A Noneistic Metaphysics of Content

Abstract

The hard problem of intentionality can only be solved by accepting noneism: the view that existence is a perfectly normal, first-order predicate or real property and that some things do not exist (speaking with unrestricted quantifiers). Yet, noneism is not without problems of its own, arising from the associated commitment to an unrestricted Characterisation Principle, i.e. that, for all characterisations featuring a property or set of properties F, there is something that instantiates F. In order to deliver a non-ad hoc way to minimally restrict the Characterisation Principle and to explain how the meaning of the concept EXISTENCE can transcend its extension (despite promoting what is primarily an extensional view of meaning) it is necessary to propose a noneistic metaphysics of content. To do that, it is also necessary to propose a noneistic metaphysics of absences, as it will be argued that content should be reduced to absences in order to provide an adequate account of intentional or propositional content. Once it is accepted that intentional content and concepts are absences, and absences are non-existent impossibilia in accordance with the preferred brand of noneism, the proposed view of content can proceed to do work to explain the manner in which content mediates the mind’s representation of things in a transcendent world (i.e. the mediated objectivity afforded by the grasping of concepts) and to avoid contradictions in the domain of existing things as would otherwise be suggested by the semantic paradoxes of self-reference. The proposed noneistic theory of content also affords solutions to a range of problems that beset theories of content concerning the unity of propositions, broad and narrow content, fine-grained and coarse-grained content, and vagueness and typicality. Ultimately, the proposed noneistic theory results in mind-body property dualism, i.e. a dualism of representational and functional/physical properties. Though some may take this outcome to be a weakness of the proposed theory, it is a weakness capable of being borne by the theory due to the work it otherwise does in describing the right kind of thing to play the role of content.