there are at least two possible meanings for the unrestricted quantifier that are
maximally real.
This response requires that some abstract entities be fully real. A more cautious
formulation is one that requires that the modes of being be such that no other entity
of their type is more real than them. (So if, for example, modes of being are higher-
order properties, there will be no other properties that are more real than them.) Call
such modes of beingbest modes.
And note that if we proceed along the above lines, we can still countenance the
other kinds of ontological superiority invoked in various places in this book. There
are levels of being provided that there are best modes of being such that the domain
of one is properly included in the domain of the other. There are orders of being
provided that the logical structure of one best mode of being requires an index that is
in the domain of a distinct best mode of being. We can take degree of being as our
central structuring primitive and nonetheless account for other ontological dimen-
sions in terms of it.
The obvious argument for the incoherence of a system incorporating both modes
of being and degrees of being fails. It might not be the only argument though. The
final chapter of Shields (1999) is devoted to demonstrating that Aristotle’s meta-
physics is internally incoherent since it implies both that being is said in many ways
and that being comes in degrees. Let’s assess both whether Shields’s argument
generalizes so as to cover not only Aristotle’s doctrines but my own as well, and
whether Shields’s argument is effective against Aristotle’s metaphysics (even if it is
only effective given the particularities of Aristotle’s metaphysics).
Here is Shields’s (1999: 261) argument, with my interpretative comments in
brackets so that its relevance to my project is evident. These interpretative comments
also elucidate Shields’s technical expressions.
- TwoFthings are non-synonymouslyFonly if they are incommensurable as
Fs. [Two things are non-synonymouslyFif and only if they areFs in different
ways.] - Beings are always commensurable as beings. [Beings are commensurable as
beings if and only if, for any two beings, these two are either equal as beings or
one of them is more of a being than the other.] - Hence, beings are not non-synonymously beings.
- The distinction between homonymy and synonymy is exhaustive.
- Hence, beings are always synonymously beings.
- If beings are always synonymously beings, then they are univocally beings. [If
beings are always synonymously beings, then there are no modes of being.] - Therefore, since beings are core-dependent homonyms only if they are non-
univocal, beings are not core-dependent homonyms. [Beings are core-dependent
homonyms if and only if there is a central way of being in terms of which the other
modes of being must be understood.]