Here comes “thing” again
In a recent article in the magazine Philosophy Now, Andrew Brenner briefly discusses the position I take in various writings about the abuse of the word “thing” in metaphysics. I’ve broached this topic in two previous posts on this blog. On this occasion, I’ll focus on just a single clause from Brenner’s article.
Near the end of the article, Brenner discusses the importance of conversational context in making clear the meaning of particular “existence questions”:
When I ask “How many things are in the fridge?”, the context lets you know that I’m asking about things that are edible or potable, and not about, say, shelves, air molecules, or electrical wires. Without that context my question would in fact be ill-posed: not because ‘thing’ is not a genuine kind or sort, but rather, because I am trying to ask about a particular sort of thing, and without the linguistic context, the string of words I’ve used fails to communicate the sort of thing I have in mind.
I’ve put the offending clause in boldface. Compare its syntax to “You can’t vote: not because you’re not old enough but rather because you’re not a citizen,” which syntax implies that you are old enough (and not a citizen). So I take Brenner to be saying that “thing” does denote a genuine kind or sort. My approach to much of metaphysics depends on rejecting that view.
Fortunately we can settle the issue. Suppose we ask, “What kind of thing is that?” and “What sort of thing is that?” The answers “The thing kind of thing” and “The thing sort of thing” are pure gibberish, which straightforwardly shows that “thing” doesn’t denote a kind or a sort. Likewise, the admissible answers to “What kind (sort) of object (entity, item) is that?” show that “object,” “entity,” and “item” don’t denote kinds or sorts either.