Note 219 — Chapter VIII

Dr Wolf denies this. His argument is, however, based mainly on the misinterpretation of a single concrete example. “Let us,” he says, “take a concrete example. Some things that children fear are ghosts. Does this proposition imply that if there is anything that children fear then there are also ghosts? Surely one may legitimately make such an assertion while believing that there are things that children fear, and yet absolutely disbelieving in the existence of ghosts. In fact the above proposition might very well be used in conjunction with an express denial of the existence of ghosts in order to prove that, while some things that children fear are real, they are also afraid of things that do not exist, but are merely imaginary” (Studies in Logic, p. 144). Any speciousness that this argument may possess arises from the ambiguity of the words “thing” and “real.” It is clear that in order to make the proposition in question intelligible the word “things” must be interpreted to mean “things, real or imaginary.” Moreover “imaginary things” have a reality of their own, though it is not a physical, material reality. Ghosts, therefore, do exist in the universe of discourse to which reference is made. The objects denoted by the predicate of the proposition have in fact just the same kind of existence as certain of the objects denoted by the subject. Looking at the matter from a slightly different point of view, it is clear that if by “things” in the subject we mean things having material existence, then unless ghosts have a similar existence the proposition is not true.

Bearing in mind the constant ambiguity of language, and the ways in which verbal forms may fail to represent adequately the judgments they are intended to express, it would in any case be unsatisfactory to allow a question of the kind we are here discussing to be decided by a single concrete example. Dr Wolf’s view is that Some S is P does not imply that if there are any S’s there are also some P’s. Suppose then that there are some S’s and that there are no P’s. It follows that there are S’s but not a single one of them is P. What in these circumstances the proposition Some S is P can mean it is difficult to understand.

So far as Dr Wolf’s argument is independent of the above concrete example, it appears to depend upon an identification of the proposition Some S is P with the proposition S may be P. The latter is a modal form, and is undoubtedly consistent with the existence of S and the non-existence of P. But I venture to think that the identification of the two forms runs entirely counter to the current use of language. I am quite prepared to admit that if All S is P is interpreted as an unconditional universal, meaning S as such is P, its true contradictory is S may be P, not Some S is P. But this is just because I do not think that Some S is P would be understood to express merely the abstract compatibility of S and P. Certainly Dr Wolf’s own concrete example, referred to above, cannot bear this interpretation. For some further observations on modals in connexion with existential import, see sections 160 and 163.