are some things such that all tables and chairs are among those things.”Cases
involving predications of relations are much trickier.^65
For our purposes here, the interesting question is what to say if the metaphysically
ideal language contains bothfirst-order and second-order quantifiers. Suppose it has
one of each: should we say that there are two distinct modes of being, or is that
somehow inappropriate? Consider the following line of reasoning for holding that
claims about beings and modes of being can come apart. The substitution instances
of the variables of second-order quantifiers are predicates rather than (broadly
speaking) names, and it is names that denote beings, and it is beings that have
modes of being.
I’m not sure what to say about this line of reasoning. Such a metaphysical system is
interesting regardless of whether it is classified as a system in which there are modes
of being. The various metaphysical views we will consider are all ones in which there
are multiplefirst-order quantifiers in the metaphysically ideal language. So perhaps
we can postpone taking a stand on this thorny issue.^66
1.5.3 Specific and Individual Existence
More troublesome to my classificatory scheme than the distinction between singular
and plural quantifiers, or betweenfirst-order and second-order quantifiers, is the
alleged distinction between specific and individual existence.“Specific”in this con-
text does not mean“particular”but rather means something like“pertains to
species.”“General”is an equally apt term. Consider the difference between the
claim that dogs exist and the claim that Ranger (an individual dog) exists. The
former is arguably to be understood in terms of quantifiers, and as semantically
equivalent to“There are dogs.”^67 The latter is allegedly to be understood as an
attribution of a property to an individual.
There is a tradition of understanding individual existence in terms of specific
existence. Earlier in this chapter, I suggested thatxexists if and only if there is somey
such thaty=x. Different modes of individual existence can be straightforwardly
understood in terms of different modes of specific existence. But what should we say
of those who (i) do not wish to analyze individual existence in terms of specific
existence but (ii) commit themselves to different ways of (individually) existing? Such
individuals might even go further by saying that there is only one metaphysically
fundamental sense of the quantifier. On such a view, naturalness of quantificational
phrases seems to come apart from the multiplicity of modes of existence. One could
resist this position by claiming that whenever there is a natural property had by
(^65) See the appendix of Lewis (1991) for discussion.
(^66) Insofar as we want to understand the kind of ontological pluralism Frege seemed to endorse, we
shouldfind this matter a little troubling. See Caplan (2011: 81–3) for discussion of Frege’s ontological
pluralism. 67
See, e.g., Kenny (2005a: 42).