Lewis Noneismo or Allism

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Noneism or Allism?Author(s): David LewisSource: Mind, New Series, Vol. 99, No. 393 (Jan., 1990), pp. 23-31Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association

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Noneism rAllism?

DAVID LEWIS

Somefew ntities present,ctual,particular,patiotemporal,aterial,well-boundedhings-exist ncontroversially.carcely nyphilosopherdenies hem. ther lleged ntitiesre controversial:ome aythey xist,some ay hey o not.These controversialntitiesnclude ast nd futurethings, he dead who haveceasedtobe and thosewhoarenotyet venconceived;nactualized ossibilia; niversals, umbers,nd classes; nd

Meinongian bjects,ncompleter inconsistentr both.An expansivefriendf he ntities ho ays hat llthese ntitiesxistmaybe called nallist.A tough esert-dwellerhosaysthatnone of them xistmaybecalled noneist.n between omemost fus, thepickersndchoosers,some-but-only-someists.

Richard outley eclares imselfnoneist.' fwemay akehim t hisword, e holds hatnoneof thecontroversialntities xist.Butmaywetakehim this word?

Sometimest swrongo take philosophert hiswordwhen e tells s

whathebelieves oexist. or if we differ ith hephilosophernsomepoint f emantics,henwe mustmake llowance or hat ifferencefwewant to report is positionn our ownwords, n indirect uotation.Example.fsomeoneeeminglyells s thatGodexists,ndthen oesonto tellus thatGod' denotes heevolutionary-historicalrocess hathasbroughts intobeing, nd ifwe ourselveshink hat his volutionary-historical rocess s farfrom eservinghe name he gives t,thenweshould ounthim n atheist.Wemay eporthathesays hewords Godexists', utwewouldbewrongosaythathesays hatGod exists.Oratleastwe wouldbe wrongosay t withoutmmediateualification.2)ebelievesnsomethinghat ethinks eserveshename God'. But fwearerightndhe swrongboutwhatttakes odeservehename, hen e doesnot believe n anythinghatwould n factdeserve hatname, ndwewouldbewrong osayotherwise.

Secondexample.Unless we canagree hat congeriesfhuman nddivine deas could deserve he name tree n thequad',weoughtnottoreporthat erkeleyolds hat he reen thequad exists, omatterow

' RichardRoutley, xploring einong'sungleand Beyond:An InvestigationfNoneismnd theTheoryf temsAustralianationalUniversity,980). For short: unigle.outley,s he thenwas, snowRichard ylvan, ut shallrefer o himbythenameunderwhich hebookwas written.

2 GordonKaufman, heologyora NuclearAge Manchester niversityress, 985); cited nAlvin lantinga,Two Concepts fModality', hilosophicalerspectives,987, pp. 89-23I.

Mind,Vol. 99 . 393 . January990 ? Oxford niversityress 989








24 DavidLewis

muchBerkeleyhimselfmayboast of his adherenceto common opinion.Third example. f I analysepropositionss classes of possible worlds, ndif Plantinga akes t to be whollyobvious (thoughnot obviously bvious )that no class could deserve the name of proposition', hen must grantthat he makes no mistake when he reportsme, by his own lights, asdenying he existenceof propositions.3Or rather,no newmistake hispremissabout what it takes to deservethe name 'proposition', ay I, ismistakeenough. Fourth and fifth xamples. I say that a behaviouristdenies the existence fexperience, venifhehimself ayshe does no suchthing; ikewise qualia freakmight ay that , as a materialist,lso denythe existence fexperience.Bothofus are within ur rights, nd so is thebehaviouristn his self-description,ivenour respectivepremisses.Theonlydifferences that, s we would all three gree,one ofus is proceedingfrom rue premisses bout what t takesto deservethe name experience'and the othertwoare not.4

The lesson s thatwhetherwe' may ake philospher t his worddependscrucially n who 'we' are, and whatphilosophical remisseswe ourselvesarguefrom. hat is distressing.t wouldbe nicetoarrive t a non-partisanconsensus bout whattheseveralphilosophical arties ay,beforewego onto takesidesin the argument.And it would be nice to do this n ourownwords, ranslatingll parties nto a common anguage,rather hanby thebrute forceof direct quotation.We can go some distance by givingtheutmost enefitf doubt.We shouldbe at east s generous s consciencewillallow n letting hingsbear names we think heydo notverywelldeserve,especiallywhenwe report position ccording owhichthere s no betterdeserver f the name to be had. But there s a limit o generosity.Whenwemustquietlygo alongwith whatwe taketobe) someone'smis-speakingnorder ogivea non-partisan eport f hisposition, heprice s toohigh.Forthentheadvantage f common anguage s alreadyforsaken.

WithRoutley ikewise here s a semanticdifference etweenhim andsome of the rest ofus, thoughthis time t concernsnotthe deserving fnames butrather he dioms ofquantification.o when ask whetherwemaytakeRoutley t his word whenhe declareshimself noneist, gaintheanswerwill depend on who 'we' are. Routleysees himself s defying nestablished rthodoxy;nd I amprepared oappointmyself pokesman ortheorthodoxy e defies.Or at least for hoseamongtheorthodox,fany,who willacceptme as their pokesman.For thesolidarityf the Northernestablishments less formidablewhen viewed from heinside.)

We oftheestablishmenthink hatthere s onlyonekind ofquantifica-tion. The several dioms of what we call 'existential'quantificationreentirely ynonymousnd interchangeable.t does notmatterwhether ou

3 Plantinga,p. cit.4 Here am ndebted oconversationith aul Kripke.








NoneismrAllism? 25

say Some things re donkeys' r There are donkeys' r Donkeys exist'-you mean exactly he same thingwhicheverway you say t. The same goesformore vexed cases: it does notmatterwhetheryou say 'Some famousfictional etective ses cocaine', There is a famousfictional etectivewhouses cocaine', or 'A famous cocaine-usingfictionaldetective exists'-whether rue or whether alse, ll three tatements tandor fall together.

We grant, f course,that often he idioms of quantificationre tacitlyrestricted.hey may be restricted,or nstance, o salient nd well-boundedthings, s opposed to gerrymandedhunksof stuff; r to spatiotemporal,material hings; rto thehereand now;or (in myownopinion) o the hereand now and actual;orin ever o many therways.We gather rom ontextwhatrestrictionsre n force, uidedby our presumptionhatwhat speakersays is meantto make sense.5But we do not thinkthe several diomscorrespondn any permanent ayto several lternativeestrictions.Some','there re', and 'exist'can all alike be used to quantify nrestrictedlyverabsolutely verything;r theycan all alike bear any ofmanyrestrictions.

Routley isagrees. e thinkshere re twodifferentinds fquantification.There is 'existential' uantificationightly o-called,or existentiallyoadedquantification;nd there s existentiallyeutralparticular' uantification(7ungle, p. 174-80 and elsewhere).Exist' is thewordreserved or oadedquantification,hereas there re'and some'maybe usedneutrally. eutralquantifications weaker han oadedquantification:hen Qs exist t followsthat ome things reQs, but notconversely.n fact,oadedquantificationssimply restrictionfneutral uantification: s exist f somethings reXsand exist.Andy existsff here xists ome x such thatx =y.

Thus Routley s readyto say 'Some thingsdo not exist'. This is nocontradiction,ccording o him,so long as the some' is neutral nd the'exist' s loaded. Whereas fwe of theorthodox arty aid thesamewords,we wouldmeansomethingike For somex, it s notthecase thatfor omey, y= x', or There is x such thatthere s noy suchthaty= x', or Thereexistsx,suchthat heredoesnotexisty such thaty= x' with he same sortofquantificationoth times. These three sentences re contradictory,smuchby Routley's ights s byours.

When Routleydeclares himself noneist,his quantifiers re loaded:none6 ofthe controversial ntities xist.Whenhis quantifiersre neutral,however,he becomes a kind of allist: there re all those controversialentities.Or rather, here re all those items';forRoutleytakes entity' obe another xistentiallyoaded term. ome items repast,future, nactualized; some items are universals,numbers,classes; some are incomplete

5 Tacit restrictionsn the dioms f quantificationre thus componentf conversationalcore'governedargely y a 'ruleofaccommodaton'.ee 'Scorekeepingn a LanguageGame', n DavidLewis,Philosophicalapers, ol. (Oxford niversityress, 983).

6 Well, almostnone. The account fexistence iven s an almostminimal ne. ... The onlycontroversialbjects dmitted.. are microentitiesndcomplexesnd aggregates'jungle,p. 755).








26 David Lewis

Meinongian objects, and some are inconsistent; ut none of all theseinteresting tems exists. Speaking loadedly, he is an uncompromisingdesert-dweller.peakingneutrally, e relishes the beauty nd complexity,richness nd value of a jungle' fullof all the varied tems ny philosophercould wish Jungle, everse fthe frontispiece).

Whichis he really:noneistor allist?His own words do notanswer thequestion what we ought to say in reporting is position. He has his twokindsof quantification,he neutral nd the oaded; we of the establishmenthave onlyone kind.Whichofhis two corresponds o ourone?How shouldwe translatehis idioms of quantificationnto ours? We have two mainhypotheses.i) Perhaps t s Routley's oaded quantificationhat ranslatesinto our one quantification. nder that ranslation, e holds as we and heboth would say t) thatnone of the controversialtems xists.Then indeedwe should take him at his wordand call him a noneist. Or (2) perhapsinstead t is Routley's neutralquantificationhat translates nto our onequantification. nder thattranslation e holds as we wouldsay tthoughhe would not) that all the controversialtemsexist. That makes him notruenoneist,but rather n allist.

Whythisfussover translation?outleywritesn English, fter ll. Is henot the final uthority n his own position? hould we not translate imhomophonically?o. He is thefinal uthorityn his position, ut not onours.Therefore e does nothavethe finalwordeither n how hispositionshouldbe expressednour anguage, ron howours should be expressednhis. Nor do we. There is no authoritativeinalword;we can onlyseekthetranslationhatmakeshim make sense to us, and us tohim. Andwhateverpresumption heremay be in favour fhomophonic ranslation, e cannottranslate im ltogether omophonicallyfhe sees a distinction herewe seenone. If we translatedioms ofquantificationhat renotsynonymousorhim into dioms thatare synonymousorus, we makehash of whathe issaying, s surely s ifwe translated ll his idiomsofquantificationy thevery same one of ours. This thirdhypothesis, hat our one kind ofquantifications both fhis,amounts otheassumptionhatdespitewhathethinks,his two are synonymous.Homophonically translated,Routleyincessantlyontradicts imself:when he says Some things re 4s buttheydon'texist'he meanswhatwe wouldmean by Some things reQs and it snot so that omethings reQs' orby Qs exist nd it s notso that4s exist'.To impute ontradictionratuitouslys tomistranslate.

(Is it so even in Routley's case? Afterall, Routley does not shuncontradictons we do: 'The consistencyftheworld .. is not at all easy,and perhaps mpossible, o establish n a non-question eggingway. ...Good argumentsn favour ftheconsistency ssumption,s distinct romprejudice, re hard o comeby' Jungle, . 913). Ifhe is prepared oembracesome contradictions,s it so bad to impute to him others?Might we








NoneismrAllism? 27

interpretoutley s holding hat ome things xistparadoxically,hey xistand also do not exist,whereasother hings xistunparadoxically;nd thatneutral uantificationiffers rom oaded quantificationecause the former

is quantificationver all things hat xistwhereas he atter s restrictedothings hat xistunparadoxically?his is the positionwe would mputebyhomophonicranslation.t is a positionnot without nterest,hough ike allpositions hat embraceparadox it is necessarily nd certainly alse.Butsurely it is a misinterpretation. ot because we may never imputecontradictionso Routley translatingn explicit riend fcontradictionsindeed a special case-but simplybecause there s, so far as I know,notextual vidence n its favour. urely fRoutley aw his distinctionetweenneutral nd loaded quantifications something o be explained n terms f

truecontradicitons,e wouldnot hesitate o tell us so.)A fourth ypothesis s thatour one kindofquantifications neither f

Routley's wo,butsomethinglse again. can see no possibleadvantage nthis alternativend shall pursueit no further. o we are back to thetwomain hypotheses. s our one quantificationhe same as (i) Routley'sloaded quantification,r is it 2) Routley's neutralquantification?

Routley akes he first ypothesis orgranted.He assumes t s orthodoxto takeall quantifications loaded,heretical o insist s he does thatthere

is neutralquantification s well. When we use the several idioms ofquantificationnterchangeablyas he knows that we do, at least in ourtheoreticalmoments he thinks hat s because we aregiving ll of them,even some', an existentialoading ungle, pp. 427-30).

Under thehypothesishatour one quantifications his loaded quantifi-cation,Routley mayfaultus in severalways. (Not to mention he wayshavingto do withdisagreements otpartofthepresentdiscussion.)Forone thing, ecausewe haveno understandingfhowexistentiallyeutralquantifications possible and to thatcharge, fthepresenthypothesis e

granted,wemayunabashedly lead guilty.Also,becausemost of us thesome-but-only-someists reextravagantn our imputationsf existence.Finally, because even so we cripple ourselves in our theorizingbydecliningto quantify n any way over all the items that,accordingtoRoutley speakingneutrally, herereally re.

In return, nderthepresenthypothesis, e faulthim none big way:hepurports oquantifywithout uantifying.orwhenhe quantifies eutrallyhe is notquantifyingnthe one and onlywaythere s to quantify,ince exhypothesi he one way is the loaded way. This we find altogether

unintelligible.7 ow Routleymayunabashedlyplead guilty o thecharge7 See,for nstance, illiam ycan, The TroubleWith ossibleWorlds'n MichaelJ. Loux ed.),

ThePossible nd theActualCornellUniversityrss, 979), p. 290: 'I havetotakemyplace amongthosewhofind elentlesslyi.e.genuinelyrprimitively)einongianuantificationimply nintelligi-ble. . . . I am not expressingny tendentioushilosophicalualm. meanthat really annotunderstandelentlesslyeinongianuantificationtall;to me t s Itterallyibberishr mere oise.'








28 David Lewis

of being beyondour dogma-blinded nderstanding. nd therewe reach astandoff.

We might hink hatwhenRoutleyquantifieswithout

uantifying,e is

engaging n some sort of simulated uantification. hat is somethingwecan understand, nd often ven accept. Substitutionalistsimulatequan-tification ver fictional haractersby quantifying or real over fictionalnames. Bogus Meinong simulates uantification ver Meinongianobjects,includingthe incomplete nd inconsistent nes, by quantifying or realover property undles (such as the bundle of goldenness nd mountain-hood,orthe bundleofroundness nd squareness).8Mortonshows howwemightsimulatequantificationver composite entitiesby infinitelyongblocks of genuine quantifiers ver simples.9 Pluralists like Black andArmstrongimulate uantificationver classes of ndividualsbymeans ofirreducibly luralquantificationver the ndividuals hemselves.'0Sturchsimulatesquantificationver (what he takes to be) non-existent ustra-lians by puttinggenuine quantifierswithin the scope of a modifier inAustralia' which looks as if it merelyrestricts he quantifier ut reallyfunctions s a negation symbol." Likewise Prior and Fine simulatequantificationverpast or future r unactualizedthingsby quantifyingwithin hescope oftenseand modal operators.2 There aremanywaystosimulate quantification,nd therebyquantifywithoutquantifying.Wemight indRoutley'sneutral uantificationntelligible nough f t turnedout to be just another of these exercises in deceptive simulation. Isit?-No; there s no textual vidence n favour. And if twere,hewouldhaveno reasontopresenthimself s a heretic. or he himselfwouldagreewith us, in the end, that therewas really only one sort of genuinequantification.

8 BogusMeinong, nventedbut notunder hatname)by TerenceParsons,s anorthodox igurewhohasfound way o speakmore r ess s Meinong oesbyquantifyingver ropertyundles nd

gettingtupto ook s ifhe squantifyingverMeinongian bjects hat nstantiatehebundles. eeParsons,A Prolegomenono Meinongian emantics',ournalfPhilosophy,974, pp.56I-80. Notewell:BogusMeinong s notMeinong, r Parsons, r Meinong s he struck arsons. is role s ust oprovethe consistencyf (one form f) genuineMeinongianism.or he speaks enough s theMeinongians o that f theyfell nto contradiction,o would he; and yet his position, oweverdeceptivelyresented,s just n innocentheory fpropertyundles,whichwe of the stablishmentwouldpresumeo be consistent.

9 AdamMorton,Complex ndividuals nd Multigrade elations', o's, I975, pp. 309-I8.10 Max Black, The Elusiveness f Sets', Review f Metaphysics,97I, pp.6I4-36; D. M.

Armstrong,niversalsnd cientificealism,ol. (Cambridge niversityress,978), pp. 32-4. Forfurtheriscussion f plural uantification,ut without ny suggestionhat t ought o be used toexplain way uantificationver lasses f ndividuals,eeGeorge oolos,To Be is To Be a Valueof

Variable orTo Be SomeValuesofSome Variables)', ournalfPhilosophy,984, pp. 30-49; and'Nominalistlatonism', hilosophicaleview,985, pp. 327-44.

1 'Report n "WHY?" Competition-Problemo. ', Why2, une,958, pp. 2-5.

12 SeeFine's Postscript'oA. N. Prior ndKitFine, Worlds,imes nd elvesDuckworth,977),especially pp. I42-5.

13 Andsee ungle, . 8i, against substitutionalnterpretation;. 879 againstninterpretationnterms f Bogus-Meinongianurrogates.








NoneismrAllism? 29

Under he econd f ourmainhypotheses-thateing hehypothesisthat uronequantificationorrespondsot oRoutley'sloaded'quantifi-cation utrathero his existentiallyeutral'uantification-weet uite

a differentictureftherelationshipetween outley's ositionnd ourorthodoxy.isagreementemains. utRoutley's eresy ecomesmoreintelligiblerom he tandpointforthodoxynd,reciprocally,rthodoxybecomesmorentelligiblerom outley'standpoint.n so far s mutualintelligibilitys a desideratum ortranslation,hatmakes the secondhypothesisetterhan he irst.hereforesay hat he econd ypothesisis theright ayfor s tounderstandoutley,nd therightwayfor s toreport ispositionn indirect uotation.We go wrongfwe takehimaltogethert hisword,ndoverlookhathismeaningf existence'might

notbethe ame s ours, ust s we gowrongntaking erkeleyltogetherat his wordwhenhesays The tree nthequad exists'.

I also say-though I say it hesitantly,est my advice be foundimpertinenthatRoutleyughtounderstandsaccordingothe econdhypothesis. e should not say that we dogmaticallyejectneutralquantification,ut nstead hatwedogmaticallyejectoadedquantifica-tion.He shouldnot aythatweimpose xistentialoading n some' and'therere',butratherhatwe unloadexist' tself. e should aythatweoutdohim nnoneism: enever ffirmhe xistencef nything,ot he

controversialtemsndnot heuncontroversialneseither. f coursewesay hewordsdonkeysxist', ndsomeofus say numbers xist oo',butheshould nderstandhat ythesewordswedonotmeanwhathe wouldmean.Wetalk four existentialommitments',ndmany fustryocutthese own norder ododgequestionsbout henature fwhatwe arecommittedo. But all thewhile,we are talking nlyof our neutral-quantificationalommitments-theounterpartorus ofRoutley's wnneutral-quantificationalommitmento the wholebeautifulungle.Ourmainfault, e should ay, s thatweareblind o thedistinctionetween

whatexists nd what does not; and a lesser fault s thatwe crippleourselvesyourunwise utting-downfneutral-quantificationalommit-ments.

Andwhat houldwe sayofhim, nder he econdhypothesis?ot thathe purportso quantify ithout uantifying.ot thathe denies theexistencef ome f he tems equantifiesver.No; hequantifiesust swe do; overeverything;hat s (as we wouldsay)overeverythinghatexists.We shouldhavenoproblem nderstandingis neutraluantifica-tion.We may indeedlook askance at the extentof his existential

commitments-for,espitewhathe tells s,heisan allist.He affirmsheexistencefall thecontroversialntitiesas wemay allthem).He doesnot oinus whenwedodge uestionsbut ome f hese lleged ntitiesydenyinghat hey xist.

Likeus,Routley ometimesestrictsisquantifiers.henhe restricts








30 David Lewis

them to, say, trees,we have no problemunderstanding im, because wetoo distinguish reesfromnon-trees. We mighthavea harder imeof t fwe had to apply the distinction o such Meinongianobjects s the tree hatis not a tree.But it s unlikely hat Meinongianwould be stumpedbythisproblem.) And if he restricts is quantifiers o present hings, r to non-numbers, r to individuals, .. we stillhave no problem, ecause again weunderstand nd accept the distinctionswherebyhe restricts.Maybe notperfectly,utwell enough;and in so far s we do not, we should not callthe kettleblack.

But whenRoutley loads' his quantifiers, e restrictshem o the entitieswhich, he says, 'exist'. And then we do not understand,because weourselves make no such distinction mong the entities. f 'existence'iswhat he thinks t is a distincton mong the items we are committedto-then we dispense with existence.4 Our main complaint againstRoutley s that he sees a distinctin hat s notreally here.

Under the secondhypothesis,he issue is squarely oined.He saysweareblind,we sayhe is hallucinating. he meaningofquantificationersedoes not enter nto it.

The picture s stillnonetoo irenic.But our desideratum or ranslationwas not reconciliation,ust mutual intelligibility.nd there the secondhypothesis oes better han the first. ifficulthough tmaybe forus to

understandhow Routley sees a distinction hat s not there, nd difficultthough it may be for him to understandour supposed blindness,adisagreementverwhether omeallegeddistinctions genuine s at least afamiliarnd intelligible ort fdisagreement. he same wouldnotbe trueofthesupposed disagreement verwaysofquantifying.

Atthispointyou might urmise hat he distinction outleyhas inmindis genuine, nd what s morethat we acceptit no less thanhe does. It isjust thathe calls it thedistincton etweenwhat exists' and what does not;whereaswe call it the distinctionbetweenpresent, actual, particular,

spatiotemporal hings nd all the rest. He may join us in giving t thelattername, thoughwe willnot oinhim ngiving t the former.) or doeshe notsaythat t s exactly hepresent, ctual, . . things hat exist'? Hedoes. But plainlyhe takes that to be a highly ontroversial ubstantivethesis,not a trivialmatter f definition. his hypothesiss altogetherooirenic.Or rather,t is one-sidedlyrenic: t squaresRoutley's positiononloaded and neutral quantificationwith orthodoxy,but at the cost ofmakingnonsense fRoutley's vident onvictionhathisposition s deeplyopposed to orthodoxy. o suppose thatRoutleymistakesmere termino-

logicaldifferenceorprofound hilosophical isagreements toaccusehimofstupidity arbeyondbelief.

14 In theway xplainedn DonaldC. Williams,Dispensing ith xistence',ournalfjPhilosophy,I962, pp. 748-63.








Noneismr Allism? 31

In short:we dispense withexistence but heed what this means andwhat tdoesnot. Of course we do notdispensewith heword exist'as one

of our pronunciations or the quantifier.Neither do we dispensewith atrivially niversalpredicateof existence, utomaticallyatisfied y abso-lutelyeverything.15ut if existence'is understood o that it can be asubstantive hesis hatonly ome of thethings here reexist-or, for hatmatter, o that tcan be a substantive hesis hateveryingxists-we willhave none of it.16

Departmnentf Philosophy DAVID LEWIS

PrincetonUniversity

Princeton,7

08544USA

15 It mightbe a queer predicate, hough, n thesame way that selfidentical' nd 'properclass' andRoutley's item' are queer predicates: t might have no extension. For the extension of a predicate ssupposed to be the set, or at least the class, of all its satisfiers. ut if there are thingsthatcannot bemembers of any class, and if some such things are among the satisfiers f a predicate, then thatpredicate has no extension.

16 I am indebted to Mark Hinchliff,William Lycain, Ken Perszyk, and others for valuablecomments;and to Harvard Universityfor researchsupportunder a Santayana Fellowship.

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