Existence as a real predicate

[TheMuslim]

Is it meaningful or coherent to speak of a "non-existent individual"?

 

Yes. Atheists and theists do it all the time. We speak of non-existent individuals such as Baal, Zeus, Poseidon, etc.

Whenever we speak of something, we are speaking of a concept or set of quiddities or ipseities - which we then predicate stuff to. Those sets of quiddities per se do not necessarily have to correspond to real world objects. They can be sets of quiddities that are not necessarily existent in the real world (e.g. Yahweh), and yet we can still predicate stuff to them through essential predication (e.g. Yahweh is the creator of everything, Yahweh is evil).

I can conceive of a red apple, and I find no reason why this apple - which I conceive - cannot be considered an apple. As Kant himself said, there really is no difference between a real hundred dollars and a fake hundred dollars - except that the real hundred dollar bill is real. Similarly, I find no difference between a real apple and a conceived apple except that the real apple is real and that the conceived apple is not real. But they're both still apples. Just because it's conceived doesn't mean it's not an apple.

I simply do not find anything incoherent about treating existence as a real predicate.

I would actually argue that existence should indeed be treated as a real predicate. As demonstrated by Sadra, as far as I understand, if we did not take existence as a predicate, then the statement "black is black" would be no more meaningful than the statement "black exists." But in reality, we know that there indeed is a meaningful difference between the statement "black is black" and "black exists." Hence not treating existence as a predicate will be incoherent.

And if we should use existence as a real predicate in the "black" case, I do not see why we should not use it as a real predicate for any other case.

I think Kant would reconsider his objections if he really thought about Sadra's example. I sort of understand where Kant is coming from, but I think that's only because - colloquially - people have an unspoken understanding that the subjects of their sentences are existent, because people usually speak about stuff that's very relevant to their lives (and nonexistent subjects tend to be not very relevant to most everyday talks, so instead of constantly predicating existence first and then speaking, we just assume the subjects are existent - because most conversations aren't really technical or philosophical enough for us to care about meticulously predicating existence to each subject).

At the end of the day, in proper/technical philosophical discussions, I believe that existence should be treated as a real predicate (for the aforementioned reasons).