Necessity

Vagueness

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Vagueness comes in various kinds. In the first place, everything that human beings think or say is vague in principle, because of the weakness of human understanding. Our understanding is to the fullness of reality “as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day,” and this weakness of our understanding is found within everything we think or say. Discussing why there is something rather than nothing, we saw that there must be a being which is necessary in itself. But even after making this argument, this does not become evident to us in itself, and this is because we do not know the nature of being.

Considering whether names said of God belong primarily to him or to us, St. Thomas says,

I answer that, In names predicated of many in an analogical sense, all are predicated because they have reference to some one thing; and this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all. And since that expressed by the name is the definition, as the Philosopher says (Metaph. iv), such a name must be applied primarily to that which is put in the definition of such other things, and secondarily to these others according as they approach more or less to that first. Thus, for instance, “healthy” applied to animals comes into the definition of “healthy” applied to medicine, which is called healthy as being the cause of health in the animal; and also into the definition of “healthy” which is applied to urine, which is called healthy in so far as it is the sign of the animal’s health. Thus all names applied metaphorically to God, are applied to creatures primarily rather than to God, because when said of God they mean only similitudes to such creatures. For as “smiling” applied to a field means only that the field in the beauty of its flowering is like the beauty of the human smile by proportionate likeness, so the name of “lion” applied to God means only that God manifests strength in His works, as a lion in his. Thus it is clear that applied to God the signification of names can be defined only from what is said of creatures. But to other names not applied to God in a metaphorical sense, the same rule would apply if they were spoken of God as the cause only, as some have supposed. For when it is said, “God is good,” it would then only mean “God is the cause of the creature’s goodness”; thus the term good applied to God would included in its meaning the creature’s goodness. Hence “good” would apply primarily to creatures rather than to God. But as was shown above, these names are applied to God not as the cause only, but also essentially. For the words, “God is good,” or “wise,” signify not only that He is the cause of wisdom or goodness, but that these exist in Him in a more excellent way. Hence as regards what the name signifies, these names are applied primarily to God rather than to creatures, because these perfections flow from God to creatures; but as regards the imposition of the names, they are primarily applied by us to creatures which we know first. Hence they have a mode of signification which belongs to creatures, as said above.

St. Thomas does not say it explicitly, but the principle he presents here, “this one thing must be placed in the definition of them all,” implies that according to his argument, God is contained in the definitions of creatures. And in this way the being which is necessary in itself must be in the definition of every being. Consequently our failure to understand the nature of being in itself implies a failure to fully understand the nature of any being.

Second, someone can say something vague for the sake of accuracy, namely because he knows that his knowledge is vague, and he wishes to express his knowledge as it is, rather than claiming to know more than he does. Freeman Dyson and others say that “it is better to be wrong than vague,” but they are, strictly speaking, wrong about this. It is better to be vague and right, rather than clear and distinct, but wrong.

Third, someone can say something vague because he does not primarily care about whether or not it is true, but about something else. In this case it may be left vague because there is no need for the effort that it would take to make it clear, since the person’s purposes can be achieved without that effort, or it may be left vague because those purposes are achieved even better when it remains vague. Thus there is a story about Hegel, which I was unable to track down while writing this post, which says that he explained to someone that the Phenomenology of Spirit had to be extremely difficult to understand, in order to ensure that Hegel would become famous. I do not find the story particularly credible, but I do find the motive credible.

I said “strictly speaking” above in discussing people who say that it is better to be wrong than vague, because in many cases such people are actually opposing the third kind of vagueness, and are simply intending to say that it is better to care about the truth but to make a mistake, than not to care about the truth at all, and therefore not to bother to say something which could turn out to be wrong.

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

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Martin Heidegger begins his Introduction to Metaphysics with what he calls “The Fundamental Question of Metaphysics”:

Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question. Presumably it is no arbitrary question. “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?”—this is obviously the first of all questions. Of course, it is not the first question in the chronological sense. Individuals as well as peoples ask many questions in the course of their historical passage through time. They explore, investigate, and test many sorts of things before they run into the question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” Many never run into this question at all, if running into the question means not only hearing and reading the interrogative sentence as uttered, but asking the question, that is, taking a stand on it, posing it, compelling oneself into the state of this questioning. And yet, we are each touched once, maybe even now and then, by the concealed power of this question, without properly grasping what is happening to us. In great despair, for example, when all weight tends to dwindle away from things and the sense of things grows dark, the question looms. Perhaps it strikes only once, like the muffled tolling of a bell that resounds into Dasein and gradually fades away. The question is there in heartfelt joy, for then all things are transformed and surround us as if for the first time, as if it were easier to grasp that they were not, rather than that they are, and are as they are. The question is there in a spell of boredom, when we are equally distant from despair and joy, but when the stubborn ordinariness of beings lays open a wasteland in which it makes no difference to us whether beings are or are not—and then, in a distinctive form, the question resonates once again: Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?

Long ago, Parmenides attempted to respond to the same question:

Come now, I will tell thee—and do thou hearken to my saying and carry it away— the only two ways of search that can be thought of. The first, namely, that It is, and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the way of belief, for truth is its companion. The other, namely, that It is not, and that it must needs not be,— that, I tell thee, is a path that none can learn of at all. For thou canst not know what is not—that is impossible— nor utter it; . . . . . . for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.

Bertrand Russell, in the passage quoted yesterday, could be said to be responding in another way when he claimed,

There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination.

The response of Parmenides is that only being can be or be thought, while nothingness cannot be. Consequently it is in virtue of the very nature of being that being exists rather than nothing. In the passage quoted, Russell is speaking specifically about the order of time, since he identifies this with the order of causality. However, we can understand his response more generally: There is no reason why there is something rather than nothing. No reason is necessary. It is simply due to the “poverty of our imagination” that we suppose there needs to be any explanation for this.

Russell would be correct, if he meant that there is no need for any explanation apart from being, since there can be nothing apart from being. Taken in this way, his response would be consistent with that of Parmenides. However, it is clear that his actual intention is to say that the existence of the world is arbitrary. It could have begun randomly without a cause; it could have existed forever, for no particular reason; and although he doesn’t mention this possibility, it might not have existed at all. No explanations for anything are needed, or even possible, since there is no such thing as a cause.

We have already pointed out the unreasonableness of this position in the previous post. Consequently one most hold a position like that of Parmenides: it is in virtue of the nature of being that beings exist rather than nothing, or rather it is in virtue of the nature of some being or beings, since not every being actually has the nature of necessarily existing.

Parmenides also claimed that “it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.” This is not quite true, since as I pointed out earlier, “not being another”, even though it can be truly predicated of things, is not a reality in things, but in the mind. It seems that Parmenides intended to deny these things when he claimed that that one cannot speak or say that which is not. This should mean that it is impossible to think or say that nothing exists, but also to think or say that one thing is not another, or even to think or say that one thing is another when it is not. It is impossible to be wrong; it is impossible to consider one thing to be distinct from another; and it is impossible for one thing to be in fact distinct from another. And it appears that Parmenides actually intended to assert all of these things, as for example in this text:

And there is not, and never shall be, anything besides what is, since fate has chained it so as to be whole and immovable. Wherefore all these things are but names which mortals have given, believing them to be true— coming into being and passing away, being and not being, change of place and alteration of bright colour.

“All these things are but names” because, according to Parmenides, it is impossible for something to change in place or in color, since this would mean that what is not begins to be, and “what is not” cannot be, be thought, or begin to be.

Evidently all of this is inconsistent, since if such things cannot be thought, neither can they be named, as Parmenides says himself when he says, “For thou canst not know what is not—that is impossible— nor utter it.”

Consequently Parmenides is wrong to draw these conclusions, although they would make some sense, apart from being opposed to experience, if one supposed that every being had the nature of necessary existence. One must therefore hold that at least one being has necessary being, but not all beings do.