The Fullness of Being: A New Paradigm for Existence by Barry Miller (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 485 from the remote end would be by developing a criterion of intelligibility. For example, is the removal the kidney intelligible to the surgeon himself apart from direct reference to its subsequent placement in the sick recipient? Even with these limitations, however, Kacror's study is a remarkable achievement. It is simply the best book-length critique of proportionalism currently available. Anyone wishing to understand proportionalism and why it fails as method of moral analysis would do well to read Kaczor's book. University ofFribourg Fribourg, Switzerland MICHAEL SHERWIN, 0.P. The Fullness ofBeing: A New Paradigm for Existence. By BARRY MILLER. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002. Pp. 184. $29.95 (doth). ISBN 0-268-02864-8. This book proposes a new analysis ofthe relation between any individual and its instance of existence. This new paradigm replaces construing an individual's instance of existence as inhering in that individual, as, for example, wisdom inheres in Socrates. What defeats this latter analysis is that, given that things are logically prior to their properties and that it is due to his existence that Socrates is something actual to begin with, how could an instance of existence be a property inhering in Socrates when there is nothing there for it to inhere in (56)? Further, if Socrates is said to what individuates his property of existence, how again and for the same reason can that possibly be the case? How can Socrates play any role whatsoever in the individuation of his own property of existence without having some reality independently of the latter, which he does not (103)? Again, if, like wisdom, virtue, etc., Socrates' existence is a real property that inheres in Socrates, then just as we add something to the subject when we say that Socrates is wise, virtuous, etc., so too should we add something to Socrates when we say that he exists (82-83, 104). But a legion of modern and recent philosophers have echoed Kant's insistence that nothing is added to the concept of the subject when we say that Socrates exists. It follows that unlike wisdom or virtue, existence is not to be construed as being a real property that inheres in a subject. Finally, construing existence as a property that inheres in an individual invites strange entities such as a subsistent Pegasus (40ff.). If 'exists' is a first-level predicate then so too is 'does not exist' (24). But then in order to deny that Pegasus exists one must assume that Pegasus in some sense has being. Since this is intolerable, it must be denied that 'exists' is a first-level predicate. But supposing it true that existence is a property of individuals if and only if 486 BOOK REVIEWS 'exists' is a predicate of individuals, it follows that existence cannot be construed as being a real property that inheres in an individual. Many answer these puzzles by denying in the first instance that 'exists' is a first-level predicate and hence that existence is a property of individuals. This move is made by Hume, Kant, Frege, Russell, Quine, and C. J. F. Williams, among others, all of whom insist that 'exists' occurs redundantly in 'Socrates exists.' Hence, Miller refers to these philosophers as redundancy-theorists about existence (2-13). Non-redundancytheorists, accordingto him, include Avicenna, Henry of Ghent, Aquinas, and himself. The task for non-redundancy theorists is to show howthe above problems can be skirted without denying that existence is a real property of individuals. To the question of how an instance of existence could ever be said to be predicated of Socrates when the latter has no actuality independently that existence, Avicenna and Henry of Ghent answer that Socrates' essence has a special being or existence of its own, that is, esse essentiae, which is different from Socrates' instance of existence (esse existentiae) (14-15}. The question is answered, then, by positing something that is independent of Socrates' instance of existence and of which Socrates' instance of existence (esse existentiae) is predicated. And that is Socrates' esse essentiae. As for Aquinas, Miller holds that while the Angelic Doctor rightly rejected the notion of an esse essentiae...