Constituent Ontology – Page 4 – Maverick Philosopher

Constituent Ontology and the Problem of Change: Can Relational Ontology Do Better?

Constituent ontologists would seem to have a serious problem accounting for accidental change. Suppose an avocado goes from unripe to ripe over a two day period. That counts as an accidental change: one and the same substance (the avocado) alters in respect of the accidental property of being unripe. It has become different qualitatively while remaining the same numerically.

This is a problem for constituent ontologists if C-ontologists are committed to what Michael J. Loux calls "Constituent Essentialism." ("What is Constituent Ontology?" Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, Ontos Verlag 2012, Novak et al. eds., p. 52) Undoubtedly, many of them are, if not all. Constituent Essentialism is the C-ontological analog of mereological essentialism. We can put it like this:

Constituent Essentialism: A thing has each of its ontological parts necessarily. This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose an ontological part without ceasing to be same
thing.

Mereological Essentialism: A thing has each of its commonsense parts necessarily.
This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose a commonsense part without ceasing
to be the same thing.

To illustrate, suppose an ordinary particular (OP) such as our avocado is a bundle of compresent universals. The universals are the ontological parts of the OP as a whole. The first of the two principles entails that ordinary particulars cannot change. For accidental (alterational as opposed to existential) change is change in respect of properties under preservation of numerical diachronic identity. But preservation of identity is not possible on Constituent Essentialism. The simple bundle-of-universals theory is incompatible with the fact of change. But of course there are other types of C-ontology.

I agree with Loux that Constituent Essentialism is a "framework principle" (p. 52) of C-ontology. It cannot be abandoned without abandoning C-ontology. If an item (of whatever category) has ontological parts at all, then it is difficult to see how it could fail to have each and all of these parts essentially. And of course the fact of accidental change and what it entails, namely, persistence of the same thing over time, cannot be denied. So the 'argument from change' does seem to score against primitive versions of the bundle-of-universals theory.

I don't want to discuss whether more sophisticated C-ontological theories such as Hector Castaneda's Guise Theory escape this objection. I want to consider whether relational ontology does any better. I take relational ontology to imply that no item of any category has ontological parts. Thus R-ontology implies that no type of particular has ontological parts. A particular is just an unrepeatable. My cat Max is a particular and so are each of his material parts, and their material parts. If Max's blackness is an accident of him as substance, then this accident is a particular. The Armstrongian state of affairs of Max's being black is a particular. Mathematical sets are particulars. Particulars need not be concrete. Sets are abstract particulars in one sense of 'abstract.' Tropes are abstract particulars in another sense of 'abstract.' If an entity is not a particular, an unrepeatable, then it is a universal, a repeatable.

My question is whether we can explain real (as opposed to 'Cambridge') accidental change without positing particulars having ontological constituents. I will argue that we cannot, and that therefore R-ontology is untenable.

Lukas Novak presents an argument to the conclusion that the fact of accidental change requires the positing of particulars that have ontological constituents. Here is my take on Novak's argument:

Peter goes from being ignorant of the theorem of Pythagoras to being knowledgeable about it. This is an accidental change: one and the same concrete particular, Peter, has different properties at different times. Now a necessary condition of accidental change is that one and the same item have different properties at different times. But is it a sufficient condition? Suppose Peter is F at time t and not F at time t* (t* later than t). Suppose that F-ness is a universal but not a constituent of Peter and that Peter is F by exemplifying F-ness. Universals so construed are transcendent in the sense that they are not denizens of the world of space and time. They belong in a realm apart and are related, if they are related, to spatiotemporal particulars by the external relation of exemplification.

It follows on these assumptions that if Peter undergoes real accidental change that Peter goes from exemplifying the transcendent universal F-ness at t to not exemplifying it at t*. That is: he stands in the exemplification relation to F-ness at t, but ceases so to stand to t*. But there has to be more to the change than this. For, as Novak points out, the change is in Peter. It is intrinsic to him and cannot consist merely in a change in a relation to a universal in a realm apart. After all, transcendent universals do not undergo real change. Any change in such a universal is 'merely Cambridge' as we say in the trade. In other words, the change in F-ness when it 'goes' from being exemplified by Peter to not being exemplified by Peter is not a real change in the universal but a merely relational change. The real change in this situation must therefore be in or at Peter. For a real, not merely Cambridge, change has taken place.

Thus it seems to Novak and to me that, even if there are transcendent universals and ordinary concrete particulars, we need another category of entity to account for accidental change, a category that that I will call that of property-exemplifications. (We could also call them accidents. But we must not, pace Novak, call them tropes.) Thus Peter's being cold at t is a property-exemplification and so is Peter's not being cold at t*. Peter's change in respect of temperature involves Peter as the diachronically persisting substratum of the change, the universal coldness, and two property-exemplifications, Peter's being cold at t and Peter's being not cold at t*.

These property-exemplifications, however, are particulars, not universals even though each has a universal as a constituent. This is a special case of what Armstrong calls the Victory of Particularity: the result of a particular exemplifying a universal is a particular. Moreover, these items have natures or essences: it is essential to Peter's being cold that it have coldness as a constituent. (Thus Constituent Essentialism holds for these items. ) Hence property- exemplifications are particulars, but not bare particulars. They are not bare because they have natures or essences. Further, these property-exemplifications are abstract particulars in that they do not exhaust the whole concrete reality of Peter at a time. Thus Peter is not merely cold at a time, but has other properties besides.

It seems that the argument shows that there have to be these abstract particulars — we could call them accidents instead of property-exemplifications — if we are to account for real accidental change. But these partculars have constituents. Peter's coldness, for example, has Peter and coldness as constituents. It is a complex, not a simple. (If it were a simple, there would be nothing about it to tie it necessarily to Peter. Tropes are simples, so accidents are not tropes.) So it seems to me that what Novak has provided us with is an argument for C-ontology, for the view that the members of at least one category of entity have ontological constituents.

Loux's argument notwithstanding, a version of C-ontology seems to be required if we are to make sense of accidental change.

But how are accidents such as Peter's coldness connected or tied — to avoid the word 'related' — to a substance such as Peter?

First of all, an accident A of a substance S does not stand in an external relation to S — otherwise a Bradleyan regress arises. (Exercise for the reader: prove it.)

Second, A is not identical to S. Peter's coldness is not identical to Peter. For there is more to Peter than his being cold. So what we need is a tie or connection that is less intimate than identity but more intimate than an external relation. The part-whole tie seems to fit the bill. A proper part of a whole is not identical to the whole, but it is not externally related to it either inasmuch as wholes depend for their identity and existence on their parts.

Can we say that Peter's accidents are ontological parts of Peter? No. This would put the cart before the horse. Peter's coldness is identity- and existence-dependent on Peter. Peter is ontologically prior to his accidents. No whole, however, is ontologically prior to its parts: wholes are identity and existence-dependent on their parts. So the accidents of a substance are not ontological parts of it. But they have ontological parts. Strangely enough, if A is an accident of substance S, then S is an ontological part of A. Substances are ontological parts of their accidents! Brentano came to a view like this.

More on Brentano later. For now, my thesis is just that the fact of real accidental change requires the positing of particulars that have ontological constituents and that, in consequence, R-ontology is to be rejected. Constituent ontology vindicatus est.

E. J. Lowe on the Distinction Between Constituent and Relational Ontology

1. Uncontroversially, ordinary material particulars such as cats and cups have parts, material parts. Equally uncontroversial is that they have properties and stand in relations. That things have properties and stand in relations is a plain Moorean fact beyond the reach of reasonable controversy. After all, my cat is black and he is sleeping next to my blue coffee cup. So far we are at the pre-philosophical level, the level of data. We start philosophizing when we ask what properties are and what it is for a thing to have a property. So the philosophical question is not whether there are properties — of course there are! — but what they are. Neither is it a philosophical question whether things have properties — of course they do! The question concerns how this having is to be understood.

What we want to understand are the nature of properties and the nature of property-possession. Qua ontologist, I don't care what properties there are; I care what properties are. And qua ontologist, I don't care what properties are instantiated; I care what instantiation is.

2. For example, is the blueness of my cup a repeatable entity, a universal, or an unrepeatable entity, a particular (e.g.,a trope)? That is one of several questions one can ask about properties. A second is whether the cup has the property by standing in an external relation to it — the relation of exemplification — or by containing it as an ontological or metaphysical part or constituent. Can property-possession be understood quasi-mereologically, as analogous to a part-whole relation? Or is it more like the relation of a thing to a predicate that is true of it? The predicate 'blue' is true of my cup. But no one would get it into his head to think of the word 'blue' as a part of the cup — in any sense of 'part.' 'Blue' is a word and no concrete material extralinguistic thing has as a word as a part. The relation between 'blue' and the cup to which it applies is external: each term of the relation can exist without the other. Indeed my cup could be blue even if there were no English language and no such word as 'blue.' But if x is an ordinary part or an ontological constituent of y, then y cannot exist without x. So one might analogize properties to predicates and maintain that properties are external to the things that have them and are related to them by exemplification.

3. At a first approximation, the issue that divides constituent ontologists (C-ontologists) and those that N. Wolterstorff rather infelicitously calls 'relational ontologists' (R-ontologists) is whether or not ordinary particulars have ontological or metaphysical parts. C-ontologists maintain that ordinary
particulars have such parts in addition to their commonsense parts, and that among these ontological parts are (some of) the properties of the ordinary particular. 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.

4. Let us now examine E. J. Lowe's explanation of the distinction. After reminding us that C-ontologists ascribe to ordinary particulars ontological structure in addition to ordinary mereological structure, he writes: ". . . what is crucial for an ontology to qualify as 'constituent' is that it should maintain that objects have an ontological structure involving 'constituents' which belong to ontological categories other than the category of object itself." ("Essence and Ontology" in Novak et al. eds., Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, Ontos Verlag 2012, pp. 102-103.) Lowe's characterization of the distinction goes beyond mine in that Lowe requires that the constituents of an object belong to categories other than that of object. An object for Lowe is an Aristotlelian primary (individual) substance. For me it suffices for an ontology to be 'constituent' that it allow that some entities have ontological constituents.

Lowe cites hylomorphism as an example of a constituent ontology. On both Lowe's and my understanding of 'constituent ontology,' hylomorphism is a clear example of a C-ontology. On hylomorphism individual substances are combinations of form and matter where neither the form nor the matter are substances in their own right. But is it true to say or imply, as Lowe does, that forms and matters are members of categories? This strikes me as a strange thing to say or imply. Consider just the forms of individual substances. I would not say that they are members of a category of entity alongside the other categories, but that, on hylomorphism, they are 'principles' (as the Thomists say) invoked in the analysis of individual substances. Form and matter are ontological constituents of an Aristotelian primary substance. But that is not to say that these constituents belong to categories other than that of primary (individual) substance. It is true that the form of a substance is not itself a substance. It does not follow, however, that the form of a substance belongs to an ontological category other than that of substance.

So that is my first quibble with Lowe's explanation. Here is my second. It seems that Lowe's explanation rules out one-category constituent ontologies. Keith Campbell advertises his ontology as 'one-category.' (Abstract Particulars, Basil Blackwell, 1990)) The one category is that of tropes. Everything is either a trope or a construction from tropes. Campbell's is therefore a one-category constituent ontology. Lowe's explanation, however, implies that there must be at least two categories of entity, the category object (individual substance) and one or more categories of entity whose members serve as constituents of objects.

A third problem with Lowe's explanation is that it seems to rule our Bergmann-type C-ontologies that posit bare or thin particulars. Lowe's explanation seems to suggest that the constituents of a particular cannot include any particulars. If a bare particular is a particular, then an ordinary particular has a particular as a constituent in violation of Lowe's explanation. (It is a very interesting question whether a bare particular is a particular. I am tempted to argue that 'bare' functions as an alienans adjective so that a bare particular is not a particular but rather the ontological factor of particularity in an ordinary particular. But this is a separate topic that I will get to in a separate post.)

5. I now want to discuss whether Lowe's four-category ontology succeeds in being neither a C-ontology nor an R-ontology, as he claims.

First of all the question whether it is a C-ontology. Lowe's categorial scheme is approximately as depicted in this diagram:

Lowe speaks of Kinds (substantial universals) being instantiated by Objects (substantial particulars), and of Attributes (non-substantial universals) being instantiated by Modes (non-substantial particulars). Not shown in the above Ontological Square is a diagonal relation of Exemplification running from Attributes (non-substantial universals) to Objects (substantial particulars). Consider, for example, the horse Dobbin. It is an individual substance that instantiates the natural kind horse. Dobbin also has various accidental properties, or Attributes, whiteness, for example. Dobbin exemplifies the universal whiteness. The whiteness of Dobbin, however, is unique to him. It is not a universal, but a particular, albeit a non-substantial particular. It is a Mode (trope) that instantiates the Attribute whiteness. Dobbin is characterized by this Mode, just as the Kind horse is characterized by the Attribute whiteness. On Lowe's scheme there are three distinct relations: Characterization, Instantiatiation, and Exemplification. They relate the members of four distinct fundamental ontological categories: Kinds, Objects, Attributes, and Modes.

Are modes constituents of the objects they characterize? Is Dobbin's whiteness a constituent of Dobbin? If it is, then Lowe's ontology counts as a C-ontology. Lowe plausibly argues that modes are not constituents of objects. I take the argument to be as follows. Modes are identity-dependent on the objects they characterize. Thus Dobbin's whiteness would not be what it is apart from Dobbin and could not exist apart from Dobbin. It follows that the mode in question cannot be an ontological 'building block' out of which Dobbin, together with other items, is constructed. An object is ontologically prior to its modes, which fact entails that modes cannot be constituents of objects.

So far, so good. But what about modes themselves? Do they have constituents? Or are they simple? If modes have constituents, then Lowe's is a C-ontology after all. Dobbin's whiteness could be taken to be Dobbins-exemplifying-the universal whiteness, or it could be taken to be a simple item lacking internal structure, a simple instance of whiteness. If it is a simple item, just an instance of whiteness, then it cannot have any necessary connection to Dobbin or to any object. Why then would it be necessarily identity- and existence-dependent on Dobbin? Why would it be so dependent on any object? There would be nothing about it to ground such a necessary connection. And if it were a simple, then it could very well be a constituent of an object. Lowe's argument against the constituency of the whiteness mode requires that the mode have a necessary connection to Dobbin, that it be the whiteness of Dobbin and of him alone. The mode cannot have that necessary connection unless it is a complex.

If, on the other hand, Dobbin's whiteness is a complex item, then it has as constituents, Dobbin, exemplification, and the universal whiteness, in which case Lowe's ontolology is a C-ontology. For if an ontology has even one category of entity the members of which have ontological constituents, then that ontology is a C-ontology.

My argument can also be put as follows. On Lowe's scheme, modes make up a fundamental category. As fundamental, modes are not derivative from other categories. So it cannot be that a mode is a complex formed by an object's exemplifying an attribute, e.g., Dobbin's exemplifying the non-substantial universal, whiteness. But if modes are simple, why should modes be identity-dependent on objects? It is clear that the whiteness of Dobbin cannot be an ontological part of Dobbin if the whiteness is necessarily tied to Dobbin to be what it is. For then it presupposes the logically antecedent existence of Dobbin. But the only way the whiteness can be necessarily tied to Dobbin is if it is a complex — which is inconsistent with modes' being a fundamental and irreducible category.

Properties as Parts: More on Constituent Ontology

Skin and seeds are proper parts of a tomato, and the tomato is an improper part of itself. But what about such properties as being red, being ripe, being a tomato? Are they parts of the tomato? The very idea will strike many as born of an elementary confusion, as a sort of Rylean category mistake. "Your tomato is concrete and so are its parts; properties are abstract; nothing concrete can have abstract parts." Or: "Look, properties are predicable entities; parts are not. Having seeds is predicable of the tomato but not seeds! You're talking nonsense!"

I concede that the notion that the properties of an ordinary particular are parts thereof, albeit in some extended unmereological sense of 'part,' is murky. Murky as it is, the motivation for the view is fairly clear, and the alternative proposed by relational ontologists is open to serious objection. First I will say something in motivation of the constituent-ontological (C-ontological view). Then I will raise objections to the relational-ontological (R-ontological) approach.

For C-Ontology

Plainly, the blueness of my coffee cup belongs to the cup; it is not off in a realm apart. The blueness (the blue, if you will) is at the cup, right here, right now. I see that the cup before me now is blue. This seeing is not a quasi-Platonic visio intellectualis but a literal seeing with the eyes. How else would I know that the cup is blue, and in need of a re-fill, if not by looking at the cup? Seeing that the cup is blue, I see blueness (blue). I see blueness here and now in the mundus sensibilis. How could I see (with the eyes) that the cup is blue without seeing (with the same eyes) blueness? If blueness is a universal, then I see a universal, an instantiated universal. If blueness is a trope, then I see a trope, a trope compresent with others. Either way I see a property. So some properties are visible. This would be impossible if properties are abstract objects as van Inwagen and the boys maintain. Whether uninstantiated or instantiated abstract properties are invisible.

Properties such as blueness and hardness, etc. are empirically detectable. Blueness is visible while hardness is tangible. That looks to be a plain datum. Their being empirically detectable rules out their being causally inert abstracta off in a quasi-Platonic realm apart. For I cannot see something without causally interacting with it. So not only is the cup concrete, its blueness is as well.

This amounts to an argument that properties are analogous to parts. They are not parts in the strict mereological sense. They are not physical parts. So let's call them metaphysical or ontological constituents. The claim, then, is that ordinary particulars such as tomatoes and cups have their properties, or at least some of them, by having them as ontological constituents. To summarize the argument:

1. Some of the properties of ordinary concrete material particulars are empirically detectable at the places the particulars occupy and at the times they occupy them.

2. No abstract object is empirically detectable. Therefore:

3. Some properties of ordinary concrete material particulars are not abtract objects. Therefore:

4. It is reasonable to conjecture that some of the properties of ordinary concrete material particulars are analogous to (proper) parts of them.

Against R-Ontology

I grant that the above is not entirely clear, and that it raises questions that are not easy to answer. But does R-ontology fare any better? I don't think so.

Suppose an R-ontologist is staring at my blue cup. Does he see something colorless? Seems he would have to if the blueness of the cup is an abstract object merely related by exemplification to the concrete cup. Abstracta are invisible. Suppose we introduce 'stripped particular' to designate the R-ontological counterpart of what C-ontologists intend with 'bare particular' and 'thin particular.' A stripped particular is an ordinary particular devoid of empirically detectable properties. If the R-ontologist thinks that my cup is a stripped particular, then he is surely wrong. Call this the Stripped Particular Objection.

But if the R-ontologist agrees with me that the blueness is empirically detectable, then he seems to be involved in an unparsimonious duplication of properties. There is the invisible abstract property in Plato's heaven or Frege's Third Reich that is expressed by the open sentence or predicate '___ is blue.' And there is the property (or property-instance) that even the R-ontologist sees when he stares at a blue coffee cup.

Isn't that one property too many? What work does the abstract property do? More precisely, what ontological work does it do? I needn't deny that it does some semantic work: it serves as the sense (Fregean Sinn) of the corresponding predicate. But we are doing ontology here, not semantics. We want to understand what the world — extramental, extralinguistic reality — must be like if a sentence like 'This cup is blue' is true. We want to understand the property-possession in reality that underlies true predications at the level of language. We are not concerned here with the apparatus by which we represent the world; we are concerned with the world represented.

In my existence book I called the foregoing the Duplication Objection, though perhaps I could have hit upon a better moniker. The abstract property is but an otiose duplicate of the property that does the work, the empirically detectable propery that induces causal powers in the thing that has it.

So I present the R-ontologist with a dilemma: either you are embracing stripped particulars or you are involved in a useless multiplication of entities.

Coda

It's Christmas Eve and there is more to life than ontology. So I'll punch the clock for today. But there are two important questions we need to pursue. (1) Couldn't we reject the whole dispute and be neither a C- nor an R-ontologist? (2) Should ontologists be in the business of explanation at all? (My point that abstract properties are useless for purposes of accounting for predication and property-possession presupposes that there is such a legitimate enterprise as philosophical explanation.)

What Exactly is an Ontological Constituent?

I asked commenter John whether he thought that temporal parts — assuming that there are temporal parts — would count as ontological constituents of an ordinary particular such as an avocado. Here is what he said:

. . . I believe that I would say that the temporal parts of an avocado are ontological constituents of it. A thing's temporal parts are much more like a thing's material parts than any other putative constituent of that object, so I would say that if a thing's material parts are ontological constituents of it, then so too are a thing's temporal parts.

But I don't think I would say that this commits perdurantists to constituent ontology in any interesting sense. I have always understood the contrast between constituent and relational ontologies to be primarily a matter of how a thing relates to its properties: does a thing have properties by standing in some external relation to those properties, or instead by having those properties somehow 'immanent' in it? Perhaps this is wrong. But if it's right, then I would say that perdurantists believe that the temporal parts of a thing are among its ontological constituents, but that this does not commit them to any interesting version of constituent ontology.

John's response is a reasonable one, but it does highlight some of the difficulties in clarifying the difference between constituent ontology (C-ontology) and relational ontology (R-ontology).

One of the difficulties is to specify what exactly is meant by 'ontological constituent.' John takes the material parts of a thing to be ontological constituents of it. I don't. Material parts are ordinary mereological parts. For me, ontological constituents are quasi-mereological metaphysical parts to be contrasted with physical (material) parts. Ontological parts are those parts that contribute to an entity's ontological structure. R-ontologists deny that ordinary concrete particulars have any ontological structure. This is not to deny that they have mereological structure. So R-ontologists have no use for ontological parts (constituents). But they have plenty of use for material parts as we all do. 'Ontological' and 'metaphysical' are interchangeable adjectives in this context.

An avocado is an improper physical part of itself. Among its proper physical parts are the skin, the meat, and the pit. Of course, each of these has proper physical parts, and the parts have parts. All of these parts are parts in the strict mereological sense of 'part.' Now consider the dark green (or greenness) of the skin. It is not a physical or material or spatial part of the skin. I can't peel it off the skin or cut it up or eat it. If it is a part at all, it is a metaphysical part of the skin. And the same goes for every other property of the skin: if is is a part at all, it is a metaphysical part. These metaphysical property-parts together perhaps with some other metaphysical parts (bare or thin particulars, various sorts of nexus, Castanedan ontological operators. . .) make up what we can call the ontological structure of an ordinary particular. This quasi-mereological ontological structure is distinct from the strictly mereological structure of the object in question.

Everyone agrees that things like avocados and aardvarks and asteroids have physical parts. But not all agree that they have in addition metaphysical parts. As I see it, the issue that divides C-ontologists from R-ontologists is the question whether concrete particulars have metaphysical parts in addition to their physical parts where the thing's properties are among its metaphysical parts. C-ontologists say yes; R-ontologists, no.

This is a broader understanding of the difference between C- and R-ontology than John's above. For John the difference is between how concrete particulars have properties. For a C-ontologist, a thing has a property by having it as an ontological constituent. For an R-ontologist, a thing has a property, not by having it as a constituent, but by standing in an external relation to it. That is not wrong, but I think it is too narrow.

John seems to be suggesting that the only ontological constituents there are are properties, and that the only items that have such constituents are ordinary concrete particulars. My understanding is broader. I maintain that among ontological constituents there are or could be other items such as bare or thin particulars, various type of nexus, ontological operators, and perhaps others, in addition to properties (whether taken to be universals or taken to be tropes). I am also open to the possibility that entities other than ordinary concrete particulars could have ontological constituents.

Take God. God is presumably a concrete particular, concrete because causally active, particular because not universal; but surely God is not an ordinary concrete particular, especially if 'ordinary' implies being material. Arguably, God is not related to his attributes; if he were his aseity would be compromised. So I say he has his attributes as constituents. If he is identical to them, as on the doctrine of divine simplicity, then a fortiori he has them as constitutuents, improper constituents.

Return to the humble avocado. Our avocado is green, ripe, soft, etc. So it has properties. This simple observation gives rise to three philosophical questions:

Q1. What are properties?

Q2. What is the item that has the properties?

Q3. What is property-possession? (What is it for an item to have properties?)

I will now contrast one R-ontological answer with one C-ontological answer. What follows are very rough sketches.

One R-ontological answer is this. Properties are abstract objects in a realm apart. They are causally inert, atemporal, nonspatial, not sense-perceivable. Not only do properties not enter into causal relations, they do not induce causal powers in the things that have them. They are what is expressed by such open sentences as '____ is green' analogously as propositions are expressed by such closed sentences as 'Ava is green.' If, per impossibile, God were to annihilate all of these abstract objects, nothing would change in our humble avocado. I say per impossibile because the abstract objects in question are necessary beings. My point is that they do no work here below. They are as irrelevant to what is really going on in the avocado as the predicates 'ripe' and 'green' are.

The item that has properties is just the ordinary concrete thing, the avocado in our example, not a propertyless substratum or any other exotic item. The having is a relation or nonrelational tie that connects the concrete thing to the abstract property.

Now for a C-ontological answer. Properties are universals. Whether or not they can exist unexemplified, when they are exemplified, they enter into the ontological structure of ordinary particulars as metaphysical parts thereof. Thus the greenness of the avocado is 'in' it as a metaphysical part. Same holds for the ripeness, the softness, etc. These universals are empirically detectable and induce causal powers. The thing that has these universals is the avocado viewed as a complex, indeed, as a concrete fact. What makes it particular is a further constituent, the thin particular, which is nonrelationally tied to the universals and unifies them into one thick particular.

Does the Notion of a Bare Particular Make Sense Only in Constituent Ontology?

The Dispute

In an earlier entry that addressed Lukas Novak's argument against bare particulars I said the following:

The notion of a bare particular makes sense only in the context of a constituent ontology according to which ordinary particulars, 'thick particulars' in the jargon of Armstrong, have ontological constituents or metaphysical parts.

[. . .]

LN suggests that the intuitions behind the theory of bare particulars are rooted in Frege's mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive distinction between concepts and objects. "Once this distinction has been made, it is very hard to see how there might be a genuine case of logical de re necessity." (115) The sentence quoted is true, but as I said above, the notion of a bare particular makes no sense except in the context of a constituent ontology. Frege's, however, is not a constituent ontology like Bergmann's but what Bergmann calls a function ontology. (See G. Bergmann, Realism, p. 7. Wolterstorff's constituent versus relation ontology distinction is already in Bergmann as the distinct between complex and function ontologies.) So I deny that part of the motivation for the positing of bare particulars is an antecedent acceptance of Frege's concept-object distinction. I agree that if one accepts that distinction, then logical or rather metaphysical de re necessity goes by the boards. But the Fregean distinction is not part of the motivation or argumentation for bare particulars.

My claim that bare particulars are at home only in constituent ontology raised the eyebrows of commenter John and of LN, who writes:

I cannot see why the notion of a bare particular should make sense only in a constituent ontology. A bare particular is a particular which has none of its non-trivial properties de re necessarily. This notion is quite intelligible, irrespectively of the way we go on to explain the relation of "having" between the particular and the property, whether we employ a constituent or functional or some other approach (of course, saying that it is intelligible is not saying that it is consistent!). If Bill agrees that once one makes the sharp Fregean distinction between concepts and objects then there is a strong motivation against conceding any de re necessity, then he should also agree that making this distinction provides a strong motivation for claiming the bareness of all particulars.

Resolving the Dispute

I believe that this is a merely a terminological dispute concerning the use of 'bare particular.' I am a terminological conservative who favors using words and phrases strictly and with close attention to their historical provenience. To enshrine this preference as a methodological principle:

MP: To avoid confusion and merely verbal disputes, never use a word or phrase that already has an established use in a new way! Coin a new word or phrase and explain how you will be using it.

Now, to the best of my knowledge, the phrase 'bare particular' enters philosophy first in the writings of Gustav Bergmann. So we must attend to his writings if we are concerned to use this phrase correctly. Now in the terminology of Wolterstorff, Bergmann is a constituent ontologist as opposed to a relational ontologist. In Bergmann's own terms, he is a "complex" as opposed to a "function" ontologist, Frege being the chief representative for him of the latter style of ontology.

"In complex ontologies, as I shall call them, some entities are constituents of others." (Realism, p. 7) "In function ontologies, as I shall call them, some entities are, as one says, 'coordinated' to some others, without any connotation whatsoever of the one being 'in' the other, being either a constituent or a part or a component of it." (Ibid.)

Bergmann, then, is a constituent or complex ontologist and his introduction of bare particulars (BPs) is within this context. BPs are introduced to solve "the problem of individuation." A better name for this problem is 'problem of differentiation.' After all, the problem is not to specify what it is that makes an individual an individual as oppose to a member of some other category; the problem is to specify what it is that makes two individuals (or two entities of any category) two and not one.

How does the problem of individuation/differentiation arise? Well, suppose you have already decided that "some entities are constituents of others." For example, you have already decided that ordinary particulars (OPs) have, in addition to their spatial parts, special ontological parts and that among these parts are the OP's properties. Properties for Bergmann are universals. Now suppose you have two qualitatively indiscernible round red spots. They are the same in respect of every universal 'in' them and yet they are two, not one. What is the ontological ground of the numerical difference?

On Bergmann's way of thinking, one needs an entity to do the job of individuation/differentiation. Enter bare particulars. And pay close attention to how Bergmann describes them:

A bare particular is a mere individuator. Structurally, that is its only job. It does nothing else. In this respect it is like Aristotle's matter, or, perhaps more closely, like Thomas' materia signata. Only, it is a thing. (Realism, p. 24, emphasis added)

Bare particulars, then, have but one explanatory job: to ground or account for numerical difference. They are the Bergmannian answer to the question about the principium individuationis. But please note that the positing of such individuators/differentiators would make no sense at all if one held to a style of ontology according to which round red spots just differ without any need for a ground of numerical difference. For a relational ontologist, OPs have no internal ontological structure: they are ontological simples , not ontological complexes. Here is Peter and here is Paul. They just differ. They don't differ on account of some internal differentiator. Peter and Paul have properties, but these are in no sense parts of them, but entities external to them to which they are related by an exemplification relation that spans the chasm separating the concrete from the abstract. And because OPs do not have properties as parts, there is no need to posit some additional ontological factor to account for numerical difference.

I think I have made it quite clear that if we use 'bare particular' strictly and in accordance with the phrases' provenience, then it simply makes no sense to speak of bare particulars outside the context of constituent ontology.

Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, I am not the king of all philosophers and I lack both the authority and the brute power to enforce the above methodological imperative. So I can't force otber philosophers to use 'bare particular' correctly, or to put it less tendentiously: in accordance with Bergmann's usage. But I can issue the humble request that other philosophers not confuse the strict use of the phrase with their preferred usages, and that they tell us exactly how they are using the phrase.

Novak's usage is different than mine. He tell us that "A bare particular is a particular which has none of its non-trivial properties de re necessarily." On this usage my cat would count as a bare particular if one held the view that there are no non-trivial essential properties, that all non-trivial properties are accidental. But for Bergmann a cat is not a bare particular. It — or to be precise, a cat at a time — is a complex one of whose constituents is a bare particular. My cat Max is a Fregean object (Gegenstand) but surely no Fregean object is a Bergmannian bare particular. For objects and concepts do not form complexes in the way BPs and universals form complexes for Bergmann.

On a Fregean analysis, the propositional function denoted by '___ is a cat' has the value True for Max as argument. On a Bergmannian analysis, 'Max is a cat' picks out a fact or state of affairs. But there are no facts in Frege's ontology.

To conclude: if we use 'bare particular' strictly and in accordance with Bergmann's usage, one cannot speak of bare particulars except in constituent ontology.

Constituent Ontology and the Problem of Change

In an earlier entry I sketched the difference between constituent ontology (C-ontology) and relational ontology (R-ontology) and outlined an argument against R-ontology. I concluded that post with the claim that C-ontology also faces serious objections. One of them could be called the 'argument from change.'

The Argument from Change

Suppose avocado A, which was unripe a week ago is ripe today. This is an example of alterational (as opposed to existential) change. The avocado has become different. But it has also remained the same. It is different in respect of ripeness but it is one and the same avocado that was unripe and is now ripe.

Alterational change is neither destruction nor duplication. The ripening of an avocado does not cause it to cease to exist. The ripening of an avocado is not the ceasing to exist of one particular (the unripe avocado) followed by the coming into existence of a numerically distinct avocado (the ripe one).

It is also clear that one cannot speak of change if there are two avocados, A and B, indiscernible except in respect of ripeness/unripeness, such that A is unripe at time t while B is ripe at time t* (t*> t). If my avocado is unripe at t while yours is ripe at t*, that circumstance does not constitute a change. Alteration requires that one and the same thing have incompatible properties at different times. This is necessary for alteration; whether it is sufficient is a further question.

That there is alterational change is a datum. That it requires that one and the same thing persist over an interval of time during which it has incompatible properties follows from elementary 'exegesis' or 'unpacking' of the datum.

The question before us is whether any C-ontology can do justice to the datum and its exegesis.

All C-ontologists are committed to what Michael J. Loux calls "Constituent Essentialism." ("What is Constituent Ontology?" Novak et al. eds., p. 52) It is the C-ontological analog of mereological essentialism. We can put it like this:

Constituent Essentialism: A thing has each of its ontological parts necessarily. This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose an ontological part without ceasing to be same thing.

Mereological Essentialism: A thing has each of its commonsense parts necessarily. This implies that a thing cannot gain or lose a commonsense part without ceasing to be the same thing.

To illustrate, suppose an ordinary particular (OP) is a bundle of compresent universals. The universals are the ontological parts of the OP as a whole. The first of the two principles entails that ordinary particulars cannot change. For (alterational) change is change in respect of properties under preservation of numerical diachronic identity. But preservation of identity is not possible on Constituent Essentialism. The simple bundle-of-universals theory appears incompatible with the fact of change.

I agree with Loux that Constituent Essentialism is a "framework principle" (p. 52) of C-ontology. It cannot be abandoned without abandoning C-ontology. And of course the fact of change and what it entails (persistence of the same thing over time) cannot be denied. So the 'argument from change' does seem to score against primitive versions of the bundle-of-universals theory.

Can the Objection Be Met?

The foregoing objection can perhaps be met met by sophisticating the bundle theory and adopting a bundle-bundle theory. Call this BBT. Accordingly, a thing that persists over time such as an avocado is a diachronic bundle of synchronic or momentary bundles. The theory has two stages.

First, there is the construction of momentary bundles from universals. Thus my avocado at a time is a bundle of universals. Then there is the construction of a diachronic bundle from these synchronic bundles. The momentary bundles have universals as constituents while the diachronic bundles do not have universals as constituents, but individuals. This is because a bundle of universals at a time is an individual. At both stages the bundling is contingent: the properties are contingently bundled to form momentary bundles and these resulting bundles are contingently bundled to form the persisting thing.

Accordingly, the unripe avocado is numerically the same as the ripe avocado in virtue of the fact that the earlier momentary bundles which have unripeness as a constituent are ontological parts
of the same diachronic whole as the later momentary bundles which have ripeness as a constituent.

A sophisticated bundle theory does not, therefore, claim that a persisting thing is a bundle of properties; the claim is that a persisting thing is a bundle of individuals which are themselves bundles of properties. This disposes of the objection from change at least as formulated above.

There are of course a number of other objections that need to be considered — in separate posts. But on the problem of change C-ontology looks to be in better shape than Loux makes it out to be.

I should add that I am not defending the bundle-bundle theory. In my Existence book I take a different C-ontological tack.

Constituent Ontology Versus Relational Ontology and an Argument Against the Latter

Two Different Aproaches to Ontology

Uncontroversially, ordinary material particulars such as cats and cups have parts, material parts. Equally uncontroversial is that they have properties and stand in relations. That things have properties and stand in relations is a plain Moorean fact. After all, my cat is black and he is sleeping next to my blue coffee cup. So far we are at the 'datanic,' pre-philosophical level. We start philosophizing when we ask what properties are and what it is for a thing to have a property. So the philosophical question is not whether there are properties — of course there are! — but what they are. Neither is it a philosophical question whether things have properties — of course they do! The question concerns how this having is to be understood.

For example, is the blueness of my cup a universal or a particular (e.g.,a trope)? That is one of several questions one can ask about properties. A second is whether the cup has the property by standing in a relation to it — the relation of exemplification — or by containing it as an ontological or metaphysical part or constituent. Can property-possession be understood quasi-mereologically?

It is this second question that will exercise me in this post.

At a first approximation, the issue that divides constituent ontologists (C-ontologists) and those that N. Wolterstorff rather infelicitously calls 'relational ontologists' (R-ontologists) is whether or not ordinary particulars have ontological or metaphysical parts. C-ontologists maintain that ordinary particulars have such parts, and that among these parts are (some of) the properties of the ordinary particular. 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.

Bundle theories are clear examples of C-ontology. If my cup is nothing more than a bundle of compresent properties, then (i) it has parts that are not ordinary physical parts, and (ii) its properties are these parts. The properties could be either universals or particulars (tropes, say). Either way you have a constituent ontology.

Suppose you think that there has to be more to an ordinary particular than its properties suitably bundled. You might reason as follows. If properties are universals, and it is possible that there be two numerically distinct particulars that share all property consituents, then there must be an additional constituent that accounts for their numerical difference. Enter bare or thin particulars. Such substratum theories also count as C-ontologies.

Hylomorphic theories are also examples of C-ontology. The form of a thing is not a property external to it to which the thing is related by exemplification or instantiation, and this is a fortiori true of its matter, whether proximate or prime. It follows that form and matter are ontological constituents of ordinary particulars.

The notion that ordinary particulars have ontological parts in addition to their commonsense parts is admittedly not the clearest. 'Part' in exactly what sense? So it is no surprise that many of the best analytic metaphysicians are R-ontologists. These philosophers think of properties as abstract objects residing in a realm apart. Having decided on that view of properties, they naturally conclude that it makes no sense to maintain that a coffee cup, say, could have causally inert, nonspatiotemporal abstract objects as constituents. So they maintain that for a concrete thing to have a property is for it to stand in a exemplification relation or tie or nexus to an abstract property. According to Michael J. Loux, relational ontologists

. . . restrict the parts of ordinary objects to their commonsense parts. Nonetheless, they insist that ordinary objects stand in a variety of significant nonmereological connexions or ties to things that have character kath auto or nonderivatively; and they tell us that in virtue of doing so those objects have whatever character they do. ("What is Constituent Ontology?" in Novak et al. eds. Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, Ontos Verlag 2012, p. 44, emphasis added)

Why I am Inclined to Reject Relational Ontology

What follows is a sketch of argumentation more rigorously presented, with the standard scholarly apparatus, in my A Paradigm Theory of Existence, Kluwer 2002, pp. 170 -176, "Rejection of Nonconstituent Realism."

1. The 'Nude Particular' Objection

Relational ontologists don't deny that things have properties; what they deny is that those properties are at or in the things that have them in a way that would justify talk of properties being special metaphysical parts of ordinary concrete things. They maintain that properties are abstracta in a realm apart, and that things are related to them. Hence the phrase 'relational ontology.' It seems to me, however, that on this view of properties and property-possession, ordinary particulars turn out to be what I will call 'nude particulars.'

Nude particulars are similar to, but not to be confused with, Gustav Bergmann's bare particulars or David Armstrong's thin particulars. Bare and thin particulars are constituents of ordinary or thick particulars. Nude particulars are not ontological constituents of anything. A nude particular is an ordinary particular all of whose properties are abstracta. Like bare particulars, nude particulars lack natures. Lacking natures, there is nothing about them that dictates which properties they have. This won't stop an R-ontologist from speaking of essential properties. He will say that an essential property of x is a property x has in every possible world in which it exists. He cannot say, however, that what grounds this circumstance is that ordinary particulars as he conceives them have natures in them or at them.

I maintain that (i) R-ontologists are committed to nude particulars, but that (ii) there are no such critters. Certainly, the meso-particulars that surround me now are not nude. My trusty coffee cup, for example, is blue at this time and in this place.

The cup is blue, and I see (with my eyes) that it is blue. This seeing is not a visio intellectualis, after all, a 'seeing' wth the 'eye of the mind,' as would befit the inspection of some colorless, atemporal, nonspatial, abstract Platonic object in a realm insulated from the flux and shove of the real order. It is a seeing with the eyes of the head. When I see the cup's being blue, I am not seeing a state of affairs that spans the abyss separating concreta from abstracta; I am seeing a state of affairs that is itself concrete.

Moreover, I see blue (or blueness), again with my eyes. (How could I see that the cup is blue without seeing blue?) It is therefore phenomenologically evident that at least some of the properties of my trusty cup are empirically detectable via ordinary outer perception. But they wouldn't be empirically detectable if they were abstract objects in a realm apart, a Platonic or quasi-Platonic topos ouranos. Empirical detection involves causation; abstracta, however, are causally inert. Therefore, at least some of a thing's properties are at it or in it, and in this sense ontological constituents of it. If so, R-ontology is mistaken.

The empirically detectable properties of an ordinary particular cannot be stripped from it and installed in a realm of abstracta. For then what you would have here below would be a nude particular.

You might object that I have made a travesty of the R-ontologist's position. After all, doesn't Loux in the bolded passage above imply that ordinary particulars have "character" where they are, namely, in the sensible world and that they are therefore not nude? If this is the response that is made to my first objection, then it triggers my

2. Duplication Objection

Suppose the R-ontologist grants that my cup has the character blue (or blueness) and other empirical features at the cup, and that this character can be seen with the eyes of the head, and is therefore not a denizen of a realm of abstracta separated by an ontological chasm from the realm of concreta. I will then ask what work abstract properties do. Why do we need them if the blueness and hardness and so on of the cup are already right here at or in the cup? What is the point of positing 'duplicates' of these empirical characters in a realm of abstracta? They are explanatorily otiose.

The R-ontologist appears to face a dilemma. Either he must say that my coffee cup is a nude particular in denial of the plain fact that the blueness of the cup is an empirically detectable feature at the cup and not a colorless abstract object in a realm apart; or, denying that the cup is nude, he must admit that his abstract properties are explanatorily idle and fit candidates for Occam's Razor.

3. Conclusion

Can we infer that C-ontology is in the clear? Not so fast! Loux brings powerful arguments against it, arguments to be considered in a separate post. My suspicion is that that both styles of ontology lead to insurmountable aporiai.

Stanislav Sousedik’s “Towards a Thomistic Theory of Predication”

Enough of politics, back to some hard-core technical philosophy. If nothing else, the latter offers exquisite escapist pleasures not unlike those of chess. Of course I don't believe that technical philosophy is escapist; my point is a conditional one: if it is, its pleasures suffice to justify it as a form of recuperation from this all-too-oppressive world of 'reality.' It's what I call a 'fall-back position.'

I have been commissioned to review the collection of which the above-captioned article is a part. The collection is entitled Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic (Ontos Verlag 2012) and includes contributions by Peter van Inwagen, Michael Loux, E. J. Lowe, and several others. My review article will address such topics as predication, truth-makers, bare particulars, and the advantages and liabilities of constituent ontology. I plan a series of posts in which I dig deep into some of the articles in this impressive collection.

Stanislav Sousedik argues for an "identity theory of predication" according to which a predicative sentence such as 'Peter is a man' expresses an identity of some sort between the referent of the subject 'Peter' and the referent of the predicate 'man.' Now to someone schooled in modern predicate logic (MPL) such an identity theory will appear wrongheaded from the outset. For we learned at Uncle Gottlob's knee to distinguish between the 'is' of identity ('Peter is Peter') and the 'is' of predication ('Peter is a man').

But let's give the Thomist theory a chance. Sousedik, who is well aware of Frege's distinction, presents an argument for the identity in some sense of subject and predicate. He begins by making the point that in the declarative 'Peter is a man' and the vocative 'Peter, come here!' the individual spoken about is (or can be) the same as the individual addressed. But common terms such as 'man' can also be used to address a person. Instead of saying, 'Peter, come here!' one can say 'Man, come here!' And so we get an argument that I will put as follows:

1. Both 'Peter' and 'man' can be used to refer to the same individual. Therefore

2. A common term can be used to refer to an individual. But

3. Common terms also refer to traits of individuals. Therefore

4. The traits must be identical in some sense to the individuals. E.g., the referent of 'Peter' must be in some sense identical to the referent of 'man.'

But in what sense are they identical? Where Frege distinguishes between predication and identity, Sousedik distinguishes between weak and strong identity. 'Peter is Peter' expresses strong identity while 'Peter is a man' expresses weak identity. "Strong identity is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive, weak identity has none of these formal properties." (254) It thus appears that strong identity is the same as what modern analytic philosophers call (numerical) identity. It is clear that 'Peter is a man' cannot be taken to express strong identity. But what is weak identity?

S. is a constituent ontologist. He holds that ordinary substances such as Peter have what he calls "metaphysical parts." Whereas Peter's left leg is a physical part of him, his traits are metaphysical parts of him. Thus the referents of the common terms 'man,' 'animal,' living thing,' etc. are all metaphysical parts of Peter. Clearly, these are different traits of Peter. But are they really distinct in Peter? S. says that they are not: they are really identical in Peter and only "virtually distinct" in him. The phrase is defined as follows.

(Def. 1) Between x, y there is a virtual distinction iff (i) x, y are really identical; (ii) x can become an object of some cognitive act Φ without y being the object of the same act Φ . . . . (251)

For example, humanity and animality in Peter are really identical but virtually distinct in that humanity can be the intentional object of a cognitive act without animality being the object of the same act. I can focus my mental glance so to speak on Peter's humanity while leaving out of consideration his animality even though he is essentially both a man and an animal and even though animality is included within humanity.

The idea, then, is that Peter has metaphysical parts (MPs) and that these items are really identical in Peter but virtually distinct, where the virtual distinctness of any two MPs is tied to the possibility of one of them being the object of a cognitive act without the other being the object of the same act.

Is S. suggesting that virtual distinctness is wholly mind generated? I don't think so. For he speaks of a potential distinction of MPs in concrete reality, a distinction that becomes actual when the understanding grasps them as distinct. (253) And so I take the possibility mentioned in clause (ii) of the above definition to be grounded not only in the mind's power to objectify and abstract but also in a real potentiality in the MPs in substances like Peter.

One might be tempted to think of weak identity as a part-whole relation. Thus one might be tempted to say that 'Peter' refers to Peter and 'man' to a property taken in the abstract that is predicable not only of Peter but of other human beings as well. 'Peter is a man' would then say that this abstract property is a metaphysical part of Peter. But this is not Sousedik's or any Thomist's view. For S. is committed to the idea that "Every empirical individual and every part or trait of it is particular." (251) It follows that no metaphysical part of any concrete individual is a universal. Hence no MP is an abstract property. So weak identity is not a part-whole relation.

What is it then?

First of all, weak identity is a relation that connects a concrete individual such as Peter to a property taken abstractly. But in what sense is Peter identical to humanity taken abstractly? In this sense: the humanity-in-Peter and the humanity-in-the-mind have a common constituent, namely, humanity taken absolutely as common nature or natura absoluta or natura secundum se. (254) What makes weak identity identity is the common constituent shared by the really existing humanity in Peter and the intentionally existing humanity in the mind of a person who judges that Peter is human.

So if we ask in what sense the referent of 'Peter' is identical to the referent of 'man,' the answer is that they are identical in virtue of the fact that Peter has a proper metaphysical part that shares a constituent with the objective concept referred to by 'man.' Sousedik calls this common constituent the "absolute subject." In our example, it is human nature taken absolutely in abstraction from its real existence in Peter and from its merely intentional existence in the mind.

Critical Observations

I am deeply sympathetic to Sousedik's constituent-ontological approach, his view that existence is a first-level 'property,' and the related view that there are modes of existence. (253) But one of the difficulties I have with S.'s identity theory of predication is that it relies on common natures, and I find it difficult to make sense of them as I already spelled out in a previous post. Common natures are neither one nor many, neither universal nor particular. Humanity is many in things but one in the mind. Hence taken absolutely it is neither one nor many. It is this absolute feature that allows it be the common constituent in humanity-in-Peter and humanity-in-the-mind. And as we just saw, without this common constituent there can be no talk of an identity between Peter and humanity. The (weak) identity 'rides on' the common constituent, the natura absoluta. Likewise, humanity is particular in particular human beings but universal in the mind (and only in the mind). Hence taken absolutely it is neither particular nor universal.

But it also follows that the common nature is, in itself and taken absolutely, neither really existent nor intentionally existent. It enjoys neither esse naturale (esse reale) nor esse intentionale. Consequently it has no being (existence) at all. This is not to say that it is nonexistent. It is to say that it is jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein to borrow a phrase from Alexius von Meinong, "beyond being and nonbeing."

The difficulty is to understand how there could be a plurality of distinct items that are neither universal nor particular, neither one nor many, neither existent nor nonexistent. Note that there has to be a plurality of them: humanity taken absolutely is distinct from animality taken absolutely, etc. And what is the nature of this distinctness? It cannot be mind-generated. This is because common natures are logically and ontologically prior to mind and matter as that which mediates between them. They are not virtually distinct. Are they then really distinct? That can't be right either since they lack esse reale.

And how can these common or absolute natures fail to be, each of them, one, as opposed to neither one nor many? The theory posits a plurality of items distinct among themselves. But if each is an item, then each is one. An item that is neither one nor many is no item at all.

There is also this consideration. Why are common natures more acceptable than really existent universals as constituents of ordinary particulars such as Peter? The Thomists allow universals only if they have merely intentional existence, existence 'in' or rather for a mind. "Intentional existence belongs to entities which exist only in dependence upon the fact that they are objects of our understanding." (253) They insist that, as S. puts it, "Every empirical individual and every part or trait of it is particular." (251) S. calls the latter an observation, but it is not really a datum, but a bit of theory. It is a datum that 'man' is predicable of many different individuals. And it is a datum that Peter is the subject of plenty of essential predicates other than 'man.' But it is not a clear datum that Peter is particular 'all the way through.' That smacks of a theory or a proto-theory, not that it is not eminently reasonable.

One might 'assay' (to use G. Bergmann's term) an ordinary particular as a complex consisting of a thin or 'bare' particular instantiating universals. This has its own difficulties, of course, but why should a theory that posits common natures be preferrable to one that doesn't but posits really existent universals instead? Either way problems will arise.

The main problem in a nutshell is that it is incoherent to maintain that some items are such that they have no being whatsoever. 'Some items are such that they have no being whatsoever' is not a formal-logical contradiction, pace van Inwagen, but it is incoherent nonetheless. Or so it seems to me.

Holes and Their Mode of Being

Consider a particular hole H in a piece of swiss cheese. H is not nothing. It has properties. It has, for example, a shape: it is circular. The circular hole has a definite radius, diameter, and circumference. It has a definite area equal to pi times the radius squared. If the piece of cheese is 1/16th of an inch thick, then the hole is a disk having a definite volume. H has a definite location relative to the edges of the piece of cheese and relative to the other holes. H has causal properties: it affects the texture and flexibility of the cheese and its resistance to the tooth. H is perceivable by the senses: you can see it and touch it. You touch a hole by putting a finger or other appendage into it and experiencing no resistance.

Now if anything has properties, then it exists. H has properties; so H exists.

H exists and the piece of cheese exists. Do they exist in the same way? Not by my lights. The hole depends for its existence on the piece of cheese; the latter does not depend for its existence on the former. H is a particular, well-defined, indeed wholly determninate, absence of cheese. It is a particular, existing absence. As an absence of cheese it depends for its existence on the cheese of which it is the hole.

So I say the hole exists in a different way than the piece of cheese. It has a dependent mode of existence whereas the piece of cheese has a relatively independent mode of existence.

On the basis of this and other examples I maintain that there are modes of being. To be precise, I maintain that it is intelligible that there be modes of being. This puts me at odds with those, like van Inwagen, who consider the idea unintelligible and rooted in an elementary mistake:

. . . the thick conception of being is founded on the mistake of transferring what properly belongs to the nature of a chair — or of a human being or of a universal or of God — to the being of the chair. (Ontology, Identity, and Modality, Cambridge 2001, p. 4)

Did I make a mistake above, the mistake van Inwagen imputes to thick theorists? Did I mistakenly transfer what properly belongs to the nature of the hole — its dependence on the piece of cheese — to the being (existence) of the hole?

I plead innocent. Perhaps it is true that it is the nature of holes in general that they depend for their existence on the things in which they are holes. But H is a particular, spatiotemporally localizable, hole in a particular piece of cheese. Since H is a particular existing hole, it cannot be part of H's multiply exemplifiable nature that it depend for its existence on the particular piece of cheese it is a hole in. The dependence of H on its host is due to H's mode of existence, not to its nature.

Suppose there are ten quidditatively indiscernible holes in the piece of cheese: H1, H2, . . . H10. Each exists. Each has its own existence. But each has the very same nature. How then can this common nature be the factor responsible for making H1 or H2 or H3, etc., dependent on the particular piece of cheese? The dependence of each hole on its host is assignable not to the nature common to all ten holes but to each hole's existence as a mode of its existence.

Now of course this will not convince any thin theorist. But then that is not my goal. My goal is to show that the thick theory is rationally defensible and not sired by any obvious 'mistake.' If any 'mistakes' are assignable then I 'd say they are assignable with greater justice to the partisans of the thin theory.

Talk of 'mistakes,' though, is out of place in serious philosophy. For apart from clear-cut logical blunders such as affirming the consequent, quantifier shift fallacies, etc. any alleged 'mistakes' will rest on debatable substantive commitments.

Metaphysical Grounding I: True Of

(Note to Peter L: This begins our discussion of metaphysical grounding and metaphysical explanation, topics of common interest. We need, over a series of posts, to uncover and discuss as many examples as we can find. My aim, and perhaps yours as well, is to demonstrate that metaphysical grounding and metaphysical explanation are legitimate topics, and that metaphysics is not a going enterprise unless they are legitimate topics. This is connected with our presumably common opposition to scientism and our presumably common defense of the autonomy of philosophy.)

Let 'Tom' name a particular tomato. Let us agree that if a predicate applies to a particular, then the predicate is true of the particular. Predicates are linguistic items. If Tom is red, then 'red' is true of Tom, and if 'red' is true of Tom, then Tom is red. This yields the material biconditional

1. Tom is red iff 'red' is true of Tom.

Now it seems to me that the following question is intelligible: Is Tom red because 'red' is true of Tom, or is 'red' true of Tom because Tom is red? 'Because' here does not have a causal sense. So the question is not whether Tom's being red causes 'red' to be true of Tom, or vice versa. So I won't speak of causation in this context. I will speak of metaphysical/ontological grounding. The question then is what grounds what, not what causes what. Does Tom's being red ground the application (the being-applied) of 'red' to Tom, or does the appplication (the being-applied) of 'red' to Tom ground Tom's being red?

I am not primarily concerned with the correct answer to this question, but with meaningfulness of the question.

Grounding is asymmetrical: if x grounds y, then y does not ground x. (It is also irreflexive and transitive.) Now if there is such a relation as grounding, then there will be a distinctive form of explanation we can call metaphysical/ontological explanation. (Grounding, though not causation, is analogous to c ausation, and metaphysical explanation, though distinct from causal explanation, is analogous to causal explanation.)

Explaining is something we do: in worlds without minds there is no explaining and there are no explanations, including metaphysical explanations. But I assume that, if there are any metaphysical grounding relations, then in every world metaphysical grounding relations obtain. (Of course, there is no grounding of the application of predicates in a world without languages and predicates, but there are other grounding relations.)

Grounding is not causation. It is not a relation between event tokens such as Jack's touching a live wire and Jack's death by electrocution. Grounding is also not a relation between propositions. It is not the relation of material implication, nor is it entailment (the necessitation of material implication), nor any other semantic relation wholly situated at the level of propositions. Propositions, let us assume, are the primary truth-bearers.

In our example, grounding is not a relation between propositions — it is not a logical relation — since neither Tom nor 'red' are propositions.

I want to say the following. Tom's being red grounds the correctness of the application of 'red' to Tom. 'Red' is true of Tom because (metaphysically, not causally or logically) Tom is red, and not vice versa. 'Red' is true of Tom in virtue of Tom's being red. Tom's being red is metaphysically prior to the truth of 'Tom is red' where this metaphysical priority cannot be reduced to some ordinary type of priority, whether logical, causal, temporal, or what have you. Tom's being red metaphysically accounts for the truth of 'Tom is red.'

I conclude that there is at least one type of metaphysical grounding relation, and at least one form of irreducibly metaphysical explanation.

The Problems of Order and Unity and Their Difference

Last Thursday, Steven N. and I had a very enjoyable three-hour conversation with ASU philosophy emeritus Ted Guleserian on Tempe's Mill Avenue. We covered a lot of ground, but the most focused part of the discussion concerned the subject matter of this post. If I understood Guleserian correctly, he was questioning whether there is any such problem as the problem of the unity of a fact. I maintained that there is such a problem and that it is distinct from the problem of order.

…………….

The problem of order arises for relational facts and relational propositions in which there is a relation R that is either asymmetrical or nonsymmetrical. If dyadic R is asymmetrical, and x stands in R to y, then it follows that y does not stand in R to x. For example, greater than and taller than are asymmetrical relations. If I am taller than you, then you are not taller than me. If dyadic R is nonsymmetrical, and x stands in R to y, then it does not follow, though it may be the case, that y stands in R to x. For example, loves and hates are nonsymmetrical relations. If I love you, it does not follow that you love me, nor does it follow that you do not love me. But if I weigh the same as you, then you weigh the same as me: 'weigh the same as' picks out a symmetrical relation.

Well, suppose R is either asymmetrical or nonsymmetrical. Then the relational facts Rab and Rba will be distinct. For example, Al's loving Bill, and Bill's loving Al are distinct facts. A fact is a complex. Now the following principle seems well-nigh self-evident:

   P. If two complexes, K1 and K2, differ numerically, then there exists
   a constituent C such that C is an element of K1 but not of K2, or vice
   versa.

In other words, if two complexes differ, then they differ in a constituent. 'Complex' is intended quite broadly. Mathematical sets are complexes and it is clear that they satisfy the principle. There cannot be two sets that have all the same members. Ditto for mereological sums.

Now if Rab and Rba are distinct, then, by principle (P), they must differ in a constituent. But they seem to have all the same constituents. Both consist of a, b, and R, and if you think there must also be a triadic nexus of exemplification present in the fact, then that item too is common to both. And if you think there is a benign infinite regress of exemplification nexuses in the fact, then those items too are common to both. Since both facts have all the same constituents, what is the ontological ground of the numerical difference of the two facts? What makes them different? The question is not whether they differ; it is obvious that they do. The question concerns the ground of their difference. What explains their difference? Of course, I am not asking for an explanation in terms of empirical causes. Consider {1, 2} and {1, 2, 3}. What is the ontological ground of the difference of these two sets? It would be a poor answer to say that they just differ, that their difference is a factum brutum. The thing to say is that they differ in virtue of one set's having a member the other doesn't have. When I say that 3 makes the difference between the two sets I am obviously not giving a causal explanation. I am specifying a factor in reality that 'makes' the two entities numerically different.

So what, if anything, is the ontological ground of the difference between aRb and bRa when R is either asymmetrical or nonsymmetrical? This, I take it, the problem of order, or, in the jargon of Gustav Bergmann, the problem of providing an 'assay' of order. It may be that no assay is possible. It may be that the difference is a brute difference. But that cannot be assumed at the outset.

It seems to me that the problem of unity is different although related. What is the difference between the fact aRb and the set or sum of its constituents? If a contingently stands in R to b, then it is possible that a, R, and b all exist without forming a relational fact. So what is the difference between aRb and {a, R, b}? Here we have two complexes that share all their constituents, but they are clearly different complexes: one is a fact while the other is not. What is the ground of fact-unity, that peculiar form of unity found in facts but not it other types of complex?

Suppose you deny that they share all constituents. Suppose you maintain that the fact includes a triadic exemplification nexus that is not present in the set. I will then re-formulate the problem as follows. What is the difference between aRb and {a, R, NEX, }?

The problem of order is different from the problem of unity. The latter is the problem of accounting for the peculiar unity of those complexes that attract such properties as truth, falsity, and obtaining. For some of these complexes, no problem of order arises. For example, a monadic fact of the form, a's being F, precisely because it is nonrelational does not give rise to any problem of order. Since the problem of unity can arise in cases where the problem of order does not arise, the two problems are distinct.

The unity problem is the more fundamental of the two. The question as to the ground of the difference of a fact and the mere collection of its consituents is more fundamental than the question as to the ground of the difference between two already constituted facts which appear to share all their constituents.

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

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.

Are Facts Perceivable? An Aporetic Pentad

'The table is against the wall.' This is a true contingent sentence. How do I know that it is true except by seeing (or otherwise sense perceiving) that the table is against the wall? And what is this seeing if not the seeing of a fact, where a fact is not a true proposition but the truth-maker of a true proposition? This seeing of a fact is not the seeing of a table (by itself), nor of a wall (by itself), nor of the pair of these two physical objects, nor of a relation (by itself). It is the seeing of a table's standing in the relation of being against a wall. It is the seeing of a truth-making fact. (So it seems we must add facts to the categorial inventory.) The relation, however, is not visible, as are the table and the wall. So how can the fact be visible, as it apparently must be if I am to be able to see (literally, with my eyes) that the table is against the wall? That is our problem.

Let 'Rab' symbolize a contingent relational truth about observables such as 'The table is against the wall.' We can then set up the problem as an aporetic pentad:

1. If one knows that Rab, then one knows this by seeing that Rab (or by otherwise sense-perceiving it).
2. To see that Rab is to see a fact.
3. To see a fact is to see all its constituents.
4. The relation R is a constituent of the fact that Rab
5. The relation R is not visible (or otherwise sense-perceivable).

The pentad is inconsistent: the conjunction of any four limbs entails the negation of the remaining one. To solve the problem, then, we must reject one of the propositions. But which one?

(1) is well-nigh undeniable: I sometimes know that the cat is on the mat, and I know that the cat is on the mat by seeing that she is. How else would I know that the cat is on the mat? I could know it on the basis of the testimony of a reliable witness, but then how would the witness know it? Sooner or later there must be an appeal to direct seeing. (5) is also undeniable: I see the cat; I see the mat; but I don't see the relation picked out by 'x is on y.' And it doesn't matter whether whether you assay relations as relation-instances or as universals. Either way, no relation appears to the senses.

Butchvarov denies (2), thereby converting our pentad into an argument against facts, or rather an argument against facts about observable things. (See his "Facts" in Javier Cumpa ed., Studies in the Ontology of Reinhardt Grossmann, Ontos Verlag 2010, pp. 71-93, esp. pp. 84-85.) But if there are no facts about observable things, then it is reasonable to hold that there are no facts at all.

So one solution to our problem is the 'No Fact Theory.' One problem I have with Butchvarov's denial of facts is that (1) seems to entail (2). Now Butch grants (1). (That is a loose way of saying that Butch says things in his "Facts' article that can be reasonably interpreted to mean that if (1) were presented to him, then would grant it.) So why doesn't he grant (2)? In other words, if I can see (with my eyes) that the cat is on the mat, is not that excellent evidence that I am seeing a fact and not just a cat and a mat? If you grant me that I sometimes see that such-and-such, must you not also grant me that I sometimes see facts?

And if there are no facts,then how do we explain the truth of contingently true sentences such as 'The cat is on the mat'? There is more to the truth of this sentence than the sentence that is true. The sentence is not just true; it is true because of something external to it. And what could that be? It can't be the cat by itself, or the mat by itself, or the pair of the two. For the pair would exist if the sentence were false. 'The cat is not on the mat' is about the cat and the mat and requires their existence just as much as 'The cat is on the mat.' The truth-maker, then, must have a proposition-like structure, and the natural candidate is the fact of the cat''s being on the mat. This is a powerful argument for the admission of facts into the categorial inventory.

Another theory arises by denying (3). But this denial is not plausible. If I see the cat and the mat, why can't I see the relation — assuming that I am seeing a fact and that a fact is composed of its constituents, one of them being a relation? As Butch asks, rhetorically, "If you supposed that the relational fact is visible, but the relation is not, is the relation hidden? Or too small to see?" (85)

A third theory comes of denying (4). One might think to deny that R is a constituent of the fact of a's standing in R to b. But surely this theory is a nonstarter. If there are relational facts, then relations must be constituents of some facts.

Our problem seems to be insoluble. Each limb makes a very strong claim on our acceptance. But they cannot all be true.

Butchvarov Against Facts

In his essay, "Facts," (Studies in the Ontology of Reinhardt Grossmann, Javier Cumpa, ed., Ontos Verlag, 2010, p. 83) Panayot Butchvarov generously cites me as a defender of realism and a proponent of facts. He credits me with doing something William P. Alston does not do in his theory of facts, namely, specifying their mode of reality:

However, William Vallicella, also a defender of realism, does. He argues that true propositions require "truth-making facts." And he astutely points out that facts could be truth-making only if they are "proposition-like," "structured in a proposition-like way" — only f a fact has a structure that can mirror the the structure of a proposition." (A Paradigm Theory of Existence, 13, 166-7,192-3) Vallicella's view is firmly in the spirit of Wittgenstein's account in the Tractatus of the notions of fact and correspondence to fact, but his formulation of it may invite deflationist attacks like Strawson's.

Butchvarov, however, is firmly against adding the category of facts to our ontological inventory. This post will consider one of his arguments. Butchvarov tells us (p. 86) that

The metaphysical notion of fact is grounded in our use of declarative sentences, and the supposition that there are facts in the world depends at least in part on the assumption that sentences must correspond to something in the world, that somehow they must be names. But this assumption seems absurd. Sentences are not even nouns, much less names. They cannot serve as grammatical subjects or objects of verbs, which is the mark of nouns. [. . .] Notoriously, "p is true," if taken literally, is gibberish. "Snow is white is true" is just ill-formed. "'Snow is white' is true" is not, but its subject-term is not a sentence — it is the name of a sentence.

Here is what I take to be Butchvarov's argument in the above passage and surrounding text:

1. If there are facts, then some declarative sentences are names.
2. Every name can serve as the grammatical subject of a verb.
3. No declarative sentence can serve as the grammatical subject of a verb.
Therefore
4. No declarative sentence is a name. (2, 3)
Therefore
5. There are no facts. (1, 4)

The friend of facts ought to concede (1). If there are truth-making facts, then some declarative sentences refer to them, or have them as worldly correspondents. The realist holds that if a contingent sentence such as 'Al is fat' is true, then that is not just a matter of language, but a matter of how the extralinguistic world is arranged. The sentence is true because of Al's being fat. Note that Al by himself cannot be the truth-maker of the sentence, nor can fatness by itself, nor can the set, sum, or ordered pair of the two do the job. If {Al, fatness} is the truth-maker of 'Al is fat,' then it is also the truth-maker of 'Al is not fat' — which is absurd.

As for (2), it is unproblematic. So if the argument is to be neutralized — I prefer to speak of 'neutralizing' rather than 'refuting' arguments — we must give reasons for not accepting (3). So consider this argument for the negation of (3).

6. 'Snow is white' is true.
7. No name is true or false.
Therefore
8. 'Snow is white' is not a name.
9. Anything either true or false is a declarative sentence.
Therefore
10. 'Snow is white' is a declarative sentence.
Therefore
11. 'Snow is white' serves as the grammatical subject of the verb 'is a declarative sentence.'
Therefore
12. Some declarative sentences can serve as the grammatical subjects of a verb.
Therefore
~3. It is not the case that no declarative sentence can serve as the grammatical subject of a verb.

The argument just given seems to neutralize Butchvarov's argument.

The Paradox of the Horse and 'the Paradox of Snow'

Butchvarov's view is deeply paradoxical. He holds that 'Snow is white ' in (6) is not a sentence but the name of a sentence. The paradox is similar to the paradox of the horse in Frege. Frege notoriously held that the concept horse is not a concept. Butchvarov is maintaining that the sentence 'Snow is white' is not a sentence.

What is Frege's reasoning? He operates with an absolute distinction between names and predicates (concept words). Corresponding to this linguistic distinction there is the equally absolute ontological distinction between objects and concepts. Objects are nameable while concepts are not. So if you try to name a concept you willy-nilly transform it into an object. Since 'the concept horse' is a name, its referent is an object. Hence the concept horse is not a concept but an object.

Similarly with Butchvarov. To refer to a sentence, I must use a name for it. To form the name of a sentence, I enclose it in quotation marks. Thus the sentence 'snow is white' is not a sentence, but a name for a sentence.

Butchvarov finds it "absurd" that a sentence should name a fact. His reason is that a sentence is not a name. But it strikes me as even more absurd to say that the sentence 'Snow is white' is not a sentence, but a name.

My tentative conclusion is that while realism about facts is dubious, so is anti-realism about them. But there is also what Butchvarov calls "semi-realism" which I ought to discuss in a separate post.

Indeterminate Yet Existent? The Aporetics of Prime Matter and Pure Consciousness

Scott Roberts e-mails in reference to my post Hylomorphic Ontological Analysis and the Puzzle of Prime Matter:

I have also been perplexed at hylomorphism's dependence on something called [prime] 'matter', for the same reason as you give. But I think there is a way out, though perhaps not one a hylomorphist will like. You say "Something bare of determinateness is unthinkable and hence nonexistent." But I can think of three words that refer to something one might consider real yet bare of determinateness, namely mass (or energy), consciousness (considered apart from all intentional objects of consciousness), and God (of classical theism). In each case you have something that can be thought of as giving form actuality. But that leads to an inversion of hylomorphism, namely, that now it is form that is potential, and what was formally [formerly?] thought of as matter is now Pure Act. For example, a mathematical object which is not being thought of is a potential form that consciousness gives actuality as a thought. [. . .]

The reader is right to point out that there is something dubious about my claim that "Something bare of determinateness is unthinkable and hence nonexistent." Of the three counterexamples he gives, the clearest and best is "consciousness considered apart from all intentional objects of consciousness." Consciousness so considered is not nothing, and yet it is indeterminate since all determinations fall on the side of the objects. Consciousness is no-thing, a Sartrean theme which is also developed by Butchvarov.

The reader has made me see that there is a certain structural analogy between prime matter and consciousness conceived of as pure of-ness bare of all determinacy. For one thing, both, considered in themselves, are indeterminate or formless, and necessarily so. If consciousness were determinate, it would be an object of consciousness and not the consciousness without which there are no (intentional) objects. And if prime matter were determinate, it would be formed matter and thus not prime matter. Second, neither can exist apart from its other. There is no consciousness without objects, and there is no prime matter that exists on its own in the manner of a substance. So, while consciousness is other than every object, it cannot exist except as the consciousness of objects (objective genitive). And while prime matter is other than every form, and in itself formless, it requires formation to be something definite and substantial.

A third point of analogy is that both consciousness and prime matter give rise to a structurally similar puzzle. Consider a mind-independent hylomorph A whose matter (H) is prime matter and whose form (F) is composed of lowest forms. Which is ontologically prior, A, or its ontological parts H and F? If the parts are prior in the manner of pre-existing ontological building blocks — think (by analogy) of the way the stones in a stone wall are prior to the wall — then H could not be a 'principle' in the scholastic sense but would have to something capable of independent existence. And that is unacceptable: surely prime matter cannot exist on its own. If, on the other hand, A is prior to its parts, then the parts would exist only for us, or in our consideration, as aspects which we bring to A. But that won't do either because A ex hypothesi exists extramentally and so cannot in its ontological constitution require any contribution from us.

The consciousness puzzle is similar. Is consciousness (conceived as pure diaphanous of-ness of objects in the manner of Sartre, Butchvarov, and perhaps Moore) something really existent in itself or is it rather an abstract concept that we excogitate? In other words, when we think of consciousness transcendentally as the sheer revelation of objects, are we thinking of a really existent condition of their revelation, or is consciousness so conceived merely a concept that we bring to the data? If consciousness really exists, then we substantialize it (reify it, hypostatize it) in a manner analogous to the way we substantialize prime matter when we think of its as something capable of independent existence. And that is puzzling. How can something exist that is not an object of actual or possible awareness? If, on the other hand, consciousness is not something that exists on its own but is a concept that we excogitate, then how do we account for the real fact that things are apparent to us, that things are intentional objects for us? Besides, if consciousness were a mere concept, then consciousness as a reality would be presupposed: concepts are logically subsequent to consciousness.

So the two puzzles are structurally similar.

Let us see if we can abstract the common pattern. You have a term X and a distinct term Y. The terms are introduced to make sense of a phenomenon Z. Z is the analysandum whose analysis into X and Y is supposed to generate understanding. X cannot exist without Y, hence it cannot exist on its own. The same goes for Y. The terms cannot exist without each other on pain of (i) hypostatization of each, and (ii) consequent sundering of the unity of Z. (The diremption of Z into X and Y gives rise to the ancient problem of the unity of a complex which no one has ever solved.) That the terms cannot exist without each other suggests that the unitary phenomenon Z is split into X and Y only by our thoughts such that the factoring into X and Y is our contribution. On the other hand, however, the terms or factors must be capable of some sort of existence independent of our conceptual activities if the explanation that invokes them is an explanation of a real mind-independent phenomenon.

Here is a sharper form of the common aporia. Both prime matter and pure consciousness are real. But they are also both unreal. Nothing, however, can be both real and unreal on pain of violating Non-Contradiction. How remove the contradiction without giving rise to a problem that is just as bad?

I don't say that the aporiai are insoluble, but I suspect that any solution proffered with give rise to problems of its own . . . .