Ockham on the Cognition of Non-existents

Abstract

ive knowledge of non-existents. Boehner's problem therefore does not arise. It still remains that there is no immediate evidence of the supernatural causation of assent to a proposition about non-existents. But with the evaporation of Boehner's problem we might argue that we have indirect evidence of it. Our understanding the meaning of propositions about non-existents makes us realize what sort of knowledge we assent to. But could our knowing that we assent to an intuitive knowledge of non-existents count as indirect evidence of a supernatural causation of our assent? In a way yes, although the semantic reason for knowing that we assent to intuitive knowledge is indifferent to whether it concerns existent or non-existent things. Semantic competence is the clue to decide whether some name or term stands (in personal supposition) for a thing in the external world or not. We know e.g., that 'star' stands for a thing in the sky. We further know that there must be empirical evidence of it to make an affirmative proposition, with 'star' as its subject, true. If there is no empirical evidence, the proposition is false and the negation of the proposition true. Semantic competence tells us that propositions containing absolute names can be empirically tested. This implies that we can state the lack of empirical evidence. We do this e.g., by negation of the false proposition 'the star exists.' The truth of the 44WILHELM VOSSENKUHL proposition 'the star does not exist' implies that there is no empirical evidence of the star. We can say that the lack of empirical evidence is a semantic or logical reason to assent to that negative existential proposition. For Ockham—we may argue—the lack of empirical evidence counts as indirect evidence of a supernatural cause of our assent to the negative existential proposition. All evidence has to be empirical evidence. Ockham does not compromise. The lack of empirical facts cannot be balanced by semantic or logical facts. Where we have a semantic reason to expect empirical evidence, the lack of empirical evidence cannot be compensated naturally. But the semantic reason to expect empirical evidence warrants that it is possible to find such evidence even if it is not available at present. It is correspondingly impossible that such evidence of an existential proposition is unattainable. Therefore it is perfectly consistent to conserve intuitive knowledge of that existential proposition. But we are not prepared to do so on our own because we cannot conserve empirical evidence beyond the actual presence of a thing. Nevertheless we do have, as Ockham claims, intuitive knowledge of a thing which is not present. This epistemic fact together with both the semantic reason for empirical evidence and our inability to conserve it may count as indirect evidence of a supernatural cause for the conservation of intuitive knowledge. Finally what may count as indirect evidence for the supernatural conservation of intuitive knowledge may as well count as indirect evidence for the supernatural causation of an assent to a negative existential proposition. From a contemporary perspective Ockham seems to make too much fuss about the conservation and endurance of intuitive knowledge. We have learned to handle with ease negative existential propositions. We analyse these propositions using the negative existential quantifier. We can do this e.g., with propositions like 'the unicorn does not exist' or 'the star does not exist.' There is a common form of all these propositions: ~ 3? (? is a · ? exists) Ockham might well agree with this analysis. But he would probably ask how we proceed from this analysis to the empirical possibility of the star as against the empirical impossibility of the unicorn. He would not agree with our separation between logical and semantical Ockham on the Cognition of ???-Existents45 analysis on the one hand and empirical analysis on the other. His theory of supposition does not allow of treating absolute names like 'star' in a purely abstract way or in the same way as 'unicorn.' He is therefore bound to cope with the problem of distinguishing empirically relevant from empirically irrelevant negative existential propositions. Empirical relevance is of course not to be gathered from the form of negative existential propositions. Without a qualification of the cognitive process related to such propositions it seems impossible to state their empirical relevance. This is true for Ockham as it is today. He qualified the cognitive process presupposed in empirically relevant negative existential propositions in his argument. It still seems most extravagant to resort to a supernatural cause of the assent to such propositons. But within his nominalist framework of thought he couldn't find a better way to keep up his rigid standard of empirical evidence and intuitive knowledge. UniversitatBayreuthWilhelm Vossenkuhl Bayreuth, Germany