On this view, one thing can enjoy two ways of being. Another possibility is to hold
that there are four modes of being, none of which overlap, but we shouldn’t be forced
by the framework here to conflate this possibility with the possibility of four
overlapping categories.^55
So I offer up the following more general sufficient condition: one believes in ways
of being if one believes that there is more than onerelatively fundamentalmeaning
for an existential quantifier. An existential quantifier meaning isrelatively funda-
mentaljust in case no other quantifier meaning is more fundamental than it. This is
what all the views that have been elucidated so far have in common. I’ll now consider
two worries about this sufficient condition. Thefirst concerns quantifier variance; the
second concerns Meinong’s meta-ontology.
First, one interesting upshot of this proposal is that it classifies the quantifier
variantist as a friend of ways of being. Recall that the quantifier variantist believes
that there are multiple possible primitive meanings for the quantifier that are equally
good from a metaphysical perspective, and each of which is as good as the meaning
we actually use in ordinary language. Debates between, for example, the compos-
itional universalist and the nihilist are at rock bottom pointless, because there are
(at least two) available senses of“there is”available for use, and among them is one
that legitimates the universalist’s claims, while the other legitimates the nihilist’s
claims. And there is no better sense of“there is”available that would delegitimize
their respective claims. So each of the quantifier variantist’s potential meanings is
relatively fundamental—and there are more than one of them!
Perhaps it’s surprising that quantifier variantism is properly classified in this way,
since quantifier variantism is supposed to be a“deflationary”or“anti-metaphysical”
view, while the view that there are modes of being is a paradigmatically inflationary
metaphysical view. But we should get over our surprise. Those who oppose meta-
physics are brother and sister metaphysicians with a metaphysics of their own.^56
Second, how should we understand the Meinongian view? Meinong (1904)
accepted modes of being: he distinguished between existence, the mode of being
enjoyed by concreta, and subsistence, the mode of being enjoyed by objectives.
(Objectives are complexes that have the structure of propositions and facts, but
which of these they should be identified with is a tricky issue I ignore here.) But
in addition to the things enjoying either mode of existence, there are further
things which, according to Meinong, enjoy no mode of being at all. And it is the
outermost quantifier, the one that ranges over all the objects that Meinong counten-
ances, that is troublesome.^57 Meinong takes this outer quantifier, which ranges
(^55) In chapters 3 and 4, we will discuss additional views in which something can enjoy more than one
mode of being. 56
57 Compare with Bradley’s (1930: 1) famous introduction toAppearance and Reality.
See Simons (2012a: 245). Van Inwagen (2014: 95–8) also ascribes to Meinong the view that there is an
outer quantifier and at least one inner quantifier; he is also concerned about the status of the outer
quantifier. See also von Solodkoff and Woodward (2013) for a profitable discussion of Meinongianism.