Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

by Lulu Miller

There’s an idea in philosophy that certain things don’t exist until they get a name. Abstract things like justice, nostalgia, infinity, love, or sin. The thinking goes that these concepts do not sit out there on some ethereal plane waiting to be discovered by humans but instead snap into being when someone invents a name for them. The moment the name is uttered, the concept becomes “real,” in the sense that it can affect reality. We can declare war, truce, bankruptcy, love, innocence, or guilt, and in so doing, change the course of people’s lives. The name itself is a thing of great power, then, the vessel that drags the idea from the imaginary to the earthly realm. Before the word, however, the thinking goes, the concept is largely inert.