Well, it depends on what you believe existence is. In Quine’s “On What There Is”, he creates two philosophers named McX and Wyman in order to demonstrate the ontological problem. Quine describes McX’s mind as “elementary”, while Wyman has a “subtler” mind (136).
McX argues that Pegasus must be something because we talk about something when we use the word. He then continues by saying he will never see the flesh or blood of Pegasus because Pegasus is an idea in men’s mind. This creates a problem because when people talk about Pegasus existing, they’re talking about the physical Pegasus, not the idea of Pegasus.
Wyman starts off his argument by trying to make his definition of existence more specific. He limits the word existence to actuality; thus making it necessary for Pegasus to be here in space and time in order to be considered existing. Wyman believes Pegasus is an “unactualized possible” (136). Wyman says “unactualized” because he believes Pegasus is in nonexistence. So you can say McX and Wyman both agree on this point. The “possible” part, however, is the part that makes them disagree. Wyman added the “possible” part because Pegasus is an idea that could possibly exist in space and time.
Quine clearly takes sides with the “subtler minded” Wyman, stating, “Subtler minds, taking the same precept as their starting point, come out with theories of Pegasus which are less patently misguided than McX’s, and correspondingly more difficult to eradicate” (136). This may be true, but Wyman never proves McX wrong; McX seems to have a pretty logical explanation as well. The major difference between the two arguments is the definition of the word existence. Wyman may have a more specific definition to the word existence, but does it really make a difference when you know something that is nonexistent, such as Pegasus, is never going to be in this world? Quine starts the essay by saying the question to “What is there” could simply be answered as “everything” and everyone would accept this answer. After reading “On What There Is”, you begin to realize this question is not as simple as it looks. If there were “everything”, I would choose Pegasus over the train as transportation to Hunter College any day.
