Ebook: Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong

"There are several kinds of existent different from each other, not just as cats differ from dogs, but so radically that the differences fall into the province of ontology. What one completely fails to understand, he cannot profitably discuss. So I shall take it for granted that the words and phrases which stand for the most funda¬ mental notion of ontology are univocal. The second most fundamental notion is that of a constituent. Some entities are said to be constituents of others. For one entity to be “in” another and for the former to be a constituent of the latter is the same. This use of ‘in’ will always be marked by double quotes. Roughly speaking, an entity is simple if and only if it has no constituents; or, to speak with the mathematicians, if it has no other constituent than itself. Otherwise it is complex or, synonymously, a complex. The qualification, roughly speaking, covers a certain feature of my own ontology. (In my world the subsistent I call existence is “in” all enti¬ ties; the one I call particularity is “in” all particulars; and so on.) But this feature makes for the most part no difference for what I am about in this book. So I shall for the most part ignore it. In some contexts ‘constituent’, ‘component’, and ‘part’ are inter¬ changeable. In ontology, as I shall speak, they are not. The three words will be employed to express three different meanings. Thereby hangs one of the main themes of this book. To unfold it completely, or even to introduce it carefully, will take much time and great effort. Yet I wish to strike it, however lightly, at once. This requires that in the next few paragraphs I use without explanation some words whose use in ontology will only afterwards be accurately explained. Many philosophers divide the entities they recognize into two kinds. One kind is simple; the other, complex. Yet they do not have a clear notion of a complex. From this lack of clarity spring many woes. Their dialectic is the theme I want to strike. Let us glance at my own ontology which, inevitably, will have to serve as a foil throughout, particularly when it comes to evaluating others. It will indeed save words if I call it the foil. Having recently expounded it, I shall either assume it to be familiar, or, at most, recall this or that part of it very rapidly. I shall not, however, abstain from either discussing it wherever that will help, or, as at this very point, from improving it wherever I can. In the foil, all complexes are “facts” and all “facts” are complexes; all simples are “things” and all “things” are simple. “Things,” though, are not the only constituents of “facts.” Each “fact” has at least one con¬ stituent of the ontological kind I call “nexus,” which in turn is a sub¬ kind of the ontological kind I call “subsistents.” The words which in the last paragraph appear between double quotes are among those which will afterwards not be used without previous explanation. Each stands for an ontological kind. Such a kind is also called a category. I, too, shall use this word. So I shall take a moment to free it from a superficial ambiguity. To distinguish clearly between “things” and “facts” and to have a clear notion of complex is, as we shall see, virtually one and the same. “Things” are constituents of “facts.” As to ‘category’, now, some use it so that “things” and “facts” are two fundamental categories of all ontologies which clearly distinguish between the two. Upon another use of the word, it makes no sense to say of the entities of one category that they are “in” those of another. I find the first use both safe and convenient. So I shall say, for instance, that the three fundamental categories of the foil are those of “things,” “facts,” and “subsistents.” The lack of clarity of which I accused some philosophers in the dis¬ tinction between “things” and “facts” is, as we shall see, intimately connected with an unnoticed ambiguity of ‘complex’. Take a world, such as mine, in which there are “universals.” The latter, we shall also see, are “things” and not “facts.” Yet many philosophers, including until now myself, have divided “universals” into those which are sim¬ ple and those which are “complex.” These double quotes, around ‘complex’, mark not just an anticipatory use but, rather, the unnoticed ambiguity. .4s I shall presently show, a “universal,” since it is a “thing,” cannot, even though it may in some other sense be “complex,” be a complex in exactly the same sense in which a “fact” is one. In the foil, for example, green, square, and being both green and square are three “universals.” The first two are simple. Or, at least, we may safely assume that they are. The third is of the kind which I, too, have called “complex.” Now I see that green cannot be a “constituent” of being both green and square in exactly the same sense in which it is a constituent of some “facts,” such as, say, a spot’s being green. Even after one has seen the ambiguity, one understands the tempta¬ tion. Clearly, (being) green and being both green and square have something to do with each other and this something is such that as long as ontologists will be as inaccurate as they have been for so long, they will be tempted to speak and think of the former (green) as a constituent, or part, or component, of the latter (being both green and square). Nor is it easy to be completely accurate in these matters. To judge from the record and, in spite of all efforts, my own fumblings, it is indeed as difficult as anything. Nor can one do without an elaborate terminology to safeguard the distinctions he has made. We shall of course soon choose another word to stand for the “complexity” of “things”."

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