by Prof. Michele Marsonet.

In a short but important article[1], the Polish woman philosopher Izydora Dambska criticized the thesis – endorsed by Tadeusz Kotarbinski[2] – to the effect that there are “empty” terms which denote no objects at all, besides the usual general and singular terms. Dambska remarked that “we usually find cited as examples of empty names such self-contradictory names as <square circle> or <son of a childless mother>, or names of mythical deities – fictitious figures that exist only in legends, poems, novels, etc.”[3]. She also pointed out, however, that the basic semantic function of names consists in denoting. This means that, if we admit the concept of a name which denotes nothing, either we arbitrarily change the meaning of the term “name” or run into contradiction. In fact – she observed – “for the everyday interpretation of the term <name>, a name which does not denote anything is practically a non-name”[4].

          In order to solve this problem, Kotarbinski modified the definition of a name replacing the usual semantic definition with a syntactic one, so that to be a term amounts to be usable as a “predicative word” within a sentence of the type “A is B”. By adopting such a strategy, we are allowed to use empty names but, at the same time, there is no true statement in which an empty name might occur as a predicative word. Kotarbinski’s proposal, however, is not very helpful from the philosophical viewpoint. No doubt the interesting problem in this context is philosophical and not formal, since it regards primarily the relationships between logic and ontology. We can claim that Kotarbinski’s proposal solves the problem only by adopting a view endorsed by logical positivism and some representatives of analytic philosophy, i.e., by identifying logic and ontology. But, if one refuses to adopt such a stance, clearly the problem keeps its full philosophical significance.

          Dambska went on saying that, if “we substitute empty names for both A and B, or an empty name for A and a non-empty one for B, we obtain statements which may be true or false. The statement <Erato is a Muse> is true; <Erato is one of the Fates> is false; <Zeus was a deity in Greek mythology> is true; and <Zeus was a deity in Chinese mythology> is false. The latter case (a statement in which an empty name occurs only as subject) is not an argument against the definition of empty names, but the former is. For to questions about who Erato and Atropos were, I can give the true answer: Erato was a Muse, and Atropos was one of the Fates, even though supposedly neither the Muses nor the Fates exist”[5]. Dambska cleverly underlined that, here, we face a problem which is first of all metaphysical, even though it obviously has an important logical side too. One is entitled to claim that the metaphysical dimension of this same problem is not important only if (1) he endorses a materialistic viewpoint (by claiming that only physical, perceptible entities exist), or (2) he rejects any distinction between the logical dimension and the ontological-metaphysical one.

          It is interesting to note that in Quine’s works we find the same problem mentioned above, when dealing with Dambska’s criticisms of Kotarbinski’s stance. Throughout Quine’s writings, in fact, we constantly find the following question: “What kinds of objects do exist?”, and the so-called “ontic decision”, that is to say the decision concerning what objects should be admitted into ontology, is the cornerstone of his philosophical research. A central position has been given to these problems in Quine’s speculation since the late 1930s, and important formulations may be found in such writings as “On What There Is”, Word and Object, and “Ontological Relativity”[6]. Quine believes that ontological problems can be addressed (and eventually solved) only by means of logic. Obviously, no one means to deny that formal logic is an essential tool when ontological questions are coped with, but in Quine’s view the above mentioned statement is much stronger, since he claims that ontological problems are, at bottom, logical matters: standard quantification theory, and in particular existentially quantified sentences, are in his opinion the ontological idiom par excellence. This position leads us to take into account the relationship between languageand the world. Why does Quine assume such a position?

          The answer is provided by three interconnected stances which can be detected in his works: (A) Only formal logic can adequately describe reality; (B) It is impossible to make a distinction between logic, language and reality; and (C) It is difficult to ascertain whether there is a world independent of the language we use for talking about the world. Quine underlines that the latter – i.e., (C) – is precisely the problem we have to solve in order to get a satisfactory comprehension of what ontology is and what it means to formulate ontological questions. And in fact, when posing existential problems in his works, Quine always adopts this formulation: (D) Are we allowed to use a term x without presuming, by that same fact, the existence of the entity (object) named by x? In other words, what worries him is the possibility that a speaker uses non-denoting or general terms just believing that there is something real named by them. But – we may ask – are those really ontological problems?

          For example, we may find someone believing in the existence of winged horses. If he tells us that Pegasus exists, in order to show him that this statement is incorrect we will not use quantification theory but, rather, we invite him to pursue an empirical recognition. It may turn out, at some point, that he believes in the existence of mental entities, thus rendering a direct empirical recognition quite hard. Even in that case, though, we may agree on the fact that mythological texts report many stories about Pegasus and winged horses. Provided we are ready to accept an extended ontology including mythological objects, we may also concede that the sentence “Pegasus is the winged horse of Bellerophon” is true, while the sentence “Pegasus is the winged horse of Hercules” is false. We may subsequently formalize those two sentences using first order logic, but this move will neither solve nor add anything to the question whether there are winged horses or not. The solution, in fact, depends on two facts: (1) Our interlocutor’s ability to actually find winged horses; and (2) His background ontological assumptions. If he is an empiricist, he will make one claim, and if he is a mentalist he will make yet another claim.

          If we pose the previous questions in a Quinean style, we can find out that non-denoting singular terms like “Pegasus” or general terms like “centaur” do not work in language as usual names do[7]. No doubt this is an important result, but its consequences regard formal logic and the philosophical analysis of language. It is thus difficult to understand how one may determine the existence (or the non-existence) of certain objects by adopting Quine’s point of view. We may find a possible solution to this puzzling problem if, and only if, the existence of a reality independent of knowing subjects is questioned. It would therefore be necessary to adopt a different notion of reality, inextricably connected with language and such that its meaningfulness coincides with our capacity to express it at the linguistic level. And in fact he often gives hints in this direction, claiming that “ontology is internal to language”. This move, however, does not justify the elimination of the so-called empty names.

          Let us note now that Quine always claims that he is a convinced empiricist, and this is the reason why he is so often prisoner of two alternatives which seem incompatible. (1) On the one side he supports a strong version of empiricism, according to which reality is simply (and only) what we can have experience of from the sensory viewpoint; but, (2) on the other, he supports a sort of logical and linguistic realism, according to which reality is simply (and only) what we are able to express within our language adequately modified by having recourse to logical formalization. His neopositivist legacy takes him to a form of radical empiricism, while his logical realism leads him in quite a different direction.

          Only by taking this inner tension into account is it possible to make sense of Quine’s claim that Pegasus does not exist because the term “Pegasus” does not work as a real name when it is encapsulated in a sentence. It follows – in his opinion – that we must resist the temptation to adopt an overcrowded ontology (an “overpopulated universe”)[8]. We would like to stress that the attempt to base ontology on this sort of linguistic/aesthetic preference looks unjustified: If reality were truly overcrowded from the ontological viewpoint, would it follow – according to Quine – that we should give priority to his (or even our) preferences rather than to the ontological structure of reality? Maybe Ockham’s razor, after all, is not such a good ontological criterion: Why should we decide to simplify, following our personal taste and opinions, a reality which is itself complex?

          It is worth noting at this point that Quine himself gives us some good hints for facing the aforementioned problem. Let us ask again: “What objects are we allowed to admit into our ontology?”. Since according to Quine we cannot admit possible objects, meanings, intensional and abstract entities, what remains to be done is to determine the scope of our ontological commitment. Quine’s answer is the following: the existence of any object is relative tothe language we speak, and is therefore based on such a language. If this is the situation, it would seem to follow that there are no objects independent of the language we use to talk about them and that, furthermore, there are no objects independent of the linguistic terms which denote them. Perhaps it would be better to substitute the word “ontology” with the expression “logical universe of discourse”, but Quine never makes such a move, and so we face the following alternative: Either language and reality are the same thing, or language and reality, even though they do not coincide completely, are so inextricably connected that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other. No wonder, then, that when Quine writes about ontology, he always refers to language. Since the existence of objects is determined by the language one speaks, any decision concerning ontological problems implies the clarification of which ontological commitments are embedded in a particular language, and this, in turn, means that speakers of different languages assume (or may assume) different ontological commitments, so that ontology is internal to language as we said before.

          At this point we think it is better to abandon talk about logic and logical quantification in order to shift our attention, instead, to conceptual schemes. Nothing prevents us from claiming that there indeed is a reality independent of human subjects. But, at the same time, we should admit that the descripition of this same reality involves the reference to minds. In other words, we should recognize that we get in touch with reality – including ourselves as part of it – through conceptualization which, in turn, can be expressed by means of thought (plus language). And, having granted this fact, we must now try to verify what kind of consequences may be drawn from it. Since mind is responsible for nature as we understand it, and not for nature itself, we eliminate from the onset one of the major critical points of idealistic philosophies.

          On the one hand mind does not causally produce nature but, on the other, we always need the mind for conceiving nature itself: Our reference to the so-called external world is always mind-correlative. Note, however, that we are not compelled to have recourse to apriorism in this context. We can take this creative human capacity as fitting in the order of nature, stemming from a long process of evolution which, although not completely known thus far, can nevertheless be described with sufficient precision. In this process man comes on the stage relatively late, and gradually acquires a predominant position thanks to his capacities which are in turn a product of natural evolution. If we follow this path, the human capacity of conceptualizing becomes something natural and explainable, although our comprehension of its historic origin and concrete development is by no means complete.

          Here, however, a further step is mandatory. Let us think of (A) reality-as-we-conceive-it. We can grant that it cannot be identified with (B) nature itself which, as such, is mind-independent. What are we supposed to do with reality-as-we-conceive-it? A naive realist would most likely answer that we do not need it: Being a product of our conceptual apparatus, we can just rule out the possibility that it has any ontological value whatsoever. We do not find this position acceptable, and for a very simple reason: How can we deny the existence of entities like dreams or mythological characters which are clearly there, although not in the same sense as physical objects? As Aristotle claims, “being” can be talked about in many ways. We live in an extremely complex reality. Besides facing a world which is not produced by us, we also build up a reality which is the product of our mind.

          On the one side (i) we cannot identify those two kinds of reality, but on the other (ii) we can neither deny existence to one of the two, because it is a fact that they both exist, nor (iii) can we divide them with too rigid a boundary. There is in fact continuity between (A) and (B): A dream cannot be separated from the subject who dreams it. But note – and this is very important for our discourse – that there is continuity even between us and such typical fictional objects like Pegasus. To deny that Pegasus exists despite the fact that (a) mankind created this fictional character and (b) it can be found in our mythology texts is, in our view, untenable. And it should also be noted that there is a difference between dreams and mythological characters. In the case of mythological characters, in fact, we have operative, intersubjective criteria that allow us to say when we pronounce true or false statements about them.

          Quine, once again, would disagree with such an “overcrowded” ontology but, as previously noted, we think that Ockham’s razor, which he so often applies, poses too many problems to be adopted uncritically. Quine is still prisoner of the positivist dogma according to which “real” is only what is material and empirically observable, a dogma that contemporary science has shown to be untenable (think, for example, of quantum mechanics)[9]. Moreover, this prompts us to be rather skeptical about Kotarbinski’s reism. If reality is complex, ontology is bound to be complex as well: We cannot oversimplify reality according to our personal opinions. So we have different kinds of existence. First of all a conceptual existence which is predicated of conceptual reality: It is tied to our conceptual apparatus and is bound to vanish along with it. Secondly we have a vaster concept of existence, which may be predicated of external reality too. It should be clear, however, that both kinds of existence are real, the only difference being that the first is tied to worlds in which men with their minds are present, while the second has a broader range, since it is relative to any kind of world, either inhabited or not by mind-equipped entities.

          By granting the mind-independent existence of reality as such, we can admit without problems not only that (1) mind shapes reality as-we-conceive-it, but also that: (2) only through mind can we get in touch with reality itself. Unlike the other entities that form reality itself, in fact, we are mind-equipped, which means that we get in touch with external reality through conceptualization. However, since this faculty need not to be assimilated to the a priori faculties envisioned by Kant, but may instead be explicable as the outcome of a natural process of evolution, we need not assume, either, that reality itself exists as long as it gets in touch with our perceptual apparatus. We are indeed creators of some type of reality, i.e. reality-as-we-conceive-it, and in this sense literature, philosophy, mythology, etc., are all products of the human mind. Our world (i.e., nature-as-we-conceive-it) would not even exist without mind’s capacity of conceptualizing and, as a matter of fact, we cannot even imagine a different way for getting in touch with reality itself. Certainly no “vision of the world” would then be possible.

          Going back now to Dambska’s article on empty names, we find there a clear understanding (as early as 1948) of the untenability of the neopositivist and purely linguistic approach, along with some clear anticipations that are today widespread following the post-empiricist turn. She recognized, for example, that the extension of the term “empty name” varies according to our Weltanschauung, so that “For a pious ancient Greek the word <Zeus> was not an empty name, but for an 18th century atheist the word <God> was”[10]. What follows from such remarks? Resuming our previous distinction between (A) reality-as-we-understand-it, and (B) reality itself, one may wonder whether it is ontological or epistemological. To answer this question, we might say that ontology aims at discovering what kind of entities make up reality (“what there is”, to use the Quinean expression), while epistemology’s task is to discover the principles by which we get to know reality.

          As a matter of fact, however, men understand reality itself (i.e., B) in a great number of different ways, and the history of science gives us a clear picture of this situation. So reality-as-we-understand-it truly changes. Our vision of it is quite different from the vision held by the ancient Greeks or the men living in the Middle Ages. We may admit that a distinction can be drawn between the natural world on the one hand, and the socio-linguistic world on the other. But it should also be specified that, from an historical viewpoint, we began to identify ourselves and the objects that surround us only when the socio-linguistic world emerged from the natural one, and this in turn means that our criteria of identification are essentially social and linguistic. We need an intersubjective criterion giving rise to the notion of a world which is both objective and mind-independent. This means that the distinction subject/object cannot be found in nature: It arises when men have such an intersubjective criterion, i.e., within a social world created by men themselves. It is important to note that these remarks do not entail the total identification of the aforementioned two worlds. The conclusion is rather that, of the natural world as such, little can be said. We can suppose that a border-line between ontology and epistemology really exists but, at the same time, as long as we are concerned, such a distinction looks less important today than it was usually thought to be.

          There are two main reasons which explain why things are so. On the one hand conceptualization gives us access to the world, while, on the other, it is the most important feature of our cultural evolution (which is distinct from – although not totally separated from – biological evolution)[11]. This does not mean to diminish the importance of the latter, which is specifically geared to the natural world and, after all, is supposed to precede our cultural development from the chronological viewpoint. However, it is cultural evolution that distinguishes us from all other living beings that happen to share our planet with us. While the thesis according to which the mind produces natural reality looks hardly tenable, it is reasonable to claim that we perceive this same reality by having recourse to the filter of a conceptual apparatus whose presence is, in turn, geared to the development of language and social organization.

          This is the reason preventing any neat distinction between ontology and epistemology. It is obvious that if our conceptual apparatus is at work even when we try to pave our way towards unconceptualized reality, our access to it entails anyhow the involvement of the mind. Resorting to a paradox, it might be said that the unconceptualized reality turns out to be an image of the mind (even though, it is worth repeating it, this recognition does not force us to deny the mind-independent existence of an unconceptualized reality).

          So, we must distinguish between “son of a childless mother” and “Pegasus”. The latter belongs to mythology, which is part of the social-linguistic world which forms our shared cultural heritage (and this means, in turn, that “Pegasus” is anything but an empty name). As far as we are concerned, the socio-linguistic reality is as real as natural reality, the only difference being that the former is strictly connected to us. We cannot claim that only the material-empirical reality exists, or that it is the only reality worth to be taken into account: Socio-linguistic reality exists as well, and we must make room for it in our ontology.

          One should always take into account the broader models (conceptual schemes, cultural traditions) by means of which we judge our sentences – including the mythological ones – to be true or false. They are part of the “framework of conceptual thinking”[12] and, as long as men are concerned, they can think because they are able to measure their thoughts by having recourse to standards of correctness and of relevance. The aforementioned “framework of conceptual thinking” somehow transcends the individual thought of individual thinkers. This explains why there is truth and error with respect to it, even though we may talk of entities which do not exist in the physical world. There is indeed a correct and an incorrect way to describe this framework.

          Eventually, we may wonder to what extent Izydora Dambska can be deemed to have endorsed such a view. The answer is that this view is somehow implicit in her own words. She realized that “The claim that empty names do not denote anything is (…) just an unattractive formulation which poisons human souls”[13], but she also kept her analysis at the level of logic and the philosophy of language. Jan Wolenski noted in this regard that “Dambska’s argumentation (…) raises an important issue, which particularly now is a subject matter of lively discussion among logicians in connection with so-called free logics, i.e., logics without existential assumptions”[14]. To this we would like to add, as our previous analysis has hopefully shown, that her short 1948 article is a very interesting anticipation of the current debate on conceptual schemes as well.

Genoa University

Philosophy Dept.

Italy

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[1] I. Dambska, “Concerning the So-Called Empty Names”, in J. Pelc (ed.), Semiotics in Poland: 1894-1969, Reidel, Dordrecht-Boston, 1979, pp. 126-130. The paper was originally published in Polish in 1948.

[2] T. Kotarbinski, Gnosiology: The Scientific Approach to the Theory of Knowledge, Pergamon Press, Oxford-London, 1966, pp. 389-409.

[3] I. Dambska, op. cit., p. 126.

[4] Ibid., p. 127.

[5] Ibid.

[6] W.V. Quine, “On What There Is”, in W.V. Quine, From a Logical Point of View, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA)-London, 1980, 4th pr., pp. 1-19; Word and Object, The MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1960; “Ontological Relativity”, in W.V. Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia University Press, New York-London, 1969, pp. 26-68.

[7] For a more detailed analysis of Quine’s stance see M. Marsonet, Science, Reality, and Language, State University of New York Press, Albany (NY), 1995.

[8] W.V. Quine, “On What There Is”, cit., p. 4.

[9] See P. Davies, J. Gribbin, The Matter Myth, Simon & Schuster, New York-London, 1992.

[10] I. Dambska, Ibid.

[11] The distinction biological/cultural evolution is clearly stated in N. Rescher, A Useful Inheritance: Evolutionary Aspects of the Theory of Knowledge, Rowman & Littlefield, Savage (MD), 1990. See also M. Marsonet, The Primacy of Practical Reason. An Essay on Nicholas Rescher’s Philosophy, University Press of America, Lanham-New York-London, 1996.

[12] For a definition of this expression see W. Sellars, “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man”, in W. Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London-New York, 1963, pp. 1-40.

[13] I. Dambska, Ibid., p. 130.

[14] I. Wolenski, Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School, Kluwer, Dordecht-Boston-London, 1989, p. 270.