Introduction
Consider the following sentences:
S1: Fido is a dog.
S2: Fido has the property of being a dog.
The inference from S1 to S2 is generally, though not universally, accepted as valid. Its rejection dauntingly requires (i) a deep revision of our normal linguistic practices and (ii) charging ordinary discourse with underlying errors (see sections 1 and 5.1).
Linguistic ontologists use the acceptability of this inference as an argument for the existence of properties (see Mourelatos Reference Mourelatos1978: 426; Thomasson Reference Thomasson2001; according to Heil [Reference Heil2006: 234, 243] and Lewis [Reference Lewis1983: 349ff., 352f.], even D. M. Armstrong, despite his serious, sparse theory of universals and generally ‘appreciat[ing] that linguisticism represents a distraction from serious ontology’, ‘yield[s] to linguisticizing pressures’ [Heil Reference Heil2006: 243, 234] and employs such ‘semantic argument[s]’ [Lewis Reference Lewis1983: 349–50], in particular against Quine [Reference Quine1953, Reference Quine1980] and Devitt [Reference Devitt1980]; see Armstrong [Reference Armstrong1978a: 16, 11–17, 58–64; Reference Armstrong1978b: 7–59; Reference Armstrong1980: 443–45]).
‘Ontologically serious’ philosophers, by contrast, reject the further inference to the existence of properties. So, they can either
(a) reject the inference from S1 to S2, or
(b) accept it and explain, for instance, that the singular term ‘the property of being a dog’ need not refer even if S2 is true.
Serious ontologists might take route (a) by following Rayo who argues that ‘Ordinary discourse is plagued with unclarities and ambiguities’ (Reference Rayo2002: 437), Quine who dismisses ‘daily discourse’ as ‘second grade’ (Reference Quine1969: 24; Reference Quine1981: 92, himself following J. J. C. Smart Reference Smart1963: 47; see also Janssen-Lauret Reference Janssen-Lauret2016: §2.2), or, perhaps, Schipper (Reference Schipper2021: §5.2) and Unger (Reference Unger1979a: §5; Reference Unger1979b: §4) who, on serious ontological grounds, are open to the possibility of widespread, deep errors. However, this paper explores (b): how serious ontologists can best accept normal linguistic practices and thus the validity of the inference (and some other constraints specified in section 1), but reject that this implies that properties exist—thus following Musgrave (Reference Musgrave and Dyke2009: 69ff.), Dyke (Reference Dyke2008), and Heil (Reference Heil2003: 53–54), who are not error theorists.
The relevant serious ontologist claims, further, that accepting the inference's validity but accepting that this implies that properties exist, as linguistic ontologists do, commits one to the ‘representational fallacy’ (Dyke Reference Dyke2008: ch. 1 & 3; see also Heil Reference Heil2003: 5–6; Cameron Reference Cameron and Hazlett2010: 8) and to ‘word magic’, which according to Musgrave is: ‘The idea that once we invent or create a word or phrase, we invent or create an entity for that word or phrase to stand for’ (Reference Musgrave and Dyke2009: 69; see also Reference Musgrave, Aleksandrowicz and Ruß2001: 29f.). Musgrave's target is especially constructivist linguistic ontologists who explicitly claim that many entities are created merely by the use of language (e.g., Goodman Reference Goodman1978; Schiffer Reference Schiffer1996, Reference Schiffer2003; Thomasson Reference Thomasson2001).
Linguistic ontologists would claim, for instance, that the property being a dog is literally created via pleonastic transformations like those from S1 to S2, what Schiffer (Reference Schiffer1994: §5, Reference Schiffer2003, Reference Schiffer2019: 244ff.) calls ‘something-from-nothing-inferences’. Thomasson calls them ‘trivial inferences from uncontroversial truths’ (Reference Thomasson2015: 132), ‘to reach a truth that is intuitively redundant with respect to the first, yet leaves us with (apparently new) ontological commitments to the disputed entities—again apparently resolving ontological questions by way of trivial inferences from undisputed truths’ (Thomasson Reference Thomasson2015: 134–35). Thomasson (Reference Thomasson and Ostertag2016: §1.1) explicitly uses such inferences also to argue that ordinary objects, such as dogs and chairs, exist although Schiffer (Reference Schiffer2019: §2) rejects this. The current argumentation focuses on properties but applies to all analogous linguistic arguments.
To try to diminish the incredulity, Thomasson calls the language-created, pleonastic entities ‘ontologically minimal’ (Reference Thomasson2001: 323–25). Thus, (a) they are causally inert, ‘come softly into existence, without disturbing the pre-existing causal order in any way’ (Schiffer Reference Schiffer2003: 59), and (b) everything about them can be known by ‘study[ing] the language games by means of which they are deposited in our ontology’ (Thomasson Reference Thomasson2001: 321; see also Schiffer Reference Schiffer1996: 159). Serious ontologists wince at the ontological profligacy: these entities’ ontological dependence on language games and their causal inertness, hence epiphenomenalism, increase, rather than decrease, the sense of illegitimacy. Creation via linguistic transformations alone requires ‘word magic’.
Martin and Heil (Reference Martin and Heil1999: 57) describe the ‘linguisticist’ argument style as ‘an evasion or obfuscation of ontological views’ that has led ‘proponents [to] pretend that entailments were possible when they are not’. The pretended entailments are ones to ontological conclusions such as the existence of properties. This reveals an adherence to the ‘widely held’ but ‘ill considered’ and ‘manifestly incorrect’, linguisticist picture of representation (Heil Reference Heil2003: 5–6), the rejection of which is one of the serious ontologists’ central methodological maxims (adapted from Heil Reference Heil2003: 6):
the serious maxim (maxim): do not read ontology, the character of reality, off of our linguistic representations of reality and other purely linguistic considerations.
Cameron (Reference Cameron and Hazlett2010: 9–11), Dyke (Reference Dyke2008: 35, 44, 53, 59, 62, on properties, 67ff., 77), and Heil (Reference Heil2003: 6) employ maxim repeatedly as their methodological touchstone.
The relevant serious ontologists, however, accept the conceptual rules that underlie the transformations; they are not error theorists about ordinary talk or revisionists who recommend paraphrasing into, say, a formal language. This distinguishes serious ontology from approaches like fictionalism (e.g., Field Reference Field1989; Yablo Reference Yablo, Everett and Hofweber2000), which accepts that literal talk is ontologically committing but then recommends widespread pretence given the widespread error. Some serious ontologists reject the first step as linguisticist. Heil (Reference Heil2003: 53–54) writes:
I am inclined to think that ‘this is a statue’ can be, and often is, literally true. What makes it true is a complex, dynamic arrangement of particles. . . . We cannot hope to paraphrase, translate, or replace talk of statues with talk of such collections.
These transformations, however, are taken not to yield reference to entities over and above, for instance, Fido (in S1 and S2), no ontological commitments to extra entities.
However, linguistic ontologists rely only on seemingly standard compositional semantics regarding singular terms and generally accepted inferences from statements employing singular terms to quantified statements. A problem emerges: serious ontology cannot thwart linguisticism without rejecting this underlying and still widely (though not universally) accepted picture of singular terms.
To support maxim, serious ontologists often accept a principle on which truths depend on (fundamental) reality. Some serious ontologists call this a ‘truthmaker principle’ (Heil Reference Heil2003: 53–54; Reference Heil2012: 192, 194; Cameron Reference Cameron and Hazlett2010: 17), but they need not (MacBride Reference MacBride2014: §4). (Note that Heil's version of truthmaking is both explicitly antilinguisticist and nonnecessitarian; see especially Reference Heil2003: 64–65; Reference Heil2006: 234–42; Reference Heil2012: §8.3.) Fundamental reality is discovered by nonlinguistic means and need not mirror the linguistic structure of what it makes true. Complex, dynamic arrangements of fundamental particles, for instance, have no structural similarity, let alone structural isomorphism, with truthbearers such as S1 and S2. Also, if p depends on some portion of (fundamental) reality π, p need not be reducible to any truth q describing fundamental reality more ontologically perspicuously (see Heil Reference Heil2003: 53–54; Reference Heil2012: §1.2, 151, 165, §13; Cameron Reference Cameron and Hazlett2010: 11; compare Austin Reference Austin, Urmson and Warnock1979: 124f., Schipper Reference Schipper2020: 513, §2.3; Reference Schipper2021: §5.3).
However, serious ontologists say nothing about the singular terms in S1 and S2. Despite rejecting the linguisticist picture of representation, Heil admits not being ‘in possession of a better, more plausible account of the connection words (or concepts, or thoughts, or representations generally) bear to the world. I have no such account, nor do I know of any’ (Reference Heil2003: 5). Until such an account becomes available, the problem persists.
This paper defends such a serious ontological account. Section 1 unpacks the linguistic argument for properties, identifying which premise serious ontologists should reject. This draws out the ‘neo-Fregean’ (section 1.1) and quantificationally linguisticist (section 2) pictures of language, to which they must present an alternative. Sections 3–5 defend an alternative that draws on quantificational machinery developed by Meinongians and Barcan Marcus (Reference Barcan Marcus1993) (section 2), and Ramseyan insights (section 3), to persuade us that the function of singular terms is not primarily to refer but to pick out, single out, and focus on objects of thought and talk, in a sense that is ontologically noncommittal. This blocks the linguistic argument and shows us how to talk ontologically seriously.
1. Unpacking the Linguistic Argument for the Existence of Properties
Serious ontology clashes with the following three prima facie plausible claims concerning S2, which entail that properties exist:
C1: If S1 is true, then S2 is true.
C2: The expression α, ‘the property of being a dog’, functions in S2 as a singular term.
C3: If α functions in S2 as a singular term, then S2 is true only if a property exists.
Rejecting C1 requires a deep revision of our normal linguistic practices, which both linguistic and serious ontologists accept (Heil Reference Heil2003: 53–54). For instance, Hofweber (Reference Hofweber2016: §2.3.4), a linguistic ontologist, argues for the obviousness of the equivalence based on linguistic competence. Rejecting C1 (and the inference's validity) is, however, an option for serious ontologists, especially for those willing to implement such deep revisions. For instance, Quine (Reference Quine1969: 24) recommends replacement by appropriate regimentation into a formal language. Let us call this the ‘regimentation-and-replacement strategy’. Ritchie (Reference Ritchie2016: §3) and Janssen-Lauret (Reference Janssen-Lauret2016: §§2–4) might accept the ordinary inference but reject the inference after regimentation if no formal inference rules take us from regimented-S1 to regimented-S2. But this assumes that appropriate regimentation and paraphrasing is possible. Although not everyone would accept the inference, Martin and Heil's (Reference Martin and Heil1999: 34–35, 54, 56–57) ‘ontological turn’ resists such strategies. (Section 5.1 supports C1 further.) The current paper, recall, explores what would follow from accepting the validity of this inference and other constraints that serious ontologists have previously defended (such as avoiding deep, error-theoretic revisions of our normal linguistic practices and formal paraphrasing).
C2 is plausible: if anything functions as a singular term, then that expression does. C3 follows from the following assumptions:
C4: If an atomic truthbearer χ containing singular terms is true, then the singular terms refer.
C5: If α refers, then it refers to ψ, the property of being a dog.
C6: If α refers to ψ, then ψ exists.
C7: If ψ exists, then a property exists.
Linguistic ontologists might claim that C6 is an almost analytic, undeniable truth because this distinguishes reference from other similar semantic functions. Some serious ontologists, such as Crane (Reference Crane2001: 23–28), emphasize this, too. There are, of course, philosophers who might legislate and have legislated a different usage of the word ‘refer’, for instance, R. M. Sainsbury (Reference Sainsbury2005: vii), Graham Priest's noneist (Reference Priest2016: 108, 141), Kaplan (Reference Kaplan, Hintikka, Moravcsik and Suppes1973: 503ff., 505), and Kripke (Reference Kripke1971: 146; for discussion, see Hughes Reference Hughes2004: 20–21). However, I shall leave the linguistic ontologists’ stipulation that reference implies existence alone, accepting C6 for the sake of argument and as a further constraint for the rest of this paper, as we did with C1 (that S1 implies S2).
C7 is just an instance of existential generalization. Rejecting C5 entails that α refers to something other than ψ (though clearly not Fido). But then χ (the truthbearer) entails the existence of entities over and above Fido purely because α is a singular term. This is not satisfactory for serious ontology, which must reject C3 by rejecting C4. The rest of this paper aims to present and argue for the best way to do this.
1.1 Rejecting C4 and Neo-Fregeanism
C4 expresses the semantics standard amongst neo-Fregeans. MacBride is not a linguisticist (Reference MacBride2014: §4; Reference MacBride2005: 609f.) but helpfully articulates the relevant principle thus:
Syntactic Decisiveness: if an expression exhibits the characteristic syntactic features of a singular term, then that fact decisively determines that the expression in question has the semantic function of a singular term (reference). (Reference MacBride2003: 108)
In short, if it looks, can be used to build sentences, and is built like a singular term, then it functions like one: as a referring term.
I propose that serious ontologists reject this principle by rejecting that the semantic function of singular terms is to refer, that is, accept that syntactic singularity entails semantic singularity but add that this does not entail reference. Others have rejected Syntactic Decisiveness by arguing that syntactic singularity does not determine semantic singularity. Sometimes a syntactically singular term such as ‘Fido’ or ‘the property of being a dog’ can be understood as nonreferring and thus, they conclude, as not semantically singular terms. For instance, Barcan Marcus (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 118, 203, 210) distinguishes between (i) ‘genuine proper names’, tags, which are, according to her, directly referential, that is, have the function of just referring directly to their referent without any descriptive content, and (ii) other syntactically singular terms, such as fictional names, that have different kinds of functions. (However, as we will see below in section 2, she must admit nonreferring names as a possible substitution class of variables to keep [substitutional] quantification ontologically neutral.) The serious ontological account I propose takes the semantic function of singular terms generally not to be to refer. This has the benefit of allowing us (a) to retain a closer connection between syntax and semantics and, perhaps more important, (b) not to have to appeal to a more canonical language as ontologically more perspicuous (pace Quine Reference Quine1969: 24; the proposal is more consistent with the spirit of Martin and Heil's [Reference Martin and Heil1999] ontological turn and Heil's [Reference Heil2003: 53–54] non-error-theoretic non-reductionism).
Others have rejected Syntactic Decisiveness in ways that are not congenial to serious ontology. For instance, Hofweber (Reference Hofweber2016) defends an alternative nonreferential, inferential reading of quantifiers and singular terms, which leads us on the road not just to linguistic ontology but to ‘a strong anthropocentric form of idealism’ (Hofweber Reference Hofweber2019: 731). In short, if inferentialism is right and Hofweber's defense of ‘conceptual idealism’ is sound, then maxim is wrong (Reference Hofweber2019: 719f., 722–23).
Although a defense of maxim against the threat of conceptual idealism must wait, two points are worth making here. Serious ontology must (a) not understand singular terms in a way that vindicates linguisticism; Hofweber, by contrast, argues that we can draw metaphysical conclusions from both readings of the quantifier. Hofweber argues that some singular terms are nonreferential based on empirical evidence about our linguistic practices involving them (Reference Hofweber2019: 715f., 720). By contrast, serious ontology must (b) reject Syntactic Decisiveness not merely by relying on empirical evidence about linguistic usage. For serious ontology (of Martin and Heil's [Reference Martin and Heil1999], though perhaps not the Quinean, sort), metaphysics must come first. The current paper shows how to reject this neo-Fregean linguisticism in a way congenial to serious ontology.
2. Neutral Quantifiers and Serious Ontology: Barcan Marcus and Meinong
One of the main motivations to think that reference is the semantic function of singular terms is an assumption about quantification being existential. What distinguishes reference from other possible functions of singular terms is that reference requires that what we are talking about exists (recall C6, and pace, e.g., Sainsbury Reference Sainsbury2005: vii). And, indeed, if (I) quantification requires existence and (II) truths such as S2 entail that there are properties (that is, quantification over properties), then (III) we can conclude that properties exist. But only (II) is supported by natural and pretheoretical intuitions. (I) is, according to Eklund (Reference Eklund2006), characteristic of a linguistic meta-ontological approach to quantification.
Eklund (Reference Eklund2006: §4) argues that both Fregean and, what he takes to be, Quinean approaches are ‘fundamentally, linguistic approaches to ontology’ (Eklund Reference Eklund2006: 327):
Both the Fregean and the Quinean assumes that the semantic function of a singular term is to refer, and that so-called existential quantification really is existentially committing (Fregeans tend to focus on singular terms; Quineans on quantification).
Eklund seems largely to follow van Inwagen (Reference van Inwagen1998: 233, 241, theses 2, 3, and especially 4) in calling the relevant view of quantification a central part of the ‘Quinean’ meta-ontology. However, Quine himself believes that ontological commitments only become apparent once a theory has been regimented in first-order logic without individual constants (thus eliminating singular terms). And he rejects the view that properties are created by the use of language. Since Quine's famous rejection of properties is nonlinguistic, he himself is no linguisticist. In fact, he takes what I called ‘the regimentation-and-replacement strategy.’ (See also Janssen-Lauret's [Reference Janssen-Lauret2015: §§1–3; Reference Janssen-Lauret2016: §§2.1–2.2] articulation of Quine's meta-ontology, which clashes with Eklund's grouping; I thank an anonymous reviewer for discussion.)
Given that Quine's actual views seem to clash with Eklund's grouping, a better way to understand the debate is as follows. If we accept both ordinary discourse and that quantification is existentially committing, then linguistic ontology and its conclusions seem to follow. Quine's serious, nonlinguistic ontological strategy, as discussed earlier, rejects ordinary discourse. An alternative serious ontological strategy that, unlike Quine's, accepts ordinary discourse, can instead reject what Eklund would label linguisticism about quantification by taking quantifiers generally not to be existentially committing.
To do this, serious ontologists can draw on the very important, but unfairly marginalized, twentieth-century, female philosopher Barcan Marcus's substitutional view of quantification or, alternatively, the often misunderstood Meinongian view. Barcan Marcus is explicit that quantification should be understood as ‘ontologically neutral’ (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 16–18, 79–82, 85, 122). She writes, further, that ‘Quantification does not itself confer existence’ (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 82), at least not on her substitutional view. Meinongian quantification is also best understood as across-the-board not ontologically committing and, as Routley (Reference Routley1966: 255, 275–76) emphasizes, ‘ontologically neutral – at least as far as what exists goes’: ‘Fs exist’ is not equivalent to ‘Some objects are Fs’ or to ‘Some things are F’ (Priest Reference Priest2016: 198ff., 312ff.; see also Reference Priest2016: xxix, 11, 13, 152, 331; Reference Priest2000: 496f.; Eklund Reference Eklund2006: 327–29; Routley Reference Routley1966: 255f., 275f.; and Berto Reference Berto2013: §4.3, 70ff.).
According to Meinongians and especially Barcan-Marcusians, quantifiers in natural language are just devices for quantifying, that is, counting or measuring (see also Schipper Reference Schipper2020: §2.2). And one can count and measure nonexistent objects of thought, inquiry, and talk. Infamously for standard, quantificational linguisticism, this sits very well with common usage (Eklund Reference Eklund2006: 327f.; Berto Reference Berto2013: 210ff.). For instance, we can count sheep while trying to fall asleep even though the sheep we are counting do not exist. One is not pretending to count or doing nothing; one is really counting, most plausibly, imaginary sheep. Also, it may be crucial for solving a case that Sherlock identifies not three but four people in the room (the murderer is in the closet). We can count dormitive sheep, Holmes, merely hypothetical objects such as Vulcan, and many other objects of counting. It is a further question whether they exist.
If this view is correct, then one may accept S2, draw the inference that something is a property of being a dog and Fido has it, but also accept that this property might not exist. This blocks linguisticists’ ontological conclusion from S1. According to quantificationally neutralist serious ontologists, S1 entails S2, and these each entail that something is a property that Fido has. All accounts of the metaphysics of properties, including tropism, immanent realism, transcendental realism, and even nominalism can accept these claims. The ontological question is whether the properties that we count and quantify over also exist, which we express not with a quantifier ($\exists x\phi$
or, a neutralist alternative, Σxϕ), but with an existence predicate (E!x). However, this further claim, that properties exist, is not entailed by S2 or even by the quantified statement. It takes further work to establish the existence of the objects we talk about in true, ordinary predications and true, quantified statements.
Thus, replacing (I) above with neutralism about quantification yields an alternative view of the behavior of singular terms that is compatible with serious ontology, bringing together two important yet uncombined meta-ontologies.
Just to be clear, however, one need not import into one's account other Meinongian assumptions, such as the existence-subsistence distinction. Eklund (Reference Eklund2006: 328) helpfully distinguishes modes-of-being Meinongianism from noncommitment Meinongianism. When analytic philosophers quickly distance themselves from Meinongianism, they normally cite the existence-subsistence distinction (e.g., Schaffer Reference Schaffer, Chalmers, Manley and Wasserman2009: 359), hence distancing themselves from modes-of-being Meinongianism. Even van Inwagen (Reference van Inwagen1998: 236) has no arguments against noncommitment Meinongianism, famously only indignation elicited by abuses of the Meinongian approach.
2.1 Barcan Marcus and Serious Ontology
Also helpful here is Barcan Marcus's (Reference Barcan Marcus1993, e.g., Reference Barcan Marcus1972, Reference Barcan Marcus1978; see also Belnap and Dunn's [Reference Belnap and Dunn1968: 178] developments) ‘Name-based Meta-Ontology’, as Janssen-Lauret (Reference Janssen-Lauret2015: §5; Reference Janssen-Lauret2016: §4.1) calls it. Two of Barcan Marcus's key innovations are (a) her substitutional interpretation of quantification, on which an existentially quantified sentence is true iff the open sentence following the quantifier is true on some substitution instance of a name for the variable bound by the quantifier (Barcan Marcus Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 80), and (b) her view of names as ‘directly referential tags’ (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: xiii, 10–12). She writes that her view
frees us to explore generality and existential import in all their subtlety. The satisfaction theory [compare my section 4 below], by contrast, is a kind of logician's monism. But it does not seem to me that the existence of sets or numbers or propositions or attributes or physical objects hinges wholly on the way variables and quantification function in theories. (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 82)
Only when the substitution class ‘consists of genuine proper names: where the names link up with objects’ (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 118), when they are directly referential tags, do the objectual and substitutional theories ‘overlap’ and can ‘the quantifiers . . . be read with existential import’ (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 121). Janssen-Lauret nicely puts it in slogan form: ‘To be is to be the referent of a tag’ (Reference Janssen-Lauret2015: 159).
Importantly, Barcan Marcus must allow that the substitution class can be expanded beyond referring names to keep quantification ‘ontologically neutral’ (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 16–18, 79–82). Until we find out that the relevant substitution class contains tags, the true quantified sentences are generally ontologically neutral. Regarding properties, she writes, ‘Substitutional semantics permits quantifiers with predicates as substituends without a prima facie presumption of reference to universals’ (Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 122). And she allows that the substitution class can contain nonreferring names, ‘non-tag singular terms’ (Janssen-Lauret Reference Janssen-Lauret2015: 160), when she poignantly writes: ‘If naming may be viewed as the long finger of ostension over time, the case of a syntactical nonreferring name is like pointing at nothing (Barcan Marcus Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 210). Her approach is, thus, congenial to serious ontology. The substitution view gives the truth-conditions (though not the meaning [Boër Reference Boër1975: 266]) of quantifiers, while ensuring that ‘quantification does not itself confer existence’ (Barcan Marcus Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 82; for an excellent discussion of Barcan Marcus's meta-ontology, see Janssen-Lauret Reference Janssen-Lauret2015: §§5–6; Reference Janssen-Lauret2016: §4.1). Serious ontologists would then emphasize that it takes nonlinguistic work to discover whether the singular terms composing their truth-conferring substitution class are referential or not.
This all reveals that serious ontologists can fruitfully accept generally ontologically neutral accounts of quantification such as Barcan Marcus's (or Meinongians’). But to ensure the ontological neutrality of the quantifiers, especially on Barcan Marcus's view, serious ontologists need singular terms not to be generally referential (see especially sections 3 and 4). Overall, we now have a novel way for serious ontologists to reject linguistic arguments, while accepting (commonsensically) that truths involving singular terms entail quantified truths.
3. Ramseyan Seriousness about Aboutness
Serious ontologists rejecting Syntactic Decisiveness and C4 need not (only) be Meinongian or Barcan-Marcusian, but can be Ramseyan. Frank Ramsey writes:
It seems to me as clear as anything can be in philosophy that the two sentences ‘Socrates is wise’, ‘Wisdom is a characteristic of Socrates’ assert the same fact and express the same proposition. They are not, of course, the same sentence, but they have the same meaning, just as two sentences in two different languages can have the same meaning. (Reference Ramsey1925: 21)
Ramsey famously rejects drawing a particulars-universals distinction based on the linguistic fact of the subject-predicate distinction. maxim echoes his overall conclusion:
Nearly all philosophers . . . have been misled by language in a far more far-reaching way than that; that the whole theory of particulars and universals is due to mistaking for a fundamental characteristic of reality what is merely a characteristic of language. (Reference Ramsey1925: 22)
Ramsey argues that drawing ontological conclusions purely from linguistic distinctions is a mistake. That we normally talk about properties with predicates, rather than subject-position expressions, does not mean that we cannot talk about properties with subject-position expressions. But just because we nominalize the predicate expression ‘is wise’ with the name ‘Wisdom’ does not reveal a special sort of entity called a ‘universal’, distinct from another sort of entity called a ‘particular’ (see MacBride Reference MacBride2005 for further discussion).
A converse point can also be made about other singular terms that seem to refer to particulars, such as ‘the table’. If Unger (Reference Unger1979a, Reference Unger1979b) is right, no tables exist. According to van Inwagen (Reference van Inwagen1990: 108ff), the only things in the vicinity that exist are simples, most likely subatomic particles arranged table-wise (Unger [Reference Unger1979b: 41] does not endorse this). But according to serious ontology, we can still truly assert that the table is black. We can do this, then, without referring to anything. We are talking about a table and some way the table is, that is, its being black. But ultimately we might not strictly be talking about any entities at all (see Schipper Reference Schipper2018: §4.2.3; Reference Schipper2020: §2.3; Yablo [Reference Yablo2014: 75–76] on proportionality; Pietroski's [Reference Pietroski, Preyer and Peter2005: 276–77] France example). We might only be talking about ways things are with subatomic particles although we are not strictly talking about subatomic particles at all, but about a table.
Similarly, α is about ψ, the property of being a dog, but by using α, we need not be referring to an entity. Reflecting on our use of α reveals only that we can talk about properties with singular terms. We can also talk about properties with predicate-expressions such as ‘is a dog’. S1 and S2 are about the same subject matters: Fido and some way that Fido is: being a dog. These subject matters are just spoken of with syntactically different expressions: S1's predicate-expression contains the indefinite article ‘a’, while S2's says the same thing but contains a singular term. Understood in these ways, C4 can be rejected: not all singular terms refer; sometimes they are used to talk about ways things are with other subject matters (e.g., with Fido or the table, which in turn may be a way things are with subatomic particles). We now have a different, serious-ontology-compatible way to reject Syntactic Decisiveness and thereby C4:
Seriousness about Aboutness (SAAB): Some genuinely singular terms, α, used in true truthbearers need not refer to any entities at all, and they can be about ψ without referring to ψ or any entities at all.
The genuinely singular terms in S1 and S2, including ‘Fido’, may be about what we think they are about even if there are no such entities as the property of being a dog and even Fido. Given SAAB, the function of singular terms is not generally, and definitely not solely, to refer (compare with Barcan Marcus above). Syntactically singular terms are still decisively semantically singular, but this need not mean that they refer. Thus, Syntactic Decisiveness is false.
4. Two Kinds of Aboutness
There are two relevant, exclusive, and exhaustive views about aboutness that will help us to understand the proper linguistic framework of serious ontology and which I call representationalism and nonrepresentationalism (see also Schipper Reference Schipper2018: §5). According to
Representationalism: an intentional expression α, such as a truthbearer or a name, is about its intentional objects, for instance, ψ, when, and only when, ψ exists and satisfies the relevant satisfaction-conditions Φ.
Searle writes: ‘if nothing satisfies the referential portion of the representative content then the Intentional state does not have an Intentional object’ (Reference Searle1983: 17). Ceusters and Smith write: ‘an [intentional expression] must in every case be about some portion of reality, where the aboutness in question must always be veridical, so that “being about” is a success verb’ (Reference Ceusters and Smith2015: 3). The upshot is that if p's intentional objects do not exist, then p is not about anything.
By contrast, nonrepresentationalists (e.g., Crane Reference Crane2001: 22ff.; Reference Crane2013: 39ff.) argue for
Nonrepresentationalism: an intentional expression can be about ψ (or ψ being F) without ψ's existing (or ψ being F really being the case) and, thus, without there existing any ψ to satisfy any relevant satisfaction-conditions Φ.
Nonrepresentationalism is expressed here as the negation of representationalism. These two views are exhaustive and exclusive: one can either (i) think that there is aboutness only when the intentional object ψ exists and when ψ satisfies conditions Φ (representationalism) or (ii) deny this (nonrepresentationalism); one cannot do both or neither if one wants a complete account of aboutness.
4.1 Representationalism Fails to Help Serious Ontologists
If representationalists are right, then there is no aboutness when the putative intentional object, ψ, of a putative intentional expression α does not exist (or does not satisfy the conditions). This gives aboutness the same success-dependent structure as reference: when what α is used to refer to, ψ, does not exist, then α does not refer to ψ. If none of the entities ψ exist, then α fails to refer altogether. Thus, representationalism rejects SAAB. Therefore, serious ontology cannot be understood in this way.
Assume what serious ontology takes to be possible: that we can discover with nonlinguistic, metaphysical work that ψ does not exist and that S1 is true. Then, the singular term would fail to refer to ψ. Given representationalism, however, ‘the property of being a dog’ would then not be about anything. According to representationalism, if a singular term purports to refer to an entity but fails, then there is no aboutness. If a sentence χ contains singular terms that are not about anything, then its content is gappy and it is not true. Thus, S2 is not true according to representationalism plus the serious ontological assumption: ‘the property of being a dog’ attempts, but fails, to refer.
By contrast, S1 does not contain singular terms that do not refer and, thus, contains no gappy content. S1 is just true. Therefore, S2 and S1 are not equivalent. They turn out not to entail each other although they should.
This is problematic. This would mean rejecting the validity of nominalization-inferences (e.g., from S1 to S2). Again, this requires a deep revision of our normal linguistic practices. (However, recall that Rayo [Reference Rayo2002: 437], Quine [Reference Quine1981: 92], and Schipper [Reference Schipper2021: §5.2] are more open to revising ordinary linguistic practices than the main serious ontologists in this paper.) Accepting representationalism means rejecting this equivalence. Thus, serious ontology should reject representationalism and accept nonrepresentationalism.
4.2 Nonrepresentationalism: Success vs Satisfaction Conditions
Now I shall fill out the most plausible nonrepresentationalist picture. Recall, according to representationalists, say, a truthbearer of the form ‘o is F’ is only about ψ if there is a ψ that meets some, perhaps a cluster of, relevant, uniquely identifying, representational satisfaction-conditions such as that there is some ψ that is Φ1, Φ2, . . . , or Φn (see Searle Reference Searle1958: 172f.; Strawson Reference Strawson1959: ch. 6; and, for criticism: Kripke Reference Kripke1980: 31ff., 55–67; Barcan Marcus Reference Barcan Marcus1993: 211–12). If no such ψ exists, then ‘o is F’ is not about anything.
By contrast, nonrepresentationalists think that ‘o is F’ or α can be about ψ even if there exists no ψ to satisfy any relevant, representational conditions, Φ1, Φ2, . . ., or Φn. Aboutness has success-conditions rather than satisfaction-conditions. A term's success-conditions vary according to what we are talking about. How α or ‘o is F’ manages to succeed to be about ψ can be understood in various ways, for instance, via a special causal link between α and ψ, via ψ's existence making-true sentences about ψ, via justificatory relations, or via some other way of focusing on ψ.
For instance, if ψ (say, Fido) exists, there are many ways that talking about ψ can succeed (e.g., via causal or noncausal, perceptual means). If Fido never existed, then the success of talking about Fido might require an appropriate causal link with whomever made him up. Or if Fido existed but sadly no longer exists, then success requires the appropriate connections with Fido from when he did exist to the utterance. If Fido is not the kind of thing that could have existed, say if he is just a way things are with subatomic particles and ways do not exist, then success requires other connections, maybe a causal connection with these subatomic particles. Success-conditions depend on the world, especially on Fido and matters relevant to Fido, and not on Fido meeting some linguistically accessible satisfaction-conditions. Furthermore, using ‘is F’, say ‘is a dog’, to say something about ψ, we talk directly and, given the right connections to dogs, successfully about being a dog, some way something could be, rather than about ψ itself, about the success-inducing dogs, or some other way things could be, such as being a wall. Using this predicate or its nominalization successfully, similarly, does not mean that there exists a way things could be.
Serious ontologists codify this as an epistemically plausible, methodological maxim:
serious epistemic maxim: it is never clear purely from what we say whether what we are talking about is an entity or something else, say, a set of entities, an amalgamation of entities, something mistaken such as a hallucinated or dreamt about object, etc.
Without more information about the world and the speaker, we cannot know whether what is talked about exists.
For instance, Sally is talking about a dog she met. After careful questioning, it is revealed that the dog is a figment of her imagination whom she only met in a dream. One can, then, conclude that
Negative Existential (Neg): The dog does not exist
and that she does not talk about the dog with the kind of success required for referring to the dog. But the success-conditions of talking about the dog need not mirror denotational or referential success-conditions. Sally can still successfully talk about the dog, merely by having dreamt of that dog rather than another dog. The dog does not exist, because it is merely dreamt of. Thus, for instance, it is false that the dog exists but true that the dog was merely dreamt of. One is explicitly talking about the dog and saying that he does not exist. One discovered not that anything else does not exist, say Sherlock Holmes or unicorns.
Arguably the original ontological turner, C. B. Martin (Reference Martin1980: 9) writes about ‘the passionfruit is round’ and ‘the passionfruit is purple’ that ‘in each case it is something in particular (and different) about the object [the passionfruit] that makes each statement true. The predicates are built to pick that out’. The semantic function of singular terms (including nominalizations of the predicates) includes introducing particularity and difference, to pick out and talk about some property sometimes, rather than to refer to or denote some entity (e.g., the passionfruit). And any proposed function of singular terms must be consistent with the fact that we pick out the relevant subject matters and meaningfully, coherently, and truly make such negative existential statements as Neg or ‘the property of being a dog doesn't exist’. This indicates that true sentences containing singular terms are not used in a way that entails the existence of what we are talking about. Thus, reference cannot be their only semantic function.
This way of distinguishing between referential and nonreferential functions of singular terms does not vindicate linguisticism as Hofweber's way does for it leaves open to metaphysical, rather than linguistic, discovery what the actual success-conditions are for some intentional expression (that is, whether they are referential or otherwise).
Here is a helpful tool: ψ, Sally's dog, being a dog, and being purple are all talked about intentional objects, that is, ‘just the schematic objects of attention’ (Crane Reference Crane2001: 15) in the sense that they ‘clearly do not need to have anything in common with each other, except that they are objects of thought’ (Schipper Reference Schipper2018: 3702f.). This lack of commonality, this schematicity, extends not just to their not needing to share the same natures but to some of them not even existing (e.g., Sally's dog). The existence (and nature) of a schematic, intentional object of attention is something that we need further nonlinguistic investigation to discover. But, as we saw, even intentional expressions about nonexistent intentional objects have success-conditions. As we saw in this section, these are similarly external and not epistemically accessible merely by reflection on our language games and practices. This gives us a way of thinking about talking about ψ that undergirds serious ontology's acceptance of maxim.
Thus, competent speakers use ‘the property of being a dog’ to talk in a focused manner about the way that dogs are rather than a way that Tibbles the cat is. Much metaphysical work needs to be done to discover whether, as realists insist, being a dog is a special type of entity, or whether, as nominalists claim, being a dog does not exist but is something we only truly talk about with regard to dogs. For instance, the original serious ontologists Martin and Heil defend tropism via ‘the advancement of a plausible overall scheme, one that minimizes brute facts and meshes with empirical theorizing and common understanding’ (Reference Martin and Heil1999: 44, §6). Metaphysics takes much more work than merely accepting conventional, linguistic orthodoxies.
5. Embracing Nonrepresentationalism
5.1 The Argument from Comparison and Sensible Truthseekers
The main argument for antilinguisticism is an argument by comparison. Consider:
S3: Fido appears to be a dog.
S3*: Fido has the appearance of being a dog.
S4: Fido is lucky to be a dog.
S4*: Fido has the luck to be a dog.
Or less straightforwardly but just as validly:
S5: Fido's flourishing was stunted by the lack of care by his owner.
S5*: Fido was left in the lurch by his owner.
These inferences also use pleonastic transformations. But the existence of things called ‘lucks’, ‘lurches’, and ‘appearances’ is accepted as implausible (see also Dyke [Reference Dyke2008: 1–6] on ‘Lurch Realism’ and Musgrave [Reference Musgrave and Dyke2009: 66ff.], analogously, on creeps and ‘Creeps Realism’). Arguments to their existence from the validity of the transformations are not valid. The inference from S1 to S2 has the same structure as that from S3 to S3* and from S4 to S4*. S1, like S3 and S4, is a normal predication. S2, like S3* and S4*, is a nominalized version of the predication with a singular term. There is no special reason to distinguish property-cases from these cases. Therefore, the argument is invalid also in the case of properties. Even though the transformations are valid, to insist that the singular terms refer is to beg the question against nominalists.
When we use S2, S3, S3*, S4, and S4*, we are clearly not just talking about Fido. We also talk about the property being a dog, his appearance, and his luck, respectively. Sensible and competent English speakers might say S3-S4*. They may not have thought of this without having read some philosophy, but when a metaphysician asks them whether appearances and lucks exist, it would be perfectly reasonable and coherent for them to say ‘I don't think so’ or ‘That's unlikely’. It follows from representationalism and linguisticism, but not from nonrepresentationalism and SAAB, that our fellow, sensible, and epistemically responsible truth-seekers would for the most part be not just in massive error but confused for taking nonsense to be meaningful. This consequence is implausible or at least unattractive. Normal, sensible people assert S1 and S2 as easily as they affirm S3 to S4*. This indicates that singular terms in S1 and S2 are used in ways similar to S3* and S4*: not in a way that commits one to anything more metaphysically and ontologically substantial. Thus, SAAB and serious ontology are preferable.
5.2 The Argument from Pleonasm and Redundancy
When we explicitly talk about Fido's dogness and luck with, for instance, singular terms, we are talking about them pleonastically (rather than referentially), in the sense found in any dictionary. For example, Dictionary.com defines ‘pleonasm’ as ‘the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy’. Thus, the two phrases in the pairs S3 and S3*, S1 and S2, one of which nominalizes what we are talking about and the other of which does not are not just equivalent. In the ways relevant to our discussion, they even mean the same thing and are strictly and fully about the same things and the same ways things are with those objects. When we talk pleonastically about properties of Fido we are talking about properties, about how things are with Fido, merely in a different, though linguistically redundant, and perhaps at best wordy and at worst misleading, but still ontologically noncommittal, way (Schipper Reference Schipper2020: §1.1). In particular, one would be misled if one drew the linguistic ontologists’ conclusion that they are intended thus to be used referentially. Serious ontologists recommend caution. (See also Rayo and Yablo Reference Rayo and Yablo2001: 79; Wright Reference Wright and Potter2007: 153ff.; and Yablo's [Reference Yablo1996: 267] criticism of Lewis's paraphrase argument for modal realism: he explains that we need not quantify entitatively or objectually over hows or ways although we talk about them.)
Thomasson (Reference Thomasson2015) agrees about the redundancy of property talk. She argues that we cannot explain why Fido is a dog by referring to Fido's having the property dogness because the latter is ‘just a redundant way of restating the former (introducing a new noun term for a property)’ (Reference Thomasson2015: 157). She compares this to explaining that poppies make us sleepy by referring to their dormitive virtue: ‘saying that something has the dormitive virtue is just a fancy way of saying they make us sleepy . . . and so is redundant[:] it clearly cannot . . . provide any explanation of the fact that poppies make us sleepy’ (Reference Thomasson2015: 156; for critical discussion, see also Hawley Reference Hawley2019: 232f.). In both cases, there is no explanatory value, because they only utilize transformations via conceptual truths. Unlike serious ontologists, Thomasson uses this to argue that dormitive virtues and properties exist.
Some serious ontologists might already react that if such posits are explanatorily empty, we cannot in fact draw the conclusion that they exist. Indeed, if nothing is added of explanatory or informational value, why think that we can draw a conclusion about the existence of dogness or dormitivity simply from their conceptual equivalences with ordinary predications? Either the existence of dogness was implicit in the predication and it thereby does not add anything, or it has to add something. Thomasson accepts that it is not explanatory, in fact because it does not add anything. Therefore, she must think that it is implicit. But is it plausible that quantification over redness or an existence claim about dogness is implicit in a simple predication?
Thomasson's view is that the redundancy is not explanatory, because x making y sleepy just is y having dormitive virtues and Fido being a dog just is Fido's having the property of dogness. Crucially, Thomasson thinks that these just is facts are conceptual truths. Are they?
Just is statements are understood, for instance, by Rayo (Reference Rayo2013: 5) to be no difference statements. They are best understood to be either statements of identity (Hawley Reference Hawley2019: 233) or of grounding (Cameron Reference Cameron2014: 432ff.; Steinberg Reference Steinberg2021: §§2&3). (Rayo [Reference Rayo2013: §1.1, §2] takes ‘just is’ to be a symmetric, two-place sentential operator.) My point is this: The identity-statements or grounding-statements may be true, that is, an existence-fact may in fact be identical with or grounded in a fact expressed by a simple predication, or the other way around. But these identity-statements and grounding-statements cannot be conceptual truths.
Otherwise, especially nominalists simply do not understand the concept of predication because they think that predication does not involve existential quantification into predicate position. The same holds for anyone who thinks that it is a substantive question whether ‘being red’ and ‘is red’ or ‘being a dog’ and ‘is a dog’ require first-order quantification over an entity signified by the word after the copula.
Put this way, we can turn Thomasson's argument against linguistic ontology. Using ‘is red’ or ‘is a dog’ just does not conceptually involve implicit first-order quantification over redness or dogness. ‘Fido is a dog’ is normally formalized as Fa, where ‘a’ is a constant whose semantic value is Fido and ‘F’ stands for ‘is a dog’. With existential introduction, we can normally only infer $\exists xFx$
, not $\exists x\exists y( x$
has y). Unless the standard formalizations and standard inference rules are conceptual falsehoods, Thomasson's view is false. They are legitimate and not conceptual falsehoods. Thus, Thomasson's view is false.
In Thomassonian linguistic ontologists’ favor, implicit first-order quantification, is perhaps the historically most natural way of understanding predication. For instance, Bradley's Regress is pressing because this is the natural metaphysically more detailed understanding of predication.
However, it is clearly not a conceptually required understanding of predication for otherwise there would, plausibly, be no way, on conceptual grounds, even to stop Bradley's Regress. Or, at least, many of the most promising solutions would be ruled out as conceptual falsehoods. For instance, Tractarian Wittgensteinians answer that properties and objects are nonexistent, mere abstractions from states of affairs that are the basic constituents of reality and thus do not require a relation between properties and objects. This might or might not stop the regress. But, it would, problematically, be eliminated on purely conceptual grounds if predication involves conceptually necessary existential commitments.
Further, the following possibility would be ruled out purely on conceptual grounds: that either ‘the house is red’ or ‘the keys are on the table’ does not commit us to the existence of anything answering to any of these sentences’ terms. But this is exactly what truthmaker theorists take to be a live option: that the things that exist do not structurally correspond to any part of a sentence (including the sentence itself), but that what exists is what makes the sentence true. Thomasson (Reference Thomasson2015: 157), who acknowledges that her ‘simple realism’ is incompatible with truthmaker theory, might respond that, indeed, truthmaker theory can be rejected on conceptual grounds and for conceptually misunderstanding predication.
However, this needs to be defended by the Thomassonian linguistic ontologist. Thomasson's (Reference Thomasson2015: 123) main engagement with truthmaker theory is just that her simple realism about X does not require her to posit X as an explanatory truthmaker. This obviously is not sufficient to undermine truthmaker theory on conceptual grounds. (Also, Lewis [Reference Lewis2001: 611–12], Asay [Reference Asay2020: §2], and Schipper [Reference Schipper2022: 3] argue that truthmakers need not be explanatory.)
Overall, it does not seem plausible that normal predications involve hidden, real existential commitments to entities corresponding to noncopulative terms in predicates.
5.3 Talking Pleonastically about ψ with Singular Terms
I propose this. We can talk pleonastically with singular terms about some subject matter ψ without ψ existing, either pleonastically or in a deflationary way as Schiffer and Thomasson claim, or substantially, or in any way at all. Pleonastic entities are explicitly redundant and hence unnecessary: they are prime targets for razors. Pleonastic talk is wordy but innocuous, a device of linguistic convenience and in itself does not reveal anything more substantial (e.g., no ontological commitments to entities). On this, we can learn again from Ramsey. Ramsey (Reference Ramsey1927) had similar thoughts about the truth-predicate itself, which we can simplify also for convenience. Although
t-equivalence: x is true if, and only if, p (e.g., take x to stand for some singular term for a truthbearer, such as the truthbearer in quotation marks, and p to stand for the truthbearer),
x's being true does not require there to be some property being true to be instantiated by x. The equivalence allows us to assert such things as that everything that Russell said in his Reference Russell1921 Beijing lectures is true. This is equivalent to reasserting everything that Russell said in those lectures, but it is less time-consuming. Moreover, it allows us to talk about his statements together and say that they are all true or compare them with other statements, saying for instance that Russell said more true things in Beijing than in his 1940 Harvard lectures.
Talking about properties is similarly convenient. One can say that one loves all the properties of Fido, without asserting a long, and potentially infinite, list of sentences of the S1 form. One can compare properties:
S6: The properties of a good philosophy essay differ from the properties of a good piece of investigative journalism.
This is more convenient than:
S7: A good philosophy essay is clear, defends a philosophical position, etc., while, by contrast, a good piece of investigative journalism protects its anonymous sources, reveals something important about current affairs, etc.
S6 is a more general assertion of difference in properties and more convenient if one wants to state only the contrast and then quickly move on. Explicit talk about properties makes this convenience possible. Such talk is introduced into a language via a comprehension principle such as (see also Schindler Reference Schindler2021: 1, who calls this a ‘schema’):
p-equivalence: an object ψ has the property of being F iff F-ness is a property of ψ iff ψ is F.
p-equivalence is the kind of conceptual truth which Thomassonians have in mind. Indeed, it introduces property-talk into our language and allows for inferences such as from S1 to S2. However, such singular terms are plausibly introduced to talk about these properties more efficiently. Their raison d’être in practical terms is to increase our languages’ expressive power, not to expand our ontology. (Cf. Båve's Reference Båve2015 discussion of the p-equivalence and this raison d’être for introducing property talk. Independently, he defends an error theory of properties [Reference Båve2015: 23]. Schindler [Reference Schindler2021: §6] challenges Båve.)
Singular terms are not merely used to refer, and sometimes it would be to jump the gun to think that they do. That is, one cannot conclude this without further nonlinguistic argumentation. Minimally, when we talk about properties, we talk about them pleonastically merely as ways of being without committing ourselves to the existence of ways of being. Maybe properties exist; maybe they are tropes, Platonic universals, or something else. Serious ontologists insist, conservatively, that we cannot decide this based on the equivalence of sentences with and without singular terms for properties or because of the truth of principles like p-equivalence. Instead, serious ontologists, such as Martin and Heil, insist that we seek ‘unified and satisfying answers to persisting questions’ (Reference Martin and Heil1999: 49), including: ‘How do we stop Bradley's Regress?’ Practical convenience is sufficient for adopting talk about properties, but such talk would be as convenient if properties did not exist. Accordingly, such convenience provides no serious grounds for ontological expansion.
6. Conclusion
In sum, the antilinguisticist argument has two main steps, one epistemic, one linguistic.
(1) epistemic maxim: We cannot know whether the singular term α refers to ψ, a property, without knowing whether nominalism or realism is true. The answer cannot be read off merely from our ordinary acceptance of the inference from S1 to S2. We cannot adjudicate between metaphysical stories (or their unnecessariness) merely by looking at our use of singular terms. Further nonlinguistic argumentation is required.
Serious ontology is ontologically inclusive. It recommends methodological maxims, not ontological positions. Some nominalists reject only abstract objects. Others accept abstract objects but reject universals. Platonic realists accept universals. Russellian realists posit states of affairs as well as universals. Wittgensteinians posit only states of affairs and not universals or particulars. Nihilists reject everything and accept nothing ontologically. All can be serious ontologists if they respect maxim.
(2) linguistic step: Despite the lingering Fregeanism among some philosophers, singular terms are often used nonreferentially. The nonrepresentationalist linguistic picture (i) fits better with natural linguistic practices; (ii) it does not beg the question against nominalism, unlike linguistic arguments. And (iii), it provides a natural Ramseyan way to understand the redundancy of S2 by analogy with the truth-predicate.
Singular terms are versatile. We can use them to talk about properties pleonastically, for convenience, or to compare, to single out some way of being rather than another, and so on. Their many uses leave open the possibility of substantial discoveries about what they are about.
We can distinguish two uses of singular terms: a relational, referential use where α only refers to β if β exists and a nonrelational or noncommittal use where α can be about β both in meaningful but false truthbearers and also in true truthbearers without β existing. There is then a general sense of aboutness in which α is about β, but where it is not clear, from the perspective of speakers and thinkers who use the singular term α prior to doing metaphysics, whether we are using ‘about’ in the first or the second way. Serious ontologists must accept the second as their general use.
One might wonder: ‘Is there a principled answer to the question whether any particular use of a singular term is referential or merely nonrelationally aboutness-bearing?’ Then one might object: ‘Without a principled answer, we have not moved an inch in the debate about whether the linguistic ontologist or the serious ontologist wins’.
Serious ontology's answer is that metaphysics must dictate which singular terms refer and which allow us merely to single out and focus, nonrelationally, on objects of thought and talk. If nihilism is true, nothing exists, and no singular terms refer. If realism about Fido is true, ‘Fido’ refers. Realists about the property being a dog will insist that S2 is true and that ‘the property of being a dog’ refers. But neither type of realist, if serious, will accept that we can infer that a property exists from the truth of S1 and of S2.
To demand any other principled way of adjudicating between these different uses of singular terms, would mean misunderstanding and rejecting serious ontology, demanding that we read off our ontology from language. There is simply no principled way to decide whether ‘the property of being a dog’ refers prior to doing the hard, diverse metaphysical work of discovering whether there exist properties and in particular the property of being a dog. This, I have argued, is what follows from the serious ontologists’ rejection of linguistic arguments. We now better understand, with a little help from some friends, Barcan Marcus, Meinong (Reference Meinong and Chisholm1904), Ramsey, and others, how serious ontologists should understand singular terms. We now also better understand their insistence that metaphysics, not language, comes first.
