Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Oxford University Press and Mind Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Mind.
http://www.jstor.org
432
D. A. GRIFFITHS:
D. F. PEARS
ON 'IS
EXISTENCE
A PREDICATE?'
433
(unlike IFi) does really (as they both appear to) make a point about
statementslike 'Tigers exist'.
fullysignificant
But how is Pears goingto pull offthe trickof givinga precisereformulation of 'not saying anythingabout tigers'; a reformulationthat is
applicable to statementsthat are not referentialtautologies,yet a rein termsof the RTCP, which,on the face of it, is applicable
formulation
tautologies?He claimsthat ' "being about something"
onlyto referential
means "being about somethingin such a way thatits existenceis referentiallyimplied" ' (p. 98). But this reallyis a trick!If the tutor'scomment
at the bottomof a student'sessayis 'This does not answerthe question',
and the studentsays to himself'All he means is that I did not answer
the questionin such a way . .. (as, forexample,to relateit to last week's
essay), i.e. I did answer the question, but not in this particularway',
thenwe can onlythinkthathe is deludinghimself(at least,overwhathis
tutormeant). Pears' 'refining'at least leaves open the question whether
anythingis said about tigers,and stronglysuggeststhe followinginterpretation:'Althoughsomethingis being said about tigers,it is not said
in such a way that . . .' (particularlysince Pears, on page 97, arguesthat
somethingis said about tigers).But IF2 states,quite simply,thatnothing
is said about tigers.Whatevermay be said about the truthor falsityof
but a rejecting.
IF2, Pears' 'refining'is not a refining,
Thus Pears makes the strangesuggestionthat 'says nothing about
tigers'reallymeans 'says somethingabout tigers,but not in such . . .
My claim thenis thathe is led to make this suggestionin his attemptto
forceonto the RTCP somethingdesignedto expressthe CMP. So how
does IF2 relate to the CMP? Well, if we turn back to the identifying
statementof the CMP, we findwhat is, simplyand clearly,a generalised
IF2. In this particularcase we get: 'When I assertthattigersexist I am
not saying anythingabout (individual) tigers(that is, about particular
members,or each member,of the class of tigers),(but I am sayingsomethingabout the class of tigers).'This, I would claim,is neitherrejection
(which is what Pears does) nor refining(Pears' intention),but merely
clarification.
(iv) Pears and Moore. Let us now turnto Pears' suggestionthathe is
followingup some ideas of G. E. Moore. Moore, in his article,draws
between 'exists' and other grammatical
attentionto certaindifferences
are perhaps involvedin
predicates,and suggeststhat these differences
what has been meantby ENP. Our question,then,is this: Do Moore's
relateto the RTCP, as Pears appears to claim, or do theyin
differences
is in
factrelateto the CMP? Moore's positiveaccountof the differences
two parts (Sections I(i) and I(2) of his article),and it will be convenient
to take the second partfirst.
(a) 'This tigerexists'. In Section I(2) Moore comparescertainuses of
is that,
'exists' and 'growls' and argues that the fundamentaldifference
given a certainunderstandingof 'exist', then to say 'This exists' would
(unlike saying'This growls') be to express no propositionat all, would
be absolutelymeaningless(p. I85 in P.A.S.S.V. I936). Now Pears, as
we have seen, uses the RTCP to explain the queerness of 'This exists'.
Thus bothwritersprovidea reason for 'This exists' being, in some way,
434
D.
A. GRIFFITHS:
. a few .
D. F. PEARS
ON 'IS
EXISTENCE
A PREDICATE?'
OF HONG
KONG