Category: Constituent Ontology
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Bare Particulars and Prime Matter: Similarities and Differences
This entry continues the discussion of prime matter begun here. That post is a prerequisite for this one. Similarities between Bare Particulars and Prime Matter S1. Bare particulars in themselves are property-less while prime matter in itself is formless. The bare particular in a thing is that which exemplifies the thing's properties. But in itself…
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Substantial Change, Prime Matter, and Individuation
Eric Levy wants to talk about prime matter. I am 'primed' and my powder's dry: Nihil philosophicum a me alienum putamus. "I consider nothing philosophical to be foreign to me." Change, Accidental and Substantial There is no change without a substrate of change which, in respect of its existence and identity, does not change during…
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J. P. Moreland on Constituent Ontology: Is Exemplification a Spatial Container Relation?
J. P. Moreland defines an "impure realist" as one who denies the Axiom of Localization (Universals, McGill-Queen's UP, 2001, p. 18): No entity whatsoever can exist at different spatial locations at once or at interrupted time intervals. An example of an impure realist is D. M. Armstrong. An example of a pure realist is R.…
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Van Inwagen: No Truck with Tropes or Constituent Ontology Generally
Thanks again to Professor Levy to getting me 'fired up' over this topic. ………………………………………. Is the notion of a trope intelligible? If not, then we can pack it in right here and dispense with discussion of the subsidiary difficulties. Peter van Inwagen confesses, "I do not understand much of what B-ontologists write." (Ontology, Identity, and…
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The Emperor’s Clothes Revisited or Trope Theory Interrogated
The following is a comment by Eric Levy in a recent trope thread. My responses are in blue. ……………………… Might I revert to the problem of compresent tropes constituting a concrete particular? Heil well formulates it: “One difficulty is in understanding properties as parts that add up to objects” (2015, 120). The whole business seems…
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Trope Troubles: An Exercise in Aporetics with the Help of Professor Levy
Eric P. Levy, an emeritus professor of English at the University of British Columbia, has been much exercised of late by trope theory and other questions in ontology. He has been sharing his enthusiasm with me. He espies . . . an apparent antinomy at the heart of trope theory. On the one hand,…
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A Question About Tropes
EL: I have been reading with great pleasure and enlightenment certain sections of your superb work, A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated. Your skill and poise in framing and unfolding your argument, your marvelous dexterity with rebuttal of adversarial views, and your insistence that existence remain at the center of metaphysical inquiry instead of…
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On J. P. Moreland’s Theory of Existence
What follows is largely a summary and restatement of points I make in "The Moreland-Willard-Lotze Thesis on Being," Philosophia Christi, vol. 6, no. 1, 2004, pp. 27-58. It is a 'popular' or 'bloggity-blog' version of a part of that lengthy technical article. First I summarize my agreements with J. P. Moreland. Then I explain…
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What is Potentiality? An Exploration
Our Czech friend Vlastimil V. writes, I believe it is precisely the potentiality — or the in principle capacity — of logical thinking, free decisions, or higher emotions that makes killing human embryos morally problematic, seemingly unlike the killing of non-human embryos. This seems to me a promising hypothesis, to say the least. But I…
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Being Itself: Continuing the Discussion with Dale Tuggy
I admire Dale Tuggy's resolve to continue this difficult discussion despite the manifold demands on his time and energy. (This Gen-X dude is no slacker! If one of us is a slacker, it's this Boomer. Or, if you prefer, I am a man of leisure, otium liberale, in the classical sense.) The core question, you…
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Pre-Print: Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology
The following review article is scheduled to appear later this year in Studia Neoscholastica. The editor grants me permission to reproduce it here should anyone have comments that might lead to its improvement. REVIEW ARTICLE William F. Vallicella Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology, Cambridge University Press, 2014, viii + 261 pp. This volume…
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Van Inwagen, Properties, and Bare Particulars
In this entry I expand on my claim that Peter van Inwagen's theory of properties commits him to bare particulars, not in some straw-man sense of the phrase, but in a sense of the phrase that comports with what proponents of bare particulars actually have claimed. I begin by distinguishing among four possible senses of…
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Peter van Inwagen, “A Theory of Properties,” Exposition and Critique
This entry is a summary and critique of Peter van Inwagen's "A Theory of Properties," an article which first appeared in 2004 and now appears as Chapter 8 of his Existence: Essays in Ontology (Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 153-182.) Andrew Bailey has made it available on-line. (Thanks Andrew!) I will be quoting from the…
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Will the Real Truth-Maker of ‘Al is Fat’ Please Stand up?
From a comment thread: Me to Josh: "Could Al be the truth-maker of 'Al is fat'? Arguably not. What is needed is a state of affairs, Al's being fat." Josh to me: Yes, I think Al is the truth-maker of "Al is fat," but could be persuaded otherwise. I'm not sure what objections you have…
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The Ramsey Problem and the Problem of the Intrinsically Unpropertied Particular
What exactly is the distinction between a universal and a particular? Universals are often said to be repeatable entities, ones-over-many or ones-in-many. Particulars, then, are unrepeatable entities. Now suppose the following: there are universals; there are particulars; particulars instantiate universals; first-order facts are instantiations of universals by particulars. One and the same universal, F-ness, is…