Is Whatever Exists Knowable and Nameable?

Abstract

Subsequent Naiyayikas take over and develop this thesis in various interesting ways, but my concern here is with its philosophical significance and plausibility, rather than its history.2 Nyaya understands this thesis to be fully convertible: not only are all existents knowable and nameable, but anything knowable or nameable exists. That is, not only is existence a universal property, but so, too, are knowability and nameability. Prima facie the thesis is especially implausible when we consider the case of nameability. First, it seems we can readily name entities that do not exist (e.g., Pegasus, rabbit horns). Second, we can apparently at least imagine that there may be unnameable entities. But in doing so we name these entities unnameable. Thus, since they are so nameable, they must but since they are both nameable and unnameable they also cannot exist-a contradiction. To these objections Nyaya responds by distinguishing between empty referring expressions and non-empty referring expressions. Briefly, the Nyaya strategy is to treat empty referring terms as complex and their simple parts as standing for real elements. Sentences like The rabbit horn does not exist, which apparently refer to nonexistent entities, are translated into sentences like There is no relation between the rabbit and a horn, which refer only to entities (including relations) that are reals according to Nyaya metaphysics.3 Nameable means, then, nameable in the ideal language of the Nyaya system wherein all genuine names refer to the reals admitted by Nyaya ontology. No such real is either unnameable or unknowable. What about If every existent is knowable, by whom is it knowable? One possibility is that all existents are knowable by an omniscient God. From a fairly