ВЕСТНИК ПЕРМСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ФИЛОСОФИЯ. ПСИХОЛОГИЯ. СОЦИОЛОГИЯ

VESTNIK PERMSKOGO UNIVERSITETA. SERIYA FILOSOFIA PSIKHOLOGIYA SOTSIOLOGIYA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2019-2-180-193

Peter van Inwagen’s five theses of being and his controversy with the existential-phenomenological tradition

Maxim A. Gusev
Ph.D. Student of the Department of Ontology
and Theory of Knowledge, the Department of Philosophy

Ural Federal University named after
the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin,
19, Mira str., Ekaterinburg, 620002, Russia;
e-mail: chapka1724@yandex.ru
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5180-3351

The article considers P. van Inwagen’s theses about being, including the thesis «being is not an activity». In formulating that Inwagen argues with the existential-phenomenological tradition. The article aims to investigate the causes of the misunderstanding between Inwagen and the existential-phenomenological tradition. It is shown that Inwagen treats this tradition as if it were an «objectivist» approach, just like the analytic tradition but presenting another answer to Inwagen’s meta-ontological question. Ignoring the radical difference between the existential-phenomenological approach and the analytical, «objectivistic» approach leads Inwagen to misunderstanding of Heidegger’s statements about being. From the «objectivist» analytical standpoint, the question of existence has nothing to do with the course of our experience, with fact something has been given to us, or with giving meaning to something, etc. That is why Inwagen wonders how existence can be associated with an «activity» at all. For the same reason, Inwagen does not understand why the existential-phenomenological tradition’s adherents talk about some differences in such «activities». From Inwagen’s point of view, all the differences lie in the «nature» of things, not in being. From the «objectivist» point of view, it seems exactly like that, because it is impossible to understand «from the outside», for example, the convergence of awareness and being-in-the-world. Within Inwagen’s objectivist position, Heidegger’s philosophy can only be comprehended as anthropology or psychology, which are studies limited to the topic of human beings or their inner world. The article concludes that although one can deny the phenomenological approach in general, but it is possible to show from the inside of that approach that what Heidegger says in his philosophy is, firstly, meaningful and, secondly, relates to ontology and not to anthropology or psychology.

Keywords: ontology, metaontology, being, existence, Inwagen, Heidegger, analytic tradition, existential-phenomenological tradition.

References

Bakeeva, E.V. (2014). «Prezumptsiya osmyslennosti» kak uslovie ponimaniya [Presumption of meaningfulness as precondition for understanding]. Izvestiya Ural’skogo federal’nogo universiteta. Seriya 3. Obschestvennye nauki [Izvestia Ural Federal University Journal. Series 3. Social and Political Sciences]. No. 3(131), pp. 5–13.

Carnap, R. (1959). Empirizm, semantika i ontologiya [Empiricism, semantics and ontology]. Znachenie i neobkhodimost’ [Meaning and Necessity]. Moscow: Inostrannaya literatura Publ., pp. 298–321.

Carnap, R. (1998). Preodolenie metafiziki logicheskim analizom yazyka [Elimination of metaphysics through logical analysis of language]. Analiticheskaya filosofiya: Stanovlenie i razvitie (antologiya) [Analytic Philosophy: Formation and Development (Anthology)]. Moscow: Dom intellectual’noy knigi Publ., pp. 69–90.

Heidegger, M. (1997). Bytie i vremya [Being and Time]. Moscow: Ad Marginem Publ., 452 p.

Heidegger, M. (1993). Evropeyskiy nigilizm [European nihilism]. Vremya i bytie: Stat’i i vystupleniya [Time and Being: Articles and speeches]. Moscow: Respublika Publ., pp. 63–177.

Herrmann, F.-W. von. (2000). Husserl–Heidegger i «sami veschi» [Husserl–Heidegger and «the Things Themselves»]. Ponyatie fenomenologii u Khaideggera i Gusserlya [The concept of phenomenology in Heidegger and Husserl]. Minsk: Propilei Publ., pp. 11–27.

Herrmann, F.-W. von. (2000). Ponyatie fenomenologii u Khaideggera i Gusserlya [The concept of phenomenology in Heidegger and Husserl]. Ponyatie fenomenologii u Khaideggera i Gusserlya [The concept of phenomenology in Heidegger and Husserl]. Minsk: Propilei Publ., pp. 28–73.

Herrmann, F.-W. von. (2000). Vremennost’ vot-bytiya i vremya bytiya [The temporality of Dasein and the time of being]. Ponyatie fenomenologii u Khaideggera i Gusserlya [The concept of phenomenology in Heidegger and Husserl]. Minsk: Propilei Publ., pp. 149–166.

Inwagen, P. van. (2009). Being, Existence and Ontological commitment. Metametaphysics. New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, Clarendon Press., pp. 472–507.

Inwagen, P. van. (2008). McGinn on Existence. The Philosophical Quarterly. No. 230, pp. 36–58. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9213.2008.534.x.

Inwagen, P. van. (1998). Meta-ontology. Erkenntnis. Vol. 48, no. 2–3, pp. 233–250. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1005323618026.

Inwagen, P. van. (1998). What is Metaphysics? Metaphysics: the Big Questions. Malden: Blackwell Publ., pp. 1–15.

Meinong, A. (2011). O teorii predmeta [The theory of objects]. Epistemologiya & filosofiya nauki [Epistemology & philosophy of science]. Vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 202–229. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/eps201127118.

Quine, W.V.O. (2000). Slovo i ob’ekt [Word and object]. Moscow: Logos, Praxis Publ., 386 p.

Resсher, N. (1998). Vzlet i padenie analiticheskoy filosofii [The rise and fall of analytic philosophy]. Analiticheskaya filosofiya: Stanovlenie i razvitie (antologiya) [Analytic philosophy: Formation and development (anthology)]. Moscow: Dom intellectual’noy knigi Publ., pp. 454–466.

Received 25.03.2019

For citation:

Gusev M.A. Peter van Inwagen’s five theses of being and his controversy with the existential-phenomenological tradition // Perm University Herald. Series «Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology». 2019. Iss. 2. P. 180–193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2019-2-180-193