2014/2015

136th session

volume cxv

proceedings of the aristotelian society

Edited by

matthew soteriou (warwick)

issue no. i

the 107th presidential address

Being, Univocity and Logical Syntax

adrian moore (oxford)

draft paper

w w w. a r i s t o t e l i a n s o c i e t y. o r g . u k
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proceedings of the aristotelian society

136th session

issue no. 1
volume cxv
2014 / 2015

the 107th presidential address

being, univocity and logical syntax

adrian moore
university of oxford

m o n d a y, 6 o c t o b e r 2 0 1 4
17.30 - 19.15

the chancellors hall

senate house
university of london
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2014 the aristotelian society

biography
Adrian Moore is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford,
where he is also a Tutorial Fellow at St Hughs College. He was an
undergraduate at Cambridge and a graduate at Oxford, where he wrote
his doctorate under the supervision of Michael Dummett. He is one
of Bernard Williams literary executors. His publications include The
Infinite; Points of View; Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and
Variations in Kants Moral and Religious Philosophy; and, most recently,
The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things.
This years Presidential Address marks the official inauguration of Adrian
Moore as the 107th President of the Aristotelian Society.
editorial note
The following paper is a draft version that can only be cited or quoted with
the authors permission. The final paper will be published in Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society, Issue No. 1, Volume CXV (2015). Please visit the
Societys website for subscription information: www.aristoteliansociety.
org.uk.

being, univocity and logical syntax

adrian moore

In this essay I focus on the idea of the univocity of being, championed by

Duns Scotus and given prominence more recently by Deleuze. Although
I am interested in how this idea can be established, my primary concern is with something more basic: how the idea can even be properly
thought. In the course of exploring this issue, which I do partly by borrowing some ideas about logical syntax from Wittgensteins Tractatus,
I try to show how there can be dialogue between analytic philosophers
and those of other traditions.

i.
THERE are three strikingly different groups of philosophers with
whom a title such as this, a title in which mention of being or existence
is conjoined with mention of the broadly semantic or the broadly grammatical, is liable to resonate especially loudly: analytic metaphysicians;
historians of medieval philosophy; and students of post-structuralism, or
more specifically students of the work of Deleuze. I shall say a little in connection with all three. But I shall say most in connection with the first and
third, whose concerns I hope to illuminate by discussing them in tandem
with one another.
Prima facie their concerns are quite different. Analytic metaphysicians
have long been exercised by questions about what exists. Do mathematical entities exist, for example?and if not, how come there are infinitely
many primes? Do holes exist?or is it just that, among the physical things
that exist, some are perforated or porous or some such? The more analytic metaphysicians have grappled with these questions, the more selfconscious they have become about what they are up to. There is accordingly a thriving branch of analytic metaphysics, sometimes referred to as
metametaphysics, whose aim is to clarify what is at stake in addressing
such questions. How far is it a matter of ascertaining the human-independent constitution of reality and how far a matter of settling on a way of
speaking, perhaps even settling on an interpretation of the verb exist?1
In the predicate calculus, assigning a domain to a formal language with an existential
quantifier is part of interpreting the language. But that is not what is meant here by settling on an interpretation of the verb exist. What is meant here would cut across that
purely formal exercise by sanctioning the use of the verb exist for only some of the things
that could be part of any such domain. (Indeed some philosophers, of whom Quine is the
most notable example, would take exception to it on precisely those grounds: see Quine
(1960, 49).)
1

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The concerns within analytic metaphysics of this self-conscious kind are

primarily semantic, epistemological, or methodological.2
Not so Deleuzes concerns. Deleuze resurrects a medieval debate that
arises even given an inventory of all the things that exist. Suppose we
have such an inventory, never mind for the time being what might have
been required to compile it. There is a question, on which the medieval
debate turns, about the nature of the things in this inventory. One way to
put the question is as follows: are any of these things so different in kind
from ordinary things such as apples and snakes that our very talk of the
being of the former has to be understood differently from our talk of the
being of the latter? This is really a debate about transcendence. Another
way to put the question is this: do any of these things enjoy an absolute
transcendence?
The concerns that motivate this question are more characteristic of
mainstream traditional ontology than those that motivate the analytic
metaphysicians questions about how to determine what exists. They have
their source in Aristotle, who recognized different senses of being corresponding to his different categories (1941a, Ch. 4, and 1941b, Bk I, Ch. 2,
185a20 ff.). And the tools that the medievals used in pursuing their debate
were largely Aristotelian tools. But they had a very particular focus which
gave their debate its distinctively medieval stamp. They were interested in
the nature of God. Their debate was about whether Gods transcendence,
relative to His creation, was so radical that no language, or at least no
language of a certain basic kind that includes the language of being, could
be used with the same meaning with respect to both; and, if that were the
case, whether it followed that any use of such language with respect to
both must always involve brute equivocation or whether there was room
for a more nuanced position whereby the literal use of such language with
respect to Gods creatures could be extended to an analogical use of such
language with respect to God Himself. Deleuzes interest is a variant of
this. He is interested in what it takes to make sense of everything as part
of one and the same purely immanent realitya reality that is free of any
such absolute transcendence.
Of course, there is no sharp division between Deleuzes quest and the
analytic metaphysicians quest. It is all very well my urging us to prescind
temporarily from what would be required to compile an inventory of all
Two classic texts are Carnap (1956) and Quine (1961). See also Chalmers, Manley, &
Wasserman (2009), whose introduction by Manley provides very helpful orientation.
Three recent contributions to the discussion are: Sider (2011, Ch. 9); Parfit (2011, App.
J); and Turner (2010). An excellent discussion of how far a disagreement about what exists might be nothing but a disagreement about how to use the verb exist is Williamson
(1987, esp. IV).
2

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the things that exist. But if this inventory had to include things that were
absolutely transcendent, then there would be an issue about what it would
mean even to say that such things exist, and that issue would lie squarely in the analytic metaphysicians territory. Even so, prima facie at least,
there are two broadly different sets of concerns here.
What animates Deleuzes concerns? All manner of things. But he has
two projects in particular that deserve special mention. One of these is to
extend Heideggers work on being. Heidegger drew a distinction between
being and the entities that have it.3 The entities that have it are all the
things that we can be given or all the things of which we can make sense;
their being is their very giveability or intelligibility (1962, 2 and p. 228/p.
183 in the original German).4 By drawing this distinction Heidegger enabled being itself to become a distinct focus of attention, a privilege which
he argued traditional metaphysics had prevented it from enjoying. Not
only that; he also contributed a great deal to our understanding of being.
Deleuze wants to enlarge that understanding. He thinks that Heidegger
has helped us towards a unified account of being. In particular, he thinks
that Heidegger has helped us towards an account of being which, though
it certainly acknowledges the many profound differences between entities,
and indeed the many profound differences between their ways of being,
does not cast any of them in the rle of the absolutely transcendent and
does not involve any Aristotelian polysemy. (Heidegger himself emphasized the magnitude of this task. At one point he put the pivotal question
as follows: Can there... be found any single unifying concept of being
in general that would justify calling these different ways of being ways
of being? (1982, p. 176, emphasis in original).5) Nevertheless Deleuze
thinks that Heideggers investigations are importantly incomplete. It is not
In Heidegger (1962) the translators register the former by using a capital B: see their
n. 1 on p. 19. I shall take the liberty of dropping the capitalization in all quotations from
this book and other books where the same practice is followed.
3

He says that entities include everything we talk about, everything we have in view,
everything towards which we comport ourselves in any way, (1962, p. 26/p. 6 in the
original German). But in drawing the distinction between being and entities he also says
that the being of entities is not itself an entity, (1962, p. 26/p. 6 in the original German). At the very end of this essay I shall say a little about the apparent tension between
these. (I have in mind the fact that precisely what seems to be required of us, for us to
be engaged in reflection of this sort, is that we talk about, have in view, or in some
way comport ourselves towards being. A similar problem afflicts the characterization of
entities that I ventured in the main text: all the things of which we can make sense. For
Heidegger is intent on making sense of being. Suffice to say, for now, that my references
to sense-making in the main text may all need to stand under some suitable tacit restriction; more specifically, they may all need to be understood in such a way as to exclude
certain sense-making that is characteristic of Heideggerian phenomenology.)
4

For a fascinating and instructive discussion see McManus (2013).

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enough, in Deleuzes view, for an account of being to accommodate all

these differences; it is not even enough for it to expose and articulate them
all. If we are properly to understand what it is for everything to be immanent, then we must also understand how these differences themselves
contribute to the fundamental character of being. We must acknowledge
a kind of ontological priority that these differences enjoy over the entities
between which they obtain, the entities whose being is under investigation, the things of which we can make sense. For this, Deleuze thinks, we
need to look beyond Heidegger.6
The second project is somewhat more nebulous but no less significant.
Appeals to absolute transcendence can be used to evade all sorts of problems, both theoretical and practical. Thus many people turn to their belief
in God to help them acquiesce in suffering, and many of these in turn appeal to Gods absolute transcendence to help them address the question of
how suffering can be part of Gods plan. Their answer is that we cannot
really understand how, since all talk of God, including talk of Gods plan,
is at most an analogical extension of talk that we can really understand.
In Deleuzes view, such appeals to absolute transcendence come too easily.
Alluding to the famous Dostoevskian adage, he writes, One must not say,
If God does not exist, everything is permitted. It is just the opposite...
It is with God that everything is permitted, (2005, p. 10).7 Learning how
to live without recourse to absolute transcendence is in large part an ethical exercise for Deleuze. It means learning how to confront all that we are
given in such a way as to make sense of it in its own terms, resisting the
seductions of, as it may be, an inscrutable theodicy or an abstract teleology in whose transcendent terms all our afflictions are ultimately justified.
It is a non-escapist life-affirming exercise. And the kernel of the second
project is to think it through at an ontological level.
In the medieval debate Duns Scotus repudiated absolute transcendence. He did not deny that some of our basic talk about God has to be
See Deleuze (1994, pp. 64 66); and cf. Smith (2001, pp. 169 170). (I am very
indebted to Smiths excellent essay throughout this section.) Note: in a very interesting
discussion of Heidegger on different ways of being, McDaniel describes Heidegger as
acknowledging several senses of the word being, (2009, p. 309). This suggests that
McDaniel sees things very differently from Deleuze. The difference between them is not
as great as it appears, however. In fact it is largely terminological. Certainly there is no
suggestion in McDaniels discussion that Heidegger was an advocate of the radically
transcendent.
6

Note: the Dostoevskian adage, though often attributed to Dostoevsky in the form cited,
does not in fact appear in that precise form anywhere in his corpus. The closest it comes
to doing so is in the mouth of Mitya Karamazov, in Dostoevsky (1982, Pt Four, Bk 11,
Ch. 4). There Karamazov says, Whats to become of man then? Without God and without a future life? Why, in that case, everything is allowed. You can do anything you like!
(p. 691).
7

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interpreted non-literally.8 But he did deny that it all does. That, for Duns
Scotus as for Deleuze, allows such talk too much free rein. It makes it
merely formulaic and means that we cannot have any real grasp of what
we are talking about when we indulge in it.9 In particular, this must apply
to our very talk of Gods being. Duns Scotus accordingly championed the
univocity of being (1987, pp. 19 20).10 Deleuze seeks to do likewise.
He considers two broad approaches to this problem, one that he finds
in Spinoza and one that he finds in Nietzsche. The first approach involves
viewing being as an entity in its own right. Any mention of the being of
any other entity is to be understood as a reference to this entity. I say any
mention of the being of any other entity. In fact, of course, any mention
of the being of being itself had better be included. Thus in Spinoza, whose
version of this approach Deleuze treats as more or less canonical, the rle
of being is assigned to an infinite substance in which everything that is, is;
and that includes this very substance, which is in itself (2002, Pt I, Def. 3,
Ax. 1, and Prop. 15).11 Spinoza works hard, on Deleuzes interpretation,
to keep all intimations of the absolute transcendence of this substance at
bay. He needs to work hard. The way in which he executes his project
This is important. It explains my continual use of the word absolute to qualify the
kind of transcendence that I am interested in. It is certainly possible for someone who
repudiates absolute transcendence to accede to a relative transcendence whereby we have
no way of making basic claims about a given entity in some of its aspects except by using
language that demands to be understood non-literally. Spinoza may be a case in point.
We shall be considering Spinozas non-absolutely-transcendent conception of God in due
course. But this conception did not, for instance, prevent Spinoza from both denying
that God loves anyone in any strict sense (2002, Pt V, Prop. 17, Corollary) and allowing
for a non-strict sense in which God does love us (2002, Pt V, Prop. 36, Corollary): the
difference is that Gods love, unlike love properly so-called, is not accompanied by the
idea of an external cause, (2002, Pt III, Definition of the Emotions, 6). Whether this
betokens relative transcendence or not depends partly on whether such claims about love
are suitably basic and partly on whether we have some other, literal way of expressing
what we mean when we say, God loves us. I shall not pursue that question here.
8

It is instructive to consider Descartes in this connection. Descartes acceded, if not to

the absolute transcendence of God, then at least to an extreme version of the relative
transcendence of God: see e.g. Descartes (1984, Third Meditation, and 1985, Pt I, 51).
And in a way he would have been happy to concede that we lack any real grasp of what
we are talking about when we talk about God: see e.g. Descartes (1985, Pt I, 25, and
1991, p. 25). Indeed that helps to fuel his most celebrated argument for the existence of
God: the fact that we lack any such grasp helps to show that our idea of God is an idea
of something so great that only something that great can explain how we have come by
it (1984, Third Meditation). But of course, unless we have some grasp of what we are
talking about when we talk about God, it is not obvious that we have an idea of God
in the first place. For discussion see Williams (1978, pp. 143 145). And for discussion
of some of the more general issues that arise here see Williams (2006, esp. pp. 14 15).
9

10

For a helpful discussion see Tonner (2007).

11

This substance is what Spinoza calls God: see n. 8.

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means that this substance is radically different in kind from any other
entity. Its infinitude, if not its transcendence, is absolute (2002, Pt I, Def.
6)which means, among other things, that its infinitude is unique to it
(2002, Pt I, Props 14 and 15). But Spinoza achieves his goal, at least on
Deleuzes interpretation, by not only allowing his substance to express
itself through its attributes (notably through thought and extension, the
two of its attributes of which we are aware), but by allowing it to do so
in just the same sense as any other entitythat is, in just the same sense
as any of its modeseach of which likewise expresses the essence of this
substance through one of the substances attributes (2002, Pt I, Defs 3, 4,
and 5, and Pt II, Def. 1). Spinoza is not only able to say that his substance
is extended, for example. He is able to say that it is extended in just the
same sense in which Mount Everest is extended.12 There is no hint of absolute transcendence here.
It is a further question, however, whether there is complete univocity
of being, as Deleuze claims. The doctrine that any mention of the being
of a thing is to be understood as a reference to one particular entity is already to be found in Aristotle. All that is, Aristotle writes, is related
to one central point, (1941c, Bk IV, Ch. 2, 1003a32 33) and he goes on
to insist that any mention of the being of a thing is to be understood as a
reference to this point (1941c, Bk IV, Ch. 2, 1003b6 7). Yet for Aristotle, this doctrine, so far from showing that there is a single sense of being,
precisely corroborates his view that there are different senses of being. He
likens it to the doctrine that any mention of the healthiness of a thing is
to be understood as a reference to health, where that, he urges, betokens
different senses of healthiness: a healthy diet is a diet that is conducive to
health, a healthy complexion a complexion that is symptomatic of health,
a healthy person a person who enjoys health, and so on. The common
reference to health in each of these cases shows only that the differences of
sense are not brute ambiguities. They remain differences for all that. In a
distinction that Aristotle draws, the term healthy applies in all these cases
not kath hen, in virtue of one thing, but pros hen, with reference to one
thing. Similarly, on Aristotles view, in the case of the term being (1941c,
Bk IV, Ch. 2, 1003a32 ff.).13 So what makes Aristotle and Spinoza, who
both accept that any mention of the being of a thing is to be understood
as a reference to one particular entity, arrive at such different conclusions?
For Aristotle, it is pretty much axiomatic that certain differences between things are great enough, in themselves, to preclude a single sense of
being in application to those things. Spinoza, by contrastat least on Deleuzes reading of himis prepared to understand all differences between
12

See Deleuze (1990a, pp. 27, 46 ff., and 59).

13

See Shields (2012) for an interesting discussion.

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things, however great, as themselves constituting the character of being.

(This is what I earlier said that Heidegger fails properly to doagain, on
Deleuzes reading of him.) The difference between Aristotle and Spinoza
is thus a fundamental difference of approach. On the Spinozist approach,
it is not just that any mention of the being of a thing is to be understood
as a reference to one particular entity; any mention of the multiplicity and
diversity of things is to be understood as a reference to that entity, whose
essence is expressed in the very differences between them.14 This is what
Deleuze calls an affirmation of difference. For x to be affirmed of y, in
Deleuzes sense, isvery roughlyfor the essence of y, or for the sense of
y, to be expressed through x; and for x to be affirmed tout court is for x to
be affirmed of being.15 This affirmation of difference allows Spinoza to see
being in the differences between things, rather as one sees a single image
in the differences of hue, the differences of brightness, and the differences
of location between the myriad different pixels that compose it. It allows
him to make sense of things as part of one and the same immanent reality
by making integrated sense of what differentiates them.16
But Deleuze thinks we can go further. For Spinoza still believes in one
privileged unified entity that is prior to all multiplicity, prior to all diversity, prior to all difference. Deleuze thinks we can acknowledge the univocity of being without appeal to any such entity. (To this extent he is in
line with Heidegger. Heidegger denied that being is itself an entity.17) If
we deny that there is any such entity, we can understand any mention of
the multiplicity and diversity of things entirely in its own terms and still
make sense of things as part of one and the same purely immanent reality.
This is not just an affirmation of difference. It is an affirmation of the affirmation of difference. For it allows difference itself to be its own affirmation. Such affirmation is no longer conceived as a reference to some other
entity, some single substance in which everything is anchored. There is no
such entity. Difference is itself the ultimate reality. Indeed it is itself ever
different, like an ever changing image in which the only constancy is the
change. Being can still be seen in the differences between things; but it no
longer has any stable identity or overall unity of its own. It no longer has
any independent status as an entity in its own right.18
These differences, which are differences of power, are what Deleuze characterizes as
intensive differences: see Deleuze (1994, Ch. V, passim) for an exploration of intensive
difference in general and Deleuze (1990a, Pt Three, passim) for application of this notion
to the case of Spinoza.
14

15

See e.g. Deleuze (1994, pp. 52 ff.).

See Deleuze (1990a, Ch. XI). And cf. some of the metaphors on the very last page, p.
304, of Deleuze (1994).
16

17

See n. 4.

18

I shall say a little more about this in II.

10

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This is the second of the two approaches that Deleuze considers, the
one that he finds in Nietzsche (2006, esp. Ch. 5, and more esp. 10
13, but see also 1994, pp. 35 42). There is a famous sentence on the
final page of Deleuzes Difference and Repetition where he summarizes his
thinking by saying, All that Spinozism needed to do for the univocal to
become an object of pure affirmation [i.e. affirmation that is affirmation
of itself] was to make substance turn around the modes, and then refers
to Nietzsches doctrine of eternal return which he interprets as providing
the wherewithal to do precisely that (1994, p. 304).19
It is the Nietzschean approach that Deleuze favours. But on what
grounds? On what grounds, for that matter, does he favour Spinozas original preparedness to understand all differences as constituting the character of being in defiance of Aristotles unpreparedness to do so? Nothing
that I have said so far in this essay appears to forestall a simple stand-off
between Spinoza and Aristotle; nor, perhaps, between Nietzsche and Spinoza.
It is natural to look for arguments here. And relevant arguments are
to be found.20 Nevertheless, they are not my primary concern in this essay.
My primary concern is not with how the univocity of being can be established. It is with something more basic. It is with how the univocity of
being can even be properly thought.21 I hope that some of what I have said
so far has helped in this respect. In the second section of this essay I want
to recapitulate this material, but in a different form, a form that relates it
back to some of the concerns of analytic metaphysiciansand indeed of
analytic philosophers more generally.22
ii.
I begin with a matter that might initially appear quite unrelated. Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, draws a distinction between
what he calls signs and what he calls symbols (1961, 3.31 and 3.32 ff.).
Signs are the written marks or noises that we use to communicate. Symbols are signs together with their logico-syntactic use. Logical syntax is
For Deleuzes interpretation of the doctrine of eternal return see Deleuze (2006, esp.
Ch. 2).
19

See again the material cited earlier in the main text: Deleuze (2006, esp. Ch. 5, and
1994, pp. 35 42).
20

Cf. Smith (2001, p. 168), where he quotes a remark that Deleuze himself made in a
seminar: [Univocity is] the strangest thought, the most difficult to think, if it has ever
been thought.
21

For a helpful discussion of the material in this section see (in addition to Smith (2001),
to which I have already made several references) de Beistegui (2004, pp. 225 241).
22

11

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akin to ordinary grammar, but deeper. Thus ordinary grammar associates

the use of the word are in Human beings are animals with the use of
the word eat in Human beings eat animals. Logical syntax recognizes
differences between these, reflected in the fact that it makes sense to add
to the latter sentence, but not to the former, including themselves.23 Wittgenstein captures the relation between a sign and a symbol as follows: A
sign is what can be perceived of a symbol, (1961, 3.32). And he points
out that one and the same sign... can be common to two different symbols, (1961, 3.321). Thus the word round is sometimes used as a noun
to denote a slice of bread, sometimes as an adjective to indicate circularity:
one sign, two symbols.
Now I am going to assume the following: difference of logico-syntactic
use is a difference of degree; in other words, one symbol can share more
or less of its logico-syntactic use with another. I do not claim that this
doctrine is in the Tractatus itself. Whether it is, or whether for that matter
its negation is, and in either case how explicitly or implicitly, are large exegetical issues that I shall put to one side. My aim is to make use of Wittgensteins ideas, not to rehearse them. Adopting this doctrine seems to me
the only plausible and interesting way of extending those ideas, or at least
the only plausible and interesting way of extending them that subserves
our current purposes.
Here is an illustration of the doctrine. The word round, as well as
having the two meanings already indicated, is also sometimes used as a
noun to denote a complete series of holes in golf. This is yet another symbol, different from either of the other two. But it is less different from the
other noun than it is from the adjective. This can be seen in the following
way. There are many meaningful sentences involving the word round,
such as I had a round yesterday, in which the meaning of the rest of the
sentence prevents the word round from functioning as an adjective but
still allows it to function as either of the two nouns.24 In other meaningful sentences, including sentences that build on this one, such as I had
a round yesterday and I had it toasted, the meaning of the rest of the
It is often said that symbols are signs together with their meaning, and not just their
logico-syntactic use: see e.g. Black (1964, p. 130). That this is wrong is well argued by
Johnston (2007). But see below for why the difference between these may not be as great
as it seems.
23

Is this perhaps contestable? What if someone were to insist that the word had, in this
example, is itself correspondingly ambiguous, meaning either ate or played? So be it.
The point that I am making then merely requires a different example, say with the word
enjoyed in place of the word had. If someone were to deny that there is any example
that suits my purposes, then I suspect that they would simply be assuming the opposite
of what I am assumingthat difference of logical syntax is a straightforward difference
of kindin which case their denial would lie outside the ambit of my discussion.
24

12

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sentence prevents the word round from functioning as one of those two
nouns but not as the other.25 However, there is no equivalent transverse
ordering. There is no meaningful sentence in which the meaning of the
rest of the sentence prevents the word round from functioning as one of
those two nouns but still allows it to function either as the other noun or
as the adjective.26
Now, are there any ambiguities that do not involve any difference of
logico-syntactic use, ambiguities that are, so to speak, simple differences
of meaning? (In current terms such an ambiguity would involve one symbol, not just one sign.27) Ones first thought is that there surely are. But on
reflection the matter seems less clear. Exact sameness of logico-syntactic
use cuts very finely indeed.28 Very crudely speaking, if there were an ambiguity that involved no difference of logico-syntactic use, there would
have to be two things such that whatever could be meaningfully said of
one could be meaningfully said of the other. This is of course weaker than
Is this perhaps contestable? What if someone were to insist that the word round, in
this example, can function as either noun; it is just that, in one case, the sentence can
only be used to say something false? I would deny that. I think an utterance of I had a
complete series of holes yesterday and I had it toasted, would be meaningless, not false.
But I agree that this is contentious. The contentiousness will be significant later.
25

If it is true that difference of logico-syntactic use is a difference of degree, then that

seems to me to have a bearing on a number of other philosophical issues. In particular,
I think it has a bearing on Freges problem about the semantics of predicates: see Frege
(1997). It is far beyond the scope of this essay to go into detail about what I have in
mind. But I can give an indication of what I have in mind by quoting from Wrights essay on this problem. Wright writes, [We could] stipulate that refers to should have
a use linking the name of a predicate to an expressionpar excellence, the predicate
itselffor its semantic value. In that case, is a horse refers to is a horse... would be
well-formed, butjust for that reasonrefers to, so used, would not speak of the
relation that holds between a singular term and the object for which it stands, (Wright
1998, p. 256, some emphasis removed). But why not, if difference of logico-syntactic use
were a difference of degree? For then a single symbol could combine in the same way
with other symbols, even though those other symbols had a different logico-syntactic use
from each other.
26

See n. 23. The discussion that ensues in the main text explains the final sentence in that
note.
27

For example, consider the ambiguity of the word billion, used in American English to
denote a thousand million and used in British English to denote a million million. That
may look like an ambiguity that does not involve a difference of logico-syntactic use.
But I think there is a good case for saying that, even in that case, a difference of logicosyntactic use is involved. For it seems to me that, in the sentence The number of stars
in the Andromeda nebula is less than a billion but more than a thousand million, the
meaning of the rest of the sentence prevents the word billion from functioning as the
American-English noun. Admittedly, this is a matter of contentionessentially the same
contention as was noted in n. 25but in this context that is as much as it needs to be.
For I claim only that it is not obvious that there are ambiguities that do not involve a
difference of logico-syntactic use.
28

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the requirement that there be two things such that whatever could be truly
said of one could be truly said of the other. Even so, it is still a strong requirement. And who knows but that there are deep reasons of philosophical principle why it could never be met? Considerable work in some or all
of metaphysics, philosophical logic, and philosophy of language would be
needed to settle the issue.
But here is a more tractable issue. Is it possible to expose an ambiguity
without exposing any difference of logico-syntactic use? This time there
seems little room for doubt. Clearly it is. For it is possible to show that a
word is ambiguous by producing a sentence involving the word, the rest
of whose meaning is presumed given, and then pointing out that a single
utterance of the sentence can be interpreted as true or as false depending
on how this particular word is construed. (For instance, imagine my saying, I had a round yesterday, on the morrow of a day on which I had a
slice of toast but did not so much as set foot on a golf course.) The word is
thereby shown to be ambiguous even though the question of whether any
difference of logico-syntactic use is involved is left open.
Let us now reconsider the univocity of being. And let us think of this
issue as an issue about whether the word being and its various cognates
are relevantly ambiguous.29 To be sure, this may not be as innocent as it
appears. It is not entirely obvious that the issue can be cast in this linguistic form without some loss. But even if it cannot, the new casting of the
issue will at the very least be of (highly pertinent) interest.
Anyone committed to the non-univocity of being would in these terms
be committed to an ambiguity in the word being. But the commitment
would, I claim, be unsustainable unless the ambiguity could be exposed
in a way other than that just described. The ambiguity would have to be,
and would have to be seen to be, an ambiguity involving a difference of
logico-syntactic use.
Why do I claim this? For two principal reasons. Or perhaps rather, for
one principal reason that can be broached in two ways. First, to think that
the word being is ambiguous is to think that some things are so different in kind from others that talk about the being of the former cannot
be understood in the same way as talk about the being of the latter. But
unless the cannot here means cannot, as far as the meaningfulness of the
talk is concerned as opposed to cannot, as far as the truth of the talk is
concerned, then it is just not clear why anyone would think such a thing.
Unless there are differences in kind between things that are so great that
I add relevantly because the word being itself functions as a non-count noun, as a
count noun, and as a present participle, but these ambiguities cut right across the issue of
the univocity of being. Henceforth, I shall take such a qualification for granted.
29

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the very business of characterizing some of these things requires a different logical syntax from the business of characterizing others, what is to
prevent the devising of vocabulary that can be truly applied to all of them?
And if nothing is to prevent this, then what is to prevent the devising of a
term that can be truly applied to whatever the word being can be truly
applied to, under each of its supposed interpretations? But given such a
term, and given the work that it has to do (notably, enabling us to refer to
the character of whatever exists), what is the rationale for thinking that
the word being is ambiguous in the first place? Why not accept that this
new term is just a synonym for being, with (as we now see) its single
generic meaning?30
This question leads naturally to the second way of broaching the
matter. Unless the ambiguity in the word being involved a difference of
logico-syntactic use, what rationale would there be for acknowledging
different senses of the word being as opposed to acknowledging differences among the entities to which the unambiguous word being can be
truly applied? This is an old idea, famously and marvellously captured
by Quine in 27 of his Word and Object. Quine is there concerned with
a somewhat different issue: whether the terms true and exist are ambiguous. But his response to the claim that they are is essentially the same
as the response that I am now recommending to the claim that being is
non-logico-syntactically ambiguous. Quine writes, specifically in connection with true:
There are philosophers who stoutly maintain that true said of logical
or mathematical laws and true said of weather predictions or suspects
confessions are two usages of an ambiguous word true... What mainly
baffles me is the stoutness of their maintenance. What can they possibly
count as evidence? Why not view true as unambiguous but very general,
and recognize the difference between true logical laws and true confessions as a difference between logical laws and confessions? (1960, p. 131)

Similarly, I submit, in the case of being. And note that acceding to a

single sense of being in this way would not preclude, in fact would encourage, acknowledging different kinds of being corresponding to the various
fundamental differences between entities.31 This is why Heidegger, who
is certainly keen to acknowledge different kinds of beingfor example,
those kinds of being that are peculiarly enjoyed by whos and those kinds
of being that are peculiarly enjoyed by whats32can nevertheless be con30

These are rhetorical questions: but see Turner (2010) for discussion.

Cf. Deleuze (1990b, p. 185). This relates to the point that I made about McDaniel in
n. 6.
31

For the distinction between a who and a what see Heidegger (1962, p. 71/p. 45
in the original German). For the recognition of different kinds of being see Heidegger
32

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sidered a champion of the univocity of being.33

In linguistic terms, then, the doctrine of the non-univocity of being
had better be construed as the doctrine that the word being has more
than one logico-syntactic use; that there is one sign here that is common
to more than one symbol. A possible analogy would be the use of the
existential quantifier in formal languages to represent both first-order
quantification and second-order quantification. There too, arguably, there
is one sign that is common to more than one symbol.34, 35 Nor would the
analogy stop there. Anyone who took this view of both being and
would no doubt insist that, in the case of being, just as in the case of ,
the similarities between how the different symbols are used are sufficiently
striking and sufficiently important for the commonality of the sign to be
both natural and warranted.36 This was essentially Aristotles position. For
Aristotle, the differences in reality to which different senses of being corresponded were categorial differences, deep grammatical differences of just
the sort envisaged here. But he also insisted that the use of a single word to
embrace these different senses of being was both natural and warranted:
this was what the comparison with healthiness was intended to show.
To repeat: the advocate of the non-univocity of being had better think
that different uses of the word being differ in their logico-syntactic use.
(1962, p. 26/pp. 6 7 in the original German). And see Heidegger (1962, 20) for admonishment of Descartes for not appreciating that different kinds of being do not equate
with different senses of being.
Parfit presents reasons for thinking, contra Quine, that exist is ambiguous (2011,
pp. 720 ff.). I do not myself find these reasons compelling. For an excellent defence of
Quines view (which nevertheless involves a complete misunderstanding of what Heidegger means by being) see van Inwagen (2009). For further relevant material see Wittgenstein (1969, p. 58) and Quine (1960, pp. 241 242).Note: Ryles remarks, in Ryle
(1949, Ch. I, 3), are often taken to epitomize the view under attack here, by Quine and
van Inwagen themselves among others (see Quine (1960, p. 131, n. 2) and van Inwagen
(2009, pp. 485 ff.)). But in current terms Ryle is surely an exponent of the view that
exist is ambiguous in a way that involves a difference of logico-syntactic use: see Price
(2009, p. 331).
33

I add arguably for at least two reasons. First, it is not entirely uncontroversial that
has both these uses: for some famous dissent see Quine (1970, pp. 66 ff.); see also van
Inwagen (2002). Secondly, even if does have both these uses, it is not obvious that
they are logico-syntactically different uses: some material later in the main text bears on
this point.
34

I am taking for granted in this essay that if a sign is common to more than one symbol,
then it is ambiguous. For a fascinating argument to the contrary see Williams (1996). But
I wonder how deep the disagreement between Williams and me is: see e.g. Williams own
reference to the possibility of settling this matter by stipulation (1996, pp. 59 60), and
see David Wiggins reply to Williams in Wiggins (1996, 35 40).
35

36

Wittgenstein (1961, 5.52) is relevant here, as is Turner (2010, II).

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But this presents a challenge of its own: how to show that they do. The
sheer fact that the word is used in linguistic contexts which themselves differ in their logico-syntactic use is not decisive. Consider these two contexts:
That person is... and That tree is... These differ in their logico-syntactic
use. But it does not follow that the phrase exactly two metres in height,
which can be meaningfully inserted into both, is logico-syntactically ambiguous37not granted the assumption that difference of logico-syntactic
use is a difference of degree.38 Similarly, the fact that we can talk about the
being of that person and the being of that tree does not show that being is logico-syntactically ambiguous. It may be a necessary condition of
the non-univocity of being that being should have application to things
that are so different that there is no single logico-syntactic way of making
reference to all of them; but it is not a sufficient condition.
The difficulty is exacerbated by the following fact. The simple way of
exposing an ambiguity which we considered earliernamely, producing
a sentence involving the ambiguous word and pointing out that a single
utterance of it can be interpreted as true or as false, leaving open whether
the word is logico-syntactically ambiguoushas no counterpart when it
comes to showing that a word is logico-syntactically ambiguous. It is of no
avail to produce a sentence involving the logico-syntactically ambiguous
word and then to point out that a single utterance of it can be interpreted
as meaningful or as meaningless. Provided that interpreting an utterance
as meaningless is not a contradiction in terms, then this is something that
one can do to any utterance whatsoever. (One can always construe some
word in the utterance as occurring without either its standard meaning
or any other meaning.) It cuts no ice at all where ambiguity is concerned.
Given an utterance of the sentence, Her brooch is round, for example,
we can construe round as occurring without either its standard adjectival meaning or any other meaning. But that is quite irrelevant to the use
of round as a noun. Nothing about this sentence is relevant to the use
of round as a noun, given the meaning of the rest of the sentence. The
meaning of the rest of the sentence precisely precludes the use of round
as a noun here.39
I am not suggesting that there is no way of exposing a logico-syntactic
ambiguity. In the case of the word round, it is perfectly acceptable simThis is the material that I had in mind at the end of in n. 34: the sheer fact that can
occur alongside both individual variables and predicate variables, if it is a fact, is not decisive for the logico-syntactic ambiguity of . For pertinent discussion see Quine (1970,
Ch. 2); but note that Quines notion of grammar is considerably looser than the notion
of logico-syntactic use at work in this essay.
37

38

A related point is that there is relative transcendence as well as absolute transcendence.

39

The considerations in this paragraph owe much to Wittgenstein (1961, 5.473 5.4733).

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ply to point out that the word has both a nominal use and an adjectival
use. Or, if there are certain theoretical purposes at hand for which further
detail is required, either in connection with the word round or in connection with the difference between nouns and adjectives, then we can go into
just such further detail. Even in cases where the difference of logico-syntactic use is less marked, as it would be in the case of the word being, and
where the tools for characterizing the difference are not ready to hand, as
they might not be in the case of the word being, we can do what we did
where the two uses of round as a noun were concerned: produce a sentence involving the ambiguous word (I had a round yesterday) together
with a context within which the sentence can be meaningfully embedded
under one interpretation but not under the other (... and I had it toasted).
The problem, however, is that this would be a way of exposing the ambiguity only to those who were already disposed to see it. If there were
genuine controversy about whether the word had more than one logicosyntactic use, as there is in the case of the word being, no such expedient
would help to settle the matter. The denier of logico-syntactic ambiguity
could simply deny that embedding the given sentence in the given context
resulted in any relevant meaninglessness40whilst also of course acknowledging the ever-present and uninteresting possibility noted in the previous
paragraph, that the word in question be construed as occurring without
any meaning whatsoever.
The advocate of the non-univocity of being may now appear to be in
trouble. I have been urging, on the one hand, that the relevant ambiguity
in being would have to be exposed as a logico-syntactic ambiguity while
suggesting, on the other hand, that there would be no exposing it as such
that did not essentially involve preaching to the converted. But actually
the trouble is just as great for an advocate of the univocity of being. In so
far as there is a kind of surd in what one of them wants to assert, there is a
kind of surd in what the other wants to deny. This is why there is an issue,
not merely concerning how the univocity of being can be established, but
concerning how it can even be properly thought. What can an advocate
of the univocity of being do, to impress his doctrine on himself as well as
on others, beyond blankly proclaiming that being has just one meaning?
Well, one option that he might take is to identify being as an entity in
its own right and to insist that any talk of the being of a thing is a reference to this entity. But as we saw in I, this would not be enough. An
Aristotelian would insist that any talk of the healthiness of a thing is a
reference to health, but would deny that healthiness has just one logicosyntactic use. The advocate of the univocity of being would need to insist
further that any talk of the being of a thing is not just a reference to this
40

This is what I had in mind in n. 25.

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entity, but a reference of one particular logico-syntactic kind to this entity.

But now there would be another impasse of sorts. The Aristotelian would
see the differences between the things to which the word being can be
truly applied as simply too great for that to be a viable option.
The most effective way for the advocate of the univocity of being to
evade this sort of Aristotelian response is by being pre-emptive. Given various things to which the word being can be truly applied, and given the
various differences between them, the advocate of the univocity of being
can say that precisely one of the functions of the word is to signify these
differences; that for these things to be is for them to differ in the ways they
do; that difference is itself the fundamental character of being.41 There is
then no question of two things differing to such an extent that the word
being has no single logico-syntactic use in relation to both. The very
semantics of the word forestalls this.But wait! Is it not question-begging
to appeal to the semantics of the word when what is at issue is whether
the word even has one logico-syntactic use?That is not what is at issue.
What is at issue is how we can properly think of the word as having one
logico-syntactic use. And the suggestion is: by first thinking in terms of
its semantics; by thinking of its semantics as itself already encompassing
all diversity in things. The word being is to be understood in such a way
that, whenever there are things that differ from one another, even if they
differ so much that there is no single logico-syntactic way of making reference to all of them, this word can be truly applied to them, in a single
sense, and therefore with a single logico-syntactic use.
One way to regard the shift from thinking of being as an entity in
its own right to thinking of difference as the character of being is as follows: it is a shift, in the attempt to think of being as having just one
logico-syntactic use, from modelling the word on a noun to modelling it
on a verb.42 So long as the word was modelled on a nounso long as the
word was conceived as standing in an invariant semantic relation to one
particular entitythere was an issue about whether talk of the being of
things could do suitable justice to all the ways in which things differ from
one another. For even if such talk could secure the univocity of being, how
could it do so except at the price of introducing fresh concerns, if not the
same old concerns, about the univocity of participation in being? And if
it did introduce such concerns, how could the obvious regress be blocked,
except by locating the really important univocity in precisely that differing
of things from one another which was giving pause? But the regress never
even starts, nor are there any such concerns, if the word being is modelled on a verb and is conceived as expressing such differing in the first
41

Cf. Deleuze (1994, p. 222).

42

Cf. Deleuze (1990b, 26th Series).

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place. Substance, the entity to which the noun substance refers, is now
thought of as turning, the activity to which the verb turn refers, around
the modes.
Furthermore, to think of difference as the character of being43 is to allow for the affirmation of the affirmation of difference to which I referred
in I. What I have in mind is this. The affirmation of difference is what enables being, univocal being, to be seen in the differences between things. It
is a making sense of difference, as the face of univocal being, where this is
as much differences making sense as it is differences being made sense of.
But if difference is the very character of being, then it is itself what enables
univocal being to be seen in the differences between things. It is its own
affirmation. The making sense of difference is simply things differing. The
affirmation of difference is the affirmation of the affirmation of difference.
What we have been witnessingat least, what we have been witnessing if Deleuzes reading of Nietzsche and Spinoza is correctis the power
of the Nietzschean verb over the Spinozist noun, or the power of Nietzschean differing over Spinozist substance. Spinozist substance is an entity
that differs from other entities in various ways. Nietzschean differing is
not an entity at all. It cannot be said to differ from other entities. It cannot
be said to differ from anything in the way in which entities differ from one
another. On the other hand, it can in a way be said to differ. For there is a
sense in which, in the differing of entities from one another, differing itself
is ever different. (If it were not, the differing of entities from one another
would stand to it in something like the relation of instantiation to a universal, and it would count as an entity after all.) But how can it be said to
differ if it cannot be said to differ from anything in the way in which entities differ from one another? One way is through a break with traditional
grammar: it can be said to differ from itself.44 And if differing is said to
differ from itself, this gives further fillip to the idea that the manifestation
of being through differing is itself a differing of sorts, a differing through
which being is manifest; in other words, that the affirmation of difference
is the affirmation of the affirmation of difference.
This is the line taken by Deleuze, in his exposition and defence of the
univocity of being. As I have tried to make clear, I have not myself been
concerned to defend the doctrine, still less to defend any of the associated
exegesis; I have been concerned with what it takes to think the doctrine.
A famous remark of Nietzsches is pertinent here: To impose upon becoming the character of beingthat is the supreme will to power, (1967, 617).
43

See Moore (2012, Ch. 7, 7) for a discussion of this sort of break with traditional
grammar, and Moore (2012, Concl., 3(b)) for application of the discussion to this very
case.
44

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But I have had a more particular aim too: to connect what it takes to think
the doctrine with issues that exercise analytic philosophers.
Not that this kind of linkage is likely to win any converts. Just the opposite in fact. It is likely to crystallize alternative ways of thinking in the
minds of analytic philosophers. Thus many analytic philosophers will recoil from unadorned talk of anythings differing from itself by demanding
some kind of relativization, such as that which allows for talk of Ellens
differing from herself by being both a child and an adult: a child then and
an adult now. Others will recoil no less from relativized talk of somethings
differing from itself and they will deny that there is strictly any identity between that girl and this woman.45 Again, many analytic philosophers will
insist that the word differing, as it occurs in the sentence Differing is not
an entity, functions as a singular term, andan entity being nothing but
what is picked out by a singular termthat the sentence is self-stultifying.
They are then liable to conclude that, if differing is anything at all, then it
is (perforce) an entity. Others will take a leaf out of each of Freges and the
early Wittgensteins books: they will acknowledge the self-stultification in
the sentence Differing is not an entity and they will conclude that there is
an insight here to which the sentence is gesturing but which cannot strictly
be expressed.46 Those who take this last option will of course be manifesting an element of conciliation. How close they will be to a convergence of
view with any champion of the univocity of being is going to depend in
part on how comfortable any champion of the univocity of being is with
this kind of appeal to the inexpressible: in some cases, I submit, very comfortable.47 But that is not the point. The point is not about convergence
of view. It is not even about rapprochement. The point is about dialogue.
Some analytic philosophers might eventually feel at home with these ways
of thinking; some might even eventually be persuaded by Deleuze to subscribe to the univocity of being. But first they have to be able to listen to
what he is saying.48
St Hughs College
Oxford ox2 6le
United Kingdom
[email protected]
45

See Lewis (1986, pp. 204 206).

See Frege (1997, esp. p. 184/p. 195 in the original German); and Wittgenstein (1961,
4.12 ff.).
46

I particularly have in mind Heidegger: see Heidegger (1999, 27 and 265). This relates back to the apparent tension in Heidegger to which I referred in n. 4. I believe that
the tension is real, and that Heideggers own appeal to the inexpressible serves a similar
function to that of the analytic philosophers envisaged in the main text.
47

I am very grateful to Denis McManus and Philip Turetzky for comments that helped
me to improve this essay.
48

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