Re: BHA: absence

[Louis Irwin <lirwin1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ruth,

>...granting ontological status not just to non-existent
>entities (bad enough) but to *the fact of their being non-existent*,
>undermines the force of their negativity.

Are you saying that if there were a fact of something's non-existence, it
would be a presence that belies its negativity, which by its nature should
be the other of presence?  If an absence could be present, then it would not
be really a negative, because negativity is the other of presence.  It seems
to me that that view requires a conception of existence which is very
strongly
tied to what is present to thought or the senses, so that the negativity you
want for non-existence is the other of a presence to the senses or thought.
 In other words, such a conception of negativity embodies the epistemic
fallacy.

Note also that Bhaskar does not grant the same kind of ontological status to
facts as to things (including non-existents).  Facts are products of the
transitive dimension of thought, unlike the existents and non-existents in
the intransitive dimension.  So if you are worried over granting
ontological status to non-existents in the transitive dimension, the
construction of facts about them in the transitive dimension should not
really add to you worry.

>Maybe I just can't separate out
>the notion of ontological status from the idea of existence, or being.
>Anyway, its an analogous problem to the one that I had with truth being an
>ontological category.  Both "truth" and "absence" seem to me to be
>epistemological categories.

I am inclined to say that ontological status is tied to the category of the
real, which in turn is tied to causality.  You are basically asking whether
something that does not exist can have a causal reality.  The most
important question may be whether an analysis in terms of real
non-existents cannot be better stated in terms of the reality of the
concepts of non-existents.

>...on what grounds are we saying that Socrates *IS* real, as
>opposed to *WAS* real?  Is it just that if you ever "existed" (or, to be
>precise, if the referent of the concept ever existed), then you get to keep
>being "real", even after you don't exist anymore?  If not, and it's just
>that the idea of Socrates continues to have causal efficacy (presumably
>because he, the man, did once exist), then I think you have to say that
>Santa is real too.  I mean, either reality is conferred by existence or it
>isn't.  No?

We can grant that the concepts of Santa and of Socrates have causal
efficacy and hence are real, but that is not what is at issue here.  What
confers reality on Socrates but not Santa is connected to the causal
relations to the man who once did exist.

>Second, there are two levels of abstraction.  Using your nomenclature, the
>first is the question of whether non-existent entities themselves have
>ontological standing (and, as above, perhaps I need some clarification about
>what it means to having ontological standing); the second is whether
>non-existence in and of itself has what I am calling ontological standing.
>I'm not convinced yet of either.

Tying ontological status to the real and causal impact as above, I would
say that non-existent entitities sometimes have ontological standing,
sometimes not.  The difference is to be found in causal impacts.  Santa
(the person, not the concept) does not qualify, Socrates does.  I don't
think non-existence in and of itself has ontological standing, because
Santa is non-existent and lacks ontological standing.

>I think I would be inclined to say something like "The idea, or memory, of
>Socrates is as real as any other concept, but Socrates himself is no longer
>real," followed by "The idea that, because he's dead, Socrates is absent,
>non-existent and unreal is itself as present, existent and real as any other
>idea that I may have, but "absence", "non-existence" and "unreality" in and
>of themselves have no special ontological status different from that of any
>other idea.

Certainly we have to keep apart Socrates the man and the concept of
Socrates, and certainly the concept of Socrates is as real as Socrates
himself.  I guess you are suggesting that an analysis in which we refer to
the causal efficacy of the concepts of non-existent things is superior to
an anlysis in which we countenance real non-existent things.  That of
course is to reject DPF.

Louis Irwin



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