes”), reference, identity, and truth functions go hand-in-hand without any trouble. As a pure possibility, number 3 is distinguished from number 4, and the proposition that 3 precedes 4 or that 4 is greater than 3 is true, and so on. Exempt from any actual conditioning, pure possibilities can also serve as truthful fictions, as long as the difference between actual and purely possible reality is kept in mind. Thus, with panenmentalism, truth and truth functions hold for fictions and pure possibilities in general no less than for actualities. Illusions consist of mistaking pure possibilities for actualities, and all

Metaphysical Modalities

29

propositions based on illusions are false. To consider pure possibilities actual must be mis-taking them. Concerning the realm of pure possibilities, solid differences exist between true and false propositions. We do not need to be actualists to see a clear difference between truth and falsehood. As actual, the hotel on the corner is possible too, but as pure possibility no hotel exists on the corner, for no pure possibility, although existing (as long as it is not identical with another possibility whatsoever), exists at any time or in any place; no pure possibility can be spatiotemporally located. Since no two pure possibilities can be identical, we have solid grounds to distinguish between all pure possibilities and to identify each of them. The context, to which we refer, is the relationality to other pure possibilities and not to any actual spatiotemporal situation. To identify a possible church, to refer, define, or describe it, we do not need an actual church. The modal operator of possibility can be applied to “possibles” no less than to “actuals.” The same holds for all other modal operators. As pure possibilities discovered by means of Euclidean and other mathematics, some relations between the numbers 3 and 4 are possible, others are necessary, others impossible, and so on. In case of eka-elements (in the periodic table of chemical elements), mathematical figures or numbers, and other systems of pure possibilities, we need no reference to actual facts of the matter. We can identify each of these pure possibilities, and we are quite able to make true and false propositions about them regardless of any actuality or actual state. Unlike the actualist views, pure possibilities exist not only regardless of actualities but also of any possible world. Actualists accept the notion of possible worlds (Loux, 1979, 9–11 and passim; and Bradley, 1989, pp. 16–19), and many of them adopt this notion quite willingly, but none of them accepts the notion of particular or singular pure possibilities, existing independently of any actualization or actual state. Quantification does not need the actual world. Quantification thus can be over the entire realm of pure possibilities, over the panenmentalist expanse. As much as “a such and such real number exists” may be true regardless of any actual state of affairs, existential quantification over the entire realm of pure possibilities makes sense. Contrary to Quine (1964, pp. 245–246), possible objects are not surrogates for actual ones. Although what Quine terms “propositional attitudes” has to do with “possibles,” I do not accept that we are “left with the problems of propositional attitude, but those, unlike the vagaries of unactualized possibles, are with us anyway” (ibid., p. 246). For years, I have found “propositional attitude” wanting in many respects (see, for instance, Gilead, 1999, pp. 31, 155), and graver in its deficiency than the blame that Quine assigns. For this term serves functionalists, misleadingly ascribing beliefs or desires to machines or automata. Also, it ignores the

30

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

subjective and private nature of psychical possibilities. Using the notion of relationality instead, panenmentalism has all that we need in these matters. Quine writes, “Actually ‘unicorn’ and ‘Pegasus’ can be perfectly good terms, well understood in that their contexts are well enough linked to sensory stimulation or to intervening theory, without there being unicorns or Pegasus” (ibid., p. 246). A blindly actualist stance again. “Unicorn” and “Pegasus” can be perfectly good terms as long as we do not consider them actual. As pure possibilities, unicorns and Pegasus are real objects for our thinking, speaking, referring, and the like. Consisting of pure possibilities, their context should not be linked to sensory stimulation in order to bear meanings and significance. As for (intervening or not) theory, does it not possibly consist of pure possibilities alone, like any purely mathematical theory, for example? The sense, meanings, and significance of numbers or geometrical figures need not rely on any actual reality, causal relationships, or spatiotemporal conditions. Our imagination is good enough to discover these pure possibilities without relying on actual matters or conditions of any kind. We identify imaginary or fictional objects, for instance, by means of literary works of art without relying on actual matters. However actual our appropriation of language and the command of theories, mathematical and otherwise, may be, the meaning, significance, or sense of our terms depends on our accessibility to pure possibilities and to their relationality. Watching and observing the behavior of persons does not help us enough to comprehend the meaning or sense of their behavior, unless we have access to the relationality of the possibilities that are the grounds of their behavior and unless our psychical possibilities relate to theirs. Quine must have in mind the actual way in which we acquire languages, but this way is not the origin of the meanings, sense, and significance that we relate to them. Lacking imagination and psychical reality in general, each of us would be entirely incapable of speaking, listening to, or understanding other people. Lacking the access to pure possibilities, language would be just impossible, namely, senseless or meaningless. Our capability of referring to pure possibilities makes language possible. Bearing that in mind, existential quantification of pure possibilities, or of Quinean “unactualized possibles,” is not only possible but also necessary for us to make language possible, namely, meaningful and significant. Unlike actualism, panenmentalism existentially quantifies over the entire range or realm of pure possibilities. This kind of quantification maintains the crucial difference between actual and mental-possible reality. Not only in psychical realities, but also in intersubjective realities, witches, Pegasus, unicorns, and the like exist as pure possibilities, and they have meanings, sense, and significance as well. All sane, mature persons involved in such intersubjective realities, are well aware that no actual witch, unicorn, or Pegasus exists.

Metaphysical Modalities

31

“A pure possibility x exists” must be either true or false. Logically, we cannot separate existential quantifier from truth functions. The panenmentalist concept of truth, including truth functions, consists of the relationality of possibilities. This concept of truth is equally valid for correspondence and coherent theories of truth. If the relationality under question is to actual possibilities, the relevant truth or falsehood is a matter of correspondence; if the relationality is of pure possibilities only, truth is a matter of coherence. The proposition “a unicorn exists” is false if it relates to an actual possibility, but as relating to pure possibilities in myths, legends, or intersubjective realities (while employing, for instance, figures of speech in a particular language), it may be true and even necessary. By the same token, “Pegasus flies” is true under the relationality of pure possibilities in myths or legends concerning Pegasus, whereas “Pegasus floats” is false or senseless under this relationality. Relating to actual possibilities or reality, “Pegasus flies” and “Pegasus floats” are false. In Jules Verne’s time, “the submarine crossed the Atlantic Ocean” relating to actual reality was false or senseless, yet relating to pure possibilities in light of Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, it was true and made sense. In the same vein, a moon rocket, as a pure possibility, has existed independently of any actual existence of a rocket. Verne’s fictional rocket has been subject to descriptions and truth functions. Some propositions about the rocket have been false, others have been true, and any competent reader can distinguish between truth and falsehood about Verne’s lunar vehicle. Although fictional, as an object for thought, of the readers or of the author, Verne’s rocket has existed, regardless of any actual projectile or of its spatiotemporal and causal conditions. As pure geometrical possibilities, two parallel lines cannot share one and the same point, as far as Euclidean geometry is concerned. According to this geometry, the proposition “two parallel lines share a point” is false and does not make sense. Not so according to a non-Euclidean geometry. According to it, such a common point, as a pure possibility, necessarily exists. Equally, such points actually exist, shared by all the vertical lines on the surface of a ball or sphere. They are the poles of the ball or sphere. Relating to these actual or pure possibilities concerning the surface of a ball, such common points, shared by lines that in terms of Euclidean geometry would be considered parallel, undoubtedly exist. Also, they would exist, under the terms of a non-Euclidean geometry, in a possible reality in which no actual balls or spheres exist. The same proposition about parallel lines is true and false under different geometries. What exists according to Euclidean geometry may not exist according to a non-Euclidean geometry for, contrary to Russell, it is not true that only one reality exists. Much more exists to reality than the actual.

32

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

But where or in what reality does a round square exist? No known geometry or logic admits such a possibility. Each known geometry or logic excludes it and considers it impossible. Yet, in the panenmentalist expanse or realm, such a possibility exists, as far as it is different from any other possibility, and as far as it relates to other possibilities and thus makes some sense (for instance, as absurd or as an instance of absurdity). Are we entitled to say, with panenmentalism, that each pure possibility that is not identical with any other possibility exists? Yes, for no other restriction is valid for the existence of pure possibilities. The essential questions are: In what way or under what relationality does each pure possibility exist? What significance does its existence bear on the entire realm of pure possibilities? In other words, to what truths does each pure possibility pertain? But no existence, significance, or truth blurs the distinction or the boundary between purely possible and actual reality. In sum, the existential quantifier, accompanied by truth functions, functions over the realm of pure possibilities at least as much as it functions over actual reality. The sense of actuality is not enough. We need two senses of reality and we need also two kinds of existential quantifier, each of which is indispensable for us. Two kinds of existential quantifier exist: (1) Spatiotemporally or actually existential quantifier, quantifying over the actual realm alone; (2) possibilist existential quantifier, quantifying over the purely possible realm as a whole. The first kind depends on the second one. If the pure possibility of x did not exist (or if it were impossible), x could not actually, spatiotemporally exist. In other words, following the relationship between pure possibilities and their actualities, the actually existential quantifier is a conditioned, limited, and partial version of the possibilist existential quantifier. Thus, Russell’s and other actualists’ existential quantifier is not only partial and incomplete, it is without a foundation: Its foundation is the existence of pure possibilities-identities for which the possibilist existential quantifier is valid. Kit Fine, Jaakko Hintikka, and William Lycan have already mentioned the term “possibilist existential quantifier.” Since Fine replaces the possibilist existential quantifier—“there is a possible individual x”—with “possibly there is an actual individual x” (Prior and Fine, 1977, p. 130), I find no merit in calling it “possibilist,” although Fine initially takes this replacement as only “a partial elimination of the possibilist quantifier” (ibid.). In the end, Fine converts the “external quantifier over possibles” into “an internal quantifier over actuals” (ibid.), concedes that “within the context of the translation, the equivalence will always hold” (ibid.), and, finally, concludes that “a complete elimination of the possibilist quantifiers” (ibid.) is achievable after all. This equivalence, replacement, conversion, or elimination is compatible with Prior/Fine’s modal actualism (ibid., p. 116), while actualism necessarily

Metaphysical Modalities

33

excludes any possibilism. Similarly, Lycan mentions the “possibilist quantifier” (1994, p. xv) just to eliminate it on the grounds of his actualism. Hintikka mentions the possibilist existential quantifier while discussing the possibility of interpreting Meinong’s view under a “possibilist interpretation of quantifiers, especially of the existential quantifier” (Hintikka, 1995, p. 40). Despite some minor similarities, panenmentalism is, in essence, quite far from Meinong and Meinongianism, as will be clarified in Section 1.12. For instance, neither Meinong nor Meinongianism could accept what I will argue in the next Section. Despite Meinong’s manifest rejection of “the prejudice in favor of the actual,” the panenmentalist treatment of the possible in general and the purely (“merely”) possible in particular differs from Meinong’s treatment of them (for a clear and concise account of his treatment, consider Findlay, 1963, pp. 195–217). As Hintikka enlightens us, Meinong’s conception of existence is at bottom . . . realistic rather than possibilist. The possibilist realm of nonexisting entities is a projection of the realist idea of a realm of forms actualizable in the mind. . . . Meinong has a pool of merely possible entities at his disposal, but he is not thinking of them in the first place as values of quantifiers ranging more widely than actually existing objects. The inhabitants of Meinong’s jungle are objects of thoughts, not values of bound variables. Their mode of existence cannot be captured by the existential quantifier. (1995, pp. 41–42) In contrast, according to panenmentalism, pure possibilities are existents, entirely independent of any actualization, “realization,” and possible worlds. Existential quantifiers thus may range over pure possibilities as much as over actualities, and the quantifiers, universal or existential, extend over the entire realm of pure possibilities dispensing with any idea of possible worlds. Over these matters, panenmentalism differs from any possibilist view known to me as well as from the views of Meinong, who did not acknowledge possible worlds (yet see Findlay, 1963, p. 217), and Hintikka, who acknowledges them. As modal actualists, Prior and Fine, in contrast, eliminate both possibilist quantifiers and possible worlds, for the “possible world analysis is incompatible with both modalism and actualism: For it analyses the ordinary modal idioms . . . and it admits possibles” (Prior and Fine, 1977, p. 117). In short, “for the modal actualist, possible objects do not exist; rather, the possible exists as a manner in which things happen. It exists as a mode, not an object. In the proper language for expressing modal truths, the modal primitives will be adverbial (sentential connectives) and the quantifiers will range over actual objects alone” (ibid.). Panenmentalism is closer to the view that Fine entitles “classical (or extreme) possibilism,” provided that it dispenses with the idea of possible worlds:

34

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS For the classical possibilist, . . . the possible is located in ontology. It exists as an object not mode. In the proper language for expressing modal truths, the quantifiers range over possible objects and the connectives are all truth-functional. (ibid.)

Thus, the sentence “possibly some individual is not actual” is an “existential claim” for the possibilist “to the effect that some possible individual is not actual. Therefore there must be some specific individual who is not actual” (ibid.). As a panenmentalist, I endorse such a possibilist stance. Fine adequately characterizes the actualist stance as the following: “[F]or the actualist, this singularity [individuality or particularity] is spurious; there can be no instance in virtue of which the sentence is true. The sentence states an irreducible general possibility, and no matter how well the individual is described, he can have no specific identity” (ibid., pp. 117–118). In contrast, for panenmentalism, each pure possibility is an individual existent, particular (if mental) or singular (if psychical). Recently, Fine has discussed the view that pure possibilities cannot do without any actual “proxy,” without any reference to actualities, which the possibilities “represent” (Fine, 2003). The entire idea of the panenmentalist realm, which is entirely independent of actualities or any actualization, is incompatible with any supervenience on such “proxy.” In contrast, Fine has recently endorsed the view that discourse of possibilia is “reducible to discourse involving no reference to possibilia” (ibid., p. 162). Since panenmentalism endorses the principle that possibilist quantifiers are irreducible or cannot be eliminated, it does not accept the following: “Quantification over possibilia, be they worlds or individuals, is eliminated in favor of the corresponding quantification over actualia” (ibid., p. 172). Fine’s former insight is that, unlike the “middle” possibilist positions, a radical, “extreme,” or genuine possibilism deals with purely possible individual existents and that modalism, actualist or possibilist, can do without possible world analysis. If each possible world is a totality of what is the case, and if the domain is the totality of these totalities, Fine is quite right in concluding that “certain references to these or related totalities lead to the type of paradox that is familiar in set-theory” (Prior and Fine, 1977, p. 118). Thus, I deem panenmentalism advantageous by dispensing with both possible worlds and set-theoretical worries or strictures. Panenmentalist possibilist quantifiers concern the total realm of pure possibilities, which is an infinitely open realm as no restriction holds for this realm except that no two pure possibilities are identical. Against this background, panenmentalist quantification is entirely different from David Lewis’s “idioms of quantification” and their restriction

Metaphysical Modalities

35

(Lewis, 1990, pp. 24–25), whether his criticism of Richard Routley (Sylvan)’s noneism and Meinongianism (which I discuss in Section 1.12 below) is justified or not (as according to Witherall, 2000, which I find cogent). Like actualists, Lewis postulates that “there is only one kind of quantification” (1990, p. 24), restricted to “the here and now and actual” (ibid., p. 25). After all, Lewis’s realism of possible worlds is compatible with his argument that each possible world, spatiotemporally existing, is actual with its respect, although possible with respect to other worlds. Lewis’s possibilism is thus compatible with a special kind of actualism, whereas panenmentalism is entirely incompatible with any kind of actualism. Against this background, we should not be surprised that Lewis accepts William Lycan’s harsh actualist criticism of genuinely Meinongian quantification (ibid., p. 27 and note 7). Panenmentalism posits a possibilist existential quantifier that is by no means one of the “ways to simulate quantification, and thereby quantify without quantifying,” which Lewis mentions (ibid., p. 28). The two kinds of panenmentalist existential quantifiersover actualities and over pure possibilitiesare robust and consist of no simulation, let alone deceptive, of quantification. Again, pure possibilities really, truly exist. Otherwise, all our mental and psychical lives or realities as well as our knowledge would have been annulled. Lewis states, “if there are things that cannot be members of any class, and if some such things are among the satisfiers of a predicate, then that predicate has no extension” (ibid., p. 31n.15). But instead of sets and classes, panenmentalism quantifies over the realm of possibilities whose extension is of possibilities, pure or actual. “To satisfy a predicate” is a set-theoretical term, which panenmentalism does not endorse. Panenmentalism is extensional, not merely intensional, as far as the realm of possibilities, of which the actual is only a spatiotemporal and causal conditioned part, is concerned. Each of these possibilities really, truly exists. Following Meinong, Terence Parsons, and others in distinguishing between two kinds of existence, an intensionalist such as Edward Zalta (1988, pp. 102–104), treats possible but nonactual objects thus: Some philosophers find the very idea of such objects repugnant. These “actualists” are prepared to go to great lengths to reanalyze modal logic in order to avoid commitment to possible but unactual objects. We, however, find the idea of possible but nonactual objects perfectly intelligible. The definition is straightforward: x is a possible but nonactual object iff E!x & ~E!x. … Moreover, the hypothesis that there are such objects affords the simplest interpretation of modal sentences in natural language. (ibid., p. 67)

36

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

The trouble is that the second “existential” quantifier—E!—bears no ontological commitment. It can be interpreted as aimed at “being” (logical or metaphysical existence) instead of “existence” (physical existence, ibid., p. 103). This is the way that many Meinongians, if not all of them, avoid ontological commitment prompted by their fear of overpopulating the realm of existence and thus breaking Occam’s razor. As an anti-Meinongian, Peter van Inwagen challenges such views (van Inwagen, 2003). He acknowledges only one kind of existential quantifier as well as one kind of universal quantifier. Yet he suggests the following interpretation of Quine’s strategy of ontological (or ontic) commitment: “The history of ontological debates in which all parties admit the legitimacy of Quine’s strategy shows that it is harder to avoid tacitly asserting the existence of things like numbers, sets, properties, propositions, and unrealized possibilities than one might have thought it would be” (ibid., pp. 144–145). Most intriguing, for Quine’s actualism is entirely incompatible with allowing any existence to pure possibilities. Yet, since van Inwagen mentions “strategy” instead of “thesis,” the case appears to be that Quine’s ontological commitment and his theses, especially his actualism, are not one and the same. Quine’s strategy does allow van Inwagen to assume the existence of fictional beings or characters (“persons”). The trouble is that, when applied to fictional beings, the existential quantifier is spatiotemporally unrestricted. If such is the case, what is the difference between such an application of it and a possibilist existential quantifier, which is also spatiotemporally unrestricted or unconditioned? As a result, we remain with two kinds of existential quantifier, which is quite against van Inwagen’s intention. In any case, I accept that fictional characters or beings definitely exist. Van Inwagen is thus perfectly right in concluding that to avoid ontological commitment to fictional characters is not a trivial undertaking; it is even an impossible undertaking (as he is inclined to conclude, ibid., p. 145). Yet fictional characters make merely one part of the entire picture for they are, first and foremost, pure possibilities subject to reference and quantification alike. Thus, panenmentalism, unlike van Inwagen’s stance, is ontologically committed to the existence of pure possibilities altogether. I see no escape from the distinction between pure possibilities and actualities, which entails subjection to either of two kinds of reference and quantification respectively. Over this matter, I disagree with van Inwagen, other non-Meinongians or anti-Meinongians, and Meinongians alike. Van Inwagen concludes his view thus: “[A]lthough there are good reasons for believing that there are such things as fictional characters, existent objects that bear some relation that is not ‘having’ to properties . . . , the question of the metaphysical nature of these objects (whether, for example, they are eternal and necessary existent) is quite far from having been given a decisive answer” (ibid., p. 155). In this book I attempt to give such a decisive

Metaphysical Modalities

37

answer. Metaphysically and epistemologically, fictional beings are pure possibilities, and pure possibilities are atemporal (eternal, if you like) entities, which are discoverable by means of, for instance, truthful fictions. The necessity concerning such possibilities is one of the main subjects of this book as a whole. Also I discuss in what ways panenmentalism is non-Platonic (see Section 2.3 below). As individual and immanent, no pure possibility should be considered Platonic. So much for the metaphysical nature of pure possibilities and fictional beings. A neo-Meinongian, who similarly disapproves of the “prejudice in favor of the actual,” is Dale Jacquette (2000): The existential quantifier in a Meinongian context signifies only that an existent, subsistent, or altogether beingless Meinongian object is included in the Meinongian semantic domain. It was necessary first of all to reinterpret the existential quantifier so that it says in effect only “There occurs within the semantic domain an object such that . . . etc.,” and not “There exists an object such that . . . etc.” The distinction makes it necessary to introduce a special existence predicate, such as “E!,” to predicate existence of an object, rather than relying on the extensional interpretation of the existential quantifier. (ibid., pp. 164–165) This allows Jacquette to have the semantics “adjusted so as to be even more economical than Quine’s most arid desert landscape ontology, by categorizing abstract objects like sets, in a way that Meinong did not propose, as beingless rather than subsistent” (ibid., p. 178). It allows him to free logic and logical thought from any ontological commitment in the spirit of the sublime Meinongian idea to set us “free in thought to assume whatever we like, unhindered by the facts of the world” (ibid., p. 166), to which I have much sympathy. I happily share that idea except that purely possible existents, to which our mind strongly relates, and not beingless objects, set us free in that sense. Instead of beingless or nonexistent objects, I assume pure possibilities, which are meaningfully referable and subject to true predication or are truly describable as much as Meinongian or Jacquettean objects are (for instance, meaningful and true propositions about Hamlet, whether he is considered nonexistent or a pure possibility). What I would like to correct is the following Meinongian innovation “to maintain the possibility of referring to a truly predicating properties of altogether beingless objects” (ibid., p. 175) by substituting “beingless objects” for “pure possibilities.” But what makes pure possibilities so significant and meaningful for our minds and mental lives are their being purely possible (or absolutely independent of anything physicalactual) and their existence as well.

38

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Jacquette mentions the “possibility of advancing a revisionary Meinongian logic that is even more austere than Quine’s desert landscape ontology” (ibid., pp. 178–179, note 39). Although I wholeheartedly accept the liberation from actualities and actualism as well as from set-theoretical ways of thinking, I do not find any mental or psychical lives, namely, mental or psychical existence, in such deserts, Quinean or Meinongian. What is the use of Meinongian or Jacquettean freedom from actualism and actualities, if we are not entitled to assume (better, to discover) the full existence of pure possibilities? As pure possibilities and their relationality, psychical and mental lives are free from the physical-actual. No such freedom and no such lives are possible, unless pure possibilities exist in the full sense of the word. Panenmentalism does not break Occam’s razor. To maintain psychical or mental lives, it is necessary to expand the realm of existence beyond the actual. Thus, as a panenmentalist, I do not share with those Meinongians the fear of overpopulating the realm of existence and of breaking Occam’s razor. Panenmentalism is committed to the absolutely indispensable existence of individual pure possibilities, and it follows Occam’s razor as far as actual existence is concerned. For me, to live in a Quinean ontological desert or in the Meinongian alternatives to it, to endorse one kind of existence in the complete sense of the word, means just to dispense with anything mental or psychical. Contrary to Brentano and many Meinongians or other followers of Brentano, I do not consider intentionality as a sufficient characterization of the mind. As a panenmentalist, I consider each mind a singular pure possibility relating to other pure or actual possibilities, all of which exist. For me, all pure possibilities exist and none of them is a nonexistent unless in the actual, spatiotemporal and causal, sense of the word “existence.” Nonexistent objects cannot determine or affect anything about the mind. They cannot make any difference as far as the mind is concerned. We often relate, intend, or refer to nonactual, pure possibilities. Items, objects, or possibilities that do not exist, in any sense of the word, are beyond any psychical capability of relationality, intentionality, or reference. Any ontology that does not allocate enough room for existing pure possibilities has to entirely dispense with the mental and the psychical. No intentionality has any room in such ontology. Intentionality toward nonexistent objects is merely a contradiction in terms. Criticizing some possibilists, Lycan examines an attempt to justify quantifying over “possibilia” on the basis of explanatory value or utility: We have no idea of how to go about doing modal semantics, decision theory, Montague Grammar, or any such thing without quantifying over possibilia; it is hard even to imagine what a competing approach would be like. For now, therefore (it is claimed), we must quantify over possi-

Metaphysical Modalities

39

bilia no matter what further aesthetic objections Quine has brought against them. Nor do we violate Occam’s principle in doing so, for that principle only forbids our positing entities beyond explanatory necessity. (Lycan, 1994, pp. 9–10) For his reasons, Lycan finds such justification to demonstrate “a bad misconception of the issue” (ibid., p. 10). Following Meinong and some others, he does not mention pure possibilities but “nonexistent possibles” instead (ibid., pp. 10–11; cf. pp. 4 and 8), which he considers “abstract entities” (ibid., p. 11). And, for him, the problem lies in positing the notion of nonexistent possibles or things, which inescapably leads to “overt selfinconsistency” (ibid.). In complete contrast, panenmentalism ascribes fullfledged existence to pure possibilities, which are concrete and by no means abstract. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities exist regardless or independently of possible worlds and actualities alike and, therefore, we are entirely entitled to quantify over pure possibilities. Explanatory necessity, utility, or value is not good enough to justify quantifying over such and such “items,” which requires an ontological commitment. Panenmentalism warns us that if we accept actualism on the one hand or any view that considers pure possibilities nonexistents on the other, mental or psychical existents must be excluded. For, according to panenmentalism, mental or psychical reality consists of pure possibilities alone. Panenmentalist quantifying is over purely possible existents. Thus, Lycan’s following demand is panenmentalistically inadmissible: “[W]hat I am implicitly demanding is a modal-theoretic semantics, done entirely in terms of actual objects and their propertiesfor what else is there really?” (ibid., p. 13). As Lycan characterizes it, the Ersatz approach construes possible worlds “as being actual objects of some kind . . . ‘other possible worlds’ have been construed as sets of sentences or propositions, set-theoretic recordings of the basic elements of our own [actual] world, types of mental act, and more” (ibid., p. 15). Lycan looks for an “Actualist understanding of possibilistic talk” which is “an Ersatzer analysis” (ibid., p. 19). According to Lycan, Actualism is a “one-world” construal of logical space. The actual, blooming, buzzing physical world of earth and fire and iron and concrete and flesh and blood is world enough; the “other, nonactual possible worlds” invoked by intensional logicians are only abstracta, either abstract objects or mental constructs of some sort. (ibid., p. 15) Russellian actualism and Rescher’s conceptualism or possibilism de dicto (Section 1.6 below) are both met by some or all of these characterizations of

40

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

actualism. Nothing could be more remote from panenmentalism than actualism of any kindwhether Russell’s, Quine’s, Rescher’s, or Lycan’s. Possible worlds aside, to confine the whole realm of pure possibilities to the boundaries of the actual world is merely a philosophical confinement whose ramifications are disastrous, at least as far as philosophy is concerned. According to panenmentalism, pure possibilities are at least as concrete as actualities. To consider pure possibilities as abstracta or merely “mental [psychical] constructs” is nothing but to take an actualist stance of this or that kind. Since the mental and the psychical exist, the actual-physical world is by no means “world enough.” Only the entire realm of pure possibilities, comprising actualphysical reality as a confined and conditioned part, is world enough. As we well know, some possible-worlds semantics and different socalled “possibilist” views end in concluding that actual objects and their properties or states are all that there really is, which means that these views end in actualism, as much as Lycan’s does. In contrast, panenmentalism assumes that existence is not exhausted within the realm of the actual. As much existence pertains to pure possibilities independently of anything actual and of possible worlds alike, especially according to the set-theoretical approach. So far, all those who have attempted to discuss quantification over purely possible individuals have relied upon or referred to either Meinongian nonexistent possibilia or to the conception of possible worlds. For a recent example of the second, consider Divers’s defense of genuine realism, which he considers more credible than actualist realism (Divers, 2002, p. xii). Divers mentions the stance of “abstentionism about possible worlds” (ibid., p. 19), which he does not take. He attempts “to open up a new, neo-Fregean, line of investigation into the legitimacy of genuine realism quantification over nonactual individuals but I do not claim to have secured a conviction” (ibid., p. 85). The stance of possible worlds is always on the background of Divers’s arguments, especially whenever the quantification of such individuals has been discussed (ibid., pp. 60–61). How can a panenmentalist dispense with the idea of possible worlds and yet acknowledge possibilist existential quantifiers? Hintikka would say that such cannot be the case at all, for One just cannot quantify over possible objects without further ado. Everybody’s lover and nobody’s beloved are possible objects, but you cannot admit them into the range of one and the same quantifier. Hence an unqualified possibilist interpretation of quantifiers does not make any sense. Are we thereby committed to the actualist view of quantifiers? No, we are not. What follows is merely that each quantifier must range over the denizens of some one possible world. This is in fact the intended

Metaphysical Modalities

41

interpretation of the quantifiers of quantified modal logic. . . . Existence as expressed by the existential quantifier is not restricted to actual existence, but it is always restricted to some one possible world. (Hintikka, 1995, p. 43) Panenmentalism happily accepts a view that existential quantifiers should not be restricted to actual reality alone. Yet the entire idea of possible worlds is quite non-panenmentalist. If in the entire range of pure possibilities the possibility everybody’s lover exists, the possibility nobody’s beloved does not exist, unless we admit possible contradictions in that realm (but not in the panenmentalist theory itself). We have to admit them into one and the same realm, because the only restriction upon it is that no two pure possibilities can be identical. Hintikka, in contrast, would say that these two possibilities exist in different possible worlds, or under different scenarios, each of which is under different quantifying. Under logical restrictions or conditions, these two possibilities cannot coexist. Yet such restrictions do not construct a separate possible world. No separate world exists, for any pure possibility in the entire realm of possibilities necessarily relates to all the others. Actual reality also does not make a separate world; on the contrary, it is a confined or conditioned part within the realm of pure possibilities. The same holds for the known logical parts (or “realms”) of pure possibilities. Each of these parts is by no means separate from the others or from the entire realm. Hintikka alternatively uses “different scenarios” and “possible worlds” (ibid.). Panenmentalism avoids the Rashomon conundrum (Gilead, 2003, pp. 179–182) on the grounds of the non-separation as well as inter-relationality of pure possibilities and actualities. Different scenarios of the same actuality are possible. But we are capable of distinguishing between each of the scenarios as well as between any of them and the actual situation in question. We identify that situation and know for sure that the different scenarios describe, relate, and refer to one and the same actual situation. We identify the actual situation, because we have access of relationality to its (pure) possibilityidentity, existing independently of the actualities and the scenarios as well. No such scenario stipulates, constructs, or discovers a possible world; and the identity or pure possibility of the actual situation or actuality is independent of the scenarios or of any description, not vice versa. Despite all the epistemic difficulties involved, we are quite sure that the different scenarios or “narratives” are about one and the same actual situation or actuality. We are also capable of examining what of the possibility-identity has been actualized and what not. We know how to relate the different scenarios one to the other, to the possibility-identity of the actuality, and to it alone as an actuality. Each aspect of the relevant relationality does not lead to separation, let alone to separate possible worlds.

42

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

The panenmentalist non-separation does not lead to non-distinctness. On the contrary, it necessitates distinctness because of the relationality, universal and particular, that each pure possibility, as a distinct being, necessarily bears. Each pure possibility is distinct from and, thus, necessarily relates to any other pure possibility. Contradictions, as excluding each other, necessarily relate one to the other. In the entire realm of pure possibilities, which does not exclude contradicting possibilities, everybody’s lover and nobody’s beloved are possibilities (or possible existents), each of which is differently referred. We cannot logically, consistently refer to both of them. Yet we can refer to both of them in the entire realm of pure possibilities, which is not restricted to logical possibilities alone and which, thus, bears contradictions. In the panenmentalist realm as a whole, as a metaphysical realm, contradictions are possibilities. An unqualified possibilist interpretation of quantifiers makes sense, because panenmentalism qualifies its interpretation as to contradictions by the only metaphysical restriction upon pure possibilities, namely, that no two pure possibilities can be identical. This qualification is sufficient for a panenmentalist-possibilist interpretation of quantifiers. Excluding some possibilities, such as thinking machines (Gilead, 1999, pp. 137–158), panenmentalism does not construct, stipulate, or discover a possible or actual world in which such machines cannot exist. With panenmentalist or other principles (or through their lens), such possibilities are excluded but this does not mean that they are excluded from the realm of pure possibilities as a whole. They are panenmentalistically impossible, not metaphysically absolutely impossible. Panenmentalism is one of many possible metaphysics. Hintikka possibilist quantification is over possible individuals with regard to possible worlds. He argues that we can individuate anything only by drawing “world lines” in functional terms, expressing “logical rather than causal or temporal relationships” (Hintikka, 1975, p. 33). I do not accept the first part of the sentence but willingly endorse its second part. Hintikka states that those world lines “come about . . . only through comparisons between . . . possible worlds. For this reason, we cannot start from individuals. We can only arrive at them as outcomes of transworld comparisons” (ibid.). On panenmentalist grounds, we can start from individual (particular or singular) pure possibilities-identities, each of which is necessarily different from any other. On the basis of such difference alone, each pure possibilityidentity necessarily relates to all the others. And thus, contrary to Hintikka, “all the possible individuals … can eventually be pooled into one big happy domain” (ibid., p. 27) regardless or independently of any possible world. The pure possibility-identity of any entity (“item”) fixes or determines all the possibilities that are open to this being, the possibilities in which it maintains its identity. No book, for instance, can turn out to be a poached egg, for the possibility-identity of any book is, regardless of any possible world, different

Metaphysical Modalities

43

from the possibility-identity of any poached egg. Likewise, the identity of any pure possibility or actuality does not require transworld or crossworld comparisons. I do not endorse Hintikka’s primacy of individuating functions, which have to do with comparing possible worlds, over possible individuals (ibid., p. 34). Identity is necessarily prior to any comparison between possibilities or possible world. The prior existence is of pure possibilitiesidentities whose relationality comes second. Hintikka is suspicious of “any facile postulation of a single unified domain of possible individuals, independent of people’s beliefs and other propositional attitudes” (ibid., p. 38). He considers such a domain “a completely unrealistic abstraction” (ibid.). In contrast, panenmentalism refers to the total mental domain that comprises all pure possibilities as existents, necessarily relating one to all the others. Each pure possibility and this domain as a whole are subject to quantification regardless of the notions of possible worlds, sets, classes, and their likes. Moreover, any of the individual pure possibilities (or merely possible individuals) and their realm as a whole are not abstracted, stipulated, assumed, or postulated but discoverable. Each pure possibility is a possibility-identity, realistically existing independently of any spatiotemporality, causality, or actuality. All mental pure possibilities exist independently also of anything psychical, such as our beliefs, any “propositional attitude,” and their likes. What could be more realistic and by no means an abstraction than the total realm of pure possibilities (the entire “panenmentalist realm”)? We have to challenge Quine’s and other actualists’ rejection of possibilia and possibilist quantification alike in a different way from Hintikka’s, assuming that the notion of a possible individual is “dubious” (ibid., p. 95). Quine’s attacks on possibilist quantification and identity have been cogently defeated on different grounds (for instance, Timothy Williamson’s view discussed in Section 1.6 below). Challenging Quine, Dana Scott distinguishes between virtual objects, which are stipulated, and possible individuals, which are not. Hence, quantification “should only be over the possible individuals” not over virtual entities (Scott, 1970, p. 147; for quantification over actual, virtual, and possible individuals see Lambert and Van Frassen, 1970, especially p. 14). Note that Scott distinguishes between “individual concepts” and “possible individuals” (ibid., pp. 165 and 168), which appears to indicate some realism about possible individuals, not a conceptualism or possibilism de dicto about them (contrary to Nicholas Rescher’s view, discussed in Section 1.6 below). Endorsing the primitive reality of possible individuals instead of the primitiveness of possible worlds, panenmentalism challenges Quine’s and other actualists’ views of identity and the rejection of quantification over possible individuals differently from Scott, Hintikka, and others.

44

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Numbers are indispensable for counting and quantification. Regardless of sets, classes, and the like, numbers are pure possibilities and their relationality, consisting primarily of intrinsically similarity (see Section 3.1 below). As pure possibilities, numbers are individual or concrete and not abstract. Second, with no individual pure possibilities-identities in mind, we could not identify and recognize the actualities over which we would intend to quantify. All “how many” questions require individual pure possibilities and their relationality for identification, counting, and quantifying. In sum, possibilist quantification renders actual quantification possible, not the other way round. Panenmentalism has all it needs to identify, quantify over, refer, count, or describe any individual on the grounds of individual pure possibilities (as our ontological primitives) and their relationality or actualization. Each pure possibility-identity comprises all the pure possibilities of modifications, conditioning, and restricting that an individual may undergo and still maintain its identity, and no two pure possibilities-identities can be identical. Each pure possibility is identical with itself alone. Following Frege, Hintikka is right in claiming that “there is more to meaning than reference” (Hintikka, 1975, p. 115) and that to refer we need also “meaning entities” (ibid., p. 114) or “intensional entities” (“senses”) which require considering also “unrealized [nonactual] states of affairs” (ibid., p. 115). As panenmentalism considers them, all these are merely pure possibilities (possible individuals) and their universal relationality, which does not require any possible-worlds semantics or theory. From my first panenmentalist book (Gilead, 1999) on, I have emphasized that meanings are individual pure possibilities whose significance consists of their relationality. Relating to the total realm of pure possibilities as a whole, the relationality of any pure possibility is universal. Such universal relationality does not require any possible world. The same holds for what Hintikka entitles “coreferentiality” (Hintikka, 1975, pp. 161–163). Instead of acknowledging that “in modal contexts more than one possible world is inevitably at issue” (ibid., p. 162), the panenmentalist de re modality definitely acknowledges that in modal contexts more than one pure possibility is inevitably at issue. Instead of speaking “meaningfully of coreferentiality . . . relative to the specification of some particular possible world or class of possible worlds” (ibid.), panenmentalism is entitled to speak quite meaningfully of some pure possibilities and their particular or universal relationality (namely, to the realm of pure possibilities as a whole). By the same token, instead of a person’s “doxastic alternatives to the world” (ibid.), panenmentalism refers to the pure possibilities concerning a person’s beliefs. Panenmentalism is thus free from the “looseness of ‘mental pictures’ and other similar largely metaphorical

Metaphysical Modalities

45

paraphernalia” (ibid.) at least as much as a proper possible-worlds semantics is free of them. On the basis of possible-worlds semantics, Hintikka clarifies how the sentence “John wants to catch a fish and eat it for supper” (ibid., p. 162) does make clear sense, “even when John is not assumed to be angling for any particular piece of seafood” (ibid., p. 163). Yet “it” in this sentence does not refer to any actual fish, but it refers to an individual pure possibility of fish (or a possible fish). Hintikka’s much more complicated and problematic solution is as follows: “[I]n each possible world compatible with John’s wants he catches a fish and eats that fish for supper” (ibid.). The obscure, complicated, and problematic notion of possible worlds is quite dispensable at this point too. For the pure possibility of “that fish” obviously exists in the realm of pure possibilities, and John refers to it as a mental possibility, not as an actual one. If no actualization has been achieved, the coreferability is still there, and “it” transparently corefers to “a fish.” The “a fish” in question refers to a possible fish, which is coreferable (by “it). But has John a particular fish in mind? Yes, whenever he chooses a particular fish instead of another. He would not take any kind of fish or any fish of a particular kind. After all, he wants to eat a fish, and if a particular fish of any kind were not considered edible or palatable enough for him (as John’s choice), he would not eat it but take it off the hook and throw it back into the water. If any edible or palatable fish will do, John still wants to eat a particular fish, however intrinsically similar it may be to other fish. Think of another example: If John were to draw a triangle on the board, such a triangle would be intrinsically similar to any other triangle yet, on the basis of the panenmentalist nominalism or possibilism de re, it would be a particular pure possibility. In any event, each chosen possibility of a fish should be compatible with John’s want, and no possible world is required for this purpose. Were John actually to catch a fish, the reference and the coreferentiality in question would be about the same pure possibility, which happens to be actual, an actual particular fish. Quantifying over pure possibilities, the panenmentalist referential reading or statement de re may consider several pure possibilities, instead of possible worlds, over and above the actual possibility, provided that they were open to John’s choice. John might have to choose from among several pure possibilities (that particular possible fish, this particular possible fish, or . . . ). This draws a picture that is entirely different from Hintikka’s (ibid., pp. 163–164). In any case, were such or other pure possibilities “outlandish entities,” as Quine believed, so would have been any mental or psychical reality as well as any of our choices. Employing spatiotemporally or actually existential quantifiers and possibly existential quantifiers, panenmentalism suggests a solution to the problem that bothered Meinong, Meinongians, Frege, Russell, and Quine. On

46

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

the grounds of the distinction between possible and actual existence, panenmentalism has no difficulties with propositions such as “Odysseus does not exist,” “no golden mountain exists,” and the like. As pure possibilities, Odysseus and golden mountains do exist, whereas as actualities, they do not exist. As pure possibilities, they are as referable, discoverable, subject to predication, and describable as actualities are. For pure possibilities exist as much as actualities do, although in a different sense of existence. Against that background, consider what any panenmentalist would say about the following Meinongian view, as Terence Parsons phrases it: [S]ince you are thinking about a gold mountain, there is a gold mountain that you are thinking about, and it is gold, and is a mountain, and thus there are gold mountains, though not gold mountains that exist. If you are not shy about admitting nonexistent objects, this remains a viable option. (Parsons, 1995, p. 147) Since panenmentalism is quite against admitting nonexistent objects, we admit purely possible existents instead. Such possible objects exist, although not as actualities. As pure possibilities, gold mountains exist, they are possibly gold and they are possibly mountains. That is, the possible predicates “golden” and “being a mountain” are necessarily and truly attributed to these pure possibilities. As pure possibilities, they are not actually made of gold and they are not actual, physical mountains. Note that by “predicate” I have no set in mind; neither do I need any conception of possible worlds to use this term. A predicate, such as golden or being a mountain, is the relationality that some pure possibilities maintain each to the other, whereas other pure possibilities do not relate in this specific way one to the other. Panenmentalism is nominalistic through and through. Consider another example: “Some unicorn is possibly sitting here” (Parsons, 1995, p. 154), distinguishing between “things actually sitting here” and “things possibly sitting here” (ibid., p. 153). Parsons explicitly mentions “possible things that are unicorns (there are plenty of those)” (ibid., p. 154). Although “possibly,” according to Parsons, “ampliates” things by adding possible things to the actual ones, Parsons, like Meinong and the Meinongians, never mentions “existents” in this context. He mentions “conceivable things” and “possible things” but no possible existents. It becomes clearer that Parsons’s examples do not admit pure possibilities, let alone purely possible existents, for his theory of ampliation, presupposing an ontology like Meinong’s in several respects, “needs there to be things that are not actual, and even things that are not possible” (ibid.). At least implicitly, Parsons considers existence as actual: “Meinong made much of what he called the ‘prejudice in favor of the actual,’ the tendency to assume that in ordinary

Metaphysical Modalities

47

discourse we are discussing existing things” (ibid., p. 155). Parsons’s theory of ampliation shares this with Meinong’s view. As for the difficulties it must face concerning nonexistent, even impossible, objects (ibid., pp. 155–160), my response is as follows: Unlike such objects, you may seek, discover, or find out pure possibilities, such as eka-elements, but, obviously, you cannot own, borrow, loan, give, or take pure possibilities, for they are not actualities. This does not render pure possibilities less real. No real being or existent is good for all purposes; pure possibilities are real and good enough for all our psychical or mental purposes yet they cannot substitute any actuality. We seek them and may find them out by means of our imagination, calculation, conception, and the like but we cannot own, give, or take them. As pure possibilities, eka-elements exist, necessarily having their entire possible chemical traits, none of which is known as actual. Whenever the case turns out that these elements are observed as actual, their traits too are discovered as actual. Still, in such cases, nothing in their identitiespossibilities, including in their possible-necessary traits, has changed. As purely possible, they are as referable as their (possible) actualities. You are not entitled to say that eka-elements do not exist. Through the “frame” or lens of the periodic table we must realize that they necessarily, systematically exist. All you are entitled to say about their existence is that it is possible but not actual, at least not yet. The table cannot refer to or confirm such an actual existence, even wherever proper elements are mentioned. Only experience or observation can provide us with such reference or confirmation. 5. Why Are Pure Possibilities Necessary? A common assumption is that possibility and contingency are identical. Spinoza, for instance, does not distinguish at first between the two but only when needed later in the Ethics (compare 1p33s1 to 4def4). No wonder that, as an actualist, Spinoza holds to this identity of the possible and the contingent. According to the Spinozistic determinism, everything is necessary; contingency is just a matter of our ignorance of this or that sort. Thus, in such a view, contingency has no ontological status but only an epistemic or epistemological one. Not only Spinoza but many other thinkers and philosophers, actualist or not, strongly believe that necessity and possibility exclude one the other. Panenmentalism challenges all of them by pointing out a comprehensive viewpoint according to which the purely possible and the necessary go handin-hand, whereas contingency is by no means a matter of pure possibilities but only of the actual, and the actual is the physical. The necessity about pure possibilities has to do primarily with the following grounds: No pure possibility could have been missing from the

48

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

purely mental-possible realm, each pure possibility is necessarily different from all the others, and each such possibility necessarily relates to all the others. All that is necessary about logic, mathematics, musical scales, and many other a priori patterns, relationships, or structures stems from pure possibilities and their relationality alone. If some necessity pertains to any actuality, this necessity necessarily stems from the purely possible alone, that is, it is an actualization of what is necessary about the identity of an actuality or about the relationality of that identity, which is nothing but pure possibility. Any actualization brings with it contingency. First, each actualization is spatiotemporally circumstantial and partial, as it is about only a part of the pure possibility-identity that the circumstances actualize. Thus, a thing may undergo a lot of changes and still retain its identity, just because its actualization cannot exhaust all that is in its pure identity-possibility. Second, actualization as such is contingent, because nothing exists that necessitates it. It could equally happen and not happen, whereas nothing purely possible could be otherwise. As atemporal, no pure possibility is changeable, whereas any actuality or actualization is changeable. Contrary to actualities, pure possibilities are ingenerable and indestructible. Exempt from changeability and entirely independent of actualization, the existence of pure possibilities including their inter-relationlaity is necessary. No two pure possibilities can be identical, which is a necessary trait of pure possibilities, and, thus, the relationality of each pure possibility to all the others, resting on the individuality, particularity, or singularity of each one of them, must be necessary too. Hence, everything about pure possibilities is necessary, namely, their existence, identity, individuality, particularity, or singularity (when it comes to psychical possibilities) as well as their relationality to each other— all are strictly necessary. In the realm of the psychical, which is a special realm in the purely possible-mental, nothing takes place by chance, randomly, or accidentally (see Section 3.6 below). Everything psychical is meaningful, significant, and, in a word, necessary, whereas everything physical, as actual, must be contingent. In sum, under panenmentalism, pure possibilities and all about them is a matter of necessity, whereas contingency is inescapably a matter of any actualization or actuality. Were the readers to ask me—“Why does something actual exist instead of nothing actual?”—I would answer that this fact is a sheer contingency, which is the fate of any actuality, whereas necessity has to do with pure possibilities, or with the purely mental, alone.

Metaphysical Modalities

49

6. How Many Pure Possibilities Exist? Although no person is capable of answering that question, it does not yet mean that it endangers or challenges the panenmentalist realism about pure possibilities (note that by “realism” I definitely do not mean “actualism”). Neither does it endanger or challenge other kinds of possibilist realism, notwithstanding Nicholas Rescher’s critique (Rescher, 1999; 2003a; and 2003b). To show that “the currently fashionable realism of possible worlds is deeply problematic and needs to be replaced by a suitable—and ontologically more modest—version of conceptualism” (1999, p. 403), Rescher raises the question of how many possible worlds are to be identified, individuated, and counted (ibid.). Although panenmentalism does not adopt the conception of possible worlds, and although, independently of possible worlds realism (such as David Lewis), possibilism is not at all fashionable, Rescher’s challenging question still does not endanger realist possibilism of any kind at all (and unfortunately actualism is in philosophical vogue instead). Thus, I do not accept Rescher’s suggestion replacing a possibilism that is substantively oriented (de re) by one that is proportionately oriented (de dicto). As I showed, pure possibilities— particulars or singulars—enjoy a complete ontological status and are directly referable and adequately describable as well (Gilead, 2003, pp. 55–61 and 65– 70). Yet Rescher argues that ostensive confrontation as regards possibilia is lost and that the purely descriptive individuation of nonexistent (that is, nonactual) individuals is an “altogether impractical project” (Rescher, 1999, pp. 403 and 411). As I will argue below, contrary to Rescher, individuation is independent of description. Whether identification is description-dependent or not, is the individuation of possibilia an altogether impractical project? Ekaelements are sufficient to indicate overwhelming examples of the practicality of the individuation of possibilia. To ignore such examples means to commit the “eka-fallacy” (Gilead, 2003, pp. 65–70). As solid counterexamples to Rescher’s arguments, eka-elements make these arguments quite groundless. The phenomenon of predictable, yet nonactual, chemical elements enabled Mendeleev and others to fully identify and to exhaustively describe possible, yet actually missing, chemical elements. Their places in the periodic table could or can, yet must not, be occupied by actual elements. Even today, chemists predict the existence of quite many possible chemical elements that so far lack evidence of actual existence. The list of eka-elements is not exhausted and it is still open, yet the identification and the description of any eka-element are quite practical, possibly useful, heuristic, and fully satisfy all we need from identification and description. The description under consideration is by no means schematic, and to consider it as a “mere scenario” is wrong, for it provides all the needed chemical details. This kind of

50

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

possibilism thus obviously gains a scientific standing and yet is entirely incompatible with Rescher’s critique as above. Even when the predictability of any eka-element is rendered actual, the identity, reference, and description of such an element are entirely independent of any actualization. Having been found actual, the chemical properties of the element do not really change; the only change is of the name of the element. All eka-elements thus meet all the requirements needed for possibilities to be pure. Eka-elements are pure chemical particular possibilities, each of which has its particular place in the periodic table, however open and expandable (owing to that openness or expandability, radioactive elements, unknown at Mendeleev’s time, are arranged in rows later added to the table). This open nature of the table is entirely compatible with that of the realm of pure possibilities. In contrast, the particular, individual status of any eka-element as a pure possibility is incompatible with Rescher’s view about the ontological furniture of the world, possible or actual (ibid., p. 408). Eka-elements, particular fictions, or pure possibilities in general are not abstract objects, mere schemata for possible individuals, or mere thought-instruments (to borrow from ibid.). They can provide some ontological furniture, for instance, in chemistry as a realist scientific theory. What they cannot provide is the actual ontological furniture, which only experience and observation can provide. In other words, the actual ontological furniture is empirically acquirable alone. Yet other, no less real, ontological furniture exists, consisting of pure possibilities. As I see it, each ekaelement satisfies the condition that Rescher puts to particularity, namely, particularity demands identification (ibid., p. 409). Any eka-element qualifies as an identified particular and not as a general schema for an element. Hence, arguing that “hypotheses enable individuals to be discussed in the abstract but not to be identified in the concrete” (ibid.), Rescher commits what I have entitled “the eka-fallacy.” Suppose that we accepted Rescher’s stance according to which only a description that is saturated and complete could possibly manage to specify or individuate a merely possible particular individual. For any genuinely particular individual must be property-decisive, and a nonexistent possible individual can obtain this decisiveness only through the route of descriptive saturation. (Rescher, 2003a, p. 378) Eka-elements precisely meet even such a demand, for their decisive physical and chemical traits or properties are adequately provided to secure identification and endlessly recurrent re-identification as well. If the demand from any possible individual “cannot be vague or schematic but must issue a committal yea or nay with respect to every property whatever” (ibid.), each eka-element has met that demand perfectly. We have all the descriptive saturation we need from the

Metaphysical Modalities

51

periodic table to secure perfect identification of an element as purely possible or actual alike. At least from the epistemological viewpoint, such identification should not raise real problems. After all, identification and re-identification are epistemological issues. As for the ontological-metaphysical background, chemical elements, as taking part in the periodic table, are chemical pure possibilities, like notes in a musical scale, which are independent of actualization. If you assume that the periodic table is merely a picture or representation of the actual chemical reality, you are missing the whole point, especially as far as eka-elements are concerned. Like any natural science, chemistry has its theoretical basis, which consists of pure possibilities and their relationality. As much as the mathematical foundations of any natural science are pure possibilities and not actualities, so are the chemical possibilities arranged in the periodic order. The possibilitiesidentities and their relationality are completely there, in the table. As such, they are existents, they are obviously real, by no means Rescher’s nonexistents. They are not just “verbally or mentally intended referents” but real referents. They are not merely “de dicto” possibilia, but possibilia de re. Our thought and language do not invent or create them but capture them as discoveries of chemical pure possibilities. No eka-element has been invented or created; it has been merely discovered as a pure possibility. We are not entitled to compare any eka-element to, for instance, the philosopher’s stone, which is a “putative item” or a “suppositional being . . . the [linguistically engendered] artifact of an interpersonally projected supposition or assumption,” “a pseudo-object that is no object at all” (ibid., p. 379). The metaphysical-ontological status of any chemical element as a particular, concrete pure possibility is well established. These pure possibilities make a part of the ontological furniture of the world of chemistry as a scientific theory. Whether the chemical elements in the periodic table are merely eka-elements or actual elements, their well-established identification is beyond doubt. At least for the time being, their chemical and physical description is complete and saturated enough, quite sufficient for all the theoretical and practical needs of chemistry as a scientific theory and absolutely sufficient for any chemical identification. The qualifications “enough” and “for the time being” are needed because the future of chemistry, like that of any other science, is beyond our present knowledge. Yet at this point a serious, you might say unsolvable, problem arises for panenmentalism. Time and again, I exclude the possibility of multiple actualization of any pure possibility-identity. But any chemical element (eka or not) has innumerable actualities or “tokens.” Is an eka-element a pure possibility singly actualizable? The case appears to be just the contrary and, if so, we cannot meet Rescher’s demand of uniqueness: “[W]here only a single unique realization is possible” (1999, p. 413; under panenmentalism, it should be “unique actualization”). To solve this problem, we should distinguish between the

52

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

particular chemical possibility-identity of an element (eka or not) and the chemical name, as a part of the language or terms of chemistry. Name and identity are by no means identical. Any name, as taking part in a language, is general, as no language is private. As the proper name “James” is general, serving as a common name for all persons named “James,” so Germanium is the common name of all existing atoms or pieces of Germanium, each of which has a single, unique possibility-identity. Under panenmentalist nominalism, every genus, species, kind, or type is merely a name, which is general, or a universal relationality of similar possibilities. Thus, the element of Germanium in the periodic table serves in a double meaning or significance: As a name and as an assemblage of possibilities-identities sharing an intrinsic similarity that all the atoms of Germanium have. Each actual atom of Germanium shares the same name with any other atom of Germanium, each of which has an exclusive pure possibility-identity. The periodic table secures for each of these pure possibilities-identities the common locus, serving as a general name, in the table. To recognize a piece of matter as Germanium is to entitle it with a general name, shared by all the Germanium atoms, but the identification, like any identification, is particular: This piece of matter, here and now, is a piece of Germanium. As for eka-elements, the distinction between name and possibility-identity is even simpler or more manifest. As long as chemists use eka-elements in the periodic table, no evidence appears to the actual existence of any of these elements, and only a single representative possibility-identity in each case of those eka-elements has to be referred to (or mentioned in the table), whereas the name in each case is general (even though no single actual case is known yet). Thus, prior to the actual discovery of Germanium, its pure possibility-identity was named as eka-silicium. The name, like any name, was general, yet the possibility-identity mentioned was single, indicating the locus of each identitypossibility of each atom of Germanium, all of which are intrinsically similar. And this locus has been secured, knowingly or unknowingly, since the advent of Mendeleev’s periodic table. In this way, each pure possibility-identity has only “a single unique” actualization (“realization” in Rescher’s wrong, actualist term). The pure possibility-identity of Germanium, known before its actual discovery by the name “eka-silicium,” satisfies all that Rescher demands of identification or individuation, although, under that name, it is merely a pure possibility! In any event, no eka-element can be considered abstractly general, for it could not be abstracted from anything actual. Finally, no eka-element can be considered ens rationis, a mere thoughtobject or thought-entity, such as the equator or the North Pole (which Rescher mentions on p. 414). Since the reality of each eka-element is necessitated by the periodic law, which excludes possible vacancies or gaps in the periodic order or system, no eka-element is treated as ens rationis, which is the ontological standing of sheer fictions or mere conventions, none of which is treated as real or

Metaphysical Modalities

53

truthful (though possibly useful). In contrast, the reality, necessity, and truthfulness of each eka-element are indubitable. Can the actualist argue against my counterexample of eka-elements that (1) eka-elements are merely actual unexemplified attributes, sets, or types? Or (2) that they are merely “actual objects but abstract, outside space and time”? The first possibility follows Roderick Chisholm’s actualism, according to which ontology is confined to actual individuals and attributes, some of which are exemplified, others are not (as represented by James Tomberlin, 2001, p. 422). The second possibility follows Michael Devitt’s portrayal of actualism (2001). As is well known, actualists can afford themselves possible sets, worlds, types, properties, and the like without contradicting themselves. They think that many ways exist in which the actual world might have been, and the total ways—world-states—are entitled “possible worlds.” Thus, mentioning Robert Stalnaker’s actualism, Alan McMichael writes, There are many “ways the world might have been” or “world-states,” and they are what we mean by the term “possible worlds.” These world-states are abstract entities distinct from this concrete universe. We might think of them as specially determinate properties. One of the world-states is actual in the sense that it is exemplified by our concrete world. This world state is “the way the world is.” None of the other world-states is exemplified. . . . [I]n constructing worlds as a kind of property, the actuality-nonactuality distinction collapses into the exemplificationnonexemplification distinction. (McMichael, 1983, pp. 50–51) If “been exemplified” or “been instantiated” replaces “actual,” and if “property” replaces “possible state” (both are abstract), no eka-element has any room within such actualist frame of mind. The same holds for Alvin Platinga’s “states-of-affairs,” whether they obtain or not, that are abstract. As I see them, eka-elements are not types, sets, properties, and the like; nor are they abstract. They are neither unobtained states-of-affairs and they need no exemplification or instantiation, for they are “instances” or “examples” enough. As far as their place in the periodic table is secured, they obtain. All they still await is actualization, rendering pure possibilities into actualities. Actualization has nothing of exemplification, instantiation, or obtaining in it. Each eka-element is a token enough. Eka-elements are by all means chemical elements. As long as they are eka, no chemist can carry out experiments with them, for they are not actual, but this is all the difference between them and actual elements. I liken eka-elements to geometrical figures or numbers, all of which are concrete or individual and not abstract. A triangle, for instance, is not a set of

54

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

triangles, neither is it a property of geometrical figures nor of geometrical space. Each triangle is an individual that has an intrinsic similarity with all other triangles, each of which is a concrete being, an individual pure possibility. “Intrinsic similarity” means that what is valid for one triangle is valid for all of them. Mathematical proofs gain much benefit from intrinsic similarity. No abstraction is involved with numbers or geometrical figures, for they do not supervene on any actual beings or reality. They are not abstractions from actualities whatsoever. Unlike abstractions, they are entirely independent of any actuality. Were numbers or geometrical figures ways of what actual reality is, they would have been actuals. In this case, they must have been spatiotemporally and causally conditioned, like any actuality. Were eka-elements not pure possibilities but actualities, they could not have been abstract objects outside space and time, for no actuality can be outside space and time. After all, what is actuality about if not a spatiotemporal and causal entity? What does it mean to be actual outside of, or without, spatiotemporality and causality? “Actual existence without space and time” does not make sense at all. The same holds for actual unexemplified properties. Such properties must be abstract but, as such, they must supervene or depend on existing individual actualities; otherwise it would be senseless to call them “properties” or “attributes” at all. In any case, the actualists have still to prove that only individual actualities and their properties, sets, types, and the like exist. They are not entitled to assume such existence to exhaust all that exists; they have to prove it. Yet eka-elements serve as an overwhelming counterexample to any of their arguments. If no actual “instance” or “example” of an eka-element (below I will argue that such terminology is definitely inaccurate) actually existed, its place in the periodic table would still have been absolutely secured, for its place in it is of a pure possibility, which is independent of actual reality as a whole. Equally, mathematical entities are pure possibilities, existing independently of any actual reality. Mathematical objects, like eka-elements, are thus not actualities but pure possibilities. Euclidean geometry would have existed even if no actual instance of it existed. The truth, validity, meaning, significance, and identity of geometrical entities are independent of any actuality. The same holds for eka-elements. In the periodic table, each eka-element has its necessary locus. This locus signifies the intrinsic similarity of all the individual elements that has a secure common locus in the table. It is not a set, an attribute, or a type. Each ekaelement of this locus chemically or physically serves for all of them. Were properties, possible worlds, types, or sets actual, they should have been fully instantiated or exemplified. I do not see how an actualist can remain consistent while sustaining the view that actual properties, types, or sets could be unexemplified or uninstantiated. Although McMichael considers such an

Metaphysical Modalities

55

inconsistency merely a matter of appearance (1983, pp. 53–54), he shows that actualist possible worlds and states-of-affairs are not exempt from serious troubles, especially ontological. If a possible world W includes a general stateof-affairs S, say, that all lions can talk, but not any instance of S, no talking lion, merely possible or actual, such a state-of-affairs is merely a façon de parler (in Hebrew we have a special expression for it:    ) or mere conception, which, in any case, makes no ontological difference. If no nonactual, pure possibility exists and if “there are possible worlds and possible states-of-affairs,” their status is never de re, only de dicto. All actualists and Rescher can live peacefully with such possibilities de dicto. But this is not interesting and metaphysically insignificant, for what interests us at this point is the ontological status of pure possibilities, not their status as concepts. As far as propositions or sentences are concerned, actualism does not contradict itself while assuming uninstantiated possible worlds and states-of-affairs, but once metaphysics or ontology is involved, the contradiction becomes apparent. Notwithstanding Russell’s warning to logicians, did Quine and other eminent actualists lose their robust sense of actuality while discussing possible worlds and their states-of-affairs? Are these not ontological monstrosities or, at best, mere conceptions without any ontological force or commitment? Is the actualist stance merely a formal calculus, a kind of formal logic, totally irrelevant to any robust sense of actuality, even of reality in general? How can extensional logic be possible at all with no actual instances for its variables? Only intensional or free logic can do without them. Contrary to such ontological monstrosities, each eka-element, like any pure possibility, could remain actually “unexemplified” or “uninstantiated,” and yet it would keep all it has as an individual pure possibility. Unlike actualist possible states-of-affairs, eka-elements have not only names (though temporary) but also definite complete descriptions, which no actualist possible state-of-affairs may have! Eka-elements are not properties, essential or otherwise. Relying upon the conception of individual essences or essential properties, actualists, such as Alvin Plantinga, discuss “unexemplified essences, essences which are not essences of anything. An essence is a property which could have been an essence of something” (McMichael, 1983, p. 56). Such is not the case of eka-elements. They are not essences or essential properties; they are pure possibilities-identities instead, bearing complete definite descriptions of chemical properties. For instance, no such an essence or property “being eka-boron,” which requires instantiation, exists. All we have are eka-elements as pure possibilities-identities, fully “instantiated,” better, “individualized.” No x or any other variable is thus needed. Accurately speaking, nothing should be exemplified or instantiated about eka-elements, for they are purely possible individuals, not attributes, properties, types, or sets, actual or purely possible. Against this background, perhaps the worse

56

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

form of actualism is the “Platonic” or “realist” one, consisting of unexemplified or uninstantiated types or sets. Or, maybe, actualist unexemplified “essences” are even worse. Like actualist possible worlds, actualist possible essences are inventions, stipulations, or mere conceptions of our thinking, logical or otherwise, whereas eka-elements are discoveries by all means, as I have just argued. Mendeleev discovered some of these pure possibilities; he did not invent or stipulate them. They were not figments of his imagination, not a thought that chemical elements could be different. He discovered new chemical possibilities, like a mathematician or logician who discovers new mathematical or logical possibilities including the necessity about them. Mendeleev thus discovered not only those possibilities but also the necessity about them, especially, about their existence. The later discoveries of the actual elements have not diminished Mendeleev’s first discoveries of chemical pure possibilities-identities. Again, eka-elements posit an undeniable counterexample to any actualist stance. Could eka-elements be unexemplified haecceities? I will discuss haecceities in Section 1.15, showing that pure possibilities-identities are not haecceities. Haecceities are properties “which necessarily characterize single individuals but which are not reducible to general properties” (McMichael, 1983, p. 59). Are we entitled to say that the property of being identical with an eka-boron, for instance, is an unexemplified haecceity? No, for eka-boron needs no exemplification; it has the identity and all the qualities needed to exist as a real individual. Second, it is not a property of any kind. Third, McMichael convincingly proves that no unexemplified haecceities exist (ibid., p. 60). Haecceities are contingent existents, for instance “the set whose sole member is Socrates does not exist in worlds where Socrates does not exist” (ibid.). As contingent, haecceities could not have been pure possibilitiesidentities, which are necessary existents. Spelling out fully Plantinga’s haecceitism, McMichael realizes its striking resemblance to possibilist (!) theories, for “in place of every nonactual possible object, there stands an unexemplified haecceity” (ibid.). This is not compatible with what I will argue in Section 1.15, according to which no haecceity replaces pure possibilityidentity. McMichael argues that Plantinga’s haecceitist semantics is isomorphic to a version of Kripke’s semantics that is possibilist, “since we can identify within it a set of all possible objects, actual and nonactual” (ibid., pp. 60–61). If such is the case, Plantinga is having trouble with his actualist program (ibid., p. 61): “To introduce primitive properties each of which is specific to some nonactual object seems tantamount to acceptance of possibilism” (ibid.). Such kind of actualism must collapse. Panenmentalist possibilism has then much more to offer—pure possibilities-identities instead of the inescapably problematic haecceities. In any case, eka-elements are not

Metaphysical Modalities

57

haecceities, let alone unexemplified. I suggest eka-elements as fine examples of pure possibilities-identities, whereas Plantinga’s actualism has a serious problem to face: “Plantinga is in the unfortunate position of being unable to give a single example of an unexemplified essence” (ibid.). Philosophically, eka-elements are not constituents of any semantics but of ontology. Hence, another actualist “solution” for their nature must be also rejected. This alleged solution is to accept a possibilist semantics with no commitment to any possibilist ontology. On such a basis, McMichael suggests construing a semantics in which nonactual possible individuals—possibles— are included. Such semantics “may indeed prove adequate, in the sense of providing a correct distribution of truth-values, even though there really are no nonactual possibles” (ibid., p. 62). This is not a solution for the standing of eka-elements. First, for as I have just argued, they do not constitute a semantics for chemistry but an ontology for it. Second, pure possibilities play a role in panenmentalist semantics and axiology in a way that has a definite ontological commitment to the complete existence of nonactual possibles, of pure possibilities, which are real existents. McMichael is convinced that semantics of nonactual possibles that do not really exist involves unsolved difficulties. For instance, how the number of nonactual possibles and their interrelationship must be determined is not clear at all (ibid., p. 62). As we shall see shortly, Quine pointed out a similar possibilist difficulty. One of the greatest advantages of eka-elements as pure possibilities-identities is that their precise number as well as their complete relationships have been precisely determined in the periodic table. Unlike Quine’s conundrum as to the number of possible fat men in a particular doorway, the number of eka-elements, though pure possibilities, has been truly fixed. All the needed truth-conditions of eka-elements have been also provided in the periodic table. In sum, as far as eka-elements are concerned Quine and other actualists cannot avoid the ekafallacy. Eka-elements do not function in propositions, modal or not, about actual reality. Instead, they function in propositions concerning chemical pure possibilities-identities, which may be found actual. As such, eka-elements are referents enough. The truth or accuracy of the propositions about these referents is independent of the actual state of affairs. Only non-eka, “ordinary” elements function in propositions, modal or not, about actual reality. Ekaelements are not possible ways or possible states of affairs of the actual chemical reality. Only non-eka elements may serve as such states or ways. Thus, eka-elements serve as an overwhelming counterexample to any actualist arguments. All the elements that are non-eka but “ordinary” reflect the actual chemical reality. Not so any eka-element. The entire periodic table, as the systematic relationality of all chemical elements, is a system of pure possibilities-identities. The relationality of these pure possibilities-identities

58

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

does not depend on actual chemical reality. On the contrary, this reality depends on the chemical pure possibilities in the systematic order and relationality that the table reveals. The actual chemical reality actualizes these order and relationality. The special status of the eka-elements accurately indicates the ontological standing of pure chemical possibilities-identities and their systematic relationality. As an atomistic actualist, Quine “construed worlds as certain settheoretic structures representing possible arrangements of physical particles” (McMichael, 1983, p. 52). Instead of worlds, let us consider the set-theoretical structure of all eka-elements. Assuming that Quine’s actualism allowed us actual chemical elements, not possible individual elements, are we entitled to say that such a structure represents possible arrangements of actual chemical elements? Not at all, for as long as they are eka-elements and not “ordinary” elements, we are not allowed to consider the structure to represent actual elements. The set of all eka-elements is thus not a possible arrangement of actual elements but a necessarily systematic arrangement of purely possible elements. In sum, the “set” of all eka-elements is by no means compatible with Quine’s or any other atomistic actualism including its possible-worlds mechanism. No eka-element is a possibility de dicto; each eka-element is a possibility de re. No eka-element is a function awaiting its variables to be instantiated. It is not the state of such variables either. Eka-elements, like numbers and geometrical figures, are not Platonic Ideas; they are not Aristotelian kinds either, for they are not forms awaiting some matter to make them concrete. Kinds, types, and the like have to do with intrinsic similarities, with unique relationality, not with the elements as such. Pure possibilities are not abstractions of anything actual. Instead, actualities are of their pure possibilities-identities. Actual chemical elements are of their pure possibilitiesidentities in the periodic order, not the other way round. Any element mentioned in the table, all the more any eka-element, is not a state, representation, picture, or image of something actual. Instead, actual elements are in the image of their pure possibilities-identities and they are the states, states of actualization, of the elements mentioned in the table. Actual chemical reality “imitates” the periodic order that the table reveals, not the other way round. Oscar Wilde’s happy idea of actual reality imitating artistic fictions (according to his insightful The Decay of Lying) finds perhaps some redemption in actual reality that imitates, embodies, portrays, or depicts what truthful fictions, as scientific theories, help us discover in the realm of pure possibilities. The periodic table is such a truthful fiction whose ingredients are pure possibilities. On the grounds mentioned above, no actualist, including Quine, can thus adequately explain how a natural science such as chemistry truly works, for

Metaphysical Modalities

59

this systematic science is not an abstraction from actual chemical reality. It is not merely a picture or representation of it. Even empiricism, having exempted itself of its dogmas, may lose all its advantages when it becomes actualist. Without pure possibilities-identities and their relationality, any empirical science would become almost (if not completely) blind, useless, and senseless. It could not even identify or recognize its objects, let alone detect the actualization or any of the instantiations of the laws concerning these objects or entities. Possibly, Francis Bacon, the father of modern empiricism, had a similar idea when he mentioned the right method of observation, which Kant accepted. This method does not allow the investigator of nature to let the observed facts lead or drag her behind. Instead, she should examine them like an interrogator, putting previously formulated questions to them. The questions or the test are not drawn from actual reality; they must have their origin in quite another realm. Call it the right method, Human Reason, the a priori, or the purely possible, the term makes no real difference provided that it does not mean any of the ways that the actual world might have been. Pure possibilities and their relationality are quite alive where knowledge and science prevail. The periodic table is one fine example among many others. Actualism does not hold water, whether you are a rationalist, an empiricist, or neither. So much for the “eka-fallacy” that actualism of any kind commits. For another fine example, consider Section 1.17 below, considering the predicta fallacy. Arguing that “the actual identification and introduction of … possibilia is effectively impossible” (ibid., p. 403), Rescher appears to commit another fallacy, especially that concerning the introduction of pure particular possibilities. I would like to expose that fallacy in light of some counterexamples taken from the writings of Jules Verne. In Paris in the Twentieth Century (written in 1863 but published in 1994), many years before the advent of some actual technologies, Verne introduced their exact pure possibilities without relying on anything actual (except for electricity, electromagneticism, the telegraph, Caselli’s “photographic telegraphy,” and calculating machines). He thus effectively introduced, identified, and described the pure possibilities of such technologies in ample detail, without relying upon actual devices, for no such devices actually existed at that time. In From the Earth to the Moon, Verne introduced another novel pure possibility—that of a moon rocket. He introduced, identified, and described that pure possibility quite independently of any related actuality. Such counterexamples, I believe, should be quite sufficient to render Rescher’s arguments against possibilism de re invalid or groundless. Many similar examples exist of the actual introduction and identification of pure possibilities, possibilia in Rescher’s term, which are practical and effective for many purposes.

60

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Could Rescher argue that such counterexamples are fictions? First, as truthful, fictions can do us a great service in searching for new discoveries, many of which are strictly scientific. Second, no matter how we discover novel possibilities, what is decisive at this point is that prior to their actual existence and quite independently of it or of anything actual, as pure possibilities alone, they were discovered by scientists, thinkers, writers, artists, and the like. Thus, Verne introduced, identified, and described a moon rocket or an airplane many years before its actual appearance. He referred then to such objects as pure possibilities, substantively oriented toward them. To characterize such a reference (or “orientation”) adequately, we need a possibilism de re, quite contrary to Rescher’s view. Another counterexample to Rescher’s view is the numerical series. Allegedly following Plato’s Republic VII, Rescher mistakenly considers numbers as abstract things (ibid., p. 404, note 1; cf. 2003a, p. 376: “abstracta such as numbers”). First, Plato does not consider Ideas, mathematical or metaphysical-dialectical, as abstract things, although they are exempt from processuality and from dispositional character. On the contrary, for Plato, sensible, tangible things are abstracta, which are copies or mere reflectionsparticipants of more real, substantial, concrete beingsIdeas. Sensible or actual things depend thus upon their Ideas, and not the other way round, which is the case of anything abstract. In Plato’s philosophy, numbers belong to the realm of the mathematical Ideas, which manifestly makes them non-abstract. Second, apart from Plato’s philosophy, as pure possibilities, numbers are not abstracta at all. Instead, they are concrete beings. To argue that numbers are abstracta, as if numbers were abstracted out of actual things, Rescher takes an actualist stance, despite his manifest efforts not to do so. Rescher leaves us one choice: “[A]ll or nothing: either a (distinctly problematic) metaphysical realism of self-subsistent possibilities or else a (somewhat unappealing) nominalism of mere verbal possibility talk, of possibility not as a matter of genuine fact but merely the product of an imaginative fictionalizing by linguistic manipulations” (ibid., p. 381). I entirely adopt the first alternative, yet my view is a nominalistic realism of individual pure possibilities in the following sense: What is general about pure possibilities is only their relationality. Our imagination is capable of utilizing different illuminating fictions (“truthful fictions”) to discover new pure possibilities, which are as real as actualities, although in a different sense. Truthful fictions thus do for us what no telescope can (to allude to Kripke’s metaphor mentioned ibid., p. 377, which Rescher mistakenly ascribes to David Lewis; cf. Kripke, 1980, p. 44: “‘Possible worlds’ are stipulated, not discovered by powerful telescopes”). Verne’s literary fictions make one kind of example, ekaelementsanother. Let us leave linguistic manipulations to rhetoricians, copywriters, propagandists, preachers, and the like. Owing to an insightful

Metaphysical Modalities

61

metaphysics, philosophers can be realistically possibilist without resignation to any linguistic manipulation. Since we regard numbers independently of any actualization or actual entities, and since their existence is exempt from any spatiotemporal and causal conditions, we should consider numbers as pure possibilities and not actual entities. This exemption commits us to consider numbers not as actual entities. Since any abstraction depends on actualities from which it is abstracted, numbers, as pure possibilities, which are independent of any actuality or actualization, are not abstractions. Although numbers are neither abstractions nor actualities, the identity, reference, and description of numbers are undoubtedly altogether practical. Though no end exists to the number of numbers, no philosopher is entitled to argue on the basis of this indisputable truth that numbers are not real enough. No realism about numbers is endangered by the argument that the question—How many numbers are there?—is unanswerable. Numbers can be considered quite real, although they are not actual entities but merely pure possibilities and although no end exists to their number. As pure possibilities, numbers are substantively oriented, practically referable, fully individuated, satisfactorily describable, and subsumable to ostensive confrontation. As opposed to Rescher’s view, possibilism concerning numbers is both quite meaningful and is committed to substantively oriented (de re) pure possibilities. No need exists to replace it with any version of conceptualism, let alone “more modest.” As for the more recent version of Rescher’s view (2003a and 2003b), the crucial problem that he confronts is what fixes the identity of an individual. Is this an actual factor or not? What appears to be Rescher’s answer is that it must be an actual factor that fixes the identity of an individual (2003a, p. 368). For instance, “the Hubert Humphrey we know and love” is an actual individual whose identity has been fixed or settled “irrespective of what worlds or what descriptions may be involved” (ibid., p. 367). Such is the case: Humphrey’s identity is independent of all these. The problem remains: What determines his identity? What secures its persistence or survival of contingencies and changes in his life? As I see it, the identity of any individual entity has not to do with possible worlds, transworld identity, or actual reality. We have to face the same problem whether we identify a pure possibility, say, an eka-element, or an actuality. To identify a member in a symmetrical mathematical group, which is altogether purely possible and not actual, or to identify the actuality of the subatomic particle omega-minus requires no recourse to anything actual. On the contrary: In both cases, the purely mathematical and the physical-actual, we rely upon theoretical criteria, which are purely mathematical or physical possibilities and not actualities. We have to face the same problem, the problem of reference and identification, while referring to a pure possibility and identifying it or to an

62

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

actuality and identifying it. An ostensive identification is equally applicable to a pure possibility (“this member of this mathematical group”) and to actuality (“this is the trajectory of omega-minus” or “this is the mark of omega-minus”). Contrary to Rescher’s view (ibid., p. 374), spatiotemporal positioning is not a necessary condition for ostensive identification. We can ostensively identify pure possibilities, although they are exempt from any spatiotemporality and causality and are not actualities subject to experience, experiment, and observation. We can point to them as much as we can point to actualities. To identify or to refer to something, we can do without reference to actualities or to the actual world, just as we do while identifying numbers, members of mathematical groups, ekaelements, and so on. Equally to numbers, Rescher treats fictional objects as mere abstracta: “Fictional ‘objects’ are abstractions and not concrete possibilia” (1999, p. 408). Again, we are not entitled to consider Verne’s fictions as abstracta, for they are quite independent of actual reality and by no means abstracted from it. Second, they are not schematic but quite concrete possibilia within Verne’s texts. As for literary fictional characters, Rescher is also wrong. Hamlet, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, Swann, and many other fictional figures in classic literary works of art are by no means abstract objects, schemata, or pseudo-individuals. Such are the marks of literary failures or bad literature. Although we do not normally treat any of these characters as actual, we relate to them as concrete, as individual persons bearing the mark of singularity and genuineness. Their ontological status is no less than that of actual persons, although it is different. Fictions may affect us no less than actual beings, sometimes even more. They can be truthful or real, especially for us, and by no means as abstract but, on the contrary, as concrete and particular as much as possible. Moreover, the modal status of pure possibilities in general and fictional beings like those in particular is of necessity, whereas that of actualities is merely of contingency. A necessity pertains to truthful fictional figures in literary works of art, which no actual being can have. Necessity and Truthful Fictions is not merely the title of this book; it is a panenmentalist guiding principle. On quite different grounds, Aristotle’s Poetics (1451a25–b11, b34–35, and 1454a34–38) points out such a similar necessity in artistic tragedies, unlike actual history that has some contingency about it. Presumably, Rescher would not agree with this great Aristotelian idea or with the aforementioned panenmentalist principle. Rescher does not ignore meaningful discussions and reasoning of “merely possible states of affairs and scenarios” or stories (2003a, p. 380). Yet he leaves them to “abstract generality” alone (ibid.). Such is not the case as I see it. Literary masterpieces deal with concrete, particular pure possibilities as well as with the necessity about them. I will discuss below the necessity of pure possibilities in literary works of art. But the more problematical is just ahead of us. Rescher leaves “merely possible individuals and worlds viewed as particulars” without the “disposal of

Metaphysical Modalities

63

our latter-day modal realists” (ibid.). Instead, the infinite depth of the requisite details of such possibilities “confines them to the province of God alone” (ibid., p. 381). Thus, “only God can realize the idea of nonexistent particularism” (ibid.). Such is not the case at all. For many years, literary artists, theoretical scientists, mathematicians, and the like have discovered individual pure possibilities for the simple reason that no infinite depth of a complete description has been needed at all for this purpose. All they have needed has been their capability of discovering new individual pure possibilities, which leaves them to human beings who are imaginative enough, who are not enslaved to the actual. However confined or limited, the freedom from the actual is in our nature and at our disposal. Equally, the capability of relating to pure possibilities as existents, although obviously nonactual, is in our nature as psychical subjects. Possibilia are undoubtedly within the reach of our psychical and intersubjective or interpersonal life; such life consists of them. Would we confine all that exists to the actual alone, nothing would be left of psychical or intersubjective reality. As I see it, Rescher appears to miss the point of the identification of fictional characters. He asks whether the mysterious stranger in Chapter One of a novel is the same person whose corpse is mentioned in Chapter Five. They are one and the same person, he answers, “only if the author says sothere are no facts of the matter apart from those our novelist specifies. In the absence of such specification all that can be said about the issue of identity isabsolutely nothing” (ibid., p. 370). No actualities, no facts of the matter exist to provide us with an answer. Yet, and this is the missed point, if the novel is masterfully written, anything relevant is necessarily there and the relations between the specific details are as necessary as they are. Thus, even if the narrator says absolutely nothing about such identification, the reader, following the inner necessity of the novel, may find the answer by herself. Nothing is arbitrary about such identification, and no recourse to contingent actualities is needed to realize it. The reader may complete the missing parts for herself. Contrary to Rescher’s view, we are not to arbitrarily assume, postulate, or suppose pure possibilities as “objects that are projected in discussion” (ibid.). Although no facts of the matter determine the existence or reality of pure possibilities, they are not arbitrarily postulated or assumed. Just as in pure mathematics, in logic, in fine literature, nothing is arbitrary about pure possibilities. Contrary to Rescher’s view (ibid.), they have independent characteristics that we have to discover, as much as eka-elements have had. Panenmentalism attempts to show precisely this. An actualist fallacy is to assume that only given facts are discoverable and that “nonexistent [i.e., non-actual] possible . . . individuals are never given to us” (ibid., p. 376); pure possibilities are as discoverable and as given as actualities. They are given in a different way from the way that actualities or facts of the matter are given. For we discover actualities by empirical means, which cannot capture pure possibilities.

64

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

In the final account, Rescher relies on the prominent manifesto of actualism, namely, Quine’s “On What There Is” (1999, p. 413, note 9; cf. Rescher, 2003a, p. 376). Undoubtedly, the following is an actualist view: “Thought and language move off in their way, and existence and reality go off on their way, and only where there is actual adequatio ad rem do they come together” (Rescher, 2003a, p. 379). Actual reality or existence does not exhaust reality as a whole. Thought and language have a special reality and they exist as much as actual reality exists, albeit in different senses. Thought exists psychically, subjectively, or privately; language exists intersubjectively or interpersonally; and actual reality exists objectively or publicly. To ascribe reality only to actual reality is what actualism is all about. To consider pure possibilities as nonexistents or to state “there is no way to identify and individuate nonexistent [nonactual] possible individuals” (ibid., p. 376) is a manifest actualism. To limit or reduce possibilism to conceptualism or conceivability is to limit and confine the endless realm of pure possibilities unnecessarily, which is contrary to the aim of panenmentalism—to save as many possibilities as possible. Possibilities, currently “impossibilities,” such as a round square and the 2 that is not a fraction, still exist beyond our practical conceivability. Yet, although we cannot conceive, at least yet, of such possibilities, which are incompatible with our current logico-mathematical knowledge and understanding, we can relate to them (see Section 1.8 below). I do not accept any restriction of the realm of pure possibilities to the limitations of our current conceivability or to those of our current logico-mathematical knowledge and understanding. For this reason, I do not accept the idea that metaphysical possibility is “less expansive than narrow logical possibility” (Gendler and Hawthorne, 2002, p. 5). Nor can I accept that conceivability or conception and possibility are coextensive or congruent. As I see it, conceivability, conception, imagination, employing fictions, and the like are the ways in which we discover pure possibilities, which are new for us. These possibilities are ontologically or metaphysically independent of the ways in which we discover them. The conceivable (or the like) and the possible are not identical. Rescher is right in arguing that the description of any real thing is in principle inexhaustible (ibid., p. 405), but this is all the more valid for pure possibilities. Dispositional characterization aside, the infinitude and inexhaustibility of the relationality of any pure possibility must be beyond any doubt. This especially holds for numbers. The open nature of the realm of pure possibilities as a whole is strictly compatible with infinitude and inexhaustibility concerning pure possibilities. As Rescher states, “Endlessly many true descriptive remarks can be made about any actual physical object” (ibid.), but this also holds for Verne’s moon rocket or airplanes. The readers of Verne’s fictions in the 19th century, long before the advent of actual rockets or

Metaphysical Modalities

65

airplanes, could endlessly imagine, truly describe, and refer to these purely possible objects. Each of such readers could imagine them under different conditions and circumstances, as much as the observers of the actual objects that Rescher mentions can do. In both cases, of pure possibilities and of actual things, no end exists to “the perspectives of consideration that we can bring to bear on things” (ibid.). The trouble is that claiming this, Rescher has only actual things in mind. Yet an endless variety of cognitive viewpoints equally holds for pure possibilities and actual things. Pure possibilities enjoy descriptive perspectives as much as actual things do. Hence, Rescher’s assumption “fictional particulars . . . are of finite cognitive depth” (ibid., p. 407) is groundless. Rescher’s precommitment to “description-transcending features,” essential to our conception of any real, concrete object (ibid., p. 406), is valid not only for actual objects but also for pure possibilities. Owing to the infinite relationality of any pure possibility, its description is never exhaustive. However fictional a figure in a novel may be, an infinity of ways of relationality to it exists and, hence, an infinity of possible descriptions. The more artistically rich and profound a novel, the more classic its nature, and we can realize more clearly that it is subject to more different interpretations or descriptions, the number of which has no end. Any fictional figure means or signifies different things for different readers. Novelties always wait for interpreting and describing the fictional as much as for the actual. Rescher claims identification on the basis of description and, given that no complete description of any individual is possiblegiven the descriptive incompleteness or inexhaustibilityhe concludes that we cannot distinguish any individual from all other possible or imaginable individuals (ibid., p. 410). As I see it, this is not the case. On panenmentalist grounds, we can distinguish any individual, as a pure possibility, from all the others independently of description or relationality. No matter how we conceive them, no two pure possibilities can be identical, which means that we easily distinguish between any one pure possibility and all the others. We need no description or relationality to distinguish any pure possibility, but the other way round. Distinguishing pure possibilities one from the other is the most primary act of the mind. Such is the mind’s accessibility to any pure possibility. The reference to pure possibilities is direct as much as the reference to actualities is, and both kinds of direct reference are independent of description (Gilead, 2003, pp. 56–58). Finally, since the panenmentalist identification of pure possibilities is independent of any world, possible or actual, I do not accept Rescher’s postulate that the “only feasible way to identify a possible individual would be with reference to the world to which it belongs” (ibid., p. 412). Panenmentalism does without the dispensable idea of possible worlds. Instead, I postulate the open realm of all pure possibilities, the panenmentalist realm.

66

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

As a prior or primary mental act, identification of, or reference to, pure possibilities is also independent even of this realm. Direct reference—reference independent of description, interpretation, or narrative—is possible not only for actual referents but also, and even primarily, for purely possible referents, each of which is an individual, whether particular or singular. Ostension to pure possibilities is possible and practical like ostension to actualities, given that pure possibilities are discoverable as are actualities. As necessarily atemporal, pure possibilities are discoverable and, in the last account, cannot be created, contrived, or invented (contrary to Rescher, 2003a, p. 364). Each individual pure possibility exists independently of its discovery, descriptions, narratives, interpretations, or significance, but obviously not the other way round. We can point out pure possibilities, as much as actual referents, independently of any description. Literary works of fiction may begin with direct reference to, or with introduction of, pure possibilities that the reader can easily identify, understand, and follow. Anna Karenina begins with the following words: “Everything had gone wrong in the Oblonsky household. The wife had found out about her husband’s relationship with their former French governess and had announced that she could not go on living in the same house with him” (Tolstoy, 1969, p. 13). In these opening sentences, three direct referents are introduced and pointed out for the first time, all of which belong or relate to the same household: Oblonsky, his wife, and the governess. Given that the relations existing between the referents must not be confounded with descriptions of any sort, no description whatsoever is needed to refer to those fictional referents, which are not actualities but merely pure possibilities, entirely independent of their description and of any actualization as well. Equally direct or independent is the reference or the ostension at the very beginning of Kafka ‘s “Before the Law”: “Before the Law stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country who begs for admittance to the Law” (Kafka, 1961, p. 61). You can easily think of many other examples, not necessarily literary or fictional, including mathematical or theoretical examples. Writers can introduce, directly refer to, or point out fictional persons or objects and fix their names, independently of any description. Nothing needs to be schematic or hypothetical about these fictional figures; they can be entirely particular or concrete. Nothing of contingency is left about them in a genuinely literary piece of art. All we have to know about them is necessarily there. All other questions that have nothing to do with such a necessity should not be asked about these fictional objects. They are quite different from actualities, the nature of which is contingent, and the basis for answering questions about which is necessarily empirical.

Metaphysical Modalities

67

We can introduce or directly refer to fictional characters or objects, not only independently of any description but also of any narrative. Narrative may be the means to capture or discover these possibilities. Literary fictions serve us well in touring the land of pure possibilities, existing independently of our discovering them by narratives or by other means. Narrative, like description, may help us discover, capture, or find out pure possibilities, to which we may directly refer, on the grounds that each of them is an individual possibility, different from any other possibility in the entire realm of pure possibilities. Furthermore, you can directly refer to or point out any of your personal, private, subjective possibilities, with or without naming them. When naming them, you intersubjectively refer to your personal pure possibilities. In this case, you utilize language and other means of communication, which does not render this reference indirect, given that it remains strictly independent of any description, interpretation, or narrative and directly accessible to you. Asking, with Rescher, how many lumps of coal lay in Sherlock Holmes’s grate, we appear to have no fact-of-the-matter answer (1999, p. 407). Referring to the actual text only, the reader cannot answer such a question, for these lumps are not subject to his or her observation or experience. But this fact of uncountability does not render their reality less real, although they are real in a non-actual sense. As fictions, they are as truthful or real as actual things, otherwise they are senseless, meaningless, or insignificant for the readers. If Sherlock Holmes lights his pipe by means of a lump of coal, at least one such lump exists in his grate. If he had said, “No lump of coal remains in my grate, how can I light my pipe then?”—this would mean or signify something different for the reader, yet it would make sense as regards this text. As for property-decisiveness (ibid., p. 408), it depends on the significance or meanings that the particular item has in the text, in the interpretation, or under the description that the reader has in mind. Second, do no actual, concrete, or particular things exist that are not property-decisive? For instance, the spatiotemporal properties of subatomic particles are indecisive yet the existence of these particles is beyond any doubt. But the most significant flaw in this argument by Rescher is of not distinguishing between two kinds of description: That of actualities and that of pure possibilities. Description or interpretation of actualities decisively meets such questions that Rescher suggests, owing to the contingent nature of actualities. Because of this nature, we must rely upon experience and observation to answer such questions. The case of pure possibilities is quite different. Describing or interpreting them, we should relate to the necessity about them. In a good “piece” of pure possibilities, for instance, in a literary piece of art or in a scientific system such as the periodic table of elements, a necessity determines each detail that makes a difference. If the question about the number of the lumps of coal lying in Sherlock Holmes’s grate makes any

68

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

sense as regards the text, if it has meaning and significance in the context of the story, we are entitled to ask it, and a decisive answer should be found in the text, given that it is artistically well made. If not, the question in this context is about an “external” contingent fact that is entirely irrelevant as regards this text, since it does not make a difference or bear significance in it, since no necessity about it can be found within this text. Necessity about pure possibilities is what I have entitled “determinism of pure possibilities” (Gilead, 2003, pp. 137–141, 146–147; and consider Sections 3.6 and 3.7 below), which means that nothing about such possibilities remains undeterminable or contingent, provided that we deal with their significantly relevant relationality. Within the context of a literary work of art or within a psychical reality each pure possibility and its relationality are necessarily determined. As a result, contrary to Rescher, no “ontology of schematically fuzzy, descriptively undetermined possible worlds and individuals” (ibid., p. 417) should have any room within such contexts. Within them, each pure possibility, which is a real individual (particular or singular), is necessary, determined, and descriptively decisive (contrary to Rescher’s “pseudo-individuals,” putative individuals, or fictional particulars). The panenmentalist view of fine stories or truthful fictions is quite different from Rescher’s or other actualists’ views of fictions and stories. Questions about actualities are quite different from questions about pure possibilities: The first deal with contingency and the second with necessity. As for practical uncountability, the number of all existing atoms, say, hydrogen atoms, is not practically countable, the same holds for the number of all existing electrons, subatomic particles, and the like. They are not practically countable as much as the lumps of coal in Holmes’s grate, although for different reasons. We cannot meaningfully discuss their numbers. Rescher himself mentions meaningful discussion concerning unanswerable questions about the number of human beings who lived thousands of years ago (ibid., p. 415). Though unanswerable in practice, such questions concern significant facts in the history of human evolution (ibid.). In contrast, the number of all existing atoms or that of the lumps of coal as above makes no significance, sense, or meaning, for it makes no difference as far as our knowledge or understanding is concerned. Such questions are as meaningless as left unresolved (contrary to Rescher’s idea of perfectly meaningful, yet unresolved, questions—ibid., p. 415). Like many other actualists (to begin with Quine), declared or in fact, Rescher has one kind of existence in mind—actual existence. Against this background, he wrongly employs the distinction between possibility de dicto (“it is possible for individuals”) and possibility de re (“there are possible individuals”). Discussing the proposition, “it is possible for spiders to weigh 80 lbs,” Rescher writes, “this does not mean that there is somewherein the

Metaphysical Modalities

69

‘realm of possibility’some there-actual spider that has achieved this weight” (ibid., 417). In the realm of possibilities no such actual spider exists, but a pure possibility of such a spider exists, since it is not identical with any other possibility, which is all we need to individuate it practicably. Unlike Rescher’s view, the concept of reality bears two sensesactual and possible. Equally, de re also bears two different sensesactual and possible, but Rescher, like any actualist, does not make such differences at all, on the contraryhe reduces them to the actualist alternative (the same holds for the distinction between the possible/contingent and the purely possible/necessary and for that of realization/actualization as well). As a pure possibility, such a spider exists de re, although obviously not in the actual sense. Possibilia are as real as actualities and, contrary to Rescher (ibid., p. 418), we have practicable ways of identifying or individuating particular pure possibilities, as long as they are not identical one with the other. Contrary to Rescher (ibid., p. 417), possible individuals are not “just like” actual individuals “in nature but merely different in content,” for pure possibilities are ontologically and epistemologically independent of actualities. The case of eka-elements demonstrates all this. Panenmentalism is absolutely entitled to commit itself to ontological realism of pure possibilities, possibilia, or possible beings, to possibilism de re, which Rescher explicitly excludes (ibid., p. 420). Panenmentalist possibilism is not conceptualism, which reduces possibility to conceivability. Pure possibilities are independent even of our conceivability of them. We discover them, not invent them. As far as pure possibilities are concerned, “invention” is a personal discovery. As a result, I do not accept Rescher’s de dicto possibilism or conceptualismthe “ontology” of conceptualizable possibilities (ibid.)for it reduces or limits possibilism to mere conceptualism. As I argued in Section 1.4, quantifiers should not be restricted to actual reality alone and to some possible world either, whereas dispensing with the actualist view of quantifiers, Hintikka restricts existence to some possible world (Hintikka, 1995, p. 43). Against this background, Timothy Williamson’s view is especially interesting (Williamson, 1999). Williamson defends the view that truths about the number of possible individuals are logically true. These truths “are not contingent logical truths, for it is not contingent what individuals there are” (ibid., p. 181). Williamson thus refuses the ban on unrestricted quantification and licenses such quantification as entirely intelligible (ibid., p. 191). Thus, his answer to the question “How many sets are there?” is “There could not have been fewer than absolutely infinitely many sets” (ibid.). In the same vein, his answers to similar questions“How many numbers are there?”, “How many possible worlds are there?”, and, more important, “How many possible individuals are there?”would consist of “There could not have been fewer

70

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

than absolutely infinitely many of them.” Such intelligible answers are well established and Rescher would have nothing substantial to argue against them. Suggesting “the logical sense of exist (‘L-exist’),” Williamson states that “to exist is to be something” (ibid., p. 194). Instead of employing “pure possibilities,” he employs “mere possibilities” (also in Williamson, 2000, or “bare possibilia” in Williamson, 1998) and thus allows expressions such as “a possible table” or “a merely possible table,” which Quine, Rescher, and many others would not allow. Really, “merely possible tables need not occupy space; they need only be possible space occupants” (Williamson, 1999, p. 195). Williamson is not deterred from answering Quinean actualism thus: “There are infinitely many possible fat men who could have been in that doorway and only finitely many past fat men who were once in that doorway, although none of those possible or past fat men is in that doorway” (ibid.). Yet Williamson gives some examples that well demonstrate that “some counting questions about possible physical objects do have finite answers” (ibid.). All those examples follow the rule according to which what we count, we can quantify over (ibid., p. 196). Arguing that “necessarily there are infinitely many individuals,” Williamson does not relate to sets but to “possible physical objects instead” (ibid., p. 198). He rests the individuation of possible physical objects not upon actual physical properties and relations but upon “possible physical properties and relations” (ibid., p. 196). I believe that he would have said the same about eka-elements (which, unfortunately, he does not mention at all). At this point, he stands closer to panenmentalism and extremely far from Rescher. Defending the noncontingency of identity in the light of interpreting Leibniz’s law, Williamson, quite rightly, warns us against confusing identity with spatiotemporal location (ibid., pp. 197–198). What makes (actual) existence contingent is spatiotemporality, whereas the logic involved is free from any spatiotemporality and thus suggests necessary truths instead. Since “for each natural number n there are at least n possible physical objects, so at least n individuals, so necessarily at least n individuals,” the logical truth under discussion “does not depend on the existence of sets” (ibid., p. 198). If Frege and Russell took for granted the unrestricted interpretation of the quantifiers, Williamson adds to it “the accompanying metaphysical conception on which, even if sets are not treated as individuals, the unrestricted universe is noncontingent and infinite in membership” (ibid., p. 201). I wholeheartedly accept such a metaphysical addition although I would prefer it as a metaphysical foundation on which the relevant logic is established. Williamson suggests a “combination of logic and metaphysics” (ibid.), which I much prefer to that by Rescher. Nevertheless, in my view, metaphysics is prior to and more fundamental than logic, not the other way round.

Metaphysical Modalities

71

Panenmentalism does not confine itself to logical considerations. As a metaphysics, it attempts to discover metaphysical necessary truths about the existence of individual pure possibilities and their relationality independently or absolutely regardless of sets and possible worlds alike. Williamson demonstrates that possibilist logic is allowed to claim necessary truths about the existence and quantification of individual possibilia. What I have in mind is a metaphysical defense of such truths without relying upon any possibleworlds semantics or metaphysics. In sum, Rescher’s ironic question—How many possibilia are there?—is as senseless as the question—How many numbers are there?—unless we consider an absolutely infinite number of them. The inescapable uncountability (namely, the absolutely infinite number) of numbers by no means renders them unreal or lacking individuation or identification, and the same holds for possibilia or, under panenmentalism, for pure possibilities. What we cannot individuate we cannot count (and Rescher is right on this point), but we cannot count some of the things that we can individuate. 7. The Logical and the Actual: A Comment on Freud and Others Discussing the ego, as distinct from the id and the superego, Freud puts together the logical and the actual on the same footing. Under one and the same principle, namely, the Freudian reality test, the logical and the actual go hand-in-hand, especially in balancing the drives of the id and restraining an excessively severe, unrealistic superego. Actual reality, as indicated by the Freudian reality test in the service of the ego, is in the last account logical. Restraining or checking the id, as well as the unconscious wishes of the ego and the superego, is in the realistic, sober, and sane nature of the ego. And, thus, the ego functions also as a rational, logical, realistic censor. Yet censoring necessarily leads to restriction of possibilities. Panenmentalism challenges this idea. To equate the actual with the logical is to confine or restrict possibilities mistakenly, whereas the aim of panenmentalism is to open up possibilities and to enlarge their scope for our knowledge, awareness, consciousness, and imagination. Insisting on “a sharp dichotomy between logically necessary and empirical matters” (contrary to Routley, 1969, p. 130), logical necessity excludes contingency. Since, under panenmentalism, the actual is subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions, and yet remains basically contingent, the actual is not logically necessary or necessarily logical. Besides being logical to some extent, yet not necessarily, the actual can also be quite illogical or non-logical. For the actual to exist and to act contrary to our expectations and anticipations, including the logical or rational ones, is quite possible. The contingency or the “suchness” of the actual may put it under illogical or non-logical possibilities. Some, including

72

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

some philosophers, admit that actual reality occasionally happens to be paradoxical. From a human viewpoint, actual reality might be even absurd (consult, for instance, The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus). Undoubtedly, Freud was not a panenmentalist, although he occasionally came close to some panenmentalist ideas (especially in the case of psychical determinism). One of Freud’s persistent tendencies may be considered actualist. For instance, what Jonathan Lear characterizes as “the return of the seduction hypothesis . . . cultural neurosis is caused by an actual event in the infancy of civilization” (Lear, 2000, p. 148). This was a Freudian tendency or propensity especially at the very beginning of psychoanalysis (“the preanalytic period”) in his and Breuer’s Studies on Hysteria, which was relinquished in favor of the theory that fantasies, not only actual traumas, were sufficient to incite psychopathology, yet which were never abandoned as a psychoanalytic possibility. On this point, Lear is quite right. The actualist tendency of Freud is incompatible with the Freudian principle that indicates the birth of the mature psychoanalysis, to be distinguished from the pre-history of psychoanalysis, namely, the principle that inner, psychical reality is as real as actual, external reality. As distinct from actual-external reality, inner-psychical reality consists of pure possibilities. In some sections in his writings, Freud was not far from such a panenmentalist assumption (consider Gilead, 1999, pp. 46–70). When it comes to the psychical and to psychology, Freud argues, psychical possibilities have the upper hand. Fantasies consist of pure possibilities, not of actual facts of the matter. After all, when psychology and the psychical are concerned, the psychical possibilities that are relevant to an actual occasion, traumatic or not, are what really matters. The same actual event or state of affairs may mean and signify quite different things for different persons. When equating the actual with the logical, Freud thought like a Spinozist, not like a possibilist. In contrast, as a possibilist he ascribed necessity and determinism to psychical possibilities alone, not to actualities, which thus cannot escape contingency and even illogical or non-logical circumstances to this or that extent. Metaphysically speaking, possibilism or mentalism is fairly compatible with Freud’s independent theory of the mind (Gilead, ibid.), saving many psychical possibilities that actualism, even Spinoza’s logical actualism, would exclude or close for us. My conclusion is that Freud would be more consistent if he were to ascribe logical necessity not to actual reality but instead only to the ego and the superego as consciously functioning, whereas both the id and actual reality, though differently and to some extent, are also subject to the illogical, the non-logical, or the contingent. The same holds for the unconscious parts of the ego and the superego. Our sense of reality or, better, of actuality exposes us also to the contingent and absurd restrictions of actual reality. Or was Freud

Metaphysical Modalities

73

more a rationalist than an empiricist to the extent that actual reality concerned him? Be that as it may, panenmentalism is strictly empiricist, not rationalist, about actual reality. 8. Logico-Mathematical Impossibilities and the Possibility of God If the only entirely and absolutely unactualizable possibility is that of God (Gilead, 2003, pp. 213–224), we have to face some difficulties. For instance, is not a round square or the 2 that is not a fraction an entirely and absolutely unactualizable possibility? Or is a round square or the 2 that is not a fraction possible at all? Metaphysically speaking, a round square and the 2 that is not a fraction are possibilities of which we know nothing yet, possibilities that so far we could not conceive or comprehend. Under panenmentalism, only one kind of absolute impossibility exists, namely, for two possibilities to be identical is absolutely impossible. In both my previous panenmentalist books, I assumed that illogical or non-logical possibilities exist, since unlike Leibniz’s, Kant’s, and many other philosophies, with panenmentalism the realm of pure possibilities as a whole cannot be restricted to logical possibilities alone. To argue otherwise means to consider logic as metaphysically prior to metaphysics and, even worse, to believe that our present or current logical knowledge exhausts all logical possibilities. Such was the wrong assumption of logicians of the past, assuming that all logical possibilities were known to them. Nowadays, we are familiar with an impressive variety of logics (see, for instance, Beall and van Fraassen, 2003). Do we not laugh today at logicians, familiar only with a binary (two-valued) logic, who excluded the possibilities of any other, non-binary logic? The same holds for mathematical possibilities. From a Euclidean geometrical viewpoint, parallel lines sharing the same point(s) are just impossible, whereas a non-Euclidean geometry quite opens up such possibilities. Assuming impossibilities may lead other thinkers, or the same thinkers under different intellectual circumstances, or after an intellectual progress, to reconsider such impossibilities and to discover that they are eventually possible. Yet, you may argue, a round square and the 2 that is not a fraction are logico-mathematical impossibilities, an idea that logico-mathematicians so far have assumed and that all logico-mathematicians in the future should assume. Such is the case, the argument goes, since without the assumptions and the procedures demonstrating that these are sheer impossibilities, neither logic nor mathematics is possible at all. But such an argument relies on the tacit basis that the realm of pure possibilities as a whole is logical and that the illogical or the non-logical is impossible. Such an argument arbitrarily confines the realm of purely logical possibilities, which should not be confined to any current

74

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

logical knowledge or awareness. In this confined spirit, Kant and many others assume that the law of contradiction is the necessary condition for each possibility. We explore the realm of pure possibilities through many different lenses. Each of these lenses has limitations, owing to which impossibilities are discerned or considered. Each lens is blind to some possibilities, considering them not existing or just impossibilities, whereas under another lens the same “impossibilities” would be considered possible, even indispensably possible. We do not know yet of a possibility of a round square or that of the 2 that is not a fraction, but this does not lead to the conclusion that such possibilities are absolutely or metaphysically impossible. Considering the realm of pure possibilities as a whole, they are possible. Since only the possibility of God is absolutely unactualizable, they are also actualizable, however absurd this may sound. Since each possibility necessarily relates to any other possibility, which must necessarily be different from it, this relationality may involve contradictions. Contradictions are not impossible under the panenmentalist sky. Each pure possibility may relate to “its” impossibility, namely, to the possibility that contradicts it. To relate to and to refer to are not identical. At least for the time being, we cannot refer to the possibility of a round square or to that of the 2 that is not a fraction, as we are not familiar or acquainted with any of these possibilities and as such we cannot even conceive of any of them. Since each pure possibility must relate to all that is different from it, including to what contradicts it, we can relate to the possibility of a round square or to that of the 2 that is not a fraction. As much as non-Euclidean geometries or modern kinds of logic do not cancel any of the Euclidean or classically logical possibilities but add some alternatives to them instead, and thus enlarge the scope of geometry or logic, we may use the known logical or mathematical laws or rules to relate to quite different logico-mathematical possibilities that are not under these laws or rules. By relating so, we do not cancel these laws or rules, but show their limitations and confine or limit their validity, which is a necessary outcome of acknowledging that the realm of metaphysical possibilities is wider and more comprehensive than that of logico-mathematical possibilities, let alone of the currently known ones. To keep the realm of pure possibilities open, we must reduce the number of impossibilities as much as we can. Panenmentalism, like any other metaphysical theory or “lenses,” has its limitations. On panenmentalist grounds, I have excluded the possibility that machines can think (Gilead, 1999, pp. 137–158). This exclusion is not absolutely valid for the entire realm of pure possibilities. Instead, it is valid on panenmentalist grounds in a way similar to that in which Euclidean geometry excludes the possibility of two

Metaphysical Modalities

75

parallel lines sharing the same point. Thus, through panenmentalist lenses, conscious or thinking machines are just impossible, as much as, through Euclidean lenses, non-Euclidean possibilities are impossible. We should not confine the entire realm of pure possibilities to any restriction of any of its parts or to what is confined to the range perceived by particular “lenses.” I have argued for one restriction only as metaphysically valid for that realm as a whole—no two possibilities can be identical. I believe that this absolute restriction holds for any possible metaphysics. In sum, the possibility of a round square and the possibility of the 2 that is not a fraction, though being considered impossible under the lenses of any currently known logic or mathematics so far, are actualizable pure possibilities. Although we cannot refer to any of these possibilities, by all means we can relate to them as contradicting the currently known logico-mathematical possibilities. At least to that extent, these “impossible” possibilities are meaningful and significant. Such relationality keeps the realm of logicomathematical possibilities open. Unlike the possibility of God, which is absolutely unactualizable, the possibility of a round square and the one of the 2 that is not a fraction may become actualized. Nothing in the whole realm of pure possibilities excludes this actualizability, whereas the contingency and the illogical aspect of actual reality do not exclude it either. 9. Actualization as an Aesthetic Failure Following Spinoza, Einstein believed that chance or contingency must have no place in nature, unless due to ignorance. In Einstein’s view, the simplest, most beautiful theory in physics, such as his theory of gravity, adequately describes the universe’s evolvement. Recently, astronomers have discovered new data, according to which “nature does not adopt the most beautiful version of the theory but prefers an ugly variant . . . and . . . the universe is not beautiful in the way Einstein supposed” (Graham Garmelo in The Daily Telegraph of 21 February 2003). Facing the question—“Will beauty prevail?”—Garmelo raises the following possibility: “Could it be that the version of Einstein’s theory with a cosmological constant is but part of a yet-to-be-conceived more encompassing, even more beautiful theory of the universe? My bet is that Einstein will have the last laugh and that beauty will prevail.” If beauty does prevail, the “great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact,” to put it in T. H. Huxley’s words, will not have the upper hand. Alas, recent astronomical observations have pointed out the need to add a cosmological constant that is not zero to Einstein’s theory of gravity. To add such a constant to the theory renders it not simple, less elegant, and even ugly.

76

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

All this looks different from a panenmentalist viewpoint. Although theories and facts should correspond, theories, mathematical or physical, unlike facts, must be exempt from any contingency, chance, arbitrariness, and ugliness. They should be as simple as possible, elegant, or beautiful. Godfrey Harold Hardy’s happy idea that “beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics” (Hardy, 1973, p. 85), which I will analyze in Section 3.1, is quite relevant to our present discussion. But what necessarily holds for theories independently of actual reality, what holds for pure possibilities and their relationality must not hold for actual reality. Facts may be ugly, as their contingency goes hand-in-hand with arbitrariness, disorder, and ugliness, as seen from the theoretical viewpoint, whereas necessity and the purity of possibilities go hand-in-hand with beauty. No actualization can be perfect or complete. Something is always left to the purely possible, something that remains unactualized. Failures in actualization are always possible and expected. Facts, brute, arbitrary, and contingent as they are in themselves, fail to meet the beauty in the relationality of their identities-possibilities within the theoretical, pure realm. As a Spinozist, Einstein had to remain an actualist: For him, the possible and the actual were one and the same, and no gap could exist between the two. Facts could not be divorced from the relevant theory, unless due to the observer’s ignorance, mistake, or error. For panenmentalism, in contrast, beauty is in the purely possible, whereas the actual is short of beauty to some extent. Actualization implies some aesthetic failure, in which contingency, arbitrariness, and being merely an imperfect part of a whole are inescapable. The most beautiful of all possibilities is the possibility of God, the only absolutely and entirely unactualizable possibility. As such, the possibility of God is the most beautiful thing existing. We have always something to aspire for, to long for, to miss, for anything actual falls short of its pure identitypossibility, and no possibility is purer than that of God. Einstein’s God, like Spinoza’s, is an actual organizing energy or force acting in nature as a whole. As such, it is the source of necessity, order, and beauty (the last according to Einstein, not to Spinoza, who considered beauty merely an “entity of imagination”—Ethics 1App.). The panenmentalist God is merely purely possible, which makes it absolutely independent of the actual. No mundane beauty or freedom can reach God’s beauty and freedom. No actualization can exempt itself completely of ugliness or contingency. Something must be left for longing and aspiring, something that is at least as real as the actual. A cosmological constant that is not zero indicates to what extent the actual gravitation is contingent and partial, less beautiful than its pure, necessary possibility conceived through the lenses of Einstein’s simple and elegant theory of gravity. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, such expectedly is

Metaphysical Modalities

77

the actual case. In contrast, from a Spinozistic-Einsteinian viewpoint, such is not the actual case at all but merely an indication of our temporary ignorance or partial knowledge. As a value, beauty has to do with pure possibilities not with actualities alone. Actualities may be found or revealed beautiful due to their possibilities-identities as well as relationality. Regardless of their possibilities-identities, facts are not beautiful, which is yet compatible with the panenmentalist view that beauty is subject-independent (see Section 5.18 below, even though it deals with a person’s beauty and not with facts). Facts and values are not the same. Panenmentalism keeps the differences between these two kinds of reality intact. Necessity, beauty, and rationality pertain to pure possibilities and their relationality that actual reality may partly actualize. Fine theories reveal the beauty partly actualized in facts and thus redeem them from being brute, contingent, arbitrary, and ugly. 10. Relationality and Reality Each pure possibility exists independently of any other possibilities, actual or pure, and of relationality, whereas relationality entirely depends on the relevant possibilities. Especially significant is the ontological independence of singular possibilities whose substantiality or intrinsicality is the grounds for relationality, not the other way round. What is intrinsically or substantially valid for any pure possibility is that each possibility is identical solely with itself, which means that, independently existing, each pure possibility is different from any other possibility. Since no two identical possibilities exist and possibly being different is a sufficient condition for the existence of a possibility, the substantiality or intrinsicality of each possibility consists of its identity. This secures relationality, for in any case of identity-possibility “being different from” designates “relating to.” The substantial, intrinsic difference between any pure possibility and all the others necessarily implies universal relationality. Singularity or psychical-subjective reality exists independently of anything without it. Each singular being is a psychical pure possibility, a subject. Each subject exists independently of any other beings, subjects or objects. Since being singular means being entirely different—wholly other— from any other possibility, singularity secures the soundest relationality possible. On the other side of this, nothing is more ontologically substantial or independent than singular beings, than psychical-subjective realities. The novelty about this is that on these grounds panenmentalism rules out solipsism while holding to the view that nothing is as ontologically independent or substantial as psychical-subjective reality, the inner reality of psychical subjects or persons. Persons are conscious and self-conscious subjects.

78

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Two more kinds of reality exist: Intersubjective-interpersonal and objective-actual. Contrary to psychical, subjective reality, which is substantial and ontologically independent, intersubjective and objective reality are ontologically dependent or, more precisely, both are relationally dependent. No psychical-subjective reality is relationally dependent, whereas any other kind of reality, except the reality of each pure possibility, is relationally dependent. Intersubjective reality is absolutely dependent on the subjects, relating one to the others, and objective reality is dependent on the relationality of all the actualities that it comprises. No general reality exists. Panenmentalism is a nominalistic view according to which only individual possibilities, actual or pure, as well as their relationality exist. The general is merely the significance of this relationality. As to the reality of any pure possibility, it is panenmentalistically primitive; this means that this reality is primary and no pure possibility existentially depends on any other possibility, pure or actual. Otherwise, no possibility would have been pure. As for actualities, as contingent beings, they depend on spatiotemporal and causal conditions. Thus, unlike any pure possibility, no actuality exists independently. Physical-actual, namely, objective, reality thus consists of actual possibilities, of actualities, and of their relationality as well, which makes this reality relationally dependent. Each psychical subject or person is a reality in itself, whereas the intersubjective or the objective makes a mere relational reality. Intersubjective or interpersonal reality is what exists between us. This reality does not consist of us; it consists of our inter-relationality. Without us, without our interrelationality, no such reality could exist. Without the awareness of us and of our inter-relationality as well, intersubjective reality would be entirely meaningless or insignificant. Without actualities and their relationality, no objective reality would exist. Such reality also lies between its actualities, yet it also comprises them. A major difference thus exists between the intersubjective and the objective. Singular beings who construct or form an intersubjectiveinterpersonal reality are beyond that reality. Singular beings mark the boundaries of this reality. In contrast, actualities are part and parcel of objective reality, since it rests not only on their relationality but also on the actualities themselves. Considering a reality merely relational does not render it lesser or deficient, for the intersubjective is as real as the psychical-subjective. Yet to consider reality merely relational follows an ontological priority: The psychical-subjective is ontologically and epistemologically prior to the intersubjective. Similarly, the access to an intersubjective reality is epistemologically prior to the access to objective reality, for all our “conceptual schemes,” categories, and all the pure possibilities-identities and their

Metaphysical Modalities

79

relationality that objective reality actualizes (more precisely, that actualities and their relationality actualize), are intersubjectively accessible from the outset. In the same vein, private accessibility is prior to intersubjective accessibility and, in turn, the second is prior to objective accessibility and makes it possible (Gilead, 2003, pp. 43–75). We commonly share intersubjective realities and “the world,” namely actual-physical reality. The world is the actual, which is an actualization of a part of the mental realm. We know the world in which we exist owing to our accessibility to the mental realm, the realm of pure possibilities. Our access to it is possible due to the universal relationality of each of our psychical possibilities to those of other minds, to all the other minds as such, and to the rest of the mental, namely, to the rest of the purely possible as a whole. Such is the nature of our universal relationality. Under the restriction of panenmentalist nominalism, universality is valid for relationality alone, not for the pure possibilities in themselves. To universally relate means, to begin with, relationality to other psychical subjects, namely, persons, and, finally, to the entire realm of the mental, of pure possibilitiesidentities. Our first steps into the reality without are toward the first and most important “objects” “in” our realityour parents or those who raise us (“parental objects”). All the rest, all the material objects discovered in those steps were as though parts of the parental objects. These objects comprised the entire world for us. In those early days, the world for us consisted of ourselves, our parental objects, and all the rest, all of which were held together inseparably within the parental. Only after quite some time, did we learn to distinguish between and to separate from ourselves our most lovable persons, the intersubjective reality in which we live, and the objective reality. Yet the “gates” or “accesses” have remained for us: From the private-subjective to the intersubjective, from the intersubjective to the mental as a whole, and finally to the objective-actual. The consciousness of being in the world requires an expansion of our relationality: From persons who are close to us, to the rest of the community or the intersubjective reality in which we live, to the other intersubjective realities, to the purely possible as a whole, and finally to the actual reality, namely, the worldfirst to the part that is around us and then to the rest of it. What gives a form to any intersubjective or interpersonal reality that we may share are the special boundaries of this form (which may be “a common form of life”). These boundaries are marked by all the singular subjects, all the persons, sharing that reality. Each one of them is not a part of that reality, which consists of the inter-relationality that all the persons involved share. Each one is alone, existing independently of that common reality (but note, being alone and loneliness should not be regarded as the same). Each one delineates the form of that reality, which exists between us, interpersonally.

80

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

We share the intersubjective significance of our thoughts, volitions, feelings, emotions, and sensations but we cannot share even one of them, each of which singularly takes part in the inner, psychical reality of each of us as a singular being. What is intrapsychical, which is inaccessible from without, is not interpersonal or intersubjective; the interpersonal or intersubjective depends on the intrapsychical and cannot do without it. Note that I am not dealing here with the world in which we all exist, the actual, objective, public world, but with intersubjective or interpersonal realities, the mental realities in which we live and to which languages belong. In my view, language is intersubjective or interpersonal, not public. Only one actual-physical world exists, but many intersubjective or interpersonal realities exist, the number of which depends on the different languages, forms of life, or kinds of intimacy that human beings intersubjectively share. What forms or shapes intersubjective or interpersonal realities is thus beyond any of these realities. Such is necessarily the nature of singularity (for a relatively good analogy, think again of the Big Bang, but only as an analogy, for I ascribe singularity strictly to the psychical alone). 11. Why Not Modal Fictionalism? From the 1990s on, modal fictionalism has paved its way in the province of the modal metaphysics of possible worlds (Nolan, 2002). Since some of the terms that I use and mention in this book may sound modal fictionalist to my readers, I would like to remove such a possible misconception from the outset. A modal fictionalist such as Gideon Rosen considers the language of possible worlds “a nearly indispensable tool” for the clear and vivid articulation of modal views as well as the precision of modal claims and the rigorousness of modal arguments that cannot be achieved by other means (Rosen, 1990, p. 327). Panenmentalism dispenses with that language, possibleworlds semantics, and set-theoretical considerations as well (Gilead, 1999, p. 10; Gilead, 2003, pp. 1–2 and 55–56; cf. Sections 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6 above). Instead of any commitment to possible worlds of whatsoever kind (real, robust, abstract, fictional, and the like), panenmentalism is committed to a realism of individual, concrete pure possibilities, particular or singular, a realism that should be distinguished from actualism. One of the possible interpretations of realism about possible worlds is that it is about alternative actual worlds that exist besides the actual world in which we are living. As I have emphasized already, actualists have adopted possible-worlds semantics or metaphysics, whereas panenmentalism challenges the idea of possible worlds and any sort of actualism. According to panenmentalism, pure possibilities exist not only independently or regardless of actualities but also of any possible world. No actualist has accepted the notion of individual pure

Metaphysical Modalities

81

possibilities existing independently or regardless of any actualization or actual state. Given that modal fictionalism cannot do without the idea of possible worlds, it is not compatible with panenmentalism, which dispenses of “according to the possible world . . .” operators. Modal fictionalism opposes realism of pure possibilities, whether possible worlds or individual possibilities (“merely possible objects”). In contrast, panenmentalism is a realism of individual, concrete pure possibilities and their relationality. Panenmentalism does not require any fictional operator (“according to the fiction y,” x is true or real) or a story prefix (“according to such and such a story…,” or “in the story…”), which David Lewis introduced (Lewis, 1978, p. 37; Rosen, 1990, p. 331, note 9; and Charles Crittenden, 1991, pp. 28–30, 108–110, who does not accept Lewis’s modal fictionalism, see pp. 132–133, footnote, and also does not consider literary fictions as possibilia—“unactualized possibles”—but instead as merely conceptual, see p. 74). Instead of “literal truth,” “literal existence,” or “strictly and literally speaking,” panenmentalism distinguishes between “actual truth,” “actual existence,” or “actually speaking” and “truth about pure possibilities,” “existence of pure possibilities,” or “possibly.” Fictional operators such as “in the fiction . . .” or “in the story . . .” do not serve panenmentalism to the extent that truthful fictions are concerned. Truthful fictions capture or discover pure possibilities that are independent of such fictions, however truthful. The captured or discovered possibilities are thus not in the fiction or in the story; instead, they are outside of it, in the realm of the purely possible. Truthful fictions render such pure possibilities accessible to us. As nonactual, such possibilities are accessible, by no means available, for availability has to do with spatiotemporality or actualities alone. I thus challenge Charles Crittenden’s following view: “[A] character is available as a referent only if it has been knowingly created to appear in a fictional situation . . . there is not an indefinitely large number of fictions out there awaiting reference; there are only the characters and other items actually created and explicitly introduced into stories by their authors” (Crittenden, 1991, p. 75). With panenmentalism instead, truthful fictions serve as detectors, lenses, or other means of discovery of pure possibilities that exist outside of them, independently of such means. These independent pure possibilities may belong to any of the following three realms or realities—inner-psychicalsubjective, intersubjective or interpersonal, and the purely mental as a whole. Each of these realms or realities exists absolutely independently of any fiction, however truthful. Yet many of these possibilities are undiscoverable unless truthful fictions are involved. Epistemologically speaking, truthful fictions are indispensable for detecting, discovering, or capturing some pure possibilities, which exist independently of such fictions. In all such cases, fictional

82

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

operators are ontologically quite dispensable and even misleading. As for “according to the fiction” or “according to the story,” such “operators” serve only in the epistemological sense, by no means in the ontological one. Instead, I would prefer to say “by means of this or that fiction or story, we can realize that such and such pure possibility exists in such and such reality.” The discovered possibility in any of these cases is ontically independent of the fictions without which such possibility could not be discovered, captured, or detected. The same holds for the meanings and significance of pure possibilities that truthful fictions have opened our mind to realize. They too are discovered by means of truthful fictions but do not exist in them or according to them. Epistemologically speaking in non-panenmentalist context, fictions are either false or “truthful.” Many thinkers consider all of them false yet may distinguish between useful and useless fictions in different fields. In contrast, epistemologically speaking in the panenmentalist context, fictions are truthful or untruthful. Since in panenmentalism epistemology goes hand-in-hand with metaphysics or ontology, truth and reality are inseparable. Truthful fictions are illuminating or instructive: They open our eyes to realizing or to capturing some pure possibilities, and their discovery by us indispensably requires such fictions. Truthful fictions are also indispensable to discovering the meanings and significance of such possibilities for us. In contrast, untruthful or false fictions are deceptions, mistakes, illusions, and the like, which shut our eyes to realizing or to capturing all these (see the Preface). False fictions are necessarily false or untruthful, whereas truthful fictions are necessarily truthful, which follows the panenmentalist rule to ascribe necessity only to pure possibilities and their relationality. Since truthful fictions are indispensable for discovering some meaningful possibilities as well as their relationality and significance, they indispensably serve us in discovering or revealing parts of reality, subjective, intersubjective, mental, or objective. For this reason, I could term them “real fictions” instead of “truthful or veridical fictions.” On the grounds of its realism regarding pure possibilities, panenmentalism does not adopt any modally fictional operator (“according to the fiction” or “according to the fiction of possible worlds”) or any modally fictional expression (“x is true or real according to the fiction y”). Truthful fictions reveal to us pure possibilities that exist independently of these fictions. Contrary to some modal fictionalists, “what might have been” is not “a matter of what the fiction says about what goes on in other worlds” (Nolan, 2002, p. 20; cf. Rosen, 1990, pp. 351–352). Instead, as panenmentalism considers it, what might have been is a matter of the realm of pure possibilities, which comprises our actual world as a part within it. For this reason, we very much care or are concerned about what might have happened to us, although it has not actually happened. Such is my response to the “argument

Metaphysical Modalities

83

for concern,” which Kripke introduced (1980, p. 45, note 13). Possible-worlds semantics fails to show why we should care whether someone else, quite resembling us, would have been, say, victorious in another possible world. We care much about pure possibilities to which our personal reality especially relates. We should not be realists about possible worlds, and if we were modal fictionalists about them, the argument for concern still works. Rosen’s arguments for modal thoughts, namely, thoughts about pure possibilities, are as beautiful as convincing (Rosen, 1990, pp. 351–353). Really, “to be indifferent to the modal is to be incapable of regret” (ibid., p. 351). Nevertheless, all such arguments are much more valid for the panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities instead of for the fiction of possible worlds, which is entirely dispensable on panenmentalist grounds. We can, better, should, dispense with the problematical idea of possible worlds and yet keep all the benefits of truthful fictions, “modal thoughts,” creative imagination, moral possibilities, and many others. As a panenmentalist or as a realist about individual pure possibilities, I am quite concerned about what might have been with myself, for the relevant pure possibilities are as real as actualities for me. My counterfactual, fictional, or purely possible successes, for example, may occupy my mind as much as actual failures do. We may care for pure possibilities as much as for actual ones. As I have argued, truthful fictions serve us in discovering pure possibilities as well as their meanings and significance. The panenmentalist realism about pure possibilities opposes conceptualism. Rejecting possibilism de re, Rescher (1999) accepts possibilism de dicto, which is a kind of conceptualism. Interestingly enough, Rosen also points out the affinity of fictionalism to a sort of conceptualism or to conceptualist theories of possibility (Rosen, 1990, p. 353). Panenmentalism differs from both these views, each of which is quite different from the other. Rosen’s fictionalism permits talking about possible worlds without believing in them (Rosen, 1990, p. 354). As a panenmentalist, in contrast, I am entitled to talk about pure possibilities and to believe in them as well. 12. Why Not Meinongianism? According to panenmentalism, “Meinongianism” (“noneism”) and its characterization principle or postulate, as endorsed by Richard Sylvan (Routley), Graham Priest, and Nicholas Griffin (2003), are not valid for pure possibilities at least for several major reasons, some of which will be specified as follows. Any pure possibility really, although non-actually, exists. Mathematical objects are pure possibilities. Yet Meinongianism posits nonexistent

84

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

mathematical and other objects that have characterizing properties. Thus Sylvan postulates as follows: For some sort of object-theory, not much is required . . . than a domain of ineliminable objects which, although they do not exist, do have distinctive properties. . . . Very many objects do not exist; and in many cases they do not exist in any way at all, or have any form of being whatever. . . . Nonexistent objects are constituted in one way or another, and have more or less determinate natures, and thus they have properties. (Sylvan, 1995, p. 49) Meinongianism is thus non-realist about such objects, whereas panenmentalism is definitely realist about them. Panenmentalism thus demands the real existence of pure possibilities, such as mathematical objects (numbers, for instance) or eka-elements. According to Meinongianism, we are entitled to ascribe properties to nonexistent objects too, which is not the case as panenmentalism sees it. The existence of pure possibilities precedes the relationality of which their properties consist. Pure possibilities are real existents, enjoying being or existence as much as actualities do, although in a different sense of “being” or “existence.” In contrast, Sylvan denies his nonexistent objects of any existence “in any way at all” and “any form of being whatever.” For him, only actual existence has sense. A neo-Meinongian, Dale Jacquette, reaches a similar conclusion: “The [neo-Meinongian] ontology consists only of actually existent spatiotemporal entities, a truly desert landscape” (Jacquette, 1995, p. 267), which is “more austere . . . than even the most economical materially adequate extensional semantic domain” (ibid.). At this point, repudiating the objections to Meinong’s Jungle and distinguishing between neo-Meinongian ontology and extraontology, Jacquette has Quine’s and other actualists’ ontological “desert” in mind (cf. Jacquette, 1996, p. 165). Assuming that only actual existence has sense, Sylvan’s noneism shares something with Rescher’s conceptualism despite the major differences between them. Rescher writes: What is the ontological status of nonexistent possibles? How, for example, can it be said without contradiction that “there are” certain possibilia when it is said in the selfsame breath that they are just possibilities, and so unreal and nonexistent? In what manner do such possibilities have the “being” that is claimed for them when it is said that “they are real possibilities,” since they ex hypothesi lack real being, i.e., existence? . . . But just exactly what can the existential status of such possible-butunrealized states of affairs possibly be? Clearlyex hypothesiʊthe states of affairs or things at issue do not exist as such: only actual things

Metaphysical Modalities

85

or states of affairs can unqualifiedly be said to exist, and not those that are possible but unrealized. By definition, as it were, only the actual will ever exist in the world, and never the unactualized possible. For the world does not have two existential compartments, one including the actual and another that includes the unactual. (Rescher, 1975, pp. 195– 196) The rest has also to do with Rescher’s conceptualism: Unactualized possibilities relatively exist as “the objects of certain intellectual processes” (ibid., p. 196), as conceived, as mind-correlative. Sylvan would not accept even such a relative, conceptual existence, for he explicitly denies the existence of purely mathematical objects even as “mental constructions” (Sylvan, 2003, p. 36). For Sylvan, pure mathematics is an existence-free science (ibid.). Yet he also ascribes objectivity to mathematical objects: “Mathematics is objective; for pure mathematics is concerned with the properties and relations of objects, objects which, though they do not exist, are objective, are in no way mind-dependent or tied to a thinking or perceiving subject or to human peculiarities or behavior or agreement” (ibid., p. 37). As realist about pure possibilities, panenmentalism is quite at odds with Rescher’s conceptualism as well as with Sylvan’s noneism. Pure possibilities are quite real existents, all of which are independent of actualities and many of which, for instance, mathematical pure possibilities, are also independent of any conception, psychical subject, or mind. Meinongianism allows us to ascribe properties arbitrarily to nonexistent objects. Thus, at least some of the properties ascribed to such objects are contingent. In contrast, panenmentalism ascribes necessity to pure possibilities and their relationality. And, as I argue time and again in this book, this a priori necessity is not only logical, for it may be mathematical, psychical, aesthetic, literary, musical, and the like. In any case, nothing is arbitrary about pure possibilities and their relationality. We have to discover their necessity. Truthful fictions may serve us well in discovering it. The problem remains how MeinongianismSylvan (Routley)’s noneismis capable of explaining what makes mathematical truths necessary. If all the necessity about mathematics stems from logical derivation or deduction alone, this should not satisfy noneists. For Sylvan explicitly and rightly rejects reduction of mathematics to logic (Sylvan, 2003, p. 34). The intensionality that he ascribes to mathematics means that mathematics provides its contents and meanings, independently of any existents. Formal logic is incapable of providing mathematical contents and meanings, yet it provides logical, formal necessity. What, then, does provide mathematics with necessity? Platonism, Kantianism, panenmentalism, or any realism about mathematical objects provides them with metaphysical necessity, since the a priori meanings, significance, and

86

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

relationality of such objects is discoverable. As pure possibilities, mathematical objects exist independently of our assumptions, postulates, fictions, or conceivability in general. And so does their necessary relationality. Sylvan, in contrast, attempts to rest mathematical necessity partly upon the rejection of conventionalism and mostly upon semantics: “[N]ecessity is, semantically, truth in all possible worlds . . . [it] is the consequence of objects having their properties invariably over a suitable class of worlds. For example, it is in virtue of the properties of Euclidean triangles in all possible worlds that it is necessary that the sum of the interior angles of a Euclidean triangle is two right angles” (ibid., p. 45). According to Sylvan, though necessity is semantic and must rest on an invariability concerning all possible worlds, noneism does not posit the existence of possible worlds or any realism about them; instead, it assumes their objectivity or mind-independence. Under noneism, possible worlds do not exist, although they are meaningful and significant objects. As far as necessity is concerned, conventionalism and conceptualism (such as Rescher’s) are out of the question for noneism; nothing is left, then, to secure or establish noneist necessity but the objectivity, mind-independence, of its objects. If, as Kripke argues (1980, p. 44), possible worlds are not discovered but stipulated, necessity must be discovered by means (or through the “lens”) of such stipulation. If Euclidean triangles are merely constructed, the necessity about them is a matter of discovery, as a necessary result of the constructed objects. In contrast, if necessity were not subjectively independent (“objective”), all the properties of mathematical objects, for instance, would become arbitrarily posited. According to panenmentalism, we have to discover any necessity about the properties of Euclidean triangles and for this reason, contrary to noneism, they have to exist independently of our conceptions, theories, constructions, and the like. Noneism argues that these objects, as nonexistents, and their relationality are independent of our conceptions. But this does not make much sense. If mathematical objects are in such and such possible worlds, they exist in such worlds. If, on the other hand, they are outside of them, they exist without them although they are discoverable by means of them. Despite the intention of noneism, objectivity must thus lead to existence, and existence to discoverability. Contrary to noneism and as panenmentalism considers them, mathematical objects are necessary, pure possibilities, each of which is not identical with the other or with any other pure possibility. Euclidean geometry reveals the necessity about such objects not because they are in it. This geometry discovers such objects as well as their relationality and properties, all of which exist independently of that geometry as a theory about them. Such is ontologically the case. We need the theory for discovering and considering these objects, but such a requirement is epistemological alone, by no means ontological.

Metaphysical Modalities

87

Meinongianism does not refer to its objects, for it rejects the reference theory. We cannot refer to nonexistent objects. Yet, as subjects of discourse, they are signified or designated (Sylvan, 1995, p. 50). In contrast, panenmentalism definitely refers to pure possibilities as existents, and thus we are entirely allowed to refer to pure possibilities that are the objects of our fears, hopes, beliefs, and the like and to mention them in our intentional discourse without any difficulties. Equally, we are definitely allowed to refer to ekaelements, to describe, and to mention them without any difficulties. Rejecting Russell’s reference theory (Section 1.4 above), panenmentalism, unlike Meinongianism, does not posit nonexistent entities or objects. Instead, panenmentalism assumes that two kinds of reference are possible: (1) Of actualities and (2) of pure possibilities. Both kinds of reference are direct (see Section 1.6 above). Meinongianism, at least as Sylvan (Routley) puts it, ascribes abstractness to mathematical objects: Since the objects of pure mathematics are abstractions, never particulars, and since abstractions do not exist, only particulars do, the objects of pure mathematics, therefore, do not exist (Sylvan, 2003, p. 32). As I have argued several times above (especially in Section 1.6), pure possibilities are particulars and never abstractions. By the same token, as such possibilities, numbers, eka-elements, and fictions are particulars, not abstractions. Surprisingly enough, considering mathematical objects as abstractions, Rescher’s view and Meinongianism, despite all their differences, have much in common. It appears that they share with actualists the same view about a great number of mathematical objects because they conceive them under some set-theoretical considerations (those of Sylvan are existence-free and non-referential). Sylvan utilizes Zermelo-Fraenkel’s set-theory to reconstruct most of modern mathematics within that theory’s framework “without individuals” and to provide objects that are “entirely abstract, always sets in fact, and commonly complex set-theoretic constructions from the null set” (ibid.). As I have emphasized above (Sections 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.11), panenmentalism does not subject pure possibilities to set-theoretical considerations. Instead, it quantifies over the total realm of pure possibilities. Meinongianism is strongly devoted to the idea of possible worlds, which are considered nonexistent, which leaves only the actual world as existent. In this respect, Meinongianism happens to become compatible with actualism. Nothing about actualism excludes properties of nonexistent objects, as much as nothing about it excludes possible worlds as nonexistent possibilities. In contrast, panenmentalism necessitates the existence of pure possibilities altogether independently of actual reality and possible worlds alike. Instead of possible worlds, panenmentalism requires one total realm of pure possibilities, of which the actual is only a restricted, spatiotemporally and causally conditioned part.

88

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Endorsing possible worlds, Sylvan’s noneism is quite close to fictionalism. Mentioning a fictionalist-favored (as well as Rescher’s) example, Sylvan discusses the ways of “truly affirming, or reclaiming, the relational statement” “Sherlock Holmes rode into London” (2003, p. 44). The first way is holding “in the world its theory [or fiction, in this case] circumscribes” (ibid.). Thus, according to him, Sherlock Holmes, a nonexistent person in the domain of the real (actual) world, is an object in a fiction. That statement is true “according to the lights of its” fiction, “in the context of its” fiction. By the same token, a statement about mathematical objects is true “according to the lights of its theory” or “in the context of its theory” (ibid.). What I argued in the preceding Section against fictionalism over this matter holds for this noneist view of fictions by Sylvan. Panenmentalism is extremely far from Sylvan’s philosophy of mind in the following: According to the account of existence adopted, minds do not exist, because they do not (significantly) have spatial locations; the same holds for mental phenomena such as dreams, but the fact that they do not exist does not imply . . . that minds are physically reducible in one way or another to bodies, e.g., to behavior of bodies (behaviorism) or to states of bodies (e.g., central state materialism). Thus, it does not imply that mental objects such as dreams, images, thoughts, and desires are either nothing or else reduce in one way or another. (Sylvan, 2003, p. 34) Sylvan thus assumes that the mind or any psychical entity is something that does not exist, for existence must be at least spatial. Assuming thus, Sylvan obviously makes an actualist fallacy. Actual existence alone is spatiotemporal and causally conditioned. If we are not actualists, we should reject the actualist assumption that any existence is spatial. As panenmentalism suggests, mind or any psychical entity is a pure possibility that exists independently of any spatiotemporal or causal conditioned. At this particular point Sylvan is right: If no mind or psychical entity is spatial, any physical reduction, materialist or behaviorist, of the mind is impossible. But this by no means implies that mind or any psychical entity does not exist. Mind or any psychical entity is “something” that exists. Panenmentalism is entirely committed to psychical realism. What are the significance and meaning of something that does not exist at all? If minds did not exist, what would any materialism or behaviorism need more? If minds did not exist, any physical reduction of them would become redundant and materialism or behaviorism would prevail merely on noneist grounds. In its final stage, Meinongianism or noneism has been entitled “itemtheory” (Sylvan, 1995). As Sylvan defines it, an item is “whatever can be

Metaphysical Modalities

89

selected as a subject of discourse” (ibid., p. 50). Even contradictory or paradoxical objects may be items (ibid.). Equally, some items “are not even possible” (ibid., p. 51). According to Sylvan’s item-theory, no restriction or limit exists to items. “Everything, whether existent or not, possible or not, objective or not, even absurd or not, is an item” (ibid., p. 56). At this point panenmentalism is at odds with item-theory. Since panenmentalism does restrict pure possibilities by one restriction onlyno two pure possibilities can be identicalcontradictions are possible in the panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities but no pure possibility can be impossible. If any item, however negligible or neglected, can be selected as a subject of discourse, any item must be at least possible. We may include absurdities, contradictions, and the like in the realm of the possible, but what we consider purely “impossible” is “what is identical with another possibility” and thus it is excluded from the realm of the possible. We cannot refer to impossibility, but this will not deter item-theorists, for they dispense with any reference whenever they mention nonexistent subjects of discourse, namely, items. In any case, to subject the impossible to thinking and discourse is unintelligible or self-defeating. Following Franz Brentano’s intentionality, Meinong, Meinongians, and neo-Meinongians (such as Jacquette) have attempted to rest the psychical or the mental upon intentionality, which has proved to be one of the extremely fruitful ideas in philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind. Elaborating on the idea of intentionality, these philosophers have had nonexistent objects especially in mind. The trouble is, first, that if intentionality is reducible to some properties of material or physical objects (machines, for instance), as some functionalists (such as Daniel Dennett) have suggested or attempted to prove, we should not rest the mental or the psychical upon intentionality or propositional attitudes. Second, and more important, the objects of our psychical-subjective or mental-intersubjective lives are very much existents with us and they determine much of our psychical or intersubjective realities. Hence, we are not entitled to regard them as nonexistent objects, for such objects determine nothing, nor do they make any difference. Only existents may determine anything or make a difference. The same holds for our psychical states, which are existents although some of them are not subject to any intentionality. For instance, anxiety is undoubtedly a psychical state although no intentionality is involved in it. Anxiety is objectless, and a person in such a state has no intentions or intentionality concerning any object, existent or nonexistent, for his or her anxiety. In conclusion, first, intentionality cannot serve as a sufficient basis, if at all, for the psychical or the mental in many cases; and, secondly, all psychical states exist. Instead of relying upon intentionality, panenmentalism rests the psychical-subjective and the mental-intersubjective on singular pure possibilities, on purely possible existents, and their relationality. Our minds,

90

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

our psychical and mental lives, consist entirely of pure possibilities of a special kind and their relationality. Only mental or psychical beings are determined by pure possibilities alone regardless or independently of the notion of possible worlds. In contrast, Hintikka (1975), who is not a Meinongian, rests intentionality upon propositional attitudes and possible worlds alike, seriously doubting the notion of possible individuals (not to mention individual pure possibilities). Hintikka states that “possible-worlds semantics is the logic of intentionality, and the intentional is what calls for possible-worlds semantics” (ibid., p. 195). He suggests a “thesis of intentionality as intensionality” (ibid.), and intensionality “involves a comparison between several possible states of affairs” (ibid., pp. 201–202). Following William Hazlitt’s idea that the human being is “the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be”—Hintikka clarifies that the gist of intentionality “lies in comparisons between several possible worlds” (ibid., p. 195). Much truth lies in this view, for the mental and the psychical cannot do without the possible, and I have a great sympathy with his view, “All aesthetic evaluations involve comparisons between the actual and the possible, and all artistic creation involves choices between alternatives” (ibid., p. 197). Yet panenmentalism dispenses with intentionality as essential for the psychical and with possible-worlds semantics as well. With panenmentalism, individual pure possibilities and their relationality are the grounds constituting the mental, the psychical, and intensionality. Pure possibilities are the foundations of meanings as well as values. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, in rejecting pure possibilia, especially possible individuals, philosophers actually eliminate minds and any psychical or mental reality. The reality of individual pure possibilities including their relationality goes hand-in-hand also with any intersubjective or interpersonal reality. Actualists thus cut the ground from under any psychical, mental, or intersubjective reality whatsoever. They leave us with the actual-physical alone. What would remain of us then? Merely “our” bodies, more precisely just bodies for, in absence of the psychical, “our” has no reality or truth in the actualist area. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, actualism renders all of us mere zombies, which is just absurd, for zombies are impossible (see Sections 4.2 and 4.8 below). The reality of anything psychical, mental, or intersubjective rests upon the reality of individual pure possibilities and their relationality, whereas nonexistence determines no reality at all. Instead of relationality and “reference” to nonexistents, panenmentalism thus considers our mind a singular pure possibility relating to other possibilities, pure or actual. In contrast, nonexistent “objects” determine nothing, let alone our psychical or mental lives, unless pure possibilities are nonexistent only in the actual sense. We are thus not entitled to rest such lives

Metaphysical Modalities

91

upon the intentionality toward nonexistent “objects.” Finally, panenmentalist philosophical psychology relies upon pure possibilities and their relationality; so do panenmentalist epistemology and axiology. In these respects too, panenmentalism suggests alternatives to Meinongianism. Liberating us from the bounds of the actual is a sublime objective, which I share with Meinongians and neo-Meinongians. The same holds for their efforts to show that nonactual objects are truly describable or subject to predication. Yet if “existence” bore one sense only, that of the actual, the liberation from those bounds would be less than enough or would even fail. On these grounds, postulating the existence of pure possibilities, panenmentalism suggests to us complete liberation in that sense. The complete liberation from the bounds of the actual requires ontological commitment, namely, to the existence of pure possibilities. Exemption from such commitment has not contributed much, if at all, to our freedom from the actual. Logic may be free from any ontological commitment, as Jacquette suggests, yet metaphysics must have such a commitment. Undoubtedly, an actualist commitment, Quinean, for instance, does not serve metaphysics well enough, if at all, whereas possibilist commitment allows metaphysics, such as panenmentalism, to flourish. Panenmentalism does not share the ontological nightmares of actualists or of Meinongians. In sum, panenmentalism and Meinongianism (“noneism” or “itemtheory”) are quite different on cardinal grounds. Meinongianism thus could not precede or anticipate panenmentalism. Finally, I have a comment to make about the last two “why not” Sections. I do not intend to exclude the possibilities that either fictionalism or Meinongianism open for philosophy. After all, panenmentalism is much closer to them than it is to actualism or Rescher’s view. “Why not” is meant to clarify the differences between panenmentalism and other possibilist views, especially those that are devoted to the idea of possible worlds or those that are closer to actualism than panenmentalism. We should not forget that differences in the same philosophical “family” can be no less, possibly even greater, than those between entirely different philosophies. In saving further possibilities for philosophy, panenmentalism stands side by side with fictionalism and Meinongianism against actualism and similar views, which attempt to exclude most significant philosophical possibilities. Even in this matter, panenmentalism differs greatly from those two related views. The last two Sections intend to clarify this point. 13. The Identity of Indiscernibles under a Panenmentalist Light Leibnizian identity relies on the assumption, known as Leibniz’s law, that an entity shares all the properties that another identical entity has. When it comes

92

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

to self-identity, this law raises a well-known problem: Although I am identical with myself, many of my properties or traits have changed quite a lot during my life. Am I not then one and the same person even though many of my traits or properties are not the same? If identical entities share all their properties, another problem arises: A complete description of each entity is needed to determine whether entities are identical. Such kind of description is far beyond the cognitive capability of finite creatures such as us. In this Section I attempt to show that panenmentalism is capable of utilizing a revised Leibnizian identity without being involved in any such difficulties. Pure possibilities are subject to Leibnizian identity without any difficulty. No two pure possibilities whatsoever are identical, and even the slightest difference in the properties of a possibility is sufficient to secure that they are not identical. As atemporal, no pure possibility is changeable or mutable. This leaves us with the panenmentalist, mental reality in which each pure possibility is identical with itself alone. Such an identity is subject to Leibniz’s requirement of identity including complete description, although such description is definitely beyond our cognitive capability. Undoubtedly, each pure possibility has all its qualities or properties without any change, mutation, or modification. What about the identity of an actuality that has undergone many changes? Since the identity of the actuality in question is a pure possibility, no difficulty remains to bother us over this issue. No pure possibility is changeable, as it is not subject to any temporality, causality, or contingency. This implies the panenmentalist conclusion that no actuality is identical with its identity-possibility. Since spatiotemporal and causal conditions are valid for actualities alone, not for any pure possibility, and since each pure possibility-identity comprises more than its actuality, no pure possibilityidentity can share all the properties it has with its actuality. A great difference between them must hold. The pure possibility-identity of an actuality comprises all the possible properties of that actuality, which is capable of actualizing only part of them. The panenmentalist view is that the actuality is comprised within its pure possibility-identity, not the other way round, and thus the actuality is a part of the pure possibility-identity. Although no part is identical with the whole in which it participates, the part belongs to the whole. The actuality is not entirely identical even with the part of its pure possibilityidentity that it actualized, for the actuality is under spatiotemporal and causal conditions from which the pure possibility-identity and any of its unactualized parts are entirely exempt. Thus, we should always discern between the actuality and its possibility-identity. The difference of the discernibles under consideration is thus well maintained, which does not separate the actuality, as a part, from its identity-possibility as a whole. Distinction or discernibility

Metaphysical Modalities

93

does not necessarily lead to separation. Each actuality thus belongs to and is comprised in its pure possibility-identity. The connection or relation between them is necessary and by no means contingent. This necessary connection is not an identity. In this way panenmentalism adopts a revised Leibnizian identity but not at the price of its notorious difficulties. Even if any complete description is beyond our cognitive capability, we have no difficulty in subjecting pure possibilities to this revised Leibnizian identity and we are exempt from difficulties in considering any actuality, notwithstanding its changing and modifications, under one and the same pure possibility-identity. As for actualities, no two actualities can be identical, since the pure possibilityidentity of either is different. With no recourse to rationalism or the principle of sufficient reason, panenmentalism secures the endlessness or infinity of pure possibilities and their pluralistic nature. The panenmentalist view of identity, which I present in this Section, is a kind of possibilism de re, which requires no transworld identity, possible worlds, possible counterparts, or any haecceity (qualitative or nonqualitative “thisness,” such as Robert Adams’s), each of which appears to cause more problems and vagueness than providing us with some clear answers (see Section 1.15 below, in which I criticize the whole idea of haecceity, especially as combined with that of possible worlds). Identity over temporal modifications is possible owing to the atemporal stability of the relevant pure possibility-identity. The actuality of a pure possibility-identity is temporally successive. In different places or at different times the same actuality actualizes different parts of the same identitypossibility. “Parts” serves in this context in two different senses: (1) Parts as such; (2) as properties shared by some parts of that possibility or else by all of them. For instance, Ruth as a child had some properties that she has not as an adult. Yet, as an adult and as a child, Ruth has had some properties, all shared by different phases of her history. All these properties belong to the same pure possibility-identityRuth. As an actuality, Ruth is one and the same human being, because this being is under one and the same atemporal possibilityidentity. Each phase in the history of that actuality is a part of that possibilityidentity, which comprises all of its parts. Is the panenmentalist identity committed to essentialism? All the properties or qualities of a pure possibility necessarily belong to it, yet which of them has been actualized is a matter of contingency alone. Only in this restricted sense, the pure possibility-identity of an actuality serves as its alleged “essence.” But all the qualities or properties of the possibility-identity are necessary or “essential” and only the actualization has bestowed any of them with contingency. No actualization is essential to the possibility-identity and any actualization is merely contingent.

94

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

The principle of the identity of indiscernibles has been supported as well as strongly attacked. Leibniz, Russell, Whitehead, F. H. Bradley, and McTaggart supported it, whereas Wittgenstein (the locus classicus is Tractatus 5.5302, criticizing Russell and arguing that two objects may have all their properties in common), C. S. Peirce, G. E. Moore, C. D. Broad, and Max Black are among its strong opponents. The support may adopt an idealistic stance, while the opposition is anti-idealistic or empiricist. Max Black’s attack (1952) on the identity of indiscernibles deserves special attention. His arguments have been discussed by Hacking (1975), Adams (1979), Casullo (1982, pp. 597–600), Denkel (1991), Landini and Foster (1991), French (1995), Cross (1995), O’Leary-Hawthorne (1995), Vallicella (1997), and Rodriguez-Pereyra (2004). But room enough still exists for alternative treatments of the problem on quite different grounds (especially different from those of fictionalism, the bundle theory, or haecceitism). As I will show, the identity of indiscernibles can be secured on a panenmentalist basis entirely regardless of any form of the principle of sufficient reason or any other Leibnizian arguments concerning that identity. It can be also secured regardless of Leibniz’s law, according to which two identical things share all their properties, which has given rise to unresolved difficulties to which I referred above at the beginning of this Section. Black suggests the following counterexample to the identity of indiscernibles: Isn’t it logically possible that the universe should have contained nothing but two exactly similar spheres? . . . every quality and relational characteristic of the one would also be a property of the other. Now if what I am describing is logically possible, it is not impossible for two things to have all their properties in common. This seems to me to refute the Principle. (Black, 1952, p. 156) This counterexample consists of a possible world (“universe”) in which no observer is present and exact duplicates, exactly similar objects, identical twins, and the like, all of which are indiscernible but not identical, may exist (ibid., pp. 160–162). I would like to show why on panenmentalist grounds no such possible world could exist. Thus, regardless of the question of common properties, relational or not, of bundles of properties as universals, or of “predicative functions” (the term that Russell and Whitehead’s theory of types employs), I would like to show why indiscernibles (or indistinguishables) that are not identical are metaphysically impossible. Even if Black’s aforementioned possible world is logically possible, it is nonetheless metaphysically or ontologically impossible.

Metaphysical Modalities

95

First we need a criterion of identification to denote or name something. To defend the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, I assume a criterion of identification that does not rely upon relational properties and spatiotemporal distinctions. Were such properties and distinctions inescapably required to establish the principle, Black’s view would have appeared to be more sound. Is Black right in stating that mere thinking is not enough to identify or name a thing (ibid., p. 157)? Black assumes that to identify or name anything we need a denotation of an actual object or a unique description of it (ibid.). This need not be the case at all. Think, for instance, of eka-elements in the periodic table. Each such element is not actual but is a predicted pure possibility (Gilead, 2003, pp. 65–70). Many mathematical theories, let alone all the pure possibilities that they comprise, were discovered only by creative thinking or imagination, while the identifying, naming, and describing of any of these possibilities have been quite practical with no recourse to actualities. To discover, refer to, identify, or name pure possibilities, thinking or imagination is more than enough. We are capable of denoting pure possibilities, each of which is uniquely describable, for no two pure possibilities can be identical. Second, pure possibilities-identities are necessary for identifying, denoting, searching for, detecting, and describing the relevant actualities, although we also need empirical means to do so. Two ways exist to interpret Black’s thought-experiment, which is a counterexample to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. First, the two spheres are merely pure possibilities. Second, the two spheres are actualities. In the second case, they must be subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions, as no actuality is exempt from them. In the first case, they are exempt from such conditions altogether, for no pure possibility can be subjected to them. In both cases, the spheres are possible, for any actual thing is also possible. This means that in both cases we have two possible spheres with the following difference: In the first case, the possibilities in question are pure, whereas in the second they are actual. What is precisely the distinction between b as a pure possibility and b as an actual possibility? The pure possibility in question comprises all the pure possibilities that are open to b under one and the same identity, whereas b as an actual possibility comprises only some of them, namely, only those that have been actualized. The actualization of any of these possibilities does not change the pure possibility-identity of b, which is one and the same possibility. For instance, James Joyce could have not written Finnegan’s Wake and yet he would have been the same James Joyce under one and the same pure possibility-identity (namely, the only possible author of Dubliners, Ulysses, Finnegan Wake, or other masterpieces). No two pure possibilities might be indiscernible and yet not identical. Regardless of any properties, “monadic” or relational, any allegedly “two”

96

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

indiscernible pure possibilities, discoverable by means of our imagination or thinking, are one and the same possibility. To think about or to imagine two pure possibilities necessarily means to distinguish between them, to discern one from the other, with no recourse to spatiotemporal distinctions at all. Any pure possibility is exempt from any spatiotemporal or causal conditions. No pure possibility is spatiotemporally located. If two of them exist, they are distinct because they are qualitatively different, not because they are in different places at the same time. They relate one to the other because they are different one from the other, not the other way round. Since any actuality is of a single pure possibility-identity, necessarily, according to panenmentalism, no indiscernible yet non-identical pure or actual possibilities exist. Could any actualist counter-argue that s/he has not the slightest idea how we could have any access to the pure possibilities-identities of the two exactly similar spheres in one of the above possible interpretations of Black’s thoughtexperiment? No, for all we need is something like such a thought-experiment to have access to the pure possibilities-identities of these two spheres. Black unknowingly “provides” these possibilities in his imaginary experiment or logically possible universe. All we need is our imagination, within the domain of logical possibilities (as Black assumes on p. 156) or without it, to be acquainted with pure possibilities such as these two. Even if no such spheres existed in our actual universe, Black could suggest his aforementioned thought-experiment because he, like any person endowed with imagination, has access to the realm of the purely possible. What makes such an experiment possible is our accessibility to that realm by means of our imagination, logic, mathematics, metaphysics, and other ways of thinking, none of which should be confined to the actual. My interpretation that the two spheres can be either pure possibilities or actualities that actualized these pure possibilities holds true for Black’s thought-experiment. Black would agree that no two possibilities can be identical, for “two” identical possibilities are really one and the same possibility. Like “two” identical possibilities, “two” indiscernible possibilities are one and the same. Two of them do not exist at all. In the case of pure possibilities, discernibility must be obvious. For in that case we have no recourse to actualities or to any of their conditions or terms. Can you think of, or imagine, two pure possibilities without discerning one from the other? No, since no two indiscernible pure possibilities exist. Indiscernibility of pure possibilities, if possible at all, would necessarily imply that there were no pure possibilities but only one. As far as pure possibilities are concerned, indiscernibility implies identity. If the two aforementioned spheres are pure possibilities, they must be discernible as well as not identical. As we shall realize, the same holds for the two spheres as actual possibilities. As far as actual possibilities are concerned, they too are

Metaphysical Modalities

97

necessarily discernible as well as not identical. Otherwise, the two spheres, as actual possibilities, would not have been considered two actual possibilities but only one. Yet Black could answer back on another basis. He would restate his claim that no way exists of telling the spheres apart (ibid., p. 156), which implies, to return to my view, that even if we had access enough to the pure possibilities-identities of the spheres, how could we ascribe possibility b, for instance, to one of the spheres, given that we are entirely incapable of telling the spheres apart? In other words, how can I identify one of the spheres as an actuality of possibility b instead of possibility c? In this case, my accessibility to the pure possibilities-identities of the spheres appears not to be helping me to identify any of the actual spheres. Which one is which if I cannot tell the difference? Yet this would not help Black at all. For the problem of identification or recognition of actualities is epistemological and empirical, not ontological-metaphysical. We have to distinguish between identity, which is ontic, and identification, which is epistemic. We have also to distinguish between identification of pure possibilities, which requires no empirical means, and that of actualities, which requires such means in addition to the identification of the relevant pure possibilities-identities. Supposing that I cannot know which actual sphere is which, I still know for certain that either sphere must be ontologically-metaphysically discernible, for each is an actuality of a different possibility-identity, whether I can tell the difference between the actual spheres or not. If the spheres in question are actual, they must be different one from the other, for no two actualities can be of one and the same pure possibilityidentity, which is a well-established panenmentalist postulate. As I argue time and again in my previous books (Gilead, 1999, pp. 10, 15, and 28; 2003, p. 94) and in this book (Sections 1.6 and 3.1), panenmentalism thus excludes any form of multiple actualization (“realization”). If actual, the spheres are also two instead of one. To be two actual spheres, two different pure possibilitiesidentities are inescapably required otherwise we would remain with one actual sphere only. As far as pure possibilities are concerned, numerical difference is also qualitative or “substantial.” Since actualities supervene on pure possibilities-identities, their numerical difference draws their qualitative difference from the difference between their pure possibilities-identities. Thus, even though actualities are subject to spatiotemporality, their numerical difference relies not upon spatiotemporality but on the difference between their pure possibilities-identities. The spatiotemporal difference reflects this difference actually, not the other way round. At this point, panenmentalism shares an insight with Leibniz, namely, numerical difference supervenes on qualitative difference.

98

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Panenmentalism apart, since any actuality is also a possibility (but not the other way round), and since any indiscernible possibilities are identical, are one and the same possibility, any two—namely, at least numerically different—possibilities cannot be identical and are discernible on ontologicalmetaphysical grounds. The epistemological discernibility must follow the ontological-metaphysical discernibility of possibilities, pure or actual, not the other way round. On the grounds of possibilities alone the identity of indiscernibles is metaphysically secured beyond any possible doubt. Even regardless of their properties, “predicative functions,” and relationality, absolutely no two possibilities can be metaphysically indiscernible, otherwise they would have been merely one and the same possibility. With possibilities, pure or actual, numerical distinctness and qualitative difference are entirely compatible. No spatiotemporality, any other possible principle of individuation, or property is needed for the discernibility of any possibility. No two possibilities can be indiscernible, let alone identical, whatsoever their properties, relational or not. The identity of each actuality is necessarily determined by its pure possibilityidentity alone. No two actualities can share one and the same possibilityidentity. Note that panenmentalism does not acknowledge any spatiotemporal principle of individuation (principium individuationis). All those, classical empiricists or Kant (according to whom space and time are the forms of intuition or the only factors of individuation), who endorse a spatiotemporal principle of individuation challenge the principle of the identity of indiscernibles in general or Leibniz’s law in particular. For they all assume the irreducibility of spatiotemporal differences to “more fundamental” or “primitive” factors of individuation. In this respect, Kant challenges that principle. Like Locke, according to Kant, indiscernibles sharing all their properties are not identical only because they exist in different places at the same time. This is sufficient to make indiscernibles numerically distinct. In contrast, my view, like that of Leibniz, is that numerical distinctness of actualities indicates qualitative difference. Since actualities differ qualitatively, they are numerically different, not the other way round. Black’s possible world in which indiscernibles—duplicated particulars or worlds—are not identical is a narcissistic nightmare: “A kind of cosmic mirror producing real images . . . except that there wouldn’t be any mirror” (ibid., p. 160). For a possible world in which “everything that happened at any place would be exactly duplicated at a place an equal distance on the opposite side of the center of symmetry” (ibid., p. 161) is a world in which no difference exists between an object and its mirror image. Suppose now that on epistemic grounds we cannot distinguish between two poles of a gravitational or magnetic field, two electrons, and the like (Black’s examples on p. 162). If

Metaphysical Modalities

99

Black’s possible world is a cosmic mirror, it is inferior to any world in which mirrors exist and in which we can distinguish between any object and its mirror image. Only due to some brain damage do adults become incapable of distinguishing between themselves and their mirror images or of recognizing these images as theirs. Nevertheless, suppose that we know for sure that two things (two poles, two electrons, an object and its mirror image, and the like) exist in Black’s possible world although no way exists to discern any difference between them, yet such indiscernibility carries no ontological commitment whatsoever. All we can say is that we do not detect any difference, which is an epistemological problem, but we are absolutely not entitled to conclude that no such difference exists at all. Unlike Black’s examples, in which the presence of an observer changes the possible universe (ibid.), pure possibilities-identities are discoverable by us yet their existence and the differences they “make” or bear are entirely independent of our knowledge. Think again of eka-elements, mathematical pure possibilities, and the like; these were all discovered, not invented. The two exactly similar or duplicated spheres that “exist” in Black’s possible world are not identical only because, contrary to his argument, they are discernible. For, first, if they are merely pure possibilities, they are necessarily discernible, as no two (“numerically distinct”) pure possibilities can be indiscernible. And, secondly, if the spheres are actual, either must be an actuality of a different pure possibility-identity, no matter what relations, spatiotemporal or otherwise, exist between the spheres or between any of them and any possible observer. Thus, contrary to Black’s view (ibid., p. 163), a way always exists, in which any thing, purely possible or actual, is different from any other. On these grounds, Black’s arguments should not convince the readers at all, contrary to the ending of the article (ibid., p. 163), in which interlocutor A in Black’s imaginary dialogue declares himself not convinced by B (Black)’s argument, while B responds, “Well, then, you ought to be” (ibid.). This is an excellent example of an “overwhelming” argument, which A is unable to refute and which is entirely blind to an illuminating insight about the ontological-metaphysical necessity or indispensability of the identity of indiscernibles (for some other instructive examples of blind arguments versus illuminating insights see Gilead, 2004a). I strongly recommend following that insight, which may open our eyes to realizing why that identity is a metaphysical necessity. In this Section I have attempted to support this insight with panenmentalist arguments. But suppose that Black rejects any possibilist view, let alone a panenmentalist one. Suppose that he argues against me that pure possibilities are merely nonsense (or that they are only de dicto, never de re), that only actual things can exist, and that his possible world or thought-experiment is not about pure possibilities but about actualities in the same actual world in

100

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

which we live. I could answer him again that since any actual thing is also possible, and since two possibilities between which no difference exists are merely one possibility, the identity of indiscernibles is well secured. In other words, merely on modal grounds, actualist or otherwise, Black’s view against the identity of indiscernibles holds no water. On the other hand, if he did not take modality seriously, and if the possible, pure or actual, implied no ontological commitment whatsoever, Black could defend his view at some unbearable cost, that is, rendering modality and especially possibility ontologically insignificant. To attempt to persuade the actualist who accepts no possibilist assumption or principle, the argument that the two spheres are actual possibilities should be good enough. If the term “pure possibilities-identities” does not make sense for actualists they must consider the two spheres either as actual possibilities or as the possible modes (“ways”) in which the actual spheres might have existed. In either case, those spheres are also possibilities, and no “two” indiscernible possibilities that are not identical can make sense for actualist or possibilist metaphysicians alike. Let us reconsider the case of two actual “indiscernible” spheres from the aspect of spatiotemporality. In Euclidean space, to some opponents of the identity of indiscernibles, from Kant on, the case appears to be that indiscernibles are not identical for, sharing all their qualities, they are still “spatially dispersed, spatially distant from one another” (Adams, 1979, p. 14), which makes them numerically distinct. As far as the space in Black’s possible world is Euclidean, two spheres exist although no difference between them is discerned. Consider now these two actual spheres as actually possible, namely, as two actual possibilities. As possibilities, they are not spatially or temporally dispersed (at most they are spatially or temporally dispersible), for no possibility, pure or actual, is spatially or temporally locatable. As actually possible, the spheres are two, not because they are spatially or temporally dispersed but because they are two qualitatively different possibilities and, hence, numerically distinct. Temporally dispersed actualities (namely, events) must be qualitatively different first because their ontological grounds or “primitives”—their possibilities—are qualitatively different. The possibility of being spatially or temporally dispersed, which is not spatiotemporally conditioned, is metaphysically prior to any actual spatial or temporal dispersal. In the final account, the pure possibilities-identities, which are absolutely exempt from any spatiotemporality, are the metaphysical-ontological grounds of the qualitative difference as well as the numerical distinctness of any individual actuality. In any case, were the two spheres not actually possible in the first place, they could not be two actual spheres spatially distant from one another. They would have been one and the same sphere, namely, identical with itself. In this way too the identity of indiscernibles is necessarily

Metaphysical Modalities

101

maintained. Individual distinctness, such as numerical distinctness, is intelligible depending only on qualitative difference (contrary to Adams, 1979, p. 17). Black’s counterexample to the identity of indiscernibles is thus refuted even when actual spheres in Euclidean space are concerned. As for a non-Euclidean space or curved time, Adams has already shown that on the grounds of spatial or temporal dispersal two indiscernible actualities can be identical (1979, pp. 15–16, following Black, 1952, p. 161, and Hacking, 1975; cf., however, Denkel, 1991, pp. 213–214, footnote 3, Landini and Foster, 1991, pp. 55–60, and French, 1995, pp. 461–466). In such space or time, one and the same object may be spatially or temporally distant from itself. Yet the point is not to show that the identity of indiscernibles is possible but that on metaphysical grounds it is necessary, to show that no possible single example exists in which indiscernibles are not identical. Bearing in mind my arguments so far, I have shown that no such example exists; no such example can be found. As a result, the identity of indiscernibles is necessary, not only possible. Finally, because any pure possibility is discernible from any other, the possibilities in question do not share all their properties, relational or otherwise, and not the other way round. Because any two pure possibilities are discernible, they must also differ in their properties. Because any two pure possibilities are necessarily distinct and different one from the other, they necessarily relate one to the other, not the other way round. Hence, Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles should be modified on that panenmentalist basis. Every thing must differ from any other thing, not just because they do not share all their properties, but primarily because their pure possibilities-identities necessarily differ one from the other. Because of this difference, they cannot share all their properties. The apparent advantage of the panenmentalist treatment of the question of the identity of indiscernibles is, I think, that it holds equally for pure possibilities and actualities and demonstrates that for indiscernibles not to be identical is impossible. Both Leibniz’s illustration of the discernibility of each leaf of an actual tree and, considering all the differences, C. S. Peirce’s “no doubt, all things differ; but there is no logical necessity for it” are aimed at actual things (Peirce, 1961, 4.311, p. 251; cf. Casullo, 1982, pp. 595–596, and Landini and Foster, 1991, pp. 54–55). What I have shown above is that a metaphysical or ontological necessity holds for the identity of indiscernibles, which, I believe, renders any opposition to it entirely groundless. For those who oppose this identity and who also assume that metaphysical and logical necessity are one and the same, the case appears that I have also proven that the identity of indiscernibles is logically necessary. In sum, my arguments, panenmentalist or otherwise, show that the nonidentity of indiscernibles is impossible, logically, ontologically, and metaphysically.

102

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Yet the reader, following Black, may suggest that bosons, fermions, or other subatomic particles must be indiscernible but not identical. In what follows, discussing quantum possibilities and their discernibility, I will show that the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is valid for such particles. Like other mathematically or theoretically physical functions, quantum wave-functions consist of pure possibilities of probabilities. As such, they are not considered actual states but pure mathematical-physical functions. For instance, Max Born considers quantum wave-functions as waves of probabilities, which, I argue, render them pure possibilities. If quantum reality is a reality of particular pure possibilities, it must be deterministic for the determinism of pure possibilities is valid for it (Gilead, 2003, pp. 137– 141, 146–147; and consider Sections 1.6 above and 3.6 and 3.7 below). As many interpreters of quantum mechanics have argued, determinism is, to some extent, valid for quantum reality. In quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation for the time evolution of the wave-function is deterministic. This is sufficient to indicate that at some level the quantum reality is deterministic, even though the projection postulate (or the collapse of the wave-function) is indeterministic. If quantum determinism is of pure mathematical-physical possibilities and their relationality as well, panenmentalism is entitled to consider quantum reality as an excellent example of determinism of pure possibilities, whereas the contingency and indeterminism of quantum actualities (such as the aforementioned collapse) remain intact. As I mentioned in the Preface, by pure possibility I do not mean potentiality. Potentiality entails dependence on the actual. In contrast, existing independently of and prior to the physical-actual, pure possibilities are not potentialities, Aristotelian or otherwise. In my view, individual pure possibilities, not potentialities, maintain “fundamental ontic status.” My view differs considerably from Abner Shimony’s metaphysics of quantum mechanics (Shimony, 1978, following Werner Heisenberg), whose definition of potentiality as “a modality that is somehow intermediate between actuality and mere logical possibility” (Shimony, 1999, p. 6) is quite obscure. Nicholas Saunders suggests that “to mathematically single out one state at the act of measurement (or decide the fate of . . . [Schrödinger’s] cat) is to introduce idealike entities into the theory. These have the role of filling up all of the possibilities that exist in the superimposed wave-function” (Saunders, 2000, p. 527). As this approach asserts, “whenever a measurement is made, the universe branches out into as many varied versions as there are possible results to that measurement. At the end of the experiment there exists one universe in which Schrödinger’s cat is alive and one in which it is dead” (ibid.). An interesting interpretation, but I do not accept its tacit metaphysical basis that possible worlds exist. Instead of possible worlds, panenmentalism stipulates an infinitude of individual pure possibilities, each of which relates

Metaphysical Modalities

103

to all the others. No need exists to assume a possible world in which Schrödinger’s cat is dead and another in which it is alive. The pure possibilities of being dead or of being alive are open to that cat, whether it actually exists in our one, actual world or not. Finally, instead of questionable or suspicious “idealike entities,” panenmentalism refers to pure possibilities and their relationality. Panenmentalism can thus suggest a possibilist interpretation of quantum mechanics without relying upon the idea of possible worlds at all. John von Neumann’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, known as the orthodox quantum theory, also refers to “the multitude of possibilities” (ibid., p. 528). With von Neumann’s interpretation, “at the act of measurement, the wave-function, or mathematical description, of the quantum system collapses into only one of the possible outcomes that formed part of the initial superposition” (ibid.). Thus, the complete mathematical description of Schrödinger’s cat “maintains the dual dead-and-alive nature up until the point of measurement, at which it is collapsed from these two possibilities into only one” (ibid.). An event is “something that distinguishes between the different possibilities inherent in the superimposed wave-function and results in one particular possibility being selected” (ibid.). This is more lenient to panenmentalism. Yet, is a quantum event an actuality? If it is spatiotemporally and causally determined and if it is measurable or observable (indirectly, by means of the observed consequences or indications), the quantum event is an actuality; if not, it remains purely possible. In such a case, it should not be considered an event at all but merely a determination of a pure possibility. If it is a real event, it is an actualization or an actuality of a pure possibility. What determines which of the open possibilities under one and the same pure possibility-identity actually takes place must be an actualization. The act of measurement thus gives rise to the quantum event, which means that the actualization of either of the possibilities that are open for the cat—being alive or being dead—is eventually determined. Instead of being under either mathematical description, the event is an actualization of either pure possibility comprised in one and the same pure possibility-identity of that cat. An event deserving its name is an actuality, and, with panenmentalism, anything actual is contingent. As Saunders correctly writes, “orthodox quantum mechanics consists of two fundamentally different processes: Deterministic evolution under the Schrödinger equation and indeterministic collapse at the point of measurement” to which alone can the concept of “event” be applicable (ibid., p. 529). In panenmentalist terms, a quantum event too, if really an event and not a mere determination of a pure possibility, is contingent. For only its determination as a pure possibility is subject to deterministic necessity.

104

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Call the purely possible “non-actualized possible,” and you may find the following quite relevant to our discussion: . . . modal interpretations interpret quantum mechanics by slightly changing the standard understanding of the modalities “actuality” and “possibility.” . . . the terms . . . that refer to the non-actualized outcomes are not removed from the state of the device. This procedure of removing the non-actualized possibilities is, however, quite standard in statistical theories. . . . In modal interpretations the state is now not updated if a certain state of affairs becomes actual. The non-actualized possibilities are not removed from the description of a system and this state therefore codifies not only what is presently actual but also what was presently possible. These non-actualized possibilities can, as consequence, in principle still affect the course of later events. (Vermaas, 1999, pp. 26– 27) Although this modal interpretation of quantum mechanics is not a panenmentalist one, it is not very far from it. The “effect,” better, the significance of the purely possible has a prominent position in this description, which shares something of importance with the panenmentalist quantum metaphysics. If the actual is phenomenal, observable, and measurable, quantum mechanics, according to Vermaas’s modal interpretation, describes reality including its unobservable or immeasurable states of affairs, which Vermaas entitles noumenal (ibid., pp. 209–211), namely, not phenomenal, not perceived by the senses but conceived by the intellect. At this point, such a modal interpretation aims at the purely possible instead of the actual. One of the modal interpretations of quantum metaphysics that should be noted is Meir Hemmo’s (1996). The title of his thesis, Quantum Mechanics Without Collapse: Modal Interpretation, Histories and Many Worlds, is sufficient to indicate that much more exists to the purely possible as far as quantum mechanics and quantum reality are concerned. I cannot enlist his prudent modal interpretation for my panenmentalist interests, at least to the extent that “approximate properties might be used to describe the supervenience of the mental [namely, the psychical] on the physical” (Hemmo, 1996, p. 109), which is not compatible with my ideas of the psychical as purely possible. In my view, the physical is supervenient on the mental or the psychical, not the other way round. Yet when Hemmo writes, “the collapse is not a real physical process, nor does it have a physical process as an analogue” (ibid., p. 124), it may be understood in the light of pure possibilities, given that “not a real” means “not an actual.” In such interpretation, quantum reality is in any case a reality of “alternatives” or pure possibilities. Thus, Hemmo writes, “regardless of their measure [which entails actualization], all possible

Metaphysical Modalities

105

worlds corresponding to alternative histories within one set of histories coexist: there is no selection of a single world from a set of alternative worlds” (ibid., p. 233). If, in a different interpretation, “collapse” indicates reducing possible states of affairs to the actual state, still with no collapse, quantum pure possibilities remain intact. Hence, Hemmo writes, given that the quantum state is a complete description of the physics and that the Schrödinger equation is invariably true, “all possibilities co-exist,” to which panenmentalism may agree to some extent. Hemmo holds to sets of possible worlds with no hierarchy and with no collapse, all of which remain open, whereas none of them is an actual one. Panenmentalism, contrary to Hemmo, does not acknowledge possible worlds but individual pure possibilities within the total realm of the purely possible, which comprises all that exists. To the extent that panenmentalism is concerned, the most interesting point in Hemmo’s work lies in its ending as follows: Physics is contingent, and one need not argue from quantum theory to conclusions about the range of the possibilities. The set of worlds considered does not exhaust the set of all the logical, or even the physical, possibilities. The quantum worlds are identified with mathematical structures in quantum theory, and thus they form not only a subset of all the logical possibilities, but in fact, just a subset of the worlds that are compatible with current physics. However, correspondence with physics should help us answer important questions about the concept of possible worlds, and it can help us accept more liberal opinions about what possibilities there are. (ibid., pp. 240–241) Absolutely unaware of any panenmentalist idea and despite his acceptance of the concept of possible worlds, Hemmo expresses at this point a panenmentalist credo about the indispensability of saving possibilities as much as possible. He also appears to think that quantum reality is made of pure mathematicallogical possibilities. Finally, he recognizes, although on quite a different basis, the contingency of physics. Hemmo is undoubtedly a metaphysician and, thus, he shows a great sensitivity to metaphysical or ontological issues. None of the quantum modal views mentioned in this Section, including Hemmo’s, is committed to the panenmentalist principles. First and foremost, none of these views is committed to the panenmentalist concept of pure possibilities, namely, individual a priori possibilities existing independently and regardless of possible worlds, set-theoretical considerations, actualities, and actual reality as a whole. If indistinguishable quantum particles really exist and since the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is necessarily valid for pure possibilities, we have to reconsider the aforementioned idea that quantum

106

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

possibilities are individual pure possibilities. Was I not wrong in my treatment of these possibilities in this Section above? Following H. Post, M. Hesse, and E. Schrödinger, who suggested that quantum wave-functions are non-individuals, Décio Krause points out the possibility of denying the status of individuals to quantum objects or entities (Krause, 2000, p. 162). In a private correspondence, Meir Hemmo argues that this possibility appears to throw out the baby with the bath water, since if quantum mechanics is considered a complete true theory of the world, then all physical objects are just quantum mechanical! And if so, we cannot escape the conclusion that quantum mechanics (in its standard formulation) explicitly violates the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. (Hemmo, 2007) As I will explain shortly, on panenmentalist grounds I consider the standard or current quantum mechanics as metaphysically or ontologically incomplete. If quantum entities are pure possibilities, each one of them is a discernible individual state or entity, and terms such as “identical,” “this,” “another,” “different,” and the like must be applicable to any pure possibility, quantum or otherwise. Pure possibilities are counted (see Section 1.6 above), for no two pure possibilities can be identical, whereas non-individuals cannot be counted (Krause, 2000, p. 162). Physicists can infer from the total mass of the system, which is subject to their observation, that, say, two electrons exist there, and yet, as Krause argues, nothing in quantum mechanics enables physicists to distinguish any one of these electrons from another (ibid., p. 163). At this point Krause is not aware of the crucial difference between ontology and quantum theory as an epistemological field. Ontologically or metaphysically, each electron is an individual, which must be discernible from any other, however similar, electron. If current quantum mechanics cannot provide us with devices to distinguish between them, this is merely an epistemic limitation or confinement, which should not exclude the relevant metaphysical or ontological possibilities. This leaves the principle of the identity of indiscernibles metaphysically or ontologically valid for quantum entities as pure possibilities. As for quantum entities as actualities, the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is still applicable to them, as each one of them actualizes a different and discernible pure possibility. The applicability of the principle to pure possibilities and actualities alike requires only reference to individuals, regardless of the question whether they are substrata or bundles of properties (a question that bothers Krause, ibid., p. 163). Bearing the panenmentalist principles in mind, suppose that we conclude that two quantum entities exist and yet we cannot tell the one from the other,

Metaphysical Modalities

107

even though we know for certain that there are two. As two indiscernible quantum entities, these particles appear not to be identical for two of them exist, not just one. Yet on the grounds of current quantum mechanics, we cannot distinguish the one from the other as far as their known properties are shared by both of them exactly. The indiscernibility in question is thus merely epistemic, by no means ontic or metaphysical. The current standing of physics and chemistry provides us with no information about the difference between the two. Only what is common to their properties has been known so far. In contrast, as pure possibilities, they are ontologically-metaphysically discernible. Logically-mathematically as well as physically, quantum entities are so far indiscernible but not identical, whereas ontologically, especially panenmentalistically, quantum entities are discernible and by no means identical. Given this in the first instance, I do not have properties in mind for the relevant properties supervene upon the discernibility of each of the relevant pure possibilities-identities, not the other way round. Our metaphysical story about quantum metaphysics has not yet come to its end. Whether the quantum-mechanical description of reality is complete or incomplete is still a moot point (Maudlin, 2003). The gap between the nonidentity of indiscernibles, with which the theory of quantum mechanics may leave us, and the identity of indiscernibles, to which the possibilist ontology or metaphysics commits us, strongly relates to the subject of this book. As I see it, quantum mechanics is merely a grand and most serviceable truthful fiction. With this grand fiction we have partly succeeded in capturing or grasping something of the realm of pure quantum possibilities. Given that, the case appears to be that the story of this grand fiction has, so far, not reached its end. Much more work is ahead of quantum mechanics in attempting to capture more and more quantum possibilities. We have much more to discover about these possibilities, and the pure possibilities that the theory provides us with are not sufficient for the complete discovery. Much more exists for us in the quantum reality, not only as actual but also as merely possible. Steven French and Michael Redhead (1988) argue that since the indistinguishable particles in quantum mechanics can (but not must) be treated as individuals, the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is violated both for bosons and fermions (ibid., p. 244). Yet, we should consider this conclusion in the light of two reservations. The first is: [O]ntologically speaking, “interference” is never strictly absent. . . . , so the involvement of every electron with the state of every other electron in the universe, although negligible for practical purposes, remains an ontological commitment of quantum mechanics, under the interpretation where the particles are treated as individuals. (ibid., p. 245)

108

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

And the second reservation is: In that paper, French and Redhead are concerned with “conceptual possibilities, rather than what is most reasonable to believe about the ontological status of elementary particles” (ibid.), and they argue “not that quantum particles must be individuals but rather that it is possible for them to be individuals, despite the peculiarities of quantum statistics” (ibid., pp. 237–238), though it is “quite true that in quantum field theory . . . particles are not regarded as individuals. They are simply (quantized) excitations of a field” (ibid., p. 238). But if they are distinct excitations of one and the same field, are they, as modes, discernible? If not, are they identical? If possibilities are not merely conceptual but bearing ontological standing too, we are facing a most intriguing metaphysical problem. As pure possibilities, quantum particles must be, at least ontologically, distinct and different one from the other, no matter what the epistemological standing of quantum mechanics. In the light of panenmentalism, quantum metaphysics is committed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, even if quantum mechanics, as a theory under this or that interpretation, does not discern their individuality or, else, cannot apply the principle of that identity to the quantized excitations of the field. Finally, the non-causal involvement of each electron with the state of any other electron in the universe is beautifully compatible with the panenmentalist universal relationality of each pure possibility, which, owing to its difference, necessarily relates to all the others. Panenmentalist quantum metaphysics is thus committed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Furthermore, according to this metaphysics, quantum possibilities, like any other pure possibilities, must be discernible individuals. This necessity is strictly metaphysical whereas the physical reality as actual is contingent. 14. Panenmentalist Primitives Pure possibilities are the panenmentalist primitives or ontological irreducibles. Keeping the Lycan/Lewis controversy over actualism and possibilism in mind (Lycan, 1994, pp. 87–90: “Lewis Against Us Ersatzers”), panenmentalist primitives are not possible worlds. Characterizing ersatz modal realism as “a popular and formidable alternative” to Lewis’s view, which stipulates “an incredible plurality of concrete worlds,” the “ersatzers” (namely, the actualists) allow us to “have one world only, and countless abstract entities representing ways that this world might have been” (Lewis, 1986, p. 136). On such actualist views, possible worlds are merely possible descriptions, conceptions, views of, or consistent systems of sentences or propositions about the only actual reality in which we live. Such actualist views are believed to be entirely compatible with our common sense. The trouble is the metaphysical

Metaphysical Modalities

109

and axiological cost that such views or our common sense demand from us. If any possible world is really of or about the actual one, possible worlds are not ontological primitives or irreducibles in the strict sense. For each actualist view, such possible worlds ontologically supervene on the actual one. Lewis does not and should not dispense with the notion of possible worlds, which are ontological primitives or irreducibles in his possibilist, antiactualist view (to compare with Hintikka, 1975, pp. 208–210, “The Primacy of Possible Worlds,” despite all the differences). As long as they are metaphysically indispensable, nothing is wrong with modal primitives. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities are metaphysically indispensable and fundamental. Existing regardless or independently of anything actual, they never supervene on actualities, whereas each actuality necessarily supervenes on a pure possibility-identity. Pure possibilities are the primitives or irreducibles of any panenmentalist domainontology, philosophical psychology, epistemology, and axiology. As such, pure possibilities are not abstractions. On the contrary, they are concrete entities, existing regardless or independently of any spatiotemporality or actual reality. In contrast, Lewis considers possible worlds as concrete entities, which are spatiotemporally individuated, whereas every actualist considers them abstracta, for they are abstracted out of the actual world. In any case, Lycan argues, “if every actualist [or ersatzer] is stuck with some modal primitive, so . . . is Lewis” (Lycan, 1994, p. 87). To stipulate that possibilities are “possible worldmates,” namely, “logically acceptable candidates for worldmateship” (ibid., p. 89), requires a wrong assumption. Sharing with many actualists and possibilists alike this wrong assumption according to which the bounds of possibilities are logical, Lycan actually confines the possible to the logical. Panenmentalism is quite at odds with that view. The illogical or the nonlogical is not impossible; it takes its part in the realm of pure possibilities. Nor is it nonexistent. As a result, being at odds with Meinongianism, Lycan’s ersatzism, Lewis’s possibilism, and other different adherents of possible worlds, panenmentalism dispenses with possible worlds altogether as well as with the consistency that makes each world possible (see, for instance, Lycan, 1994, p. 87). Instead of possible worlds and the consistency of each such world, panenmentalism relies heavily upon the idea of the universal relationality that each pure possibility maintains with regard to all the others in one and the same total realm. As a result, contradictions and other illogical or nonlogical possibilities have some position in the total realm of pure possibilities, each of which necessarily relates to all the others. Each pure possibility is thus a “reality-mate” (instead of a “world-mate”). What makes each pure possibility a “reality-mate” is not necessarily logical acceptability or consistency but being different from, not identical with, any other pure possibility. On this basis, each pure possibility

110

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

necessarily relates to all the others. By the same token, what individuates each pure possibility is not spatiotemporality but the difference of any pure possibility from any other pure possibility in the entire realm of them all. I do not understand why philosophers still insist that the actual world in which we live is consistent, let alone entirely consistent. Undoubtedly, this world exists, but it is far from being consistent. We are definitely entitled to demand theories to be strictly consistent; not so actual reality, which by nature may deviate from any consistency. Being contingent, it stands, bears, or takes enough contradictions and inconsistencies. Any inconsistency and contradiction that actual reality exhibits or manifests cannot be dispensed with as a mistake or an error in our observation, experiment, or knowledge. Actual reality is unpredictable in many of its facets. When human actuality is concerned, inconsistencies and contradictions play even greater roles. Only when actualities actualize logically consistent possibilities are we able to detect or recognize an actual consistency. But such a consistency is due only to the relationality of pure possibilities; it does not stem out of anything actual as such or from its nature. Admitting contradictory or inconsistent possibilities, panenmentalism, unlike Meinongianism, does not admit impossibilia but only possibilities. Under panenmentalist terms, the only impossibility is one of identical possibilities, and such impossibility does not exist at all. According to panenmentalism and contrary to Meinongianism, no impossibilia exist in the total realm of pure possibilities. For this reason, panenmentalists cannot claim that “identical possibilities exist.” Dispensing with possible worlds, panenmentalism should not dispense with pure possibilities. Instead, it could not do without them, and that with complete justification. Anything actual is of that or this pure possibility, whereas no pure possibility is of or about anything actual, unless “of” or “about” signifies actualization of pure possibilities. For any ontological, epistemological, or axiological objective, anything actual cannot do without pure possibilities. Panenmentalism is not stuck with pure possibilities as primitives or irreducibles; instead, it heavily relies on them and considers itself fortunate because of them and their abundance. To dispense with pure possibilities is to dispense with everything, including anything actual, for anything actual rests upon actualization of pure possibility(ies). Whether they admit it or not, ersatzism, actualism, and possibilism cannot do, therefore, without pure possibilities. To acknowledge realism of pure possibilities, which exist independently of anything actual, entails repudiating ersatzism or actualism. If nothing actual can exist, be known, or evaluated without pure possibilities, ersatzism or actualism necessarily contradicts or repudiates itself. Logically speaking, ersatzism or actualism is not possible, whereas from a panenmentalist viewpoint each is obviously possible yet wrong. From this

Metaphysical Modalities

111

viewpoint, ersatzism instead of Lewis’s modal metaphysics is “wildly false” (contrary to Lycan, 1994, p. 87). Discussing some ways to reduce modality, Theodore Sider postulates: “Accepting necessity or possibility as a primitive feature of reality would be like accepting tensed facts as primitive, or accepting dispositions as primitive, or accepting counterfactuals as primitive” (Sider, 2003, p. 185). Suggesting a special reduction, Sider follows neither modal primitivism nor modal eliminativism. Thus, unlike eliminativists such as Simon Blackburn, Hartry Field, and Quine, he does not deny “that there is any such thing as modality” (ibid.). We should thank him for that yet I do not accept any modal reductionism. By “pure possibility” I do not mean potentiality, disposition, counterfactual, or supervenience, all of which, like “modes” or “modifications” and unlike “substances,” rely upon something else as substantial. Pure possibilities are not like any tensed facts, for they do not supervene on anything else, let alone anything actual. With panenmentalism, pure possibilities are not modes in any sense of the term but they are our “substances,” substantial beings, or the “matter” of which any being or reality is made. Actualities are thus modifications of pure possibilities. Unlike panenmentalism, Sider assumes metaphysical possibility to be narrower than logical and analytical possibility, “but exactly how much narrower is unclear” (ibid., p. 191). He considers this the “fundamental obstacle to the reduction of modality” (ibid.). Since, according to panenmentalism, metaphysical possibility is wider than logical and analytical possibility (see Sections 1.8 on), the obstacle to any modal reduction, at least to the extent that pure possibilities are concerned, is irremovable, which renders the reduction impossible. If pure possibilities are panenmentalist primitives, metaphysical or modal, what about other modal terms, especially necessity, contingency, and reality? Not one of them is primitive since they are derivatives or modifications of pure possibilities and their relationality. Necessity is one or more of the following: The existence of pure possibilities, each of which is different from (not identical with any of) all the others; the relationality of each pure possibility to all the others, as “being different from” necessarily leads to “necessarily relating to”; and the relationship between any pure possibility-identity and its actuality. Contingency is the existence of actualities; it consists of the actualization of pure possibilities. What makes pure possibilities actual or contingent is the subjecting of them to spatiotemporal and causal restrictions. Reality is first and foremost the existence of pure possibilities and their relationality and, secondly, of their actualities whose existence is restricted by spatiotemporal and causal conditions.

112

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

Instead of “existence” I could mention “truth” in the case of each of the modal terms mentioned above. Thus, necessary truths, contingent truths, and any truth about reality are all about pure possibilities and their relationality or about their derivatives or modifications, actual or not. In sum, necessity, contingency, and reality, and all other modalities are modifications or derivatives of pure possibilities and their relationality. The realm of the panenmentalist quantification is not of possible worlds but only of pure possibilities including their actualities (which are restricted or conditioned parts of pure possibilities). To operate panenmentalist quantifiers, we may need “detectors” of pure possibilities and their relationality. Such detectors are theories of whatsoever kind, conceptual schemes, truthful fictions, and the like, by means of which we may recognize pure possibilities. Thus, some pure possibilities may be considered impossibilities only because they are not detectable by this or that detector whereas, ontologically speaking, each pure possibility that is not identical with any other is possible. 15. Comments on Haecceitism Gary Rosenkrantz constructs an interesting possibilist view, which is a kind of Platonic haecceitism (Rosenkrantz, 1993). Haecceity, “thisness,” means “the property of being identical with a particular entity.” Thus, haecceities are properties, which, as abstract entities, serve as a principle of individuation for concrete entities. Rosenkrantz’s haecceitism is a special combination of Platonic realism, possibilism, and an Aristotelian ontology (ibid., p. xi). His view assumes nonexistent possible individuals while his modal semantics manifestly assumes possible worlds. Assuming that haecceities are properties, this view also assumes that properties have a necessary existence, hence, haecceities have a necessary existence (ibid., p. 151). In several respects, Rosenkrantz’s possibilism or haecceitism is different from the panenmentalist view. It assumes possible worlds without which his haecceitism cannot do, whereas panenmentalism dispenses with the notion of possible worlds and, thus, deals with all modal concepts quite differently from any possibilism that adheres to such a notion. Rosenkrantz’s Platonic realism is an anti-nominalistic view, assuming abstract, general entities whereas panenmentalism does not accept such entities and its realism is about individual pure possibilities and their relationality. Panenmentalist pure possibilities are possibilities-identities, our “individuating factors,” which are not general haecceities serving as a principle of individuation. Unlike Rosenkrantz’s possibilism, pure or mere possibilities are necessarily concrete beings (concreta), by no means abstracta. In this respect, panenmentalism challenges any Platonic realism (see Section 2.3 below), and the panenmentalist nominalism or its realism about individual pure possibilities is not

Metaphysical Modalities

113

compatible with haecceitism. Only individual possibilities, pure or actual, and their relationality exist. Finally, assuming nonexistent possible individuals or nonexistent possibilities, Rosenkrantz actually takes a Meinongian stance about this point whereas panenmentalism takes a realist stance about pure possibilities, which are obviously existents, existing independently of any actualities. On the other hand, panenmentalism shares with some possibilists, such as Rosenkrantz and Williamson, the correct view that identities are necessary. In a similar vein, pure possibilities-identities are necessary, by no means contingent. Analogous to Rosenkrantz’s haecceities, pure possibilitiesidentities are necessary existents. Yet, again, contrary to all the possibilists known to me, I define all modal terms regardless of the notion of possible worlds. Thus, all the modal terms of possibility, necessity, contingency, quantification, and identity function in panenmentalism with no reliance upon any concept or conception of possible worlds. Finally, my view on personal identity and the multiple personality problems is compatible with that of Rosenkrantz (ibid., pp. 236–240), yet our reasons and grounds are entirely different. Mine have to do with psychical possibility, singularity, and inner, privately accessible reality, not with any haecceity. Considering pure possibilities as the identities of actual entities, panenmentalism substitutes the odd and quite obscure notion of haecceity or thisness with much more adequate and economical a notion. No clear answer has been ever given to the question “What is haecceity?” yet the notion of haecceity has been meant to meet a real philosophical problem that should be seriously treated. I am convinced that pure possibilities-identities answer this problem quite adequately. Since any two pure possibilities cannot be identical, each pure possibility is an identity in itself. Nothing is more ontologically fundamental or prior than pure possibilities. Thus, pure possibilities are panenmentalist ontological primitives. No identities exist except pure possibilities, and the identity of each pure possibility is nothing but that possibility itself whereas the identity of anything actual is its pure possibility and nothing else. Since identity is pure possibility, it is not a predicate or a relation. In sum, pure possibilities are the genuinely fundamental “thisnesses” of all things. They are thus primarily referable. Owing to them we are able to realize, recognize, or identify actual entities. Owing to them we are able to refer to actual entities, not the other way round. Different other kinds of haecceitism exist. Believing himself to have a “cheaper” alternative to haecceitism (better, possible worlds haecceitism), David Lewis states that not all possibilities are possible worlds and that two possible individuals can be identical (Lewis, 1983; cf. 1986, pp. 220–248: “Against Haecceitism”). But he does not allow himself to exempt individual possibilities from the notion of possible worlds: “There are no free-floating

114

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

possibilia. Every possibility is part of a world—exactly one world” (Lewis, 1983, p. 26). Since haecceity is the property of being identical with an individual, Lewis believes that he could have been Fred in one and the same possible world, for instance, in this world. Panenmentalism, in contrast, rules out such a possibility, exempts individual possibilities from the notion of possible worlds, does not follow any haecceitism, nor does it accept Lewis’s substitute for it. Individual pure possibilities are our modal or metaphysical primitives, not possible worlds or their parts. The universal relationality of any pure possibility is valid for the entire realm of pure possibilities, not for mere “worldmates.” Absolutely contrary to Lewis, no two identical possibilities could exist, and no reality contains twin identical “counterparts.” Absolutely contrary to him (ibid.), he could not have been one of identical twins or the other. He could be only David Lewis and not anybody else, namely, under this and not under any other pure possibility-identity. Each person is a singular pure possibility, consisting of an inner, psychical reality, inaccessible from without. No person is an alternative to the other. As a singular psychical possibility, each person, twin or not, is not even similar to any other possibility, psychical or not. Lewis could not be another person, and no twin can be identical with the other. Singular possibilities and such kinds of haecceitism or Lewis’s view are incompatible. 16. The Psychical as an Actual Nothingness In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre considers the human subject as a sort of nothingness whereas objects are beings or existing entities (Sartre, 1969). Sartre relates his view to Heidegger (ibid., pp. 16–21), while discussing “distance,” “realities like absence, change, otherness, repulsion, regret, distraction,” and the like (ibid., p. 21), which have to do with negation and nihilism. In panenmentalism, in contrast, otherness is not a negation, let alone anything of nihilism, for otherness has to do with relationality instead. For panenmentalism, contrary to Sartre’s philosophy, the being of psychical subjects, which are singular pure possibilities, has nothing to do with nothingness. The following appears quite interesting from the panenmentalist viewpoint: With the possible as with value there is the greatest difficulty in understanding its being, for it is given as prior to the being of which it is the pure possibility; and yet qua possible, at least, it necessarily must have being. Do we not say, “It is possible that he may come.” Since Leibniz the term “possible” is usually applied to an event which is not engaged in an existing causal series such that the event can be surely determined and

Metaphysical Modalities

115

which involves no contradiction either with itself or with the system under consideration. Thus defined, the possible is possible only with regard to knowledge since we are not in a position either to affirm or to deny the possible confronted. (ibid., p. 96) For a moment, the reader might feel that we face an anticipated panenmentalist view, but such is not the case at all. What Sartre has in mind at this point is the possible under a Leibnizian-Sartrean interpretation. Under such a view, the possible is the contingent, and it has to do with the future, which is not actual yet. Finally, the possibility under discussion is logical. In these three respects, panenmentalism greatly differs from that view. And when Sartre mentions Spinoza’s view of the possible as a product of our ignorance and subjectivity, he follows the actualist fallacy: The possible “has only the reality of a psychical mode; as confused or curtailed thought it has a concrete being but not as a property of the world” (ibid., p. 96), which, alternatively, renders the possible as if conceptual only (like Rescher’s actualism discussed in Section 1.6 above). The second sense that Sartre ascribes to the possible is Leibnizian: “[I]t is also permissible, as Leibniz does, to make of the infinity of possible objects of thought for the divine understanding and so confer on them a mode of absolute reality; this position reserves for the divine will the power to realize the best system among them” (ibid., pp. 96–97). In this second sense, the possible is a Leibnizian possible world, and it is eventually actual, for its existence depends on the actual existence of God’s thought (ibid., p. 97). In Section 2.5 below, I will reject such a Leibnizian view of the possible and explain why panenmentalism greatly differs from Leibniz’s metaphysics. When Sartre mentions the possible as “a non-contradictory structure belonging to a world not realized and at the margin of this world” (ibid., p. 97), he has in mind an idea that is extremely remote from the panenmentalist sense of the term. According to panenmentalism, the purely possible is the entire reality whose limited part is the actual world! Undoubtedly, Sartre could not accept my view that the psychical is purely possible but in the singular sense of the term. Finally, even in the sense of the possible that Sartre endorses—“a concrete property of already existing realities” (ibid., p. 98), it is far from any panenmentalist stance. For although any possibility is concrete and specific, it is by no means a property of actual things. Again, at least a shred of actualism exists in such a view (hence, “in order for the rain to be possible, there must be clouds in the sky” [ibid.]). No wonder that Sartre reaches a conclusion that no panenmentalist would accept: “To suppress being in order to establish the possible in its purity is an absurd attempt” (ibid.). Sartre could not accept the panenmentalist view that the possible exists no less, even more, than the actual. Thus, according to him, the possible, let alone

116

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

the “absurd” purely possible, is non-being, which panenmentalism opposes. The same holds for his statement that the possible “has the being of a lack and as lack, it lacks being” (ibid., p. 102). The purely possible is a lack of actuality, but this does not render it lacking a being, for the purely possible is the very being of being. On the other hand, I accept Sartre’s distinction, which is too frequently ignored, between the possible and the Aristotelian potentiality, which he considers “magical” (ibid., p. 98). I also accept Sartre’s view that we cannot capture subjects, for they escape any of our categories or conceptions. If you consider a woman only as a waitress, for instance, this captures nothing of her as a person, who is a unique (I would say, singular) being that no category can adequately classify or capture at all. Although some truth exists as well as some (yet pessimistic) humanism in this view by Sartre, it misses the ontological status of subjects, which is entirely real, no less real than that of objects. An obvious borderline exists, separating subjects from objects, but subjects are at least as real as objects, and they are beings as much as objects are. The very being of a subject is in our presence, and this being is undeniable. It is not the being of a mere object, for the person to whom I am referring right now is much more than a body. The body is an actuality of an unactual singular being, of a subject, who is a singular pure possibility. Any subject is a psychical being, not a physical one. Only the actualization of the subject is an object, a body. Still, the identity of this body is purely possible, not an actual one. As psychical, subjects are pure singular possibilities-identities. As such, they are not actual-physical beings. Their being as psychical is unactual, and whenever we consider it as actual alone, it is as if nothing. In this manner, which is entirely different from Sartre’s existentialism, panenmentalism ascribes actual nothingness to subjects as pure psychical possibilities. In sum, from a panenmentalist viewpoint, the psychical as such is an actual nothingness. Only its actualization as a physical being is an actuality. 17. “In Madagascar There Must Be Some Gigantic Moth” Describing one of the impressive and most intriguing orchids, Charles Darwin writes: The Angraecum sesquipedale, of which the large six-rayed flowers, like stars formed of snow-white wax, have excited the admiration of travelers in Madagascar, must not be passed over. A green, whip-like nectary of astonishing length hangs down beneath the labellum. In several flowers . . . I found the nectaries eleven and a half inches long, with only the lower inch and a half filled with nectar. What can be the use, it may be

Metaphysical Modalities

117

asked, of a nectary of such disproportionate length? We shall, I think, see that the fertilisation of the plant depends on this length, and on nectar being contained only within the lower and attenuated extremity. It is, however, surprising that any insect should be able to reach the nectar. Our English sphinxes have proboscides as long as their bodies; but in Madagascar there must be moths with proboscides capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches! This belief of mine has been ridiculed by some entomologists . . . (Darwin, 1984 [1877], pp. 162–163) If such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly the Angraecum would become extinct. On the other hand, as the nectar, at least in the lower part of the nectary, is stored safe from the depredation of other insects, the extinction of the Angraecum would probably be a serious loss to these moths. (ibid., p. 165) As certain moths of Madagascar became larger through natural selection in relation to their general conditions of life . . . , or as the proboscis alone was lengthened to obtain honey from the Angraecum and other deep tubular flowers, those individual plants of the Angraecum which had the longest nectaries . . . , and which, consequently, compelled the moths to insert their proboscides up to the very base, would be best fertilized. These plants would yield most seed, and seedlings would generally inherit long nectaries; and so it would be in successive generations of the plant and of the moth. (ibid., p. 166) In Darwin’s time, no evidence existed as to the actual existence of such gigantic moths. Yet his theory of natural selection necessitated him to assume, to “believe,” that such strange, most unusual moths must exist to fertilize this kind of orchid (“it cannot, I think, be doubted that a large moth would thus act” [ibid., p. 164]). As in the case of the eka-elements in the periodic table, the lack of any evidence as to the actual existence of such moths did not prevent Darwin from following a modal ontological presupposition: “There must be” such moths, although no evidence to their actual existence existed at that time. Darwin’s natural science follows a metaphysical, as if a panenmentalist, presupposition, as much as chemistry has had such presuppositions concerning the eka-elements. “Must,” “would,” and “should” are metaphysical modal terms pertaining to the realm of the purely possible, not to that of actual facts. In the case of Darwin’s prediction of the moths that must fertilize the Angraecum sesquipedale, “must” does not designate any value, but it still designates a pure possibility, without which the structure of the Angraecum sesquipedale

118

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

cannot be intelligible, at least in the light of natural selection. As a truthful fiction, natural selection points out the necessity of such pure possibility and of its relationality to the pure possibility-identity, and, as a result, to the actuality, of the Angraecum sesquipedale. Darwin was not aware of the metaphysical or ontological basis of his aforementioned belief, and yet this basis must be there, however implicitly or tacitly. More than that, this basis should be identified as panenmentalist, as it assumes the necessary existence of pure possibilities, at least the one of the aforementioned moth. Despite the ridicule of some entomologists, Darwin’s prediction concerning this moth was completely confirmed only a few decades after his death: Xanthopan morgani predicta was actually discovered. Instead of Darwin’s modal expression, “In Madagascar Angraecum sesquipedale must depend on some gigantic moth” (ibid., p. 282), we have been entitled since then to confirm that in Madagascar Angraecum sesquipedale actually depends on Xanthopan morgani predicta and vice versa. Darwin’s prediction regarding a nocturnal moth with a proboscis about eleven inches long pollinating the night-blooming orchid did become true, as the predictions concerning eka-elements proved to be actually true. In both scientific fields, a kind of a priori dependence (in terms of adaptation and function) or systematization consisting of the relationality of taxonomical pure possibilities, biological or chemical respectively, has led or conducted the relevant scientific observations and discoveries. As metaphysicians or ontologists, we should take upon ourselves the task of exposing such metaphysical or ontological basis in light of which natural sciences tacitly or implicitly pave their ways. This basis is indispensable for the actual achievements of these sciences. Those entomologists who ridiculed Darwin for suggesting the pure possibility of the gigantic moth fertilizing the Angraecum sesquipedale were, probably unknowingly, actualists, as they excluded that possibility on the grounds that there was no actual precedent for such possibility. Excluding it, they committed the predicta fallacy, a companion to other actualist fallacies, namely, the eka-fallacy and the fallacy exposed in the light of Verne’s counterexamples as mentioned in Section 1.6 above. In contrast, Darwin’s prediction rested, also unknowingly, upon possibilist grounds. Although natural theology, teleology, any idea of “Intelligent Designer,” and different metaphysical ideas are entirely incompatible with Darwin’s natural selection and natural history, this does not mean that he, however unknowingly, did not rest his theory upon some metaphysical or ontological presuppositions. As I analyze the text above, Darwin was, though unknowingly, a possibilist, quite opposed to the actualist entomologists of his time. Since he considered the possibility of the aforementioned moth as necessary, I conclude that he, unknowingly, even adopted a panenmentalist presupposition. Above, in

Metaphysical Modalities

119

Section 1.6 and others, I showed that similar metaphysical presuppositions characterize modern chemistry, at least as far as the periodic table is concerned. All the possible actualist objections to the predicta counterexample are defeated in the same way that I defeated the possible actualist objections to what I said about the eka-counterexamples and Verne’s counterexamples in Section 1.6 above. Actualism cannot help but commit such actualist fallacies with no sound justification.

Two FROM ONTOLOGY TO EPISTEMOLOGY 1. Can a Panenmentalist Merely Entertain a Thought? Following W. E. Johnson, R. Braithwaite, H. H. Price, Davidson, and Dummett and reflecting on Meinong and Fodor, Wolfgang Künne re-discusses the expression “merely entertain” serving for a “disengaged or non-committal way of thinking a thought” (Künne, 1995, pp. 367–368). Can a panenmentalist merely entertain a thought? No, for panenmentalism commits itself to the existence of its objects, including the objects of thought, whereas Meinong and Meinongianism exempt themselves from such ontological commitment because they assume nonexistent objects (such as fictional or mythical ones) or even “impossible” objects (such as a golden mountain, a round square). In contrast, pure possibilities are full-blown existents as far as panenmentalism is concerned. Panenmentalism thus suggests a substitute for “merely entertaining” a thought. Following Whitehead’s happy expression “the adventure of ideas,” instead of entertaining with pure possibilities, we adventure with or venture upon them. Since pure possibilities are not invented but discovered, our adventuring with or venturing upon them means detecting the necessary relationality in which one pure possibility necessarily relates to the others. In mathematics, such relationality has to do with the intrinsic similarity of some mathematical possibilities, which plays a crucial role in mathematical proofs and demonstrations. We detect that similarity, follow it, and thus commit ourselves to a mathematical adventure, in which many surprises, novel discoveries, amazement, and wonders will take place. You may call this “mathematical entertainment” but only in a metaphorical sense for detecting the necessity in which one pure possibility follows the others is far from being an entertainment with thoughts or ideas. By the same token, by means of theories, fictions, and the like we may thus tour the land of pure possibilities. These are plays and gamesthe hide and seek of pure possibilitiesthat are absolutely serious and strongly commit the adventurer-players of pure possibilities. These are mental journeys or tours carrying weighty consequences for us. Because of these inescapable consequences we, panenmentalists, cannot merely entertain with pure possibilities. Neither can we merely assume pure possibilities. If Meinongian assuming means “merely entertaining a thought” (Künne, 1995, p. 365), Meinongians of any kind allow themselves to merely assume mental objects, whereas panenmentalists discover pure possibilities and especially their necessary relationality. Panenmentalists are not involved with assuming pure possibilities

122

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

but with discovering and exploring them. Adventurers in the mental domain are the greatest discoverers and explorers we can think of, for all great adventures begin with the pure possibilities that our mind can discover and explore. Mentioning “exploration” I have no analysis in mind. Our mental journeys in the realm of pure possibilities are always tracking the relationality of pure possibilities. Tracking it, we can find an abundance of novelties that no analysis can provide. Considering, for instance, numbers, dots, lines, or geometrical figures, as pure possibilities, we explore their relationality in synthetic a priori terms (to use the Kantian terminology), whereas analysis of pure possibilities is a matter of explication, not of exploration or discovery. Whenever novelties are concerned, we cannot do with analysis or explication, whereas our exploration of pure possibilities always leads us to novel discoveries. 2. Empiricism, Innateness, and Singularity If, before any experience, each mind is a tabula rasa, and if empiricism is also actualist, then persons, like any other actual beings, should be considered spatiotemporally individuated, which is precisely the view of a celebrated empiricist-actualist—P. F. Strawson (1964). But if spatiotemporality is the only basis on which to construct individuation, a far-reaching possibility is not excluded—two persons could be doubles, which is a possibility according to another actualist—Derek Parfit (1987, pp. 199 ff.). According to him, to make a facsimile or a duplicate of a person is quite possible, and thus the result may be that we would have two identical persons, although one is supposed to be the original, and the other “just” a copy. Such empiricist-actualist-materialist metaphysics, either by P. F. Strawson or Parfit, subscribes to what panenmentalism considers a sheer impossibility, namely, that persons can be doubled or cloned. Only under delusion, hallucination, some psychopathologies, and the like, can people believe that they meet doubles. To endorse the “possibility” of a double means to repudiate singularity as well as all the tenable beliefs that people are intrinsically different one from the other. Philosophically or theoretically speaking, one may argue for such an uncanny “possibility” under empiricistactualist-materialist assumptions, but this should not persuade us. If, as love opens our eyes to realize veridically, human individuality rests on the grounds of singularity, all these ideas, notwithstanding Parfit and other philosophers, turn out to be just barren games, bearing no real meaning or significance for us. At this point empiricism must be facing a dire problem. In contrast to rationalism, empiricism has traditionally attempted to avoid generalizations, Platonic realism, unification, and the like. Instead, empiricism has systemati-

From Ontology to Epistemology

123

cally attempted to search for differences, however minute, diversity, variations, and the like. Classical empiricism, relying on the assumption, explicit or implicit, that inner reality exists, could accept human individuality on the basis of the inner experience of consciousness (Locke’s empiricism, for instance). Even though innateness has been excluded under empiricism of any sort, the empiricist could still argue that each of us, confined by his or her specific limitations, is a singular being, entirely different from other singular beings or persons. Even under the same circumstances, two persons may experience the same event quite differently, owing to the singularity of each of them, as each person as a tabula rasa is limited in her or his unique way. On these grounds room enough exists for differences in viewpoints, which are not spatiotemporally locatable. Alas, as I will show soon, singularity cannot be like that for it must be innate and not acquirable. Suppose, like P. F. Strawson, that what exclusively determines individuality, personal or other, are spatiotemporal grounds. Given that person a has one and the same experience as b has except at different times, what makes them two persons instead of one? Only the being of each one of them in different places at the same time or at different times in the same place. But this does not exclude the possibility that they will be doubles located at different times or places. The only difference would be that although a has precisely one and the same history as b, one and the same experience of the same places, the temporal acquisition of this experience is slightly different. Say, that what a experienced at second S1, b experienced one second later, at second S2, and the same holds for all the other moments in the life-history of a or b. Yet their life-histories as such would be so extremely similar that, as a matter of fact, they would be one and the same, and they are actually one and the same person. But if the individuality of each of them is not exclusively spatiotemporally based, resting also on the difference between a as a tabula rasa and b as another tabula rasa, different one from the other owing to different limitations, the subjective way in which each one of them experiences even the same external events is enough to make a great difference between them. The subjective experience of each one of them should be taken into account, and subjectivity cannot rest on the basis of external experience alone. It requires inner experience. Some materialists, such as Galen Strawson (1994), attempt, successfully perhaps, to keep subjectivity intact, and rightly so, but this makes their materialism radically different from that of P. F. Strawson and others, which is actualist-behaviorist. Instead, Galen Strawson’s empiricism rejects not only behaviorism but also neo-behaviorism. Our analysis ends with an interesting conclusion. If empiricism attempts to be coherent enough, it should endorse a principle of personal identity that is not only spatiotemporal. It should assume that each person as a particular

124

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

tabula rasa must be different from any other person as a tabula rasa, not on spatiotemporal grounds alone but on quite another principle of individuation. Subjectivity is not acquirable but innate, which is obviously incompatible with empiricist principles. If the spatiotemporal differences between one person and another are reducible to other grounds, it also must be the end of one of the most basic principle of empiricism, both classical and modern, and it must open the way to some rationalism and innateness. Empiricism cannot evade the singularity of each person, but such singularity cannot rest on empiricist principles alone. Thus, if subjectivity, without which personality becomes meaningless, rests on singularity, which cannot be physical-actual but only psychical (Gilead, 2003), subjectivity cannot rest on empiricist-materialist grounds. At this point, not only must P. F. Strawson be wrong, but Galen Strawson too, attempting to rest subjectivity on materialist grounds alone. Can subjectivity rest on empiricist-mentalist (or empiricist-idealistic) grounds instead? Can Berkeley, for instance, save subjectivity? If such an empiricist coherently accepted the idea of singularity pertaining to psychical subjects alone, subjectivity would be saved under empiricist-mentalist principles. Assuming that of other persons we may have only notions and not ideas and that from such notions we infer other persons’ existence, having no direct acquaintance with it, Berkeley might appear to accept private accessibility. Yet I have not found any indication that he ascribes singularity to persons. Since the basis for private accessibility is singularity (Gilead, 2003), to assume the existence of inner, psychical reality inaccessible from without, namely, private accessible reality, is not sufficient to assume singularity. Private accessibility is a necessary condition for singularity, while singularity is a sufficient condition for private accessibility. Even if Berkeley could accept private accessibility, the case appears to be that it does not put any limitation on God’s omniscience. Exempt from such a limitation, Berkeley’s God has access to any mind whatsoever. If such is the case, in the last account, Berkeley is not devoted to the idea of private accessibility. As a result, he could not adopt the idea of personal singularity. I am unable to think of another empiricist who is capable of resting personal singularity on mentalist or idealistic grounds. Finally, I do not see how any philosopher can be an adherent of the idea of subjectivity, all the more of singularity, without assuming innateness of whatsoever kind, for any experience in itself, like anything acquirable, can be shared by different persons and, as such, has no subjectivity or singularity in it. Innateness is entirely incompatible with empiricism, and so are subjectivity and singularity. Both are innate; by no means are they acquirable.

From Ontology to Epistemology

125

3. Panenmentalism Between Platonism and Nominalism Habitually, we think that Platonism, assuming the ontological, substantial status of universals, and nominalism, excluding such a status, are incompatible. As a radical innovation, panenmentalism does not admit such a dichotomy. Instead, panenmentalism shows that its unique modal nominalism is well compatible with the assumption that pure possibilities are concrete, non-abstract beings whose existence is entirely independent of actualities and, thus, primary. Avoiding transcendence, Platonic separation (chǀrismos), and hypostasized (“substantive”) universals, panenmentalism maintains a novel or revolutionary “mentalism” that endows mental beings, which are merely pure possibilities, with a complete ontological status. Panenmentalism gets closer to a unique sort of modal “Platonism,” better—a sort of “Platonic” possibilism or mentalism. Yet, quite unlike Platonic phenomena, actualities are comprised within the total mental realm and necessarily connected with it. This total realm of pure possibilities is panenontic, whereas the whole realm of the Platonic Ideas is but a transcendent part, albeit the fully ontic, “the really real,” part of reality as a whole. Finally, unlike the Platonic Ideas, pure possibilities are individuals, particulars or singulars, not general or universal. All these put panenmentalism quite far from any known Platonism, yet panenmentalism is much closer to Platonism than it is to actualism, materialism, behaviorism, and empiricism. Under the panenmentalist modal metaphysics, general concepts or terms, universals, and the like are merely the significance or relationality supervening on particular possibilities. Namely, the relationality of particular possibilities constitutes universals or general concepts. Unlike set-theoretical philosophy, panenmentalism does not rely upon any existence of sets. According to panenmentalism and contrary to Russell and his followers, predicates have not necessarily to do with any set. We are entitled to speak of sets, predicates, and the like, only because the relationality of a book, for instance, to any other book is evidently different from the universal relationality of any possibility of a book to all other possibilities whatsoever. In this way, panenmentalism, as a modal nominalism, has all it needs of generality or universality without resorting to universals’ realism or substantialism. The relationality of each pure possibility to all the others is necessarily universal: Since no two possibilities can be identical and each possibility is different from all the others, each possibility must relate to all of them. In such a way, panenmentalism shows that a novel modal metaphysics, excluding the separate, substantive, primary existence of universals and exempt from the notion of possible worlds, sets, and the like, is well compatible with a unique kind of modal nominalism.

126

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

As for epistemology, panenmentalism shares with Platonism the idea that our epistemic accessibility to the primary entities, which are the fundamental objects of the metaphysical knowledge, is innate. At this point, they still differ, since with panenmentalism the primary entities and objects of knowledge are pure possibilities, which are immanent, whereas with Platonism such entities and objects are transcendent Ideas. This leaves the advantage to panenmentalism, since innate accessibility and immanence are more compatible than such accessibility and transcendence, which entails the separation (chǀrismos) problem, separating the human mind from the Ideas. 4. Panenmentalism Under the Light of Idealism Panenmentalism postulates that the actual-physical is included in the purely possible-mental. “Included” does not mean “located” for being located requires spatial distinctions, which are not valid for the mental reality of pure possibilities. How does this panenmentalist postulate look like in light of Berkeley’s statement, “the brain, being a sensible thing, exists only in the mind” (Berkeley, 1965, p. 172)? Is this not an anticipatory panenmentalist idea? Like Berkeley, I entirely reject the phrase that the mind (or the self and the like) exists in the brain for no mental or psychical being occupies any space nor can it be located. To use such an erroneous phrase is to reduce the psychical to the physical. In the brain we can locate the actualities of psychical possibilities but not the psychical possibilities themselves or the psychical in general. But what about the other way round? Can we say, following Berkeley, that the brain is in the mind? Not in Berkeley’s sense, according to which the brain is nothing but an idea and, as such, the brain must be in our mind. Since panenmentalism considers the brain as a physical-actual being, which does not render it into an idea alone, panenmentalism does not accept Berkeley’s idealism in general or this specific point in particular. If by “in” we mean a location or being a member of a class or set, we are not entitled to claim that the brain is in the mind. As has been emphasized already, unlike Russell, Quine, Davidson, and others, I do not subscribe to settheoretical philosophy, and panenmentalism can dispense with sets. Instead, panenmentalism posits that all possibilities, pure or actualized, make one, total, and yet open realm, to which all beings or entities belong, in which all things, all pure possibilities and actualities alike, exist and are included or comprised. In this sense, the body exists in the mind, since the body, as a partial actuality of a pure possibility, the mind, is only a part of the possibilityidentity that the body actualizes under spatiotemporal and causal conditions within the total realm of all possibilities.

From Ontology to Epistemology

127

Can we say, then, that the brain exists or is included in the mind? Yes, we can in a panenmentalist sense because the brain is a partial actualization of the mind as its pure possibility-identity. The brain is a part of the body, which, in turn, is a part of the mind, limited or restricted under spatiotemporal and causal conditions. If such is the case, what is the difference between panenmentalism and idealism, such as Berkeley’s? Unlike Berkeley, I assume that the physical exists whether any mind grasps it, is aware of it, or not. Anything actual-physical necessarily exists within the mental realm of pure possibilities, as a limited part of this realm, but this does not mean that anything actual-physical must be grasped by a mind to exist. Like Berkeley, I believe that all we know about the actual-physical cannot dispense with experience. Panenmentalism shares something with empiricism: The actual-physical can be known by means of experience alone. In other words, we learn about spatiotemporal changes, events, causal connections or relations, and innumerable contingencies only by means of experience. In contrast, all we know about pure possibilities-identities and their relationality stems from an a priori source, not from any experience. No empiricist, especially Berkeley, can accept this innateness, without which panenmentalist pure possibilities cannot do epistemologically. According to Berkeley, nothing can exist without spirits or minds. Such is not a panenmentalist postulate. Instead, panenmentalism postulates that without minds, without inner realities, external reality exists. Under Berkeley’s philosophy, no external reality consisting of allegedly actual-physical things can be distinguished, unless by way of abstraction, from psychical reality whatsoever. For Berkeley, every object, which must be an idea, exists in a psychical reality. Ideas are thus only the modes of the only substances of which Berkeley acknowledges—minds. For him, only minds, only substances, exist independently, outside or without other minds, but no physical-actual thing, which is nothing but an idea, can exist outside or without the mind. Hence, for Berkeley, the brain exists in the mind, not the other way round. As for consciousness, Berkeley cannot accept the existence of the unconscious. For him, everything existing in the mind is conscious. In contrast, panenmentalism considers the existence of the unconscious as indispensable. Panenmentalism rests inner reality, inaccessible from without, on the singularity of psychical possibilities. Berkeley, instead, postulates the concept of “notion” to distinguish minds from ideas, which are merely modes or modifications of minds. Berkeley’s “notions” are quite obscure and vague, whereas the panenmentalist distinction between mental possibilities and psychical possibilities, which are singulars, is much clearer and definite. The relationality of one mind or person to the other is quite different from the inter-relationality of mental possibilities. The relationality of mental possibilities rests on the difference between any two possibilities, none of

128

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

which can be identical with the other. In contrast, the relationality of psychical possibilities of different persons rests on the grounds that these possibilities are not even similar: Each of which is intrinsically wholly different from the other. Singularity, which is in the nature of psychical possibilities, constitutes what is inner or inaccessible about a person or a mind. Since Berkeley does not postulate such an inner reality, inaccessible from without, his idealism is found insufficient and greatly different from panenmentalism. Berkeley’s idealism is empiricist, whereas that of Leibniz is rationalist. Panenmentalism does not accept both kinds of idealism. I do not accept Leibniz’s idealism, because according to it, nothing can be irreducibly empirical. Second, according to Leibniz, each monad is unique, yet all monads perceive one and the same world; they are not different one from the other because of their content, but only because of the degree of clarity and distinctness in which each of them perceives the same content, the same world. Thus, accessibility to each monad is possible in principle. After all, the reason for what occurs in a lower monad is explicitly found, as conscious, in a higher monad. Second, God, the highest of all monads, and as the clearest and most distinct of them all, has access to any monad. In contrast, on panenmentalist grounds, such accessibility is impossible or excluded from the outset, for each mind is singular, and its inner reality is absolutely inaccessible from without. Even omniscient God, if He existed, could not have any access to other minds. I will soon return to these and other differences of panenmentalism from Leibniz’s philosophy (consider the next Section, 2.5). Although panenmentalism gives priority to the mental-possible, rejecting rationalist and empiricist idealism alike, it cannot be considered idealistic in the known or standard senses of idealism. This also holds for transcendent idealism, such as Plato’s. Panenmentalism obviously avoids the Platonic separation (chǀrismos) between the mental-spiritual and the sensuous-material and this separation is the necessary outcome of the Platonic transcendence. With panenmentalism, the sensuous-material—the actual-physical—is an immanent part of the mental-spiritual. In sum, the panenmentalist “idealism” is a unique kind, which should not be compared to any other known kind of idealism. Panenmentalism gives priority, ontologically and epistemologically, to the mental-possible, yet it absolutely opposes any reduction of the physical-actual to the possible-mental. The actual-physical is as indispensable as the possible-mental. These two ontic realms are by no means one and the same. Although united, they are distinct one from the other. The actual-physical is not separable from the mentalpossible, the source of any identity. In contrast, the mental-possible is separable from the actual-physical, for pure possibilities exist independently of any actuality. If such priority must end with a kind of idealism, panenmentalism makes a unique kind of idealism.

From Ontology to Epistemology

129

5. Is Panenmentalism Leibnizian? As a novel metaphysics, panenmentalism may pose some difficulties for its new acquaintances or for those to whom it has been presented. To overcome such difficulties, the readers or listeners may search for similarities between panenmentalism and another metaphysics with which they are already acquainted. Puzzled, they may rely on their associations, which provide an illusion of familiarity. Some of my listeners and readers have claimed to detect alleged or apparent similarities, despite obvious differences, between panenmentalism and Leibniz’s metaphysics. I consider their reactions wrong for different reasons. Panenmentalism is by no means Leibnizian; it is even anti-Leibnizian in some of its first principles. While Leibniz’s metaphysics is idealistic and rationalist, panenmentalism is not an idealistic theory in any accustomed sense, nor is it rationalist. With panenmentalism and unlike Leibniz’s metaphysics, the physical-actual is not just a phenomenon of the mental reality, but it is a real, conditioned, and limited, yet indispensable and irreducible, part of it. As to its reality, the physical-actual is as real as the mental-possible. With panenmentalism, to know the actual-physical, we need indispensable empirical means, such as experience or observation. Unlike Leibniz’s rationalism, the physical is not reducible to the mental or the psychical, and the empirical way to know it is not reducible to any a priori knowledge. Contrary to Leibniz, the contingency of the physical-actual cannot be dispensed of by means of reduction to necessary truths, let alone to identities. Even more important, although no mind-monad has “windows” to let anything enter from without, Leibniz attempts to demonstrate how accessibility to other minds is possible. Although no monad can be causally influenced whatsoever by other monads (which may be analogous to the relations between panenmentalist pure possibilities), an “ideal influence” necessarily exists among monads. The reasons for what exists or happens in a lower, less clear and distinct, monad are accessible to a higher, more clear and distinct, monad. By the same token, as conscious monads, we are conscious and aware of what exists and happens within lower monads, including unconscious monads. According to Leibniz, each monad reflects, each in its particular degree of clarity and distinctness, the same, common universe. As a result, the reasons for what exists or happens in lower monads is accessible to higher monads, and absolutely accessible to the highest monad, the clearest and most distinct of them all, namely, God. In contrast, with panenmentalism, as a singular subject, no mind is accessible from without, not even to an omniscient subject. Were such accessibility possible, the singularity of each mind would have been entirely nullified.

130

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

This implies a harsh criticism against Leibniz: Though he ascribes particularity to each monad, for each has its unique degree of clarity and distinctness (otherwise the principle of the identity of indiscernibles would be violated), he fails to provide any basis for its singularity. Just a degree of clarity and distinctness will not do for this purpose. In other words, while panenmentalism is absolutely loyal to this indispensable principle, Leibniz is not. If any monad is accessible to any higher monad, no monad is singular, and its particularity is a matter of degree alone. Each monad shares too much in common with the others to be singular. This puts a critical limit to Leibniz’s rationalism, attempting to discover the unique sufficient reason for each individual substance, namely, monad. The major debate that panenmentalism maintains with Leibniz’s metaphysics is over the psychophysical problem. Leibniz’s idea of the preestablished harmony considers the psychophysical relationship as that between reality and appearance, between the spiritual or psychical monad and its appearance as a body, which, as such, lacks any consciousness. Mind and body are thus different degrees of clarity and distinctness of the same individual. The body is the same individual as sleeping, as lacking consciousness, or as appearing only. Mind is a higher degree of clarity and distinctness, which is an “apperception” or consciousness, of what the body represents, perceives, or unconsciously conceives. Panenmentalism cannot adopt such a psychophysical view for, according to it, body is a partial, yet irreducible, actualization of the mind as a pure possibility. The difference between mind and body is not of any degree, epistemological or ontological. With panenmentalism, no reduction of body to mind is possible, especially not any idealistic reduction. Actuality is not an appearance of a higher degree of reality. The body is as substantial and real as the mind. The panenmentalist psychophysical view is thus quite far from Leibniz’s. “Degrees of reality” is a most problematic, even aporetic, notion. Ontologism, ontological proofs, and rationalist views in general naturally tend to adopt this notion. As if we could deduce actual existence, as a lower or higher degree of reality, from ideas or other mental entities. Like Kantianism, panenmentalism strongly opposes ontologism, to begin with the Cartesian cogito and to end with the ontological proofs of God’s actual existence. Opposing ontologism, panenmentalism, like Kantianism, rejects the notion of “degrees of reality.” Undoubtedly, different kinds of reality exist, unlike degrees of reality, which is a false fiction. This fiction relies on the rationalist assumption, to which Leibniz is devoted, that actual existence can be deduced or implied out of ideas or concepts, or that a priori sources of knowledge may be sufficient to acquire all the knowledge we need about facts or actual matters. With panenmentalism, all about actual reality has to do with empirical sources of knowledge, which are indispensable and irreducible. Leibniz’s idea

From Ontology to Epistemology

131

regarding the possible reduction of factual truths to the eternal truths of reason, let alone to truths of identity, radically opposes anything that could even hint at such a panenmentalist view. Instead of the Leibnizian reflection, which pertains to each monad and the entire world (each monad is actually a viewpoint or a mirror, reflecting the entire universe with a particular degree of clarity and distinctness), panenmentalism employs quite a difference means—relationality. Each possibility relates to all the others, and such relationality does not rely upon the notion of possible worlds. In contrast, each monad is systematically also a possible world. The possibilism that panenmentalism adopts holds for the entire realm of pure possibilities without relying upon the notion of possible worlds, entirely dispensable for panenmentalist purposes. After all, rejecting the entire idea of unactualized individual possibilities, many actualists, if not all, have adopted the idea or notion of possible worlds. Not so panenmentalism. In his debate with Locke about the innateness of ideas (in New Essays Concerning Human Understanding), Leibniz takes an anti-actualist stance, while accusing Locke of actualism. Yet, in his monadological metaphysics, Leibniz considers the monads, albeit possible worlds, actual. As such, monads are not pure possibilities but actualities. Undoubtedly, panenmentalism opposes such an actualist stance. In his “Correspondence with Arnauld [1686–7],” re-relating the possible to the compossible, Leibniz mentions the “realm of possible realities” in the following words: In order to call something possible, it is enough merely to be able to form a concept of it when it is only in the divine understanding, which is, so to speak, the realm of possible realities. As concerns possibles, I am thus content that one can form true propositions from them; thus one can judge, for example, that a perfect square implies no contradiction, even if there has never been a perfect square in the world. If we wished absolutely to reject such pure possibles, we should destroy contingency and freedom, for if nothing is possible except what God has actually created, whatever God has created would be necessary, and in willing to create something, God could create only that thing alone, without any freedom of choice. (Leibniz, 1969, p. 336) Or, mentioning “possibilities or essences, whether prior to or abstracted from existence” (ibid., p. 488), Leibniz puts it thus in “On the Radical Origination of Things [23.11.1697]”: Neither . . . essences nor the so-called eternal truths about them are fictitious but exist in a certain region of ideas, if I may so call it, namely,

132

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS in God himself, who is the source of all essence and of the existence of the rest. . . . it is necessary for eternal truths to have their existence in an absolutely or metaphysically necessary subject, that is, in God, through whom those possibilities which would otherwise be imaginary are (to use an outlandish but expressive word) realized. (ibid.)

First, “possibilities or essences [individual or singular possibilities] prior to existence” are what panenmentalism regards as pure possibilities. The same holds for “possibilities are possible before all the free decrees of God” (ibid., p. 333). Leibniz conflates the purely possible with the contingent, although contingency is one kind of the possible, and the necessary and the actual are as possible as the contingent. Second, and more important, the realm of pure possibilities is that of the divine thinking or will, which is undoubtedly actual and not merely purely possible. Since Leibniz assumes that “existing [namely, actual] things can come into being only from existing things” (ibid., p. 488), to realize any pure possibility and to render it into actuality, a cause or an actual agent must exist. Leibniz assumes that the idea of possibles necessarily implies the idea of the existence of a being who could produce the possible. . . . I make an exception of the supreme efficient cause, which must exist in fact. . . . nothing could be possible if the necessary being did not exist. This is because the reality of possibles and of eternal truths must be founded upon something real and existent. (ibid., p. 661) With this view, if God is the ultimate cause-agent of all pure possibilities and actualities as well, God must be actual and, radically unlike panenmentalism, not a pure possibility. As a result, Leibniz’s possibilism is finally anchored in the actual existence of God who is defined as an absolutely or metaphysically necessary subject. Thus, according to Leibniz, all “possibles” depend on the actual God, whereas, according to panenmentalism, no possibility could be considered pure at all whenever it depends on anything actual. Every pure possibility is absolutely independent of any actuality, let alone an allegedly actual God. These aforementioned points are sufficient to demonstrate that panenmentalist possibilism and Leibnizian “possibilism” are radically different one from the other. Leibniz assumes that We therefore have the ultimate reason for the reality of essences as well as existences in one being, which must necessarily be greater, higher, and prior to the world itself, since not only the existing things which compose the world but also all possibilities have their reality through it. But be-

From Ontology to Epistemology

133

cause of the interconnection of all these things, this ultimate reason can be found only in a single source. (Leibniz, 1969, p. 489) That the realm to which all essences and possibilities belong “must necessarily be greater, higher, and prior to the world itself” may sound panenmentalist to you, but really it should not. For this realm, in Leibniz’s view, is God, whereas panenmentalism considers God as a concrete and unique possibility, one among all the others that are included in the total realm of pure possibilities. This realm, not God, is more comprehensive than and prior to the actual world. This makes a major difference. Since the possibility of God is the purest of all possibilities, by definition it can never be actual. In contrast, Leibniz’s God, as the ultimate cause, efficient as well as final, and as the reason for all things, possibles or actualities as well, is actual. Thus, according to Leibniz and contrary to panenmentalism, the realm of pure possibilities is in itself actual. Or, if you like, Leibniz’s view, at least in “The Radical Origination of Things [23.11.1697],” is panentheistic, whereas panenmentalism or panenpossibilism is by no means panentheism. In many places (such as ibid., p. 177), following Spinoza, Leibniz attributes perfection to existence. But, according to Leibniz, God has chosen the perfect or the best of all possibilities to exist, to be actual, thus “only the best exists but not . . . only the best is possible” (ibid., p. 662). Such is definitely not the language of panenmentalism; on the contrary, the purely possible is “greater” or “perfect” than the actual. Although Leibniz dissociates himself from the kinds of actualism that he ascribes to Spinoza and Hobbes, kinds that are incompatible with freedom of will or free choice but compatible with materialism (ibid., p. 273: “[N]othing is possible or conceivable which he [God] does not actually produce”), Leibniz endorses yet another kind of actualism. Finally, unlike panenmentalism (see Section 1.6 above), Leibniz associates possibility with conceivability: “I call possible anything which is perfectly conceivable and which, as a result, has an essence or an idea, without raising the question of whether the rest of the world permits it to become existent” (ibid., p. 662). The conceivability under discussion has to do with actualism: For a possibility to be, an actual perceiver is necessarily required; and the ultimate actual perceiver is God. On the grounds of the singularity of any psychical subject, a singularity to which no machine may pertain, panenmentalism excludes the possibility of thinking machines, whereas Leibniz mentions again and again the possibility and actual existence of spiritual automata. The monads are such automata. Leibniz considers psychical beings as incorporeal automata (Monadology, Sec. 18), which, unlike artificial, physical or corporeal machines, have no parts but are natural, “divine” machines (ibid., Sec. 64). Upon panenmentalist grounds, I criticized and rejected this Leibnizian idea as well as the pre-

134

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

established harmony (Gilead, 1999, p. 138). On Leibnizian grounds, we are entitled to accept the possibility that in the future machines will think. If minds are accessible to the others and if, as a result, no mind is a singular being but similar to any other mind, the difference between parts-less machines and minds is quite easily dismissed. In contrast, relying on the singularity of each mind or psychical subject, inaccessible from without, panenmentalism excludes the possibility of thinking machines, mental, psychical, or physical (ibid., pp. 137–158). According to Leibniz, time and place are well-founded phenomena, unclearly and indistinctly reflecting or indicating real differences between substances-monads. Thus, Leibnizians can get rid of the apparent contingency of empirical facts by reducing in principle their spatiotemporal differences to substantial-monadic differences whose logical grounds are well secured. This is an essential aspect of Leibniz’s rationalism, which both Kant and classical empiricists strongly oppose. Panenmentalism takes part in this opposition but on its special grounds. With panenmentalism, the spatiotemporal is an indispensable, irreducible condition of the actual. This condition is irreducible to logical or any a priori grounds. On the other hand, contrary both to classical empiricists and Kant, panenmentalism accepts no spatiotemporal principle of individuation. Panenmentalist individuation or identity relies upon a priori, pure possibilities-identities alone. Such possibilities-identities have nothing of the Leibnizian monads. I explicitly apply Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles to pure possibilities (see Section 1.13 above with my reservation as to the common properties). However, unlike Leibniz, Kant, and other philosophers, I do not confine the realm of pure possibilities as a whole to logical possibilities alone (see Section 1.8 above). In this respect, logic (or mathematical logic) is prior to Leibniz’s metaphysics, whereas, as metaphysical, panenmentalist principles are prior to logic. Establishing the first principles for thought, metaphysics, as a first philosophy, should be prior to, or more fundamental or basic than, logic. At this point, Leibniz as a metaphysician has a crucial problem to face. No wonder that in his early writings, Leibniz left ontological and epistemological priority to numbers or mathematical entities. At that time what he considered basic or fundamental was not metaphysics but the Universal Characteristics, in light of which propositions and arguments could be weighed or computed like quantities or numbers. Leibniz’s mature metaphysics leaves the ontological and epistemological priority to spiritual substances, monads, yet it subjects and confines them to the necessary, indispensable rules of logic. No contradictory monad is possible, whereas panenmentalism tolerates contradictions (although not in the panenmentalist philosophy itself as a truthful fiction) and considers them possible and meaningful. The only indispensable restriction applied to the existence of pure

From Ontology to Epistemology

135

possibilities is under the principle or law of the identity of indiscernibles, which means that no two possibilities can be identical. As for Leibniz’s novel concept of the unconscious or the petites perceptions, we should keep in mind that though panenmentalism, like psychoanalysis and chaology, is strongly against ascribing insignificance, senselessness, or meaninglessness to “the negligible” and is resolutely for the existence of the unconscious, its views on these matters are un-Leibnizian. First, Leibniz ascribes unconsciousness to any monad, except God, including entirely inanimate monads, whereas panenmentalism ascribes both consciousness and unconsciousness to psychical, singular beings alone, namely, exclusively to those beings who are inaccessible from without. Second, accessibility from without does not prevent Leibniz from ascribing consciousness or unconsciousness to monads. This also makes a major difference between panenmentalism and Leibniz’s grand metaphysics, which still exerts its charm over me since I read it for the first time many years ago. Spinoza, Kant, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, and Leibniz have been the main interlocutors of the dialogues that for many years I have, in my imagination, maintained with them, no less since I have introduced panenmentalism. As interlocutors of metaphysical or philosophical dialogues, panenmentalism is indebted to them. Disagreeing with their ideas, I have attempted to find my way in philosophy, and because of this, panenmentalism was born. But any disagreement, opposition, or conflict relies on relationality, even a strong and intimate relationality, which results in some similarities. After all, despite all disagreements and conflicts, the philosophical or metaphysical dialogue requires common grounds, problems, ideas, language, and arguments. Yet we should not ignore the major differences between a new metaphysics and its predecessors. Novelty is a hard thing to take or to accept, since we always tend to stick to the familiar, accustomed, or habitual. I sincerely hope that I do not delude myself in considering panenmentalism a unique, novel metaphysics, not similar to any of its predecessors unless in the form of a dialogical relationality. 6. The Subject in Itself: Panenmentalism Contra Kant’s Philosophy Panenmentalism challenges Kant’s philosophy in different ways. Since any actuality actualizes its identity-possibility, which is accessible in principle to our mind, and since the actuality is entirely accessible to our experience, Kant’s distinction between phenomena and the Thing-in-itself is not valid for panenmentalism. For Kant (1970, pp. 443 ff.), the Thing-in-itself is the ultimate object, which is the unconditioned condition that is the total series of conditions to a given conditioned, which is the phenomenon. Thus, the system of relations, the total series of conditions, between the Thing-in-itself, as the

136

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

ultimate object of knowledge, and our Reason inescapably comprises phenomena. We cannot penetrate through the phenomena to reach the Thingin-itself and, thus, our knowledge must remain conditioned and restricted, whereas the ultimate object of our knowledge is left unattainable. In contrast, on the grounds of the relationship between the accessible identitiespossibilities and their accessible actualities, panenmentalism excludes Kant’s distinction between phenomena and the Thing-in-itself. The case of the panenmentalist concept of singularity is quite different. Each person or subject is singular. No inner reality can be accessed from without but only from within. To access an inner reality, the subject must consist of this reality. The subject’s epistemic accessibility is partial, since no subject can escape or be exempt from his or her unconsciousness. Epistemic accessibility does not entail knowledge, only the universal relationality or significance of a possibility, however singular, provides knowledge. Such is the knowledge that psychoanalysis, as a dialogic, intersubjective, and empirical science, enjoys. Any knowledge of inner reality is not of the subject in itself (to be more precise, of the subject in herself/himself), but of the intersubjective significance of his or her psychical, inner reality. Only the relationality or significance of the subject can be known. Since the subject is singular, no subject, including an omniscient mind, can get to or reach the other’s inner reality from without. As singular, each subject or person is the “Wholly Other”—The Holy—to borrow from Rudolf Otto. Otto ascribes this term to God alone, whereas I ascribe it only to persons (Gilead, 2003, pp. 218–219). In any case, the subject-in-itself cannot be known, not by the subject herself or himself, not by others, and not even by an omniscient mind; only the significance or relationality of a singular, inner reality of a person or subject can be conceived and known. This is a “Kantian” side of my view. Yet Kant’s Subject-in-Itselfness is transcendent, namely, beyond any experience, which is not the case of subjects with panenmentalism. Panenmentalism relies only on immanent principles, not on any transcendence. The private epistemic access to the inner reality of each of us is ultimate; it concerns this reality in itself, not as a phenomenon alone. Each of us experiences her or his inner reality in itself. This makes a great difference between Kantianism and panenmentalism over this issue. The Kantian relationship between the knowing subject and the unknown Thing-in-itself is quite different from the panenmentalist relationality between the subject himself or herself and the significance or relationality of the subject as a possibility to other possibilities. Because of the difference, even an antagonism, between pure possibilities, they necessarily relate one to the other. Kantian relationship is different: It rests on the similarity, despite all the differences, between the Thing-in-itself and Human Reason. The Thing-in-

From Ontology to Epistemology

137

itself is the total series of all the conditions to a given conditioned. As such a series, a similarity of the conditions and the conditioned must be. They all share one and the same series, despite all the differences between the two realms, the noumenal and the phenomenal. In sum, the Kantian relationship is based on similarity, not on differences, whereas the panenmentalist relationality relies on differences, even on the dissimilarity of wholly other natures in the case of the singularity of each person. Finally, according to Kant, the source of all lawfulness and order is Human Reason, whereas the source of all lawfulness and order is, under panenmentalism, the relationality of pure possibilities, discoverable by our reason, analysis, imagination, or reflection. Because of this, the difference between the panenmentalist relationality of pure possibilities and Kant’s view on the relationship between Things-in-themselves and phenomena, and between Human Reason or the knowing subjects and the ultimate objects, must be quite great. Note that the subjects under discussion are epistemic. Yet panenmentalism excludes the Kantian separation between the epistemic and moral subject. This dualistic separation between ethics and epistemology, each of which deserves a separate critique, is an obstacle to systematic thought, and Kant attempts to overcome it (Gilead, 1985a). As far as panenmentalism is concerned, such a separation is mistaken from the outset. Each subject exists in unison, holding together her or his multifarious facets, epistemic, psychical, moral, ethical, and the like, not in separation but in one and the same inner reality, inaccessible from without, yet accessible, however partly, to the subject alone. Under the moral or ethical aspect, this inaccessibility leads to holiness; under the epistemic aspect, it leads to quite another thing. But the subject must be one and the same, either according to panenmentalism or to Kant’s philosophy. Because of this, I argue that Kant’s view of the subject, splitting into a noumenal being and a phenomenal one, is not systematic. Criticizing and challenging classical philosophies such as Kant’s, I find myself still under their spell in some respects. I am deeply indebted to the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant. For many years, I have devoted much of my intellectual energy to understanding, interpreting, or reconstructing these great philosophies, which I investigated in depth. I cannot imagine my intellectual, philosophical life without them. Yet only by realizing that each of these philosophies can have me merely as a guest, but not to serve as my philosophical home, I have tried to find or build such a home for myself. Owing to their great influence on me, I have finally discovered my philosophical home under the roof of panenmentalism.

138

NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS

7. Hume’s Hypothesis, Kant’s Copernican Revolution, and a Dialogue by Means of Pure Possibilities From J. B. Jachmann’s letter (of 15 April 1789) to Kant, the