{"id":6516,"date":"2016-04-14T15:20:42","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T15:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/14\/j-p-moreland-on-constituent-ontology-is-exemplification-a-spatial-container-relation\/"},"modified":"2016-04-14T15:20:42","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T15:20:42","slug":"j-p-moreland-on-constituent-ontology-is-exemplification-a-spatial-container-relation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/14\/j-p-moreland-on-constituent-ontology-is-exemplification-a-spatial-container-relation\/","title":{"rendered":"J. P. Moreland on Constituent Ontology: Is Exemplification a Spatial Container Relation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

J. P. Moreland defines an "impure realist" as one who denies the Axiom of Localization (Universals<\/em>, McGill-Queen's UP, 2001, p. 18):<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

No entity whatsoever can exist at different spatial locations at once or at interrupted time intervals.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An example of an impure realist is D. M. Armstrong.  An example of a pure realist is R. Grossmann.   Moreland writes,<\/span><\/p>\n

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Impure realists like D. M. Armstrong deny the axiom of localization.  For them, properties are spatially contained inside the things that have them.  Redness is at the very place Socrates is and redness is also at the very place Plato is. Thus, redness violates the axiom of localization.  Impure realists are naturalists at heart.  Why?  Because they accept the fact that properties are universals; that is, as entities that can be exemplified by more than one thing at once.  But they do not want to deny naturalism and believe in abstract entities that are outside space and time altogether.  Thus, impure realists hold that all entities are, indeed, inside space and time.  But they embrace two different kinds of spatial entities: concrete particulars (Socrates) that are in only one place at a time, and universals (properties like redness) that are at different spatial locations at the very same time. For the impure realist, the exemplification relation is a spatial container<\/em> relation.  Socrates exemplifies  redness in that redness is spatially contained inside of or at the same place as Socrates. (18-19)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The above doesn't sound right to me either in itself or as an interpretation  of Armstrong. <\/span><\/p>\n

Is Exemplification a Container Relation?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Take a nice simple 'Iowa' example.  There are two round, red spots on a piece of white paper.  It is a datum, a Moorean fact, that both are of the same shape and both are of the same color.  Moving from data to theory:  what is the ontological ground of the sameness of shape and the sameness of color?  The impure realist responds with alacrity:  the spots are of the same color because one and the same universal redness and one and the same universal roundness are present in both spots.  The qualitative sameness<\/em> of the two spots is grounded in sameness of universals.  What is the ontological ground of the numerical difference<\/em> of the two spots?  The bare or thin particular in each.  Their numerical difference grounds the numerical difference of the two spots.  The bare\/thin particular does a second job: it is that which instantiates the universals 'in' each spot.  For not only do we need an account of numerical difference, we also need an account of why the two spots are particulars and not (conjunctive) universals.<\/span><\/p>\n

The upshot for both Bergmann and Armstrong is that each spot is a fact or state of affairs.  How so?  Let 'A' designate one spot and 'B' the other.  Each spot is a thick<\/em> particular, a particular together with all its monadic properties.  Let 'a' and 'b' designate the thin<\/em> particulars in each.  A thin particular is a particular taken in abstraction from its monadic properties.  Let 'F-ness' designate the conjunctive universal the conjuncts of which are roundness and redness.  Then A = a-instantiating F-ness<\/em>, and B = b-instantiating-F-ness<\/em>.  A and B are concrete facts or states of affairs.  A is a's being F<\/em> and B is b's being F<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

From what has been said so far it should be clear that instantiation\/exemplification cannot be a spatial container relation.  Even if F-ness is spatially inside of the thick particulars A and B, that relation is different from the relation that connects the thin particular a<\/em> to the universal F-ness and the thin particular b<\/em> to the universal F-ness. The point is that instantiation cannot be any sort<\/em> of container, constituency, or part-whole relation on a scheme like Armstrong's or Bergmann's in which ordinary concrete particulars are assayed as states of affairs or facts.  A's being red is not A's having the universal redness as a part, spatial or not.  A's being red is a's instantiating the universal redness.  Instantiation, it should be clear, is not a part-whole relation.  If a<\/em> instantiates F-ness, then  neither is a<\/em> a part of F-ness nor is F-ness a part of a.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contra Moreland, we may safely say that for Armstrong, and for any scheme like his, exemplification\/instantiation is not a container relation, and therefore not a spatial container relation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Could an Ontological Part be a Spatial Part?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Moreland makes two claims in the quoted passage.  One is that exemplification is a spatial container relation.  The other is that there are two different kinds of spatial entities.  The claims seem logically independent.  Suppose you agree with me that exemplification cannot be any sort of container relation.  It seems consistent with this to maintain that universals are spatial parts of ordinary concrete particulars.  But this notion is difficult to swallow as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

A constituent ontologist like Bergmann, Armstrong, or the author of A Paradigm Theory of Existence<\/a> maintains that ordinary concrete particulars have ontological parts structured ontologically.  Thus thin particulars and constituent universals are among the  ontological parts of ordinary particulars when the latter are assayed as states of affairs or facts.  The question is: could these ontological parts be spatial parts? <\/span><\/p>\n

Consider a thin or bare particular.  Is it a spatial part of a round red spot?  By my lights, this makes no sense.  There is no conceivable process of physical decomposition that could lay bare (please forgive the wholly intended pun) the bare particular at the metaphysical core of a red spot or a ball bearing.  Suppose one arrived at genuine physical atoms, literally indivisible bits of matter, in the physical decomposition of a ball bearing.  Could one of these atoms be the bare or thin particular of the ball bearing?  Of course not.  For any such atom you pick will have intrinsic properties.  And so any atom you pick will be a thick particular.  As such, it will have at its metaphysical core a thin particular which — it should now be obvious — cannot be a bit of matter.  Bare particulars, if there are any, lie too deep, metaphysically speaking, to be bits of matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, then, bare particulars cannot be material parts of ordinary particulars.  Hence they cannot be spatial parts of ordinary particulars.<\/span><\/p>\n

What about universals?  Could my two red spots — same shade of red, of course — each have as a spatial<\/em> part numerically one and the same universal, a universal 'repeated' in each spot, the universal redness?  If so, then the same goes for the geometrical property, roundness: it is too is a universal spatially<\/em> present in both spots.  But then it follows that the two universals spatially coincide: they occupy the same space in each spot.  So not only can universals be in different places at the same time; two or more of them can be in the same place at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n

If nothing else, this conception puts considerable stress on our notion of a spatial part.  One can physically separate the spatial parts of a thing.  A spherical object can be literally cut into two hemispheres.  But if a ball is red all over and sticky all over, the redness and the stickiness cannot be physically separated.  If physical separability in principle is a criterion of spatial parthood, then universals cannot be spatial parts of spatial concrete particulars.<\/span><\/p>\n

Any thoughts?<\/span><\/p>\n

Three Views<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Van Inwagen<\/em>:  The only parts of  material particulars are ordinary spatial parts.  The only structure of a material particular is spatial or mereological structure.  The notion of an ontological part that is not a spatial part in the ordinary mereological sense is unintelligible. And the same goes for ontological structure.  See here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Armstrong as Misread by Moreland<\/em>:  There are ontological parts in addition to ordinary spatial parts and they too are spatial. <\/span><\/p>\n

Vallicella (2002)<\/em>:  There are ontological parts but they are not spatial. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/span><\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Bare Particulars versus Aristotelian Substances<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Trope Troubles: An Exercise in Aporetics with the Help of Professor Levy<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Potentiality and the Substance View of Persons<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Senses of 'Abstract' with a Little Help from Hegel<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>In Defense of Modes of Being: Substance and Accident<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>God: A Being among Beings or Being Itself?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Armstrong, Quine, Universals, Abstract Objects, and Naturalism<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J. P. Moreland defines an "impure realist" as one who denies the Axiom of Localization (Universals, McGill-Queen's UP, 2001, p. 18): No entity whatsoever can exist at different spatial locations at once or at interrupted time intervals. An example of an impure realist is D. M. Armstrong.  An example of a pure realist is R. … Continue reading “J. P. Moreland on Constituent Ontology: Is Exemplification a Spatial Container Relation?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constituent-ontology","category-nominalism-and-realism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}