Existential Quantification & Objecthood: Existence as an Activity

Paul-Mikhail Podosky

Existential Quantification & Objecthood: Existence as an Activity

In its broadest sense, the line of enquiry that I will investigate in this paper is existence. More specifically, the relationship between existential quantification and objecthood. It is a curious question as to how these notions are related, and moreover what mereology has to say about either. It will be my aim to provide an alternative, albeit unusual, understanding of existential quantification. My proposal treats existential quantification as an activity; it is a kind of use-theoretical thesis. That is, existential quantification is something that we do. It is a performative utterance in the Austinean sense. Existential quantification, just like the act of promising, does not purport to describe the world, but describes what we are doing to the world. Thus, I will provide a story of the conditions that must be met for the act of existential quantification. I will venture that existential quantification is a “factory-line” process that involves the postulation of mereological whole, of which the relations of its parts are defined by an object-concept. Further, an object is said to exist when those parts and relations are mappable onto the world and confirmed by experience.

This paper will be presented as part of Paul-Mikhail's Confirmation of Candidature (MA)