Constituent Ontology – Page 3 – Maverick Philosopher

Bare Particulars versus Aristotelian Substances

In this entry I will attempt to explain the difference between a bare particular and an Aristotelian primary substance. A subsequent post will consider whether this difference is theologically relevant, in particular, whether it is relevant to the theology of the Incarnation.

What is a Particular?

Particulars in the sense relevant to understanding 'bare particular' may be understood in terms of impredicability. Some things can be predicated of other things. Thus being black can be predicated of my cat, and being a property can be predicated of being black; but my cat cannot be predicated of anything. My cat is in this sense 'impredicable.' Particulars are subjects of predication but cannot themselves be predicated. Particulars, then, are ultimate subjects of predication. Thus my cat is an ultimate subject of predication unlike being black which is a subject of predication, but not an ultimate subject of predication. Particulars have properties but are not themselves properties. Properties may be characterized as predicable entities.

Three Senses of 'Bare Particular'

1. The first sense I mention only to set aside. It is a complete misunderstanding to suppose that philosophers who speak of bare or thin particulars, philosophers as otherwise different in their views as Gustav Bergmann, David Armstrong, and J. P. Moreland, mean to suggest that there are particulars that have no properties and stand in no relations. There is no such montrosity as a bare particular in this sense.

In order to explain the two legitimate senses of 'bare particular' I will first provide a general characterization that covers them both. A bare particular is a particular that lacks a nature or (real) essence. It is therefore quite unlike an Aristotelian primary substance. Every such substance has or rather is an individual nature. But while lacking a nature, a bare particular has properties. This 'having' is understood in terms of the asymmetrical external nexus of exemplification. A bare particular is thus tied to its properties by the external nexus of exemplification. To say that the nexus that ties a to F-ness is external is to say that there is nothing in the nature of a, and nothing in the nature of F-ness to require that a exemplify F-ness. After all, a, as bare, lacks a nature, and F-ness, while it has a nature, is not such that there is anything in it to necessitate its being exemplified by a. In this sense a bare particular and its properties are external to each other.

This mutual externality of property to bearer entails what I call promiscuous combinability: any bare particular can exemplify any property, and any property can be exemplified by any bare particular. (A restriction has to be placed on 'property' but we needn't worry about this in the present entry.)

David Armstrong holds that (i) there are conjunctive properties and that (ii) for each bare or thin particular there is the conjunctive property that is the conjunction of all of the particular's non-relational properties. He calls this the particular's nature. But I will avoid this broad use of 'nature.' What I mean by 'nature' is essence. Bare particulars lack essences, but not properties. Therefore, no property or conjunction of properties on a bare-particularist scheme is an essence. Note that it is given or at least not controversial that particulars have properties; it is neither given nor uncontroversial that particulars have essences.

I should also point out that talk of Aristotelian natures or essences would seem to make sense only within a constituent ontology such as Aristotle's.

From the foregoing it should be clear that to speak of a particular as bare is not to deny that it has properties but to speak of the manner in which it has properties. It is to say that it exemplifies them, where exemplification is an asymmetrical external tie. To speak of a particular as an Aristotelian substance is also to speak of the manner in which it has properties.

Consider the dog Fido. Could Fido have been a jellyfish? If Fido is a bare particular, then this is broadly logically possible. Why not, given promiscuous combinability? Any particular can 'hook up' with any property. But if Fido is an Aristotelian substance this is not broadly logically possible. For if Fido is a substance, then he is essentially canine. In 'possible worlds' jargon, Fido, if a substance, is canine in every possible world in which he exists. What's more, his accidental properties are not such as to be exemplified by Fido — where exemplification is an external tie — but are rather "rooted in" and "caused" by the substance which is Fido. (See J. P. Moreland who quotes Richard Connell in Moreland's Universals, McGill-Queen's UP, 2001, p. 93) The idea is that if Fido is an Aristotelian substance, then he has ingredient in his nature various potentialities which, when realized, are manifestations of that nature. The dog's accidental properties are "expressions" of his "inner nature." They flow from that nature. Thus being angry, an accident of Fido as substance, flows from his irascibility which is a capacity ingredient in his nature. If Fido is a bare particular, however, he would be externally tied to the property of being angry. And he would also be externally tied to the property of being a dog.

It follows that if particulars are bare, then all of their properties are had accidentally, and none essentially.

We now come to the two legitimate senses of 'bare particular.'

2. The second sense of 'bare particular' and the first legitimate sense is the constituent-ontological sense. We find this in Bergmann and Armstrong. Accordingly, a bare particular is not an ordinary particular such as a cat or the tail of a cat or a hair or hairball of cat, but is an ontological factor, ingredient, or constituent of an ordinary particular. Let A and B be round red spots that share all qualitative features. For Bergmann there must be something in the spots that grounds their numerical difference. They are two, not one, but nothing qualitative distinguishes them. This ground of numerical difference is the bare particular in each, a in A, and b in B. Thus the numerical difference of A and B is grounded in the numerical (bare) difference of a and b. In one passage, Bergmann states that the sole job of a bare particular is to individuate, i.e., to serve as the ontological ground of numerical difference.

Particulars, unlike universals, are unrepeatable. If F-ness is a universal, F-ness is repeated in each F. But if a is F, a is unrepeatable: it is the very particular it is and no other. One of the jobs of a Bergmannian bare particular is to serve as the ontological ground of an ordinary particular's particularity or thisness. A Bergmannian bare particular is that ontological constituent in an ordinary particular that accounts for its particularity. But note the ambiguity of 'particularity.' We are not now talking about the categorial feature common to all particulars as particulars. We are talking about the 'incommunicable' thisness of any given particular.

3. The third sense of 'bare particular' and the second legitimate sense is the nonconstituent-ontological sense. Summing up the above general characterization, we can say that

A bare particular is a particular that (i) lacks a nature (in the narrow sense lately explained); (ii) has all of its properties by exemplification where exemplification is an asymmetrical external nexus; and as a consequence (iii) has all of its properties accidentally, where P is an accidental property of x iff x exemplifies P but can exist without exemplifying P.

Note that this characterization is neutral as between constituent and nonconstituent ontology. If one is a C-ontologist, then bare particulars are constituents of ordinary particulars. If one is an NC ontologist who rejects the very notion of an ontological constituent, then bare particulars are ordinary particulars.

Conclusion

I have explained the difference between a bare particular and an Aristotelian substance. In a subsequent post I will address the question of how this deep ontological difference bears upon the possibility of a coherent formulation of the Incarnation doctrine.

Christology, Reduplicatives, and Qua-Entities

For Dave Bagwill, who is trying to understand the Chalcedonian definition.

…………….

Consider this triad, and whether it is logically consistent:

1. The man Jesus = the 2nd Person of the Trinity.
2. The 2nd Person of the Trinity exists necessarily.
3. The man Jesus does not exist necessarily.

Each of these propositions is one that a Christian who understands his doctrine ought to accept. But how can they all be true? In the presence of the Indiscernibility of Identicals, according to which, roughly, if two things are identical, then they share all properties, the above triad appears inconsistent: The conjunction of (1) and (2) entails the negation of (3). Can this apparent inconsistency be shown to be merely apparent?

Reduplicatives to the rescue. Say this:

4. Jesus qua 2nd Person exists necessarily while Jesus qua man does not exist necessarily.

(The stylistically elegant ‘while’ may be replaced for truth-functional purposes with the logician's ampersand.) Now one might object that reduplicative formulations are not helpful unto salvation from inconsistency since in the crucial cases they entail outright contradictions. They merely hide and postpone the difficulty. Thus, given that being a Person of the Trinity entails existing necessarily, and being a human animal entails existing contingently, (4) entails

5. Jesus exists necessarily & Jesus does not exist necessarily.

And that is a plain contradiction. But this assumes that reduplicative constructions need not be taken with full ontological seriousness as requiring reduplicative truth-makers. It assumes that what we say with reduplicatives can be said without them, and that, out in the world, there is nothing that corresponds to them, or at least that we have no compelling reason to commit ourselves to reduplicative entities, qua-entities, one might call them. That assumption now needs to be examined. Suppose we parse (4) as

6. Jesus-qua-2nd Person exists necessarily & Jesus-qua-man does not exist necessarily

where the hyphenated expressions function as nouns, qua-nouns (to give them a name) that denote qua-entities. It is easy to see that (6) avoids contradiction for the simple reason that the two qua-entities are non-identical. But what is non-identical may nonetheless be the same if we have a principled way of distinguishing between identity and sameness. (Hector-Neri Castaneda is one philosopher who distinguishes between identity and a number of sameness relations.) Essentially what I have just done is made a distinction in respects while taking respects with full ontological seriousness. This sort of move is nothing new. Consider a cognate case.

Suppose I have a red boat that I paint blue. Then we can say that there are distinct times, t1 and t2, such that b is red at t1 and blue at t2. That can be formulated as a reduplicative: b qua existing at t1 is red and b qua existing at t2 is blue. One could take that as just a funny way of talking, or one could take it as a perspicuous representation of the ontological structure of the world. Suppose the latter. Then, adding hyphens, one could take oneself to be ontologically committed to temporal parts, which are a species of qua-entity. Thus b-at-t1 is a temporal part that is distinct from b-at-t2. These temporal parts are distinct since they differ property-wise: one is red the other blue. Nevertheless, they are the same in that they are parts of the same whole, the temporally extended boat.

The conceptual move we are making here is analogous to the move we make when we say that a ball is green in its northern hemisphere and red in its southern hemisphere in order to defuse the apparent contradiction of saying that it is red and green at the same time. Here different spatial parts have different properties, whereas in the boat example, different temporal parts have different properties.

Can we apply this to the Incarnation and say that Jesus-qua-God is F (immortal, impassible, necessarily existent, etc.) while Jesus-qua-man is not F? That would avoid the contradiction while upholding such obvious truths as that divinity entails immortality while humanity entails mortality. We could then say, borrowing a term from the late Hector-Neri Castaneda (1924-1991), that Jesus-qua-God is consubstantiated with Jesus-qua-man. (Hector the atheist is now rolling around in his grave.) The two are the same, contingently the same. They are ontological parts of the same substance, and are, in that sense, consubstantiated. Jesus is God the Son where ‘is’ expresses a contingent sameness relation, rather than strict identity (which is governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals and the Necessity of Identity).

The idea is that God the Son and Jesus are, or are analogous to, ontological parts of one and the same whole. This is an admittedly bizarre idea, and probably cannot be made to work. But it is useful to canvass all theoretical possibilities.

Peter van Inwagen’s Trouble with Tropes

Concerning tropes, Peter van Inwagen says, "I don't understand what people can be talking about when they talk about those alleged items." (Existence: Essays in Ontology, Cambridge UP, 2014, p. 211.) He continues on the same page:

Consider two tennis balls that are perfect duplicates of each other. Among their other features, each is 6.7 centimeters in diameter, and the color of each is a certain rather distressing greenish yellow called "optical yellow." Apparently, some people understand what it means to say that each of the balls has its own color — albeit the color of one is a perfect duplicate of the color of the other. I wonder whether anyone would understand me if I said that each ball had its own diameter — albeit the diameter of one was a perfect duplicate of the diameter of the other. I doubt it. But one statement makes about as much sense to me as the other — for just as the diameter of one of the balls is the diameter of the other (6.7 centimeters), the color of one of the balls is the color of the other (optical yellow).

Although van Inwagen couches the argument in terms of what does and does not make sense to him, the argument is of little interest if he is offering a merely autobiographical comment about the limits of his ability to understand. And it does seem that he intends more when he says that he doubts whether anyone would understand the claim that each ball has its own diameter. So I'll take the argument to be an argument for the objective meaninglessness of trope talk, not just the PvI-meaninglessness of such talk:

1. It is meaningful to state that each ball has its own color if and only if it is meaningful to state that each ball has its own diameter.

2. It is not meaningful to state that each ball has its own diameter.

Therefore

3. It is not meaningful to state that each ball has its own color.

Therefore

4. Talk of tropes is meaningless.

The argument is valid, and (1) is true. But I don't see why we should accept (2). So I say the argument is unsound.

I am not defending the truth of trope theory, only its meaningfulness. I am maintaining that trope theory is a meaningful ontological proposal and that van Inwagen is wrong to think otherwise.

It is given that the two tennis balls have the same diameter. But all that means is that the diameter of ball A and the diameter of ball B have the same measurement, 6.7 cm. This fact is consistent with there being two numerically distinct particular diameters, the diameter of A and the diameter of B.

What's more, the diameters have to be numerically distinct. If I didn't know that the two balls were of the same diameter, I could measure them to find out. Now what would I be measuring? Not each ball, but each ball's diameter. And indeed each ball's own diameter, not some common diameter. I would measure the diameter of A, and then the diameter of B. If each turns out to be 6.7 cm in length, then we could say that they have the 'same diameter' where this phrase means that A's diameter has the same length as B's diameter. But again, this is consistent with the diameters' being numerically distinct.

There are two diameters of the same length just as there are two colored expanses of the same color: two yellownesses of the same shade of yellow. So I suggest we run van Inwagen's argument in reverse. Just as it is meaningful to maintain that the yellowness of A is numerically distinct from the yellowness of B, it is meaningful to maintain that the diameter of A is numerically distinct from the diameter of B. Looking at the two balls we see two yellownesses, one here, the other there. Similarly, measuring the balls' diameter, we measure two diameters, one here, the other there.

Again, this does not show that trope theory is true, but only that it makes sense. It makes as much sense as van Inwagen's proposal according to which optical yellow is an abstract property exemplified by the two balls.

Armstrong, Quine, Universals, Abstract Objects, and Naturalism

A Serbian reader inquires,

I have read your latest post on truthmakers. Among other things, you mention [David] Armstrong's view on abstract objects. As I read elsewhere (not in Armstrong own works, I have not read anything by him yet) he was realist about universals and gives a very voluminous defense of his view. Does this view entail realism about abstract objects?

I think that Quine was realist about abstract objects and at the same time naturalist and also holds that his Platonism was consequence of his naturalized ontology. Moreover, I have the impression that several preeminent analytic philosophers hold realist views on abstract objects, mostly under influences from Quine and in a smaller degree from Putnam.

Do Armstrong's views about universals entail realism about abstract objects?

No, they do not. Rejecting extreme nominalism, Armstrong maintains that there are properties. (I find it obvious that there properties, a Moorean fact, though I grant that it is not entirely obvious what is obvious.) Armstrong further maintains that properties are universals (repeatables), not particulars (unrepeatables) as they would be if properties were tropes. But his is a theory of immanent universals. This means two things. First, it means that there are no unexemplified universals. Second, it means that universals are constituents of the individuals (thick particulars) that 'have' them. In Wolterstorff's terminology, Armstrong is a constituent ontologist as opposed to a relation ontologist. His universals are ontological parts of the things that 'have' them; they are not denizens of a realm apart only related by an asymmetrical exemplification tie to the things that have them.

So for Armstrong universals are immanent in two senses: (a) they cannot exist unexemplified, and (b) they enter into the structure of ordinary (thick) particulars. It follows that his universals are not abstract objects on the Quinean understanding of abstract objects as neither spatial nor temporal nor causally active/passive. For given (b), universals are where and when the things that have them are, and induce causal powers in these things. And yet they are universals, immanent universals: ones-in-many, not ones-over-many. Some philosophers, including Armstrong, who are not much concerned with historical accuracy, call them 'Aristotelian' universals.

Does Armstrong reject all abstract objects?

Yes he does. Armstrong is a thorough-going naturalist. Reality is exhausted by space-time and the matter that fills it. Hence there is nothing outside of space-time, whether abstract (causally inert) or concrete (causally active/passive). No God, no soul capable of disembodied existence, or embodied existence for that matter, no unexemplified universals, not even exemplified nonconstituent universals, no Fregean propositions, no numbers, no mathematical sets, and of course no Meinongian nonenties.

How do Armstrong and Quine differ on sets or classes?

For Quine, sets are abstract entities outside space and time. They are an addition to being, even in those cases in which the members of a set are concreta. Thus for Quine, Socrates' singleton is an abstract object in addition to the concrete Socrates. For Armstrong, sets supervene upon their members. They are not additions to being. Given the members, the class or set adds nothing ontologically. Sets are no threat to a space-time ontology. (See D. M. Armstrong, Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics, Oxford UP, 2010, p. 8.)

What about the null set or empty class?

For Armstrong, there is no such entity. "It would be a strange addition to space-time!" he blusters. (Sketch, p. 8, n. 1). Armstrong makes a bad mistake in that footnote. He writes, "Wade Martin has reminded me about the empty class which logicians make a member of every class." Explain the mistake in the ComBox. Explain it correctly and I'll buy you dinner at Tres Banderas.

Are both Quine and Armstrong naturalists?

Yes. The Australian is a thorough-going naturalist: there is nothing that is not a denizen of space-time. The American, for reasons I can't go into, countenances some abstract objects, sets. It is a nice question, which is more the lover of desert landscapes.

Relational Ontology, Constituent Ontology, and Divine Simplicity

A Sketch of the Difference between Two Ontological Styles

What it is for a thing to have a property? Ostrich nominalism aside, it is a Moorean fact that things have properties, but the nature of the having is a philosophical problem. The ordinary language 'have' does not wear it correct ontological analysis on its sleeve. My cup is blue. Does the cup have the property of being blue by standing in a relation to it — the relation of exemplification — or by containing it as an ontological or metaphysical part or constituent? The root issue that divides constituent ontologists (C-ontologists) and those that N. Wolterstorff calls, rather infelicitously, "relation ontologists" (R-ontologists) is whether or not ordinary particulars have ontological or metaphysical parts.

C-ontologists maintain that (i) ordinary particulars have such parts in addition to their commonsense parts; (ii) that among these ontological parts are (some of) the properties of the ordinary particular; and (iii) that the particular has (some of) its properties by having them as proper parts. R-ontologists deny that ordinary particulars have ontological parts, and consequently deny that ordinary particulars have any of their properties by having them as parts. Of course, R-ontologists do not deny that (most) ordinary particulars have commonsense parts.

Drawing on some graphic images from D. M. Armstrong, we can say that for C-ontologists ordinary particulars are "layer cakes" while for R-ontologists they are "blobs." 'Blob' conveys the idea that ordinary particulars lack ontological structure in addition to such commonsense structure as spatial structure.

The distinction between these two styles of ontology or two approaches to ontology is not entirely clear, but, I think, clear enough. To take an example, is the blueness of my blue coffee cup an abstract object off in a platonic or quasi-platonic realm apart and only related to the cup I drink from by the external asymmetrical relation of exemplification? That, I take it, is van Inwagen's view. I find it hard to swallow. After all, I see (with the eyes of the head, not the eye of the mind) the blueness at the cup, where the cup is. Phenomenologically, I see (some) properties. So some properties are literally visible. No abstract objects (as PvI and others influenced by Quine use 'abstract objects') are literally visible. Ergo, some properties are not abstract objects.

Here is a second argument. Some properties are either wholly or partially located at the places where the things that have the properties are located. No abstract objects are either wholly or partially located at the places where the things that have the properties are located. Therefore, some properties are not abstract objects. So I am inclined to say that the blueness of my cup is in some unmereological and hard-to-explain sense an ontological proper part or constituent of the cup. It is obviously not the whole of the cup since the cup has other properties. Ordinary particulars are not ontologically structureless 'blobs.'

Needless to say, these two quick little arguments do not decide the matter in favor of C-ontology. And the other arguments I could add won't decide the matter either. But taken cumulatively these arguments give one good reason to reject R-ontology.

It is also worth observing that an ontological constituent needn't be a property. Gustav Bergmann's bare particulars and Armstrong's thin particulars are ontological constituents of ordinary or 'thick' particulars but they are not properties of those particulars. The materia signata of the Thomists is a constituent of material particulars, but not a property of such particulars. So, C-ontology is not just a thesis about properties and how they are had by the things that have them.

So much for ontological background. For more on the two ontological approaches, see my article, "Constituent versus Relational Ontology," Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal of Analytical Scholasticism, vol. 10, no, 1, 2013, pp. 99-115. Now what relevance does this have for the classically theist doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS)? But first: What is DDS?

The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity

To put it as 'simply' as possible, DDS is the thesis that God is without (proper) parts. (If you want to say that God is an improper part of himself, I'll let that slide.) Being without parts, God is without composition of any sort. It is obvious that God is not a region of space, nor does he occupy a region of space. So he cannot have spatial or material parts. If God is eternal, then he cannot have temporal parts. (And if there are no temporal parts, then God cannot have them even if he is everlasting or omnitemporal.) But he also lacks ontological parts. So the divine attributes cannot be different parts of him in the way that my attributes can be different parts of me on a C-ontology. We can put this by saying that in God there is no real distinction between him and his omni-attributes. He is each attribute, which implies that each attribute is every other attribute. Indeed, there is no distinction in God between God and any of his intrinsic properties. (Each omni-attribute is an intrinsic property, but not conversely.) What's more, there can be no distinction in God between essence and existence, form and matter, act and potency. Since God is in no way composite, he is simple.

And why must God be simple? Because he is absolute, and nothing absolute can be depend for its existence or nature on anything distinct from it. An absolute is what it has. It cannot be compounded of anything that is not absolute or dependent on anything that is not absolute. Why must God be absolute? Because anything less would not be God, a worship-worthy being. These answers are quick and catechetical, but I must invoke my blogospheric privilege and move one.

Plantinga's Critique Misses the Mark

Perhaps the best-known attack on the coherence of DDS is that of A. Plantinga in his Does God Have a Nature? The attack fails because Plantinga foists on the DDS an R-ontology that is foreign to the thought of DDS defenders. If properties are abstract objects, and God is a concrete particular, then of course it would be incoherent to maintain that God and omnsicience are one and the same. For if omniscience is a property, and properties are abstract objects, and abstract objects are causally inert, then the identification of God and omniscience would either render God causally inert — which would contradict his being concrete — or it would render omniscience causally active — in contradiction to its being abstract. More simply, if you think of concreta and abstracta as denizens of radically disjoint realms, as R-ontologists do, then it would be something like a Rylean category mistake to maintain that God is identical to his properties.

More simply still, if God is causally active and no property is causally active (or passive for that matter), would it not be supremely stupid to assert that there is no distinction in reality between God and his properties? Could Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Avicenna, et al. have been that stupid? I don't think so. Aquinas was as little Quinean in his understanding of abstracta as Quine was Aquinian. Philosophical theologians under the spell of Quine such as Plantinga and van Inwagen are not well situated to understand such tenets of classical theism as DDS.

It is obvious, then, that DDS is incoherent when read in the light of R-ontology. It is also uncharitable in excelsis to read Aquinas et al. in that light because so reading them makes nonsense of what they say.

Does C-ontology Help with Coherence?

One of the entailments of DDS is that God does not exemplify his nature; he just is his nature. We have seen that this makes no coherent sense on (any version of) R-ontology. But it does make coherent sense on (some versions of) C-ontology. For if God is purely actual with no admixture of potency, wholly immaterial, and free of accidents, then what is left for God to be but his nature? To understand this, one must bear in mind that the divine nature is absolutely unique. As such it is not repeatable: it is not a universal. It is therefore unrepeatable, a particular. What is to prevent it from being identical to God and from being causally active?

If you say that God is an instance of a multiply exemplifiable divine nature, they you are simply reverting to R-ontology and failing to take in the point I just made. God cannot be an instance of a kind, else he would depend on that kind to be what he is. God transcends the distinction between instance and kind. And if you persist in thinking that natures are causally inert abstract objects, then you are simply refusing to think in C-ontological terms.

If you say that I beg the question against the denier of DDS when I say that God transcends the instance-kind distinction, then you miss the point. The concern here is not whether DDS is true or whether there are non-question-begging arguments for it; the concern is whether it makes coherent sense as opposed to being quickly dismissable as guilty of a category mistake.

Another objection one might make is that the divine nature is not simple but complex, and that if God is his nature, then God is complex too. For Plantinga, the nature of a thing is a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are those properties the thing exemplifies in every possible world in which it exists. On this approach, the divine nature is 'cobbled together' or constructed out of God's essential properties. But then the divine nature is logically and ontologically posterior to those properties. Clearly, no defender of DDS will think of natures in the Plantingian way. He will think of the divine nature as logically and ontologically prior to the properties, and of the properties as manifestations of that unitary nature, a nature the radical unity of which cannot be made sense of on Plantinga's approach.

There are other problematic entailments of DDS. One is that in God, nature and existence are one and the same. On an R-ontology, this makes no coherent sense. But it can be made sense on a C-ontological approach. A fit topic for a separate post.

Reply to Ken Hochstetter on Divine Simplicity

Ken Hochstetter of the College of Southern Nevada kindly sent me some comments on my SEP Divine Simplicity entry. They are thoughtful and challenging and deserve a careful reply. My remarks are in blue. I have added some subheadings.

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Continue reading “Reply to Ken Hochstetter on Divine Simplicity”

More on Sensible Properties and Constituent Ontology

A reader asks:

Suppose I said that blue is not a Peter-van-Inwagen property, but a sensible property. Suppose also that I said that we see 1) substances and we see 2) their colors, and we see 3) the fact that substances are colored (and this last point amounts to not much more, if anything at all more, than the claim that we see both substances and their colors). I take it you would agree with these points.

There are some difficult questions here. No doubt we see material meso-particulars. I see a cat, a keyboard, a lamp. But do we see substances? 'Substance' is a theoretical term, of Aristotelian provenience, not what I call a 'datanic' term. If a cat is a bundle of universals, or a bundle of tropes, or a diachronic bundle of synchronic bundles of Castanedan guises, then a cat is not a substance. It is a Moorean fact that there are cats and that we see them; it is not Moorean fact that there are substances and that we see them. But let's set this problem aside.

A black cat sleeps on my desk. I see the cat and I see black (or blackness if you will) at the cat: I see black where the cat is. Contrary to what you suggest, there is more to a cat's being black than a cat and blackness even if the blackness is seen exactly where the cat is and nowhere else. For a cat's being black involves, in addition to the cat and black, the first's BEING the second. Note that a cat's being black is a fact, but neither a cat nor blackness is a fact.

This give rise to a puzzle. I see the cat, and I see black where the cat is. But do I see the cat's BEING black? Do I literally see (with my eyes) the fact of the cat's being black? And if I don't, how do I know that the cat IS black?

But let's set this vexing cluster of problems aside as well.

But then suppose that you discover that I think that colors are per se nowhere. They are not located in space in the way that substances are. When you turn your eye to something colored, geometrically speaking, you turn your eye only to the thing that is colored, but not the color of the thing, for this has no per se spatial location and therefore has nothing to do with the geometry of space beyond being the sensible property of something that has something to do with the geometry of space. Nonetheless, we see colors and we see the things that are colored. Would you find this view problematic? If so, why? Would you think that in making color only accidentally spatial that I depart from constituent ontology? I would like to think that I do not, for I say that both being an ox and being blue are parts of what it is to be a blue ox.

The view you sketch strikes me as incoherent. You cannot coherently maintain both that blue (of some definite shade) is a sensible property and that blue is nowhere. If blue is sensible, then it is sensible at some location or other. Therefore, blue cannot be nowhere.

Note that if there is a PVI-property of blueness, it could not itself be blue. Abstract objcts don't come in colors. So what good is it? What work does it do? You are still going to need the blueness of the blue cup. PVI-blueness is ontologically otiose, a metaphysical fifth wheel if you will. The blueness at the cup, by contrast, is blue! Right? If you deny that there is any blue blueness at the cup, are you then prepared to say that the cup is devoid of sensible properties?

Will you say that the blue cup is sensibly bluein virtue of instantiating PVI-blueness? How would that work? PVI-blueness is not a Platonic exemplar. It is not itself blue. How can a particular's instantiating it explain the particular's being sensibly blue?

Could blueness be accidentally spatial? I don't see how. Either it is necessary spatial, and in consequence thereof, sense-perceivable, or it is necessarily nonspatial in the manner of an abstract object. A blue wall is accidentally blue, but blueness, I should think, is necessarily spatial. And I do think you would be departing from constituent ontology if you were to hold that blueness is accidentally spatial.

A Question About Constituent Ontology: Sensible Properties as ‘Parts’

The following from a reader. I've edited it for clarity.

Here is a quick question for you: suppose someone were to grant you that there is the sensible character blue that you say that there is, a character of your coffee cup, but then still wanted to know why it is "in" or a "constituent" of a substance such as a cup. So, take this person to have read and understood your argument about nude particulars and to have said: "Indeed, whatever red is, it cannot be an abstractum, for certainly something of the sort could never enter into visual experience. Nor could "the fact that" some sensible particular stands in an instantiation relation to such an abstract object enter into visual experience, for we theorize such metaphysical facts, we do not see them. So I grant that blue is a visible property, but why should we say that blue, so characterized is "in" or is a "constituent" of a sensible particular item?"

Well, one assumption I am making is that a certain form of nominalism is untenable. Suppose someone said that what makes a blue object blue is that English speakers apply the predicate 'blue' to it. Nelson Goodman actually maintains something as crazy as this in one of his books. (Intellectual brilliance and teaching at Harvard are not prophylactic against silliness.) Why is it crazy? Because it is the metaphysically antecedent blueness of the thing in question, my trusty coffee cup, for example, that grounds the correctness of the application of 'blue' to the cup. I am tempted to say that this realism is just Moorean common sense.

In other words, 'blue' is true of the cup because the cup is blue. And not the other way around. It is false that the cup is blue because 'blue' is true of it. Obviously, this use of 'because' is not causal, as causation is understood by most contemporary philosophers. But neither is it logical. It is not logical because it does not express a relation that connects a proposition to a proposition. It expresses an asymmetrical relation of metaphysical grounding. This relation is a relation between what is at most a proposition-like entity such as a concrete fact or state of affairs and a proposition.

The truthmaker of 'This cup is blue' cannot be anything of a linguistic nature. (More generally, it cannot be anything of a representational nature.) And yet something makes our sample sentence true. There must be a truthmaker. It would be silly to say that the sentence is "just true." Given that there must be a truthmaker, it is going to involve the cup and the property, both construed as 'real,' i.e., extramental and extralinguistic. There is more a truthmaker than this, but we don't need to go into this 'more.'

My reader grants that blue is a visible property. One literally sees the blueness of the cup. This is not a Platonic visio intellectualis. It is not a seeing with the 'eyes' of the mind, but a seeing with the eyes of the head. Now if this is the case, then the property I see when I see a blue cup as blue cannot be an item off in a realm apart. It cannot be a denizen of a Platonic topos ouranos, and I am not peering into such a heavenly place when I see blue. Blueness cannot be an abstract object as many contemporary philosophers use this phrase.

Now if I see the blueness where the cup is, and when the cup is (although only at times at which the cup is in fact blue), then the pressure is on to say that blueness is some sort of 'proper part' of the cup, albeit in an extended, unmereological sense of 'part.' It can't be the whole of the cup because the cup has other empirically detectable properties such as being hot and smooth and of such-and-such weight and electrical conductivity. What other options are there?

Reflecting on the data of the problem, I come to the following conclusions: The blueness is real: it is extramental and extralinguistic. It is empirically detectable; hence it cannot be an abstract object. The blueness is detectable at the cup, not at some other place. The blueness is not identical to the cup.

We can account for the data by saying say that the blueness of the cup is an ontological constituent of the cup. Is there a better theory?

Kenny, Geach, and the Perils of Reading Frege Back Into Aquinas

London Ed has informed me of the passing of Peter Geach. May he find the Unchanging Light that he sought through his long and productive life of truth-seeking in these shadowlands. One honors a thinker best by thinking his thoughts, sympathetically, but critically. Here is one of my attempts. Others referenced below.

…………

I have been studying Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Being (Oxford 2002). I cannot report that I find it particularly illuminating. I am troubled by the reading back of Fregean doctrines into Aquinas, in particular in the appendix, "Frege and Aquinas on Existence and Number." (pp. 195-204) Since Kenny borrows heavily from Peter Geach, I will explain one of my misgivings in connection with a passage from Geach's important article, "Form and Existence" in God and the Soul. Geach writes,

Frege, like Aquinas, held that there was a fundamental distinction in rebus answering to the logical distinction between subject and predicate — the distinction between Gegenstand (object) and Begriff (concept). [. . .] And for Frege the Begriff, and it alone, admits of repetition and manyness; an object cannot be repeated — kommt nie wiederholdt vor. (45-46)

So far, so good. Geach continues:

Understood in this way, the distinction between individual and form is absolutely sharp and rigid; what can be sensibly said of one becomes nonsense if we try to say it of the other. [. . .] Just because of this sharp distinction, we must reject the Platonic doctrine that what a predicate stands for is is some single entity over against its many instances, hen epi pollon. On the contrary: the common nature that the predicate 'man' (say) stands for can be indifferently one or many, and neither oneness nor manyness is a mark or note of human nature itself. This point is made very clearly by Aquinas in De Ente et Essentia. Again we find Frege echoing Aquinas; Frege counts oneness or manyness (as the case may be) among the properties (Eigenschaften) of a concept, which means that it cannot at the same time be one of the marks or notes (Merkmalen) of that concept. (46)

I smell deep confusion here. But precisely because the confusion runs deep I will have a hard time explaining clearly wherein the confusion consists. I will begin by making a list of what Geach gets right.

1. Objects and individuals are unrepeatable.
2. Concepts and forms are repeatable.
3. Setting aside the special question of subsistent forms, no individual is a form, and no object is a concept.
4. Frege distinguishes between the marks of a concept and the properties of a concept. The concept man, for example, has the concept animal as one of its marks. But animal is not a property of man, and this for the simple reason that no concept is an animal. Man has the property of being instantiated. This property, however, is not a mark of man since it is not included within the latter's conceptual content: one cannot by sheer analysis of the concept man determine whether or not there are any men. So there is a sense in which "neither oneness nor manyness is a mark or note of human nature itself." This is true if taken in the following sense: neither being instantiated singly nor being instantiated multiply is a mark of the concept man.

But how do these points, taken singly or together, support Geach's rejection of "the Platonic doctrine that what the predicate stands for is some single entity over against its many instances"? They don't!

It seems obvious to me that Geach is confusing oneness/manyness as the relational property of single/multiple instantiation with oneness/manyness as the monadic property of being one or many. It is one thing to ask whether a concept is singly or multiply instantiated. It is quite another to ask whether the concept itself is one or many. It is also important to realize that a Fregean first-level concept, when instantiated, does not enter into the structure of the individuals that instantiate it. Aquinas is a constituent ontologist, but Frege is not. This difference is deep and causes a world of trouble for those who attempt to understand Aquinas in Fregean terms. For Frege, concepts are functions, and no function enters into the structure of its argument. The propositional function x is a man is not a constituent of Socrates. What's more, the value of the function for Socrates as argument is not a state of affairs with Socrates and the function as constituents. The value of the function for Socrates as argument is True; for Stromboli as argument, False. And now you know why philosophers speak of truth-values. It's mathematical jargon via Frege the mathematician.

The Fregean concept man is one, not many. It is one concept, not many concepts. Nor is it neither one nor many. It can have one instance, or many instances, or no instance. The Thomistic form man, however, is, considered in itself, neither one nor many. It is one in the intellect but (possibly) many in things. In itself, however, it is neither. And so it is true to say that the form is not "some single entity over against its many instances." It is not a single entity because, considered in itself, it is neither single nor multiple.

But this doesn't follow from point (3) above. And therein consists Geach's mistake. One cannot validly move from the "sharp distinction" between individuals/objects and forms/concepts to the conclusion that what a predicate stands for is not a single entity. Geach makes this mistake because of the confusion exposed two paragraphs supra. The mutual exclusion of objects and concepts does not entail that concepts cannot be single entities.

There is another huge problem with reading Frege back into Aquinas, and that concerns modes of existence (esse). A form in the intellect exists in a different way than it does in things. But if Frege is right about existence, there cannot be modes of existence. For if existence is instantiation, then there cannot be modes of existence for the simple reason that there cannot be any modes of instantiation.

I'll say more about this blunder in another post. It rests in turn on a failure to appreciate the radically different styles of ontology practiced by Aquinas and Frege. In my jargon, Aquinas is a constituent ontologist while Frege is a nonconstituent ontologist. In the jargon of Gustav Bergmann, Aquinas is a compex ontologist while Frege is a function ontologist.

Existence Neither Accidental Nor Essential

This post continues my ruminations on the distinctio realis. If essence and existence are really distinct in a contingent being, should we think of its existence as accidental or essential, or neither?

Max, a cat of my acquintance, exists and exists contingently: there is no broadly logical necessity that he exist. His nonexistence is broadly logically possible. So one may be tempted to say that existence is to Max as accident to substance. One may be tempted to say that existence is accidental to Max. In general, the temptation is to say that existence is an accidental property of contingent beings, and that this accidentality is what makes them contingent.

But this can't be right. On a standard definition, if P is an accidental property of x, then x can exist without P. So if existence were an accidental property of Max, then, Max could exist without existing. Contradiction.

Ought we conclude that existence is an essential property of Max? If P is an essential property of x, then x cannot exist without P. So if existence were an essential property of Max, then Max cannot exist without existing. The consequent of the conditional is true, but tautologically so.

From this one can infer either that (i) Max is a necessary being (because her has existence essentially) or that (ii) existence construed as an essential property is not the genuine article. Now Max is surely not a necessary being. It is true that if he exists, then he exists, but from this one cannot validly infer that he exists. Suppose existence is a first-level property. Then it would makes sense to say that existence is an essential property of everything. After all, in every possible world in which Max exists, he exists! But all this shows is that existence construed as an essential property is not gen-u-ine, pound-the-table existence.

We ought to conclude that existence is neither accidental to a contingent thing, nor essential to it. No contingent thing is such that existence follows from its essence. And no contingent thing is such that its contingency can be understood by thinking of its existence as an accidental property of it. The contingency of Max's being sleepy can be understaood in terms of his instantiation of an accidental property; but the contingency of his very existence cannot be so understood.

If every first-level property is either accidental or essential, then existence is not a first-level-property. But, as I have argued many times, it does not follow that existence is a second-level property. The Fregean tradition went off the rails: existence cannot be a second-level property. Instantiation is a second-level property, but not existernce. And of course it cannot be a second-level property if one takes the real distinction seriously, this being a distinction between essence and existence 'in' the thing or 'at' the thing.

Where does this leave us? Max exists. Pace Russell, saying that Max exists is NOT like saying that Max is numerous. 'Exists,' unlike 'numerous,' has a legitimate first-level use. So existence belongs to Max. It belongs to him without being a property of him. One argument has already been sketched. To put it explicitly: Every first-level property is either essential or accidental; Existence is neither an essential nor an accidental first-level property; ergo, Existence is not a first-level property.

Existence belongs to Max without being a property of him. How is existence 'related' to Max if it is not a property of him?

In my existence book I maintained that existence belongs to a contingent being such as Max not as accident to substance, or as essence to primary substance, or as property to possessor, or as proper part to whole, or by identity; but as unity to items unified. In brief, the existence of a contingent thing is the contingent unity of its ontological constituents. The existence of Max is not one of his constituents but the unity of all his constituents.

This approach solves the problem of how existence can belong to a contingent being without being a property of it. But it raises vexing questions of its own, questions to be taken up in subsequent posts in this series.

One question I need to address is whether philosophy would have come up with the real distinction if it were not for the doctrine of divine creation ex nihilo.

Is Socrates a Substance or a Cross-Categorical Hybrid?

0. I wanted to explore supposita in their difference from primary substances, but John the Commenter sidetracked me into the aporetics of primary substance. But it is a sidetrack worth exploring even if it doesn't loop back to the mainline. For it provides me more grist for my aporetic mill.

1. Metaphysics is a quest for the ultimately real, the fundamentally real, the ontologically basic. Aristotle, unlike his master Plato, held that such things as this man and that horse are ontologically basic. What is ontologically basic (o-basic) is tode ti, hoc aliquid, this something, e.g., this concrete individual man, Socrates, and that concrete individual donkey. Such individuals are being, ousia, in the primary sense. And so Socrates and his donkey can be called primary beings, or primary substances. Asinity there may be, but it can't be ontologically basic.

This is clearly the drift of Aristotle's thinking despite the numerous complications and embarrassments that arise when one enters into the details.

(If you think that there is 'substance' abuse in Aristotelian and scholastic precincts, I sympathize with you. You have to realize that 'substance' is used in different senses, and that these senses are technical and thus divergent from the senses of 'substance' in ordinary language.)

2. But of course every this something is a this-such: it has features, attributes, properties. This is a datum, not a theory. Socrates is a man and is excited by the turn the dialectic has taken, and this while seated on his donkey. Man is a substance-kind, while being excited and being seated are accidents. (Let us not worry about relations, a particularly vexing topic when approached within an Aristotelian-scholastic purview.) Setting aside also the difficult question of how a secondary substance such as the substance-kind man is related to Socrates, it is safe to say that for Aristotle such properties as being excited and being seated are theoretically viewed as accidents. So conceptualized, properties are not primary beings as they would be if they were conceptualized as mind-independent universals capable of existing unexemplified. Accidents by definition are not o-basic: If A is an accident of S, then A exists only 'in' S and not in itself. A depends on S for its existence, a mode of existence we can call inherence, while S does not depend for its existence on A.

3. So much for background. Now to the problem. Which is ontologically basic: Socrates together with his accidents, or Socrates taken in abstraction from his accidents?

What I want to argue is that a dilemma arises if we assume, as John the Commenter does, that Socrates taken together with his accidents is an accidental unity or accidental compound. A simple example of an accidental compound is seated-Socrates. Now I won't go into the reasons for positing these objects; I will just go along with John in assuming that they are there to be referred to.

Seated-socrates is a hylomorphic compound having Socrates as its matter and being seated as its form. But of course the matter of the accidental compound is itself a compound of prime matter and substantial form, while the form of the accidental compound is not a substantial form but a mere accident. The accidental compound is accidental because seated-Socrates does not exist at all the same times and all the same worlds as Socrates. So we make a tripartite distinction: there is a compound of prime matter and substantial form; there is an accident; and there is the inhering of the accident in the substance, e.g., Socrates' being seated, or seated-Socrates.

As Frank A. Lewis points out, accidental compounds are "cross-categorical hybrids." Thus seated-Socrates belongs neither to the category of substance nor to any non-substance category. One of its constituents is a substance and the other is an accident, but it itself is neither, which is why it is a cross-categorical hybrid entity.

The Dilemma

The dilemma arises on the assumption that Socrates together with his accidents is an accidental compound or accidental unity, and the dilemma dissolves if this assumption is false.

a. Either (i) Socrates together with his accidents is a primary substance or (ii) Socrates taken in abstraction from his accidents is a primary substance.

b. If (i), then Socrates is an accidental compound and thus a "cross-categorical hybrid" (F. A. Lewis) belonging neither to the category of substance nor to any non-substance category. Therefore, if (i), then Socrates is not a primary substance.

c. If (ii), then Socrates is not a concretum, but an abstractum, i.e., a product of abstraction inasmuch as one considers him in abstraction from his accidents. Therefore, if (ii), then Socrates is not a primary substance. For a primary substance must be both concrete and completely determinate. (These, I take it. are equivalent properties.) Primary substances enjoy full ontological status in Aristotle's metaphysics. They alone count as ontologically basic. They are his answer to the question, What is most fundamentally real? Clearly, Socrates taken in abstraction from his accidents is incompletely determinate and thus not fully real.

Therefore

d. On either horn, Socrates is not primary substance.

What say you, John?

What is the Difference Between a Substance and a Supposit?

I need to answer three questions. This post addresses the first.

1. What is the difference between an Aristotelian primary substance and a supposit (hypostasis, suppositum)?

2. Is there any non-theological basis for this distinction?

3. If the answer to (2) is negative, is the addition of suppposita to one's Aristotelian ontology a case of legitimate metaphysical revision or a case of an ad hoc theoretical patch job? According to Marilyn McCord Adams, "Metaphysical revision differs from ad hoc theoretical patching insofar as it attempts to make the new data systematically unsurprising in a wider theoretical context." ("Substance and Supposits," p. 40)

The First Question

By 'substance' I mean an Aristotelian primary substance, an individual or singular complete concrete entity together with its accidents. Among the characteristics of substances are the following: substances, unlike universal properties, cannot be exemplified or instantiated; substances, unlike accidents, cannot inhere in anything; substances, unlike heaps and aggregates, are per se unities. Thus Socrates and his donkey are each a substance, but the mereological sum of the two is not a substance.

Now what is a supposit? Experts in medieval philosophy — and I am not one of them, nota bene — sometimes write as if there is no distinction between a substance and a supposit. Thus Richard Cross: "Basically a supposit is a complete being that is neither instantiated or exemplified, nor inherent in another." ("Relations, Universals, and the Absue of Tropes," PAS 79, 2005, p. 53.) And Marilyn McCord Adams speaks of Socrates and Plato as "substance individuals" and then puts "hypostases or supposits" in apposition to the first phrase. (PAS 79, 2005, p. 15)

My first question, then is: Is there any more-than-verbal difference between a substance and a supposit, and if so, what is it?

One answer that suggests itself is that, while every substance has a supposit, some substances have alien supposits. (I take this phrase from Adams, p. 31 et passim.) A substance has an alien supposit iff it is not its own supposit. I understand Aristotle to maintain or at least be committed to the proposition that every (primary) substance is essentially its own supposit. If so, then no substance is possibly such as to have an alien supposit. If alien supposition is metaphysically or broadly logically possible, however, then we have a ground for a more-than-terminological distinction between substances and supposits. Whether the converse of this conditional holds is a further question. For it may be that there is a ground for the distinction even if alien supposition is not possible.

Incarnation, Trinity, and the separated soul's survival between death and resurrection are theological examples of alien supposition. Whether there are non-theological examples is a further, and very important question, one the answer to which has consequences for questions (2) and (3) above.

The Incarnation is an example of alien supposition as I will now try to explain.

The orthodox view is that God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, the Word, becomes man in Jesus of Nazareth. Although the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us as we read in the NT, the Word does not merely assume a human body, nor does it acquire a universal property, humanity; the Word assumes a particularized human nature, body and soul. The eternal Word assumes or 'takes on' a man, an individual man, with an intellectual soul and and animal body. But now a problem looms, one that can be articulated in terms of the following aporetic tetrad:

a. A person is a (primary) substance of a rational nature. (Boethian definition)

b. There is only one person in Christ, the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity. (Rejection of the heresy of Nestorius, according to which in Christ there are two persons in two natures rather than one person in two natures.)

c. The individual(ized) human nature of Christ is a primary substance of a rational nature.

d. Every (primary) substance is its own supposit, which implies that every substance of a rational nature has its own personhood.

The tetrad is logically inconsistent: any three limbs taken in conjunction entail the negation of the remaining one. Thus the conjunction (a) & (c) & (d) entails the negation of (b). The solution to the tetrad is to deny (d). One does this by maintaining that, while the individualized human nature of Christ is a substance, it is not a substance that supports itself: it has an alien supposit, namely, the Second Person of the Trinity.

If the Incarnation as Chalcedonian orthodoxy understands it is actual, then it is possible. If so, alien supposition is possible, which straightaway entails a distinction between substance and supposit: while every substance has or is a supposit, not every substance has or is its own supposit. The individualized human nature of Christ is a supposited substance but is not a supposit.

Let me now say a bit about the Trinity. Here too a problem looms that can be cast in the mold of an aporetic tetrad.

a. A person is a (primary) substance of a rational nature. (Boethian definition)

e. There are exactly three divine persons, Father, Son, Holy Ghost . (Rejection of 'Quaternity')

f. The individualized nature of God is a primary substance of a rational nature.

d. Every (primary) substance is its own supposit, which implies that every substance of a rational nature has its own personhood.

Again, the tetrad is inconsistent, and again the solution is to reject (d) by saying that, while the individualized divine nature is a primary substance, it is not one that supposits itself: it has three alien supposits, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The Son is thus the alien supposit of both God's divine nature and Christ's human nature.

My first question concerned the difference between a substance and supposit. My tentative answer is that while only substances can be supposits, there are substances that are not their own supposits nor are they supposits for anything else, an example being the individualized human nature of Christ.

Is there a non-theological basis for the distinction? if not, then the suspicion arises that the distinction is purely ad hoc, crafted to save tenets of orthodox Christian theology. But this is a question for another occasion.

On the Nature of Accidents: Objections and Replies

Lukas Novak comments and I respond.

Bill, what follows is what I consider the most important objection against your theory. It seems to me that in order to keep the basic meaning of "universal" and "particular" the following definitions must be assumed:

1. A universal is that which is (truly) predicable of many particular instances. BV: I agree if 'many' means two or more. I would add that a universal is a repeatable entity. But I suspect Novak will not agree with my addition. I suspect his view is that there are no universals in extramental reality. Universals are concepts. Hence I would expect him to balk at 'entity.'

2. X is an instance of a given universal U iff U is predicated of X. BV: I would say 'predicable' instead of 'predicated.' Predication is something we do in thought and with words. A universal can have an instance whether or not any predication is taking place.

3. U1 is subordinate to U2 iff all instances of U1 are instances of U2. This is expressed in language in the form "Every U1 is an U2" – for example, "Every man is an animal". BV: OK.

4. Every universal has at least some possible instances, unless it is intrinsically inconsistent. Now whiteness and color are universals. By common sense, color is superordinate to whiteness. So, every whiteness is a color. Peter's whiteness, on the other hand, is a particular. We must assume that Peter's whiteness is an instance of whiteness, and also of color – since whiteness and color are not intrinsically inconsistent and there are no more plausible candidates to [be] their instances than Peter's whiteness, Bob's blackness etc. BV: So far, so good!

But here comes the problem. If Peter's whiteness contains whiteness, then Peter's color contains color as its constituent. BV: It is true that Peter is white, and it is true that if Peter is white, then he is colored. But it doesn't follow that there is the accident Peter's coloredness. Accidents are real (extramental) items. Peter really exists and his whiteness really exists. But there is not, in addition to Peter's whiteness, the accident Peter's coloredness.

Argument 1: It is accidental that Peter is white (or pale) due perhaps to a deficiency of sunlight. But it is not accidental that Peter is colored. Peter is a concrete material particular, and necessarily, every such particular has some color or other. Therefore, being colored is not an accident of Peter. Being colored is essential to Peter.

Argument 2: The truth-maker of 'Peter is white' is Peter's being white. But Peter's being white is also the truth-maker of 'Peter is colored.' Therefore, there is no need to posit in reality, besides Peter's being white, Peter's being colored.

I therefore say that there is no such accident as Peter's being colored. Consequently, the rest of Novak's reasoing is moot.

You may perhaps say that Peter's whiteness also contains color because whiteness contains color, but certainly color does not contain whiteness in that case (else they would coincide), and therefore Peter's color does not contain whiteness.

BV: We have to be careful not to equivocate on 'contain.' In one sense of 'contain,' whiteness contains color or coloredness. We could call this conceptual inclusion: whiteness includes coloredness as a part. In a second sense of 'contain, ' if x is an ontological constituent of y, then y contains x. Thus the accidental compound [Peter + whiteness] contains the substance Peter and the accident whiteness, but does not contain them in the way whiteness contains color.

Consequently, Peter's color is not an instance of whiteness. But this contradicts the fact that Peter's color just is Peter's whiteness, because Peter's whiteness is a color (by def. 3, assuming that whiteness is subordinate to color), and there is no other color in Peter than his whiteness (let us so stipulate).

Put very simply: if Peter's whiteness is just Peter+whiteness+NE+time, then Peter's color is just Peter+color+NE+time, but then Peter's whiteness is not Peter's color. But this is wrong since whiteness is subordinate to color and so any instance of whiteness must be identical to an instance of color.

BV: Novak's argument could be put as follows:

a. If Peter's whiteness is a complex having among its constituents the universal whiteness, then Peter's coloredness is a complex having among its constituents the universal coloredness.

b. These are numerically distinct complexes.

Therefore

c. Peter's whiteness is not Peter's coloredness.

d. (c) is false.

Therefore

e. Peter's whiteness is not a complex.

By my lights, the argument is unsound because (a) is false as I already explained: there is no such complex as Peter's coloredness.

Substance and Accident: The Aporetics of Inherence

1.If substance S exists and accident A exists, it does not follow that A inheres in S. An accident cannot exist without existing in some substance or other, but if A exists it does not follow that A exists in S. If redness is an accident, it cannot exist except in some substance; but if all we know is that redness exists and that Tom exists, we cannot validly infer that Tom is red, i.e., that redness inheres in Tom.

2. So if A inheres in S, this inherence is something in addition to the existence of S and the existence of A. There is more to Tom's being red than Tom and redness. We must distinguish three items: S, A, and the tie of inherence. S and A are real (mind-independent) items. Presumably the tie of inherence is as well. Presumably we don't want to say that A inheres in S in virtue of a mental synthesis on our part.

3. My question: what is inherence? What is the nature of this tie? That the accident of a substance is tied to it, and indeed necessarily tied to it, is clear. The nature, not the existence, of the tie is what is in question.

4. Inherence is not an external relation on pain of Bradley's regress.

5. Inherence is not identity. This was argued earlier.

6. A is not a part of S. This too was argued earlier.

7. Is S a part of A? For Brentano, an accident is a whole a proper part of which is the substance itself — but there is no other proper part in addition to the substance! Every part of the accident is either the substance or a part of the substance. This I find bizarre. Suppose a chocolate bar is both brown and sticky. What distinguishes the brownness accident from the stickiness accident if both have as sole proper part the chocolate bar? (For a very clear exposition of Brentano's theory, see R. Chisholm, "Brentano's Theory of Substance and Accident" in his Brentano and Meinong Studies.)

8. I made a similar suggestion, namely, that S is a part of A, except that I assayed accidents as akin to facts. This has its own difficulties.

9. Here is Dr. Novak's scholastic suggestion:

I take the connexion between S and A to be that of a receptive potency and its corresponding act. S contains an intrinsic relation of "informability" to all its possible accidents, and A contains an intrinsic relation of informing toward S. Together these two constitute an accidental whole of which they are not just parts but complementary intrinsic causes: S is its material cause and A its formal cause. They are unified in jointly intrinsically co-causing the one accidental composite.

This implies that we must distinguish among three items: the substance (Peter, say), his accidents (being hot, being sunburned, being angry, being seated etc.) and various accidental wholes each composed of the substance and one accident.

So it seems that Novak is committed to accidental compounds such as [Socrates + seatedness] where Socrates is the material cause of the compound and seatedness the formal cause. Moreover, the substance has the potentiality to be informed in various ways, and each accident actualizes one such potentiality.

Recall that what we are trying to understand is accidental change. And recall that I agree with Novak that we cannot achieve a satisfactory analysis in terms of just a concrete particular, universals, and an exemplification relation. If Peter changes in respect of F-ness, and F-ness is a universal, then of course there are two times t and t* such that Peter exemplifies F-ness at t but does not exemplify F-ness at t*. But this is not sufficient for real accidental change in or at Peter. For the change is not relational but intrinsic to Peter. So, whether or not we need universals, we need a category of entities to help us explain real change. As Novak appreciates, these items must be particulars, not universals.

What we have been arguing about is the exact nature of these particulars. I suggested earlier that they are property-exemplifications. Novak on the basis of the above quotation seems to be suggesting that they are accidental compounds.

Suppose Socrates goes from seated to standing to seated again. In this case of accidental change we have one substance, three accidents, and three accidental compounds for a total of seven entities. Why three accidents instead of two? Because the second seatedness is numerically different from the first. (Recall Locke's principle that nothing has two beginnings of existence.) And because the second accident is numerically distinct from the first, the first and the third accidental compound are numerically distinct.

When Socrates stands up, [Socrates + seatedness] passes out of being and [Socrates + standingness] comes into being and stays in being until Socrates sits down again. So these accidental compounds are rather ephemeral objects, unlike Socrates.

Perhaps they help us understand change. But they raise their own questions. Socrates and seated-Socrates are not identical. Presumably they are accidentally the same. Is accidental sameness the same as contingent identity? What are the logical properties of accidental sameness? Is an Ockham's Razor type objection appropriately brought against the positing of accidental compounds?

Accidents of a Substance: Simple or Complex?

Dr. Novak is invited to tell me which of the following propositions he accepts, which he rejects, and why:

0. I have reservations about an ontology in terms of substances and accidents, but anyone who adopts such an ontology needs to provide a detailed theory of accidents. This post sketches a theory. It has roots in Aristotle, Brentano, Chisholm, Frank A. Lewis, and others who have written about accidental compounds or accidental unities.

1. Accidents are particulars, not universals, where particulars, unlike universals, are defined in terms of unrepeatability or uninstantiability.

2. The accidents of a substance are properties of that substance. Tom's redness, for example, is a property of him. That there are properties is a datanic claim; that some of them are accidents is a theoretical claim. Accidental properties are those a thing need not have to exist. I am using 'property' in a fairly noncommittal way. Roughly, a property is a predicable entity.

3. It follows from (1) and (2) that some properties are particulars.

4. A substance S and its accident A are both particulars. S is a concrete particular while A is an abstract particular. For example, Tom is a concrete particular; his redness is an abstract particular. It is abstract because there is more to Tom than his being red.

5. Accidents are identity- and existence-dependent upon the substances of which they are the accidents. An accident cannot be the accident it is, nor can it exist, except 'in' the very substance of which it is an accident. Accidents are not merely dependent on substances; they are dependent on the very substances of which they are the accidents. 'In' is not to be taken spatially but as expressing ontological dependence. If the being of substances is esse, the being of accidents is inesse. These are two different modes of being.

6. It follows from (5) that accidents are non-transferrable both over time and across possible worlds. For example, Peter's fear cannot migrate to Paul: it cannot somehow leave Peter and take up residence in Paul. Suppose Peter and Paul are both cold to the same degree. If coldness is an accident, then each has his own coldness. The coldnesses are numerically distinct. They cannot be exchanged in the way jackets can be exchanged. Suppose Peter and Paul both own exactly similar jackets. The two men can exchange jackets. What they cannot do is exchange accidents such as the accident, being jacketed. Each man has his own jacketedness.

Now for a modal point. There is no possible world in which Peter's coldness exists but Peter does not. Peter's coldness does not necessarily exist, but it is necessarily such that, if it does exist, then Peter exists. And of course the accident cannot exist except by existing 'in' Peter. So we can say that Peter's coldness is tied necessarily to Peter and to Peter alone: in every possible world in which Peter's coldness exists, Peter exists; and in no possible world does Peter's coldness inhere in anything distinct from Peter. The same goes for Peter's jacketedness. Peter's jacket, however, is not necessarily tied to Peter: it can exst without him just as he can exist without it. Both are substances; both are logically capable of independent existence.

The modal point underins the temporal point. Accidents cannot migrate over time because they are necessarily tied to the substances of which they are the accidents.

7. It follows that the superficial linguistic similarity of 'Peter's jacket' and 'Peter's weight' masks a deep ontological difference: the first expression makes reference to two substances while the second makes reference to a substance and its accident.

8 If A is an accident of S, then A is not related to S by any external relation on pain of Bradley's regress.

9 If A is an accident of S, then A is not identical to S. For if A were identical to S, then A would be an accident of itself. This cannot be since 'x is an accident of y' is irreflexive.

10. If A is an accident of S, then A cannot be an improper or proper part of S. Not an improper part for then A would be identical to S. Not a proper part of S because accidents depend on substances for their identity and existence. No proper part of a whole, however, depends for its existence and identity on the whole: it is the other way around: wholes depend for their identity and existence on their parts.

11. How then are we to understand the tie or connection between S and A? This is the connection expressed when we say, for example, that Socrates is white. It is an intimate connection but not as intimate as identity. We need a tie that is is less intimate than identity but more intimate than a relation.

We saw in #10 that an accident cannot be a part (ontological consituent) of its substance. But what is to stop us from theorizing that an accident is a whole one of the proper parts of which is the substance? This is not as crazy as it sounds.

12. Let our example be the accidental predication, 'Socrates is seated.' Start by giving this a reistic translation: 'Socrates is a seated thing.' Take the referent of 'Socrates' to be the substance, Socrates. Take the referent of 'a seated thing' to be the accidental compound Socrates + seatedness. This compound entity has two primary constituents, Socrates, and the property of being seated. It has as a secondary constituent the tie designated by '+.' Now read 'Socrates is a seated thing' as expressing, not the strict identity, but the accidental sameness of the two particulars Socrates and Socrates + seatedness. Thus the 'is' in our original sentence is construed, not as expressing instantiation, or identity, but as expressing accidental sameness. Accidental sameness ties the concrete particular Socrates to the abstract particular Socrates + seatedness.

13. The accidental compound is an extralinguistic particular having four constituents: a concrete particular, a nexus of exemplification, a universal, and a temporal index. Thus we can think of it as the thin fact of Socrates' being seated. 'Thin' because not all of Socrates' properties are included in this fact.

14. My suggestion, then, is that accidents are thin facts. To test this theory we need to see if thin facts have all the features of accidents. Well, we have seen (#1) that accidents are particulars. Thin facts are as well. This is a case of what Armstrong calls the Victory of Particularity: a particular's exemplification of a universal is a particular.

Accidents are properties and so are thin facts: both are ways a substance is. Both are predicable entities. 'Socrates is seated' predicates something of something. On the present theory it predicates an abstract particular of a concrete particular where the predicative tie is not the tie of instantiation (exemplification) but the tie of accidental sameness.

Accidents are abstract particulars, and so are thin facts. They are abstract because they do not capture the whole reality or quiddity of the substance.

Accidents depend on substances for their identity and existence. The same is true of thin facts. A fact is a whole of parts and depends for its identity and existence on its parts, including the substance.

Accidents are non-transferrable. The same holds for thin facts.

Accidents are necessarily tied to the substances of which they are accidents. The same goes for thin facts: the identity of a thin fact depends on its substance constituent.

An accident is not identical to its host substance. The same is true of thin facts. Socrates' being seated is not identical to Socrates.

An accident is not externally related to its substance. The same is obviously truth of thin facts.

Accidents are not parts of substances. The same holds for thin facts.

Finally, no accident has two beginnings of existence. If Elliot is sober, then drunk, then sober again, his first sobriety is numerically distinct from his second: the first sobriety does not come into existence again when our man sobers up. The same is true of thin facts. Elliot's beng sober at t is distinct from Elliot's being sober at t*.

15. On the above theory, an accident is a complex. It follows that an accident is not a trope, pace Dr. Novak. Tropes are very strange animals. A whiteness trope is an abstract particular that is also a property and is also ontologically simple. An example is the particular redness of Tom the tomato. I can pick out this trope using 'the redness of Tom and Tom alone' where the 'of' is a subjective genitive. But note that the 'of Tom and Tom alone' has no ontological correlate. The trope, in itself, i.e., apart from our way of referring to it, is simple, not complex. And yet it is necessarily tied to Tom. This, to my mind, makes no sense, as I explained in earlier posts. So I reject tropes, and with them the identification of accidents with tropes.

My conclusion, then, is that IF — a big 'if' — talk of substances and accidents is ultimately tenable and philosophically fruitful, THEN accidents must be ontologically complex entities. Anyone who endorses accidents is therefore a constituent ontologist.