Existence as a real predicate

[downbeatplumb]

Hello,

One of the most famous refutations of Anselm's ontological argument is the one by Kant, in which he said that existence is not a real predicate (and thus it is not meaningful to speak of a being that has existence in its very essence). Kant's belief that existence is not a real predicate has been accepted by modern philosophers. However, most modern philosophers (at least Western philosophers) do not know (or fail to appreciate/address) the fact that Mulla Sadra had argued that existence is indeed a real predicate. Sadra's reasoning make more sense to me than Kant's. I would like to see thoughts on this, and also reasons why Sadra's reasoning may be fallacious. Is existence a real predicate?

By the way, I by no means believe that Anselm's arguments were sound; I simply want to see, in philosophical curiosity, whether Sadra made a sound argument for treating existence as a real predicate. It's more of a battle between Kant and Sadra, not Anselm. It would be cool if Kant, a celebrated philosopher of the West, was ultimately wrong about this famous stance of his. Maybe existence is indeed a real predicate.

As explained in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Existence is a real predicate for Mulla Sadra since it is a property of an essence that is found in extra-mental reality (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, I: 47-52). It is a real (and not merely a logical or grammatical) predicate because ‘x exists’ is true for Mulla Sadra if and only if ‘x’ refers. Similarly, if existence were not a predicate, we could not speak meaningfully of quiddities that have no direct reference in reality (Mulla Sadra 2001-5, II: 5). Existence must be a predicate, or else when we say ‘black exists’, we would be saying ‘black is black’ which is a basic tautology. But given the Avicennan consensus of the superadded nature of existence over essence (ziyadat al-wujud ‘ala l-mahiyya) and their distinction, this is not the case. For Mulla Sadra, existential propositions are not analytic. He argues that existence is not an analytic part of essence. If in the proposition ‘man exists’ we took ‘man’ and ‘exists’ to be synonyms, then it would be equivalent to stating that ‘man is man’, a tautology that does not benefit us. In ‘man exists’, ‘man’ refers to a universal ‘humanity’. But ‘exists’ does have reference contrary to those who deny reference to existence, taking it as a purely mental concept. The referent in the predication of the proposition ‘Zayd exists’ is the very ipseity (huwiyya) of Zayd, that is his being (wujud). Therefore, existence is not an empty term but has referents in extra-mental reality, that is, it is both a concept and a reality (haqiqa ‘ayniyya)."

From what I understood from the above (correct me if I'm wrong), if Kant's reasoning (I didn't paste it above because it is relatively renown) was correct, then "unicorns are unicorns" would be the same as saying "unicorns exist," because according to Kant, we only speak of subjects if they refer to real world objects. So if I say, "unicorns are white," Kant's reasoning would imply that unicorns are real world objects, and I am saying that these real world objects are white. But that is absurd; we all know unicorns aren't real. So when we speak of things, we are talking of their "ipseity" or their "concept/essence/quiddities," and if we find these sets of quiddities to be present in the real world, we then predicate existence to these ipseities/concepts/essences/quiddities. So in order to speak meaningfully, we must accept that existence is a real predicate.

Please correct me if my understanding of Mulla Sadra's reasoning isn't correct.

Bottom line: Can anyone find any problems with Mulla Sadra's reasoning, as opposed to Kant's?

We can talk about unicorns in the same we can talk about Darth Vader. We know some things about them even though they are fictional, the idea of them is widely known so we don't need an actual one. When I say I saw someone who looked like Harry Potter I am not saying that there is a real Harry Potter but you know what I mean its the same with dragons and ghosts and gods. they aren't real things but we can discuss them.
Is that what you are trying to say?