there are several senses of“there is,”“exists,”“being,”etc. in ordinary English.^46 It is
perfectly proper, on Ryle’s view, to say that teams exist, and it is perfectly proper to
say, in what Ryle (1949: 23) would call a“different logical tone of voice,”that team
spirits exist. However, on Ryle’s view, it is not proper to say that both teams and team
spirits exist: the sense of“exists”in which one can truthfully say“teams exist”is not
the same sense of“exist”in which one can truthfully say that“team spirits exist,”and
there is no sense of“exists”in which one can meaningfully utter“both teams and
team spirits exist.”
If there are many senses of“exists,”then presumably there are also many senses of
“refer.”If there are (in some sense of“there are”) team spirits, then“the team’s spirit”
refers (in some sense of“refers”) to the team’s spirit. So whatever mistake Dr. McX is
making, it is not as obvious that he is making the mistake of thinking of some term
that it is a referring expression (in some sense of“referring expression”) when in fact
it is not.
It is not easy to make sense of Ryle’s (1949) view of category mistakes. Here is one
way that captures the gist of the view. First, there are several senses of“exist,”but
there is no“generic”sense of“exist.”Recall that there is a generic sense of“exist”—
“exist”if you like—just in case, for any sense of“exist,”if one can truly say“aexists”
in that sense of“exist,”then one can truly say“aexists.”There can’t be a generic
sense of“exists”for Ryle, for then it would be perfectly proper to say“Minds and
bodies exist.”^47
Second, certain kinds of univocal expressions in the English language are associ-
ated with exactly one sense of“exist.”(If an expression of one of these kinds is
ambiguous, its potential disambiguations are each associated with exactly one sense
of“exists.”) These expressions include one-place predicates, names, definite descrip-
tions, and perhaps complex demonstratives (such as“this dog”). Expressions not
associated with exactly one sense of“exist”are the truth-functional logical constants,
such as“and,”and probably other sentential connectives that are not straightfor-
wardly defined in terms of ordinary predicates. Letebe a sense of“exists”and let
“exists(e)”be a univocal expression with eas its sense. A name (or complex
demonstrative)nis associated withejust in case there is a meaningful sentence
whose constituents arenand“exists(e)”in that order; a one-place predicateFis
associated withejust in case there is a meaningful sentence whose constituents are
“an,”F, and“exists(e)”in that order.
Say that some expressions areco-categorialjust in case they are associated with the
same sense of“exist.”We also want to have a notion of“association”for polyadic
predicates. An expressioneis co-categorial with a polyadic predicate with respect to a
slotsjust in case (i) there is a meaningful sentence containing that predicate in which
(^46) See Ryle (1971: 206–7; 1949: 23).
(^47) As noted in section 1.2, Ryle’s failure to recognize a generic sense of“exists”makes him vulnerable to
the argument of van Inwagen (2001b).