One cannot eat without eating something. And one cannot want without wanting something. But the two cases are toto caelo different; if I eat X, it follows that X exists; but if I want X, it does not follow that X exists. If I am eating a pomegranate, it follows that there exists a pomegranate that I am eating. But if I want a pomegranate, it does not follow that there exists a pomegranate that I want.
For there might not be any pomegranates at all, or if there are pomegranates, it might be that none of them is one I want. I might be that fussy.
But suppose there is a definite pomegranate in my visual field, and I want that very pomegranate. It still doesn't follow that the pomegranate I want exists, for a pomegranate that exists in my visual field might not exist in reality.
The fact that there are no matter transmitters does not prevent me from wanting one. I can want what does not exist, indeed, what cannot exist. Mountain bikes, however, do exist. But from the facts that I exist, and that mountain bikes exist, and that I want a mountain bike, it does not follow that there exists a mountain bike that I want. I might want a bike with features that no existing bike has.
Now compare the relational predicates 'x eats y' and 'x wants y.' The surface grammar suggests that each expresses a dyadic (two-termed) relation, the relation of eating, and the relation of wanting, respectively. But the grammar is misleading. The first expression supports Existential Generalization on 'y' while the second does not. That is, from 'x eats y' one can validly infer '(Ey)(x eats y)'; but from 'x wants y' one cannot validly infer '(Ey)(x wants y).'
Isn't this a good reason to deny that wanting is a relation? A relation exists or 'obtains' only if all its relata exist. Consider the relation of being spatially inside of. It relates my cat and a cardboard box. Could a box have a nonexistent cat inside it? And could a cat be inside a nonexistent box? Since that is well-nigh unintelligible, it is quite reasonable to hold that a relation's relata must all exist if the relation is to obtain. Since one can want the nonexistent (a time machine, the fountain of youth, etc.), but not be related to the nonexistent, wanting is not a relation.
But wanting is a case of intentionality. It follows that in at least some cases the 'relation' of intentionality is not a genuine relation.
If wanting is not a relation, what is it? A monadic property of a person? If the surface grammar of 'Poindexter wants a pomegranate' is misleading, should we say that the logical form is better rendered by 'Poindexter wants-pomegranately'? This would suggest a theory according to which intentional objects are adverbial modifications of acts of intending.
In this view, 'Bill wants a mountain bike' represents a relation, but not between Bill and mountain bike, rather between Bill and the concept of a mountain bike. If the relation is true, then it must be the case that both Bill and the concept of a mountain bike exist, but no actual mountain bike must exist.
There are some type issues to work out; relations on concepts are sort of like higher-order relations (but not really because concepts are not really sets of objects). Still, it seems that such a type distinction might satisfy all the requirements of the distinction you are trying to draw without forcing us to imagine that there are two dramatically different kinds of item with the same syntax.
If there are relations that are not existence-entailing, then there are objects that do not exist: Cerberus is then a definite individual, but one that does not exist. But this is a notion of dubious intelligibility. Let me put it to you as a question: How do you avoid the contradiction, 'There exist objects that do not exist'?
I know there is an easy answer to this, but I want to see what you will say.
How would you deal with the objection that what Bill wants is not a concept of a mountain bike, but a mountain bike? One cannot ride the concept of a mountain bike.
(1) Bush is the president
Since "Bush" and "the president" both denote the same thing, if you took the denotation of those terms, (1) would simply be a round-about way of saying
(2) X=X
which is not what the speaker of (1) intended. What the speaker of (1) intended to express is that the concepts 'Bush' and 'the president' are co-extensive. In other words, (1) is really about concepts, not about Bush and the president. But it wouldn't be correct to rephrase (1) as
(3) the concept 'Bush' is the concept 'the president'.
because the usage of (3), like that of (1) requires that the concepts of the terms be taken. So (3) means that the concept of being a concept of Bush is co-extensive with the concept of being a concept of the president. Clearly this is not true.
By contrast, in a sentence like
(4) Bill eats the radish
which is structurally identical to (1), usage requires that we understand "Bill" and "the radish" to be taken as denoting objects. The sentence isn't about the concept of Bill and the concept of the radish; it's about Bill and a particular radish.
Similarly for
(5) Bill wants the bike
In (5), both "Bill" and "the bike" denote objects because the speaker is discussing a relationship between Bill and a particular bicycle.
Which brings us to
(6) Bill wants a bike
You have argued that in (6), 'wants' cannot be viewed as a relation because there is nothing that is 'a bike'. I argue that since there is nothing that is 'a bike', we have to understand the term "a bike" as expressing a concept rather than denoting an object. Then 'wants' can still be a relation, but now it is a relation from objects to concepts. This isn't signaled by syntax but by the object of the verb. If the object of "wants" is a definite noun phrase, then 'wants' is about the denotation of the noun phrase. If the object of "wants" is an indefinite noun phrase, then 'wants' is about the concept expressed by the noun phrase.
It would be improper to rewrite (6) as
(7) Bill wants the concept of a bike
for reasons similar to why rewriting (1) to (3) was wrong, but this case is complicated by the fact that 'wants' behaves differently with definite descriptions like "the concept of a bike" than it does with indefinite descriptions like "a bike".
(1) Bill eats a radish.
Even though "a radish" expresses an indefinite concept, it picks out a particular radish: the one Bill ate. Yet I can't come up with a corresponding use of 'wants' that is very convincing.
Here's a try: suppose Bill has had his eye on a particular mountain bike at Joe's Bike Shop. It's a sweet ride with 18 speeds, carbon-fiber frame, sprung front fork and a ten-year all-parts-and-labor warranty (as long as you don't take it off-road). It's fall; the weather is turning beautiful for mountain biking (you probably think spring is when the weather turns nice for outdoor sports, but Bill lives in Arizona), and one day Bill decides to go to Joe's and look longingly at the bike for a few hours. When he's gone Judy stops by for tea and radishes with Mrs. Bill. During the course of their conversation, Mrs. Bill mentions that Bill has gone to Joe's Bike Shop and Judy asks why. Mrs. Bill answers:
(2) Bill wants a bike.
Now it is possible that Mrs. Bill could utter (2), intending that "a bike" denote a particular mountain bike that Bill can't stop talking about, but the problem with this example (other than being too wordy) is that Judy is unlikely to understand that "a bike" denotes a particular bicycle. Almost anyone would interpret it as meaning that Bill wants some bike, but not a particular one. In fact, Mrs. Bill is more likely to utter (3) in order to avoid confusion:
(3) There is a bike that Bill wants.
Anyway, I think it is interesting that some verbs can force an indefinite noun phrase to denote a particular object, but other verbs, as far as I can tell, cannot.
An old objection (and a good one).
>> (Gudeman)
it is interesting that some verbs can force an indefinite noun phrase to denote a particular object, but other verbs, as far as I can tell, cannot
"Intentional transitive verbs" in the literature.
Bill: having followed what looks like my kind of argument for most of the post, you talk right at the end about "intentional objects". Why should we suppose there are any such things? Having agreed that certain constructions of the form "a R b" do not imply the existence of any object corresponding to "b", why should we suppose there in fact is one, but that it is "intentional"?
I can walk my neighbor's dog, but I can't walk Cerberus. But I can think about Cerberus, as I am doing right now. You cannot deny that there are Cerberus-thoughts, thoughts with a specific content that distinguishes them from Fido-thoughts and Pegasus-thoughts.
So isn't it just obvious that in some sense there are intentional objects, objects of thought? If you deny this then you are saying that Cerberus-thoughts have no content whatsoever -- which is false. The philosophical problem is to make sense of this. You and I deny that there are Meinongian objects. This leaves perhaps only two options. One is the one I alluded to at the end of the post. To think about Cerberus is not to stand in a relation to a nonexistent individual; it is to think-Cerberus-ly. That is, the content of the thought is interpreted as an adverbial modification of the thinking.
The other option is to bring into the analysis some nonindividual such as a property, say a conjunctive property whose conjuncts are being three-headed, being a dog, being of a nasty disposition, being a guardian of the underworld, etc. Call this property C. When I am thinking about Cerberus I am thinking about C or C's instantiation. To want Cerberus is to want C's instantiation. To fear Cerberus is to fear C's instantion.
To want a mountain bike distinct from every bike that actually exists is to want the instantiation of a certain property, a property the conjuncts of which are the features of the bike in question. Of course, to want a mountain bike is not to want a property -- not even Lance Armstrong can ride a property! -- but what is wrong with saying that it is to want the instantiation of a property?
How would you solve the problem? You can't just dismiss it as an artifact of linguistic confusion -- although, nominalist that you are, you may incline to some such dissolution. Please explain.
There are lot of problems with what you are saying, but I don't have the time to sort through it all. I'll consider just one thing you say. You say that
1. Bush is the president
is "structurally identical to"
4. Bill eats the radish.
Right away there is a problem. (1) is an identity statement, but (4) is not. (4) expresses the same proposition as
4* Bill is a person who eats the radish.
But the 'is' in (4*) does not express identity.
Could we say that intention involves a potential relation, is directed to a potential state of affairs?
Here is an interesting thing I notice about intention. If I want a particular mountain bike and I get that bike, then my intention, having received its object, goes from a potential relation to an actual relation. I no longer want the bike now I have it. Every intention is object directed, but in receiving its object it ceases to be an intention and instead becomes a relation.
You are on to something interesting. Suppose you want something that doesn't exist, but then someone makes it for you and you get what you want. But having it does not entail no longer wanting it. A wanting is not always a lacking.
I need to think more about this.
>>So isn't it just obvious that in some sense there are intentional objects, objects of thought?
Not in the sense that 'S thinks of n' implies 'for some n, S thinks of n'.
>>>
If you deny this then you are saying that Cerberus-thoughts have no content whatsoever -- which is false.
Depends what is meant by content.
>>>
To think about Cerberus is not to stand in a relation to a nonexistent individual; it is to think-Cerberus-ly. That is, the content of the thought is interpreted as an adverbial modification of the thinking.
The problem is to explain the logic of 'S is thinking about n', i.e. to explain all the valid inferences that you could make for such sentences. (One inference which we would rule out as NOT valid being, of course, to 'for some x, S is thinking about x').
It certainly seems to follow that S is having at least one thought, i.e. we need to quantify over thoughts. Perhaps we can go further. If we characterize the thought by a sentence of the form 'S thinks that ---' , then doesn't the sentence that fills the blank space have to have an 'n' in it? So. To say S is thinking about Cerberus implies the existence of at least one thought had by S, and also that the content of the thought could be characterised by a sentence that contains the name 'Cerberus', where 'Cerberus' has exactly the same semantic properties as it does in the sentence 'S is thinking about Cerberus'.
The final problem is to explain the semantic properties of empty names. I'll leave that for now. But a good result of this is that we started with two problems, namely 'thinking about' sentences, and the proper name problem, and managed to reduce the former to the latter. Progress.
>>>
The other option is to bring into the analysis some nonindividual such as a property, say a conjunctive property whose conjuncts are being three-headed, being a dog, being of a nasty disposition, being a guardian of the underworld, etc. Call this property C. When I am thinking about Cerberus I am thinking about C or C's instantiation. To want Cerberus is to want C's instantiation. To fear Cerberus is to fear C's instantion.
I would prefer quantifying over thoughts, than over instantiations. 'C's instantiation' refers to Cerberus, surely? And that was the problem.
>>>
How would you solve the problem?
There are a cluster of problems. One is to explain thoughts characterised by fictional names. The other is sentences like 'S wants a cold beer/mountain bike' &c. The second one shows up a problem for formal logic, more than anything else. You probably know my real beef is not with realists, but with logic since Frege.
"A wanting is not always a lacking"
In most cases of wanting there is an understood action modifying the wanting. If I want to own the bike then when I own it I no longer want to own it. If I want to hold the bike, then when I hold it my desire likewise disappears. If you can think of a counter example please let me know.
Just for clarity of terminology I differentiate love and want. I would say that love is the only object directd intention that does not disappear when it recieves its object. If I love my bike, then I will continue to love it even when I have it.
I believe Object-directedness is an action. It is movement toward an object with the intention of reaching that object. The acting subject does not invest other things with intention but itself moves toward the object.
I also believe that thought is a type of wanting. To say that our ideas intend formal reality can be interpreted to mean that the mind wants to know formal reality. The mystics talk about the fact that we become what we know and know what we become. When this happens our mind is no longer directed to reality it is reality in a sense. It has reproduced that reality within itself, it has received its object. At this point thought ceases and all that is left is love.
"I would prefer quantifying over thoughts, than over instantiations. 'C's instantiation' refers to Cerberus, surely? And that was the problem."
I know you are busy, but you are not paying attention. C is a property. So this comment makes no sense.
"If I want to own the bike then when I own it I no longer want to own it." Say what? I bought a second mt bike a year ago. I wanted it -- has disc brakes and 27 speed Shimano gearing -- so I bought it. Now I own it. I still want to own it. For it would be false to say that I want to own it no longer.
If I get what I want it does not follow that I no longer want it, though it is true that I no longer lack it. Actually, I think this may pose a problem for what I said about relations.
I see your point.
I have been wrestling with this some more and think I can clear up what I was thinking somewhat.
The idea I intuit is that any acting subject cannot ‘take’ an object without that object becoming part of its action.
I for example I can reduce 'I run a race.' to 'I race.' In 'I want to own a bike'. The action is 'wanting to own a bike' Is this what you mean by "intentional objects are adverbial modifications of acts of intending."?
Thinking however presents an inconsistency. We say 'I think about a bike.' If the bike I think about is a particular bike that exists, and I represent it exactly, could we legitamately say my action is 'thinking the bike'? When thinking about a bike that exists, reality itself is modifying my thinking. But if the bike I think about is only a half formed concept that does not reach reality, then my action is only my action, it is not modified by anything.
Surely the non-existent bike has modified my action. What I think can be said is that that particular bike has not modified my action, rather a combination of properties from other bikes has.
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