Abstract
Gabriele Contessa has recently introduced and defended a view he calls ‘non-eliminative nihilism’. Non-eliminative nihilism (NEN, henceforth) is the conjunction of mereological nihilism and non-eliminativism about ordinary objects. Mereological nihilism (nihilism) is the thesis that composite objects do not exist, where something is a composite object just in case it has proper parts. Eliminativism about ordinary objects (eliminativism) denies that ordinary objects exist. Eliminativism thus implies, for example, that there are no galaxies, planets, stars, ships, tables, books, organisms, cells, molecules, or atoms. Non-eliminativism is the denial of eliminativism. Thus, NEN is the intriguing thesis that although composite objects do not exist, ordinary objects do. In this essay, I, first, summarize Contessa’s core support for NEN. Second, I describe two flaws in that support when it comes to organismic terms (e.g., ‘amoeba’, ‘cat’, and ‘human’). Third, I consider and reject two possible responses on behalf of NEN’s defenders. Fourth, I show how the flaws cast doubt upon NEN itself. Finally, I offer reasons to think that if nihilism is true, then the folk (including scientists) have probably been trying to fix the reference of organismic terms to apparent objects within illusions.
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Notes
David Liggins (2008) defends a similar view. Although I do not address it directly in the present essay, my arguments may be applied to the view that Liggins defends.
Unless otherwise noted, all parenthetical page references will be to Contessa (2014).
Contessa’s essay contains many interesting and subtle arguments, not all of which can be addressed in a single essay. Therefore, I focus in this essay just on what I take to be Contessa’s core support for NEN.
Contessa uses the definite description ‘the crowd’ rather than ‘crowd’. But see n. 6 below.
I discuss illusions and illusive objects in §4.
Contessa presents his core support for NEN mostly in terms of definite descriptions (e.g., ‘the cat’) that contain general ordinary-object terms (e.g., ‘cat’). But counting such definite descriptions as ordinary-object terms renders (P2A) false. For, as Donnellan (1966, 1968) has pointed out, one can use a definite description referentially to refer to something even if the thing fails to satisfy the description. Thus, even if one successfully uses ‘the cat’ to refer to certain simples arranged catwise, it does not follow that the simples are indeed a cat. Consequently, if terms like ‘the cat’ are ordinary-object terms, then (P2A) is false. But if we exclude such definite descriptions from ordinary-object terms, then (P2A) is more plausible. Therefore, for charity, I shall present Contessa’s argument using general terms like ‘cat’, ‘table’, and ‘apple’ rather than definite descriptions.
To describe exactly how a term’s reference is so fixed is the job of an externalist theory of reference. Thus, we may say that referential externalism is true iff some externalist theory of reference is true. Contessa states in various places that his argument requires appeal to “semantic externalism” (see, e.g., 204 n. 15 and 16, and 205). But semantic externalism includes both externalist theories of meaning and externalist theories of reference, and, in the present context, Contessa’s argument needs an externalist theory of reference. Indeed, for possible support, Contessa himself appeals to the Kripke/Putnam causal theory of reference and reference magnetism both of which are externalist theories of reference (204 n. 16). For more on the Kripke/Putnam version of the causal theory, see Kripke (1980) and Putnam (1975); and regarding reference magnetism, see Sider (2011, 23–35).
To show how a grammatically singular ordinary-object term might refer collectively to multiple simples arranged ordinary-object-wise, Contessa invokes terms like ‘crowd’. Although ‘crowd’ is grammatically singular, Contessa claims, it seems at least “pre-theoretically, ...to refer to a large number of persons gathered together and not to a single composite object of which the people in the crowd are proper parts” (202). But even if a grammatically singular ordinary-object term could refer to many simples taken together, NEN is true only if ordinary-object terms actually do refer to many simples taken together, which is precisely what the arguments in §2 and §4 challenge.
Contessa states, “I will use ‘ordinary objects’ as a convenient catchall label for cats, tables, apples, and the like. My use of this label does not carry the implication that cats, tables, apples, and the like are indeed objects” (199 n. 2).
Of course, if the Plausibility Argument fails, then the Preferability Argument fails too since (P5) will be without support.
Let me make two points regarding the preceding argument. First, the argument stands even if we grant that syntactically singular terms can have plural reference. For, the argument claims only that organismic terms cannot refer to simples arranged organismwise since simples arranged organismwise cannot, as a matter of nomological necessity, satisfy a significant number of organismic terms’ associated descriptions, but whether simples arranged organismwise can satisfy a significant number of organismic terms’ associated descriptions is orthogonal to the issue of whether syntactically singular terms can have plural reference. Thus, the argument that I have just presented in the main text stands whether or not syntactically singular terms can have plural reference. Second, the argument in question does not show that one cannot use a definite description containing an organismic term to refer to simples arranged organismwise. Indeed, even if the argument is correct, one might still referentially (in Donnellan’s sense) use a definite description containing an organismic term to refer to simples arranged organismwise, since, as pointed out in n. 6 above, one can use a definite description referentially to refer to something even if the thing in question fails to satisfy the description. Consequently, the mere fact that one can use a definite description containing an organismic term to pick out simples arranged organismwise does not in any way impugn the argument just given in the main text. I thank an anonymous referee for pressing me to make these points explicit.
Indeed, when discussing particular cases in which the concept of sameness is applied, Contessa’s examples are always sortal relative: “the same table,” “the same apple,” “the same cat,” and so on.
I should note that when I say that ‘cat’ cannot refer to simples arranged catwise I mean that ‘cat’ as we use the term cannot refer to simples arranged catwise. Nothing in this essay denies that syntactically singular terms can have plural reference. Cf. n. 15 above.
I am setting aside the possibility that there might be temporally extended simples and whether such simples perdure, since simples arranged organismwise are not a temporally extended simple.
I thank an anonymous referee for raising this concern.
Cf. Sider (2001, 193–6). Note that it is by giving an analysis of temporal properties that the stage theory avoids absurdly implying that claims that look like they are about how a particular cat (say) is, are really about how some other cat is. For more on the objection and response, see Sider (2001, 2006) and Merricks (2003).
See Sider (2001, 197; 2006, 18–9)
Indeed, note that even if Sider’s later view avoids semantic ambiguity or indeterminacy about continuants, it still requires a supplemental theory of persistence. Take, for example, the claim that the cat who lived in my house last year was once a kitten. Of this claim, one could perhaps give a stage-theoretic analysis. But it seems that only perdurantism or endurantism can explain how the cat-segment who lived in my house last year persisted throughout the year in question. So, Sider’s later view still needs to be supplement with either endurantism or perdurantism.
I am assuming that it is the folk, including scientists, who are responsible for fixing organismic terms’ reference. So, if the folk, including scientists, have failed to fix organismic terms’ reference, then organismic terms fail to refer.
An illusion thus differs from a hallucination. In a hallucination, one has an experience as of there being a perceived object with certain features when in reality no external stimulus is present. It is worth noting that my description of an illusion differs from other descriptions in the literature, which are in terms of perceiving individual objects. For example, A. D. Smith describes an illusion as “any perceptual situation in which a physical object is actually perceived, but in which that object perceptually appears other than it really is, for whatever reason” (Smith 2002, 23). Similarly, William Fish states that “...illusion refers to [experiences] in which an object is seen but seen incorrectly or ‘as it is not’” (Fish 2010, 3). If nihilism is true, however, then the objects of which Smith and Fish speak do not exist, but, presumably, there can still be illusions if nihilism is true. My description of illusions allows for there to be illusions even if nihilism is true.
The illusion associated with the phi-phenomenon is often described in terms of apparent motion. For more on apparent motion and the tunnel effect, see Goldstein (2010), and Yantis (2013). For other discussions of how apparent motion and the tunnel effect are relevant to metaphysical theorizing, see Scholl (2007) and Benovsky (2013).
I am using ‘perceive’ as a term of success. Thus, one cannot perceive what is not there. So, in cases of the phi-phenomenon, one can perceive the flashes of light, but one cannot perceive an object that moves between the two flashes, since no such object was present.
The same holds for apparent qualities. For example, in the Müller-Lyer illusion one cannot fix reference to the extra length that one line seems to have vis-à-vis the other line.
Even if a term fails to refer, it does not follow that sentences in which the term occurs are meaningless. For example, in the context of the phi-phenomenon, ‘the object that passed between the two flashes’ fails to refer. But the sentence ‘the object that passed between to flashes moved very quickly’ is not meaningless.
Let ‘perceptual apparatus’, ‘sense receptors’, and the like abbreviate, respectively, ‘perceptual apparatus (or perceptual apparatus-wise-arranged simples)’, ‘sense receptors (or sense-receptor-wise arranged simples)’, and so on.
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Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Gordon Barnes and two anonymous referees for this journal whose careful and challenging comments on earlier drafts of this essay led to a greatly improved essay. I am also grateful to Gordon Barnes for innumerable discussions about many topics central to this essay.
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Long, J. “One’s an Illusion: Organisms, Reference, and Non-Eliminative Nihilism”. Philosophia 47, 459–475 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-9981-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-018-9981-x