KANT’S REJECTION OF *IS* AS A PREDICATE
January 3rd, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: KANT’S alleged REJECTION OF *IS* AS A PREDICATE :: KANT’S REJECTION OF *IS* AS A PREDICATE :: KANT’S alleged REJECTION OF *IS* AS A PREDICATE :: KANT’S alleged REJECTION OF *IS* AS A PREDICATE
GEVANS613 at aol.com wrote: > *KANT’S REJECTION OF *IS* AS A PREDICATE* > > * From The Critique of Pure Reason [Existence Is Not a Property]* > > * …It is absurd to introduce—under whatever term disguised—into the > conception of a thing, which is to be cogitated solely in reference to > its possibility, the conception of its existence. If this is admitted, > you will have apparently gained the day, but in reality have enounced > nothing but a mere tautology. I ask, is the proposition, this or that > thing (which I am admitting to be possible) exists, an analytical [1] > E. g., or a synthetical proposition?* > **
Kant distinguished ‘logical’ predicates from ‘real’ predicates on the basis of whether they added information to the concept of the thing to which they were attributed. logical predicates are non-informative. real predicates are informative.
I will use the non-informative/informative distinction instead of the logical/real distinction because the latter suggests that logical predicates are unreal. they are not unreal; just uninformative.
is ‘exists’ an informative predicate or an uninformative predicate?
it seems to me that ‘exists’ is informative *except* when used as a root predicate — which is *defined* to be an uninformative predicate, one that adds no information to the assertion that it is or that I am.
when not used as a root predicate, ‘exists’ may be informative. consider the following situation described in the language of reality (wherein ‘reality’ is the root predicate and ‘exists’ is the name for a [root predicate]-type: physical existence).
centuries ago, biologists in Europe noticed that all the swans they ever encountered were white; but, they could easily have formed the concept of a black swan as a bird that is in all respects a swan except that it had black feathers. this concept would be a phenomenological reality irregardless of whether this phenomenological reality had a correlate of another reality type (either an existential correlate (a physically existing black swan) or an ontological correlate (an Ideal black swan swimming amidst mathematical objects in a platonic heaven of idealities)).
let us then suppose that, many years later, explorers returning from Australia asserted the proposition ‘black swans exist’ intending it to mean ‘there are black swans’ or ‘there are in existence black swans’.
standing there, hearing the news, Kant might say that this report adds nothing to our concept of the ‘black swan’; and, I would have to agree with Kant. nevertheless, in each case, I can’t think of any way to escape the conclusion that I learned something when I first heard the news. I learned that the phenomenological reality had an existential correlate. similarly, if some disease wipes out all the black swans, our concept of what a black swan is won’t change; but, we will have learned something when we first hear the news. if some enterprising biologists reconstructs black swans from stored DNA samples; then, we will learn something when we hear that black swans exist again.
since we are informed by the news as to the twists and turns of the fate of black swans, exists can be informative when not used as the root predicate.
throughout all these changes, I would still be able to say ‘black swans are real in some sense’ without adding any information to the assertion there are black swans — because ‘real’ is my root predicate and a root predicate is defined to be uninformative. ‘x is real’ means no more than ‘x is’.
Joe
– Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the first person. — H-N Castaneda
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@ http://what-am-i.net @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
