On what there isn’t1

Abstract

There are several corollaries and further points. Firstly, many of the problems that are taken to be insuperable in the case of nonentities arise equally in the case of entities, especially natural objects such as clouds and storms and waves, mountains and waterfalls and forests. But the problems are not usually seen as – and should not be seen as – discrediting entities. Thus a double standard is being applied. Questions which are realised not to present insuperable problems for entities are taken to do so in the case of nonentities, which are required to be determinate, distinct, and so on, in a way that entities are frequently not. But recall all the decision questions for entities that Wittgenstein and Wisdom introduced us to (see especially Wisdom’s neglected 1953), and add some more, e.g. How wide is Mt. Egmont? Where do its slopes end? How long is a leech? How long is Plato’s beard? Is this a new wave? How many mountain peaks are in the range? Questions as to precise boundaries, in particular, are very common with natural entities: these are sometimes settled by decision or convention, and sometimes not. Sometimes they call only for cheerful indecision.