According to the subset account of realization, a property, F, is realized by another property, G, whenever F is individuated by a non-empty proper subset of the causal powers by which G is individuated (and F is not a conjunctive property of which G is a conjunct). This account is especially attractive because it seems both to explain the way in which realized properties are nothing over and above their realizers, and to provide for the causal efficacy of realized properties. (...) It therefore seems to provide a way around the causal exclusion problem. There is reason to doubt, however, that the subset account can achieve both tasks. The problem arises when we look closely at the relation between properties and causal powers, specifically, at the idea that properties confer powers on the things that have them. If realizers are to be ontically prior to what they realize, then we must regard the conferral of powers by properties as a substantive relation of determination. This relation of conferral is at the heart of a kind of exclusion problem, analogous to the familiar causal exclusion problem. I argue that the subset account cannot adequately answer this new exclusion problem, and is for that reason ill-suited to be the backbone of a non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

In recent literature on vagueness, writers have noted that more ‘plentiful’ theories of properties – those that postulate genuine properties corresponding to the classically vague predicates like ‘bald’ and ‘heap’ – appear straightforwardly committed to ontic vagueness. In this paper, however, I will argue that worries of ontic vagueness are not specific to ‘plentiful’ accounts of properties. The classically ‘sparse’ theories of properties – Universals and tropes – will, I contend, be subject to similar difficulties.

Arguments are given against the thesis that properties and propositional functions are identical. The first shows that the familiar extensional treatment of propositional functions -- that, for all x, if f(x) = g(x), then f = g -- must be abandoned. Second, given the usual assumptions of propositional-function semantics, various propositional functions (e.g., constant functions) are shown not to be properties. Third, novel examples are given to show that, if properties were identified with propositional functions, crucial fine-grained intensional distinctions would (...) be lost. (shrink)

Higher-order theories of properties, relations, and propositions are known to be essentially incomplete relative to their standard notions of validity. It turns out that the first-order theory of PRPs that results when first-order logic is supplemented with a generalized intensional abstraction operation is complete. The construction involves the development of an intensional algebraic semantic method that does not appeal to possible worlds, but rather takes PRPs as primitive entities. This allows for a satisfactory treatment of both the modalities and the (...) propositional attitudes, and it suggests a general strategy for developing a comprehensive treatment of intensional logic. (shrink)

This is the only complete logic for properties, relations, and propositions (PRPS) that has been formulated to date. First, an intensional abstraction operation is adjoined to first-order quantifier logic, Then, a new algebraic semantic method is developed. The heuristic used is not that of possible worlds but rather that of PRPS taken at face value. Unlike the possible worlds approach to intensional logic, this approach yields a logic for intentional (psychological) matters, as well as modal matters. At the close of (...) the paper, the origin of incompleteness in logic is investigated. The culprit is found to be the predication relation, a relation on properties and relations that is expressed in natural language by the copula. (shrink)

Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.

I think it would be fair to say that, until about 1900, philosophers were generally reluctant to admit the existence of what are nowadays called polyadic properties (for our purposes we may think of a polyadic property as a property whose instances can belong to two or more subjects at once).1 It is important to recognize, however, that this reluctance on the part of pre-twentieth-century philosophers did not prevent them from theorizing about relations. On the contrary, philosophers from the ancient (...) through the modern period have had much to say about both the nature and the ontological status of relations. In this paper I examine the views of one such philosopher, namely, Albert the Great (d. 1280). (shrink)

Due to the influence of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), twentieth-century philosophers have devoted a great deal of attention to questions concerning the logic and metaphysics of relations. But systematic philosophical interest in relations does not originate in the twentieth century. On the contrary, it originates in antiquity, dating back at least to Aristotle’s short treatise, the Categories.1 In the Categories, Aristotle attempts to provide a philosophical account of relations (or relatives, ta pros ti) as part of an (...) overall inventory of the basic kinds of things there are (onta). He identifies relations as one of the ten irreducible kinds of being, and devotes an entire chapter—the seventh chapter of the treatise—to analyzing their nature and ontological status. Aristotle’s discussion in Categories 7 provides the starting point for a long and rich tradition of thinking about relations, one which stems from antiquity, runs through the Middle Ages, and eventually makes its way into the early modern period. Despite the prominence of.. (shrink)

One view of the nature of properties has been crystallized in recent debate by an identity thesis proposed by Shoemaker. The general idea is that there is for behaviour. Well-known criticisms of this approach, however, remain unanswered, and the details of its connections to laws nothing more to being a particular causal property than conferring certain dispositions of nature and the precise ontology of causal properties stand in need of development. This paper examines and defends a dispositional essentialist account of (...) causal properties, combining a Shoemaker-type identity thesis with a Dretske, Tooley, and Armstrong-type view that laws are relations between properties, and a realism about dispositions. The property identity thesis is defended against standard epistemological and metaphysical objections. The metaphysics of causal properties is then clarified by a consideration of the laws relating them, vacuous laws, and ceteris paribus law statements. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there are in fact external relations in Russell’s sense. The level at which we are forced to acknowledge them is, however, not the level of relations between concrete individual objects. All relations of this kind, which I will call “inter-individual” relations, can be construed as supervenient on the monadic properties of their terms. But if we pursue our ontological analysis a little bit deeper and consider the internal structure of a concrete individual, then we (...) will inevitably find irreducible external relations. I mean for example the relation of instantiation (in the frame of a realist’s theory) or that of concurrence (in the frame of a trope theory). I will show that such “intra-individual” relations – the relations that make up the internal structure of a concrete individual out of more primitive metaphysical “building blocks” like universals or tropes – could not (even in principle) be construed as supervenient. (shrink)

Presentists face a challenge from truthmaker theory: if you hold both that the only existing objects are presently existing and that truth supervenes on being, then you will be hard pressed to identify some existent on which a given true but traceless claim about the past supervenes. One reconciliation strategy, advocated by Cameron (2011), is to appeal to distributional properties so to serve as presently existing truthmakers for past truths. I argue that a presentist ought to deny that distributional properties (...) can serve as truthmakers. (shrink)

In A World of States of Affairs(Cambridge University Press, 1997) David Armstrong offers acomprehensive metaphysics based on the thesis that the world consistsof states of affairs. Among the entities postulated by Armstrong's theory are relations, including non-symmetrical relations, and whileArmstrong does not agree with Russell that all relations have adirection or definite order among their places, he does explicitlyacknowledge that the slots of a non-symmetrical relation have adefinite order or direction. I first show that non-symmetricalrelations pose a problem for Armstrong's (...) theory by raising TheProblem of Converse Relations. I then argue that the bestresolution of this problem in the context of Armstrong's theoryinvolves adopting an analysis of the order or direction of a relationthat differs from the analysis that Russell assumes. I conclude bydiscussing a further problem facing Armstrong's ontology: TheProblem of Converse Relational Properties. (shrink)

Problems about the accidental properties of properties motivate us--force us, I think--not to identify properties with the sets of their instances. If we identify them instead with functions from worlds to extensions, we get a theory of properties that is neutral with respect to disputes over counterpart theory, and we avoid a problem for Lewis's theory of events. Similar problems about the temporary properties of properties motivate us--though this time they probably don't force us--to give up this theory as well, (...) and to identify properties with functions from world, time pairs to extensions. Again, the replacement theory is neutral with respect to a metaphysical dispute that the old theory (arguably) forces us to take a stand on--the dispute over whether objects have temporal parts. It also allows us to give a smoother semantics for predication, to better accommodate our intuitions about which objects temporary properties are properties of, and to make temporally self-locating beliefs genuinely self -locating. (shrink)

Problems about the accidental properties of properties motivate us--force us, I think--not to identify properties with the sets of their instances. If we identify them instead with functions from worlds to extensions, we get a theory of properties that is neutral with respect to disputes over counterpart theory, and we avoid a problem for Lewis's theory of events. Similar problems about the temporary properties of properties motivate us--though this time they probably don't force us--to give up this theory as well, (...) and to identify properties with functions from world, time pairs to extensions. Again, the replacement theory is neutral with respect to a metaphysical dispute that the old theory (arguably) forces us to take a stand on--the dispute over whether objects have temporal parts. It also allows us to give a smoother semantics for predication, to better accommodate our intuitions about which objects temporary properties are properties of, and to make temporally self-locating beliefs genuinely self -locating. (shrink)

The volume covers a number of the most hotly debated issues in today's metaphysics and moves the discussion on in several important aspects.

If properties are to play a useful role in semantics, it is hard to avoid assuming the naïve theory of properties: for any predicate Θ(x), there is a property such that an object o has it if and only if Θ(o). Yet this appears to lead to various paradoxes. I show that no paradoxes arise as long as the logic is weakened appropriately; the main difficulty is finding a semantics that can handle a conditional obeying reasonable laws without engendering paradox. (...) I employ a semantics which is infinite-valued, with the values only partially ordered. Can the solution be adapted to naïve set theory? Probably not, but limiting naïve comprehension in set theory is perfectly satisfactory, whereas this is not so in a property theory used for semantics. (shrink)

The properties colored and red stand in a special relation. Namely, red is a determinate of colored, and colored is determinable relative to red. Many other properties are similarly related. The determination relation is an interesting topic of logical investigation in its own right, and the prominent philosophical inquiries into this relation have, accordingly, operated at a high level of abstraction.1 It is time to return to these investigations, not just as a logical amusement, but for the payoffs such investigation (...) can yield in solving some basic metaphysical problems. The goal in what follows is twofold. First, I argue for a novel understanding of the determination relation. Second, this understanding is applied to yield insights into property instance (e.g., trope) individuation, how different property types can share an instance, the relation between property types and property instances, as well as applications to causation (mental causation, in particular). (shrink)

Immanent universals, being wholly present wherever they are instantiated, are capable of both multi-location and co-location. As a result, they can become involved in some bizarre situations, situations whose contradictory appearance cannot be dispelled by any of the relativizing maneuvers familiar to metaphysicials as solutions to the problem of change. Douglas Ehring takes this to be a fatal problem for immanent universals, but I do not. Although the old relativizing maneuvers don't solve the problem, I propose a new one that (...) does. I spend half the paper defending the proposed solution against objections, and in the course of this task I touch upon such topics as backward time travel and the distinction between universals and particulars. I close by putting forward -- merely as an option -- a new way to draw the distinction in question. (shrink)

Take this banana. It is now yellow, and when I bought it yesterday it was green. How can a single object be both green all over and yellow all over without contradiction? It is, of course, the passage of time which dissolves the contradiction, but how is this possible? How can a banana ripen? These questions raise the problem of change. The problem is sometimes called the problem of temporary intrinsics, but, as I shall explain below, this emphasis on intrinsic (...) properties is misleading. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether there is an acceptable version of Functionalism that avoids commitment to second-order properties. I argue that the answer is “no”. I consider two reductionist versions of Functionalism, and argue that both are compatible with multiple realization as such. There is a more specific type of multiple realization that poses difficulties for these views, however. The only apparent Functionalist solution is to accept second-order properties.

A central tenet of Heil's ontological conception is a no-levels account of reality, according to which there is just one class of basic properties and relations, while all higher-level entities are configurations of these base-level entities. I argue that if this picture is not to collapse into an eliminativist picture of the world – which, I contend, should be avoided –, Heil's ontological framework has to be supplemented by an independent theory of which configurations of basic entities should count as (...) complex entities. However, such an amendment represents a substantial ontological enhancement, so that the ensuing ontological picture is not as parsimonious as Heil claims it to be. (shrink)

Seth Pringle-Pattison (233n1) observed that Locke “teaches a twofold mystery—in the first place, of the essence (‘for the powers or qualities that are observable by us are not the real essence of that substance, but depend upon it or flow from it’), and in the second place, of the substance itself (‘Besides, a man has no idea of substance in general, nor knows what substance is in itself.’ Bk. II.31.13).” In this paper, I’ll explain the relation between the two mysteries. (...) Our Rosetta Stone is Locke’s argument that we understand body and spirit equally well since we are ignorant of their underlying substances but we “have distinct clear Ideas of two primary Qualities, or Properties” (2.23.30) of each. I’ll show that he is working with a restricted notion of primary quality in this passage, but one that demonstrably falls under the kind defined in his chapter on primary and secondary qualities. According to Locke, the fundamental primary qualities of bodies flow from corporeal substances and the determinations of these fundamental qualities constitute real essences. Locke’s discussion can’t be understood without understanding the relevant scholastic background. In the first half of my paper, I’ll explain his argument as an idiosyncratic application of doctrines he learned and taught at Oxford. In the second half, I’ll use lessons from my interpretation of the argument to explain the relation that Locke believes obtains between a substance and its fundamental primary qualities, and then I’ll build upon that explanation to elucidate his general account (insofar as he has a general account) of the inherence of qualities in corporeal substances. (shrink)

Here I defend the position that some singular terms for properties are rigid designators, responding to Stephen P. Schwartz’s interesting criticisms of that position. First, I argue that my position does not depend on ontological parsimony with respect to properties – e.g., there is no need to claim that there are only natural properties – to get around the problem of “unusual properties.” Second, I argue that my position does not confuse sameness of meaning across possible worlds with sameness of (...) designation, or rigid designation. Third, I argue that my position does not founder by way of failing to assign rigidity the work of grounding a posteriori necessity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the infinite regress of resemblance is vicious in the guise it is given by Russell but that it is virtuous if generated in a (contemporary) trope theoretical framework. To explain why this is so I investigate the infinite regress argument. I find that there is but one interesting and substantial way in which the distinction between vicious and virtuous regresses can be understood: The Dependence Understanding. I argue, furthermore, that to be able to decide (...) whether an infinite regress exhibits a dependence pattern of a vicious or a virtuous kind, facts about the theoretical context in which it is generated become essential. It is precisely because of differences in context that he Russellian resemblance regress is vicious whereas its trope theoretical counterpart is not. (shrink)

Comments on Andy Egan’s "Second-Order Predication and the Metaphysics of Properties," presented at California State University Long Beach, CA 2003.

In this report I motivate and develop a type-free logic with predicate quantifiers within the general ontological framework of (nonextensional) properties, relations, and propositions. In Part I, I present the major ideas of the system informally and discuss its philosophical significance, especially with regard to Russell's paradox. In Part II, I prove the soundness, consistency, and completeness of the logic.

This paper provides a defence of the account of partial resemblances between properties according to which such resemblances are due to partial identities of constituent properties. It is argued, first of all, that the account is not only required by realists about universals à la Armstrong, but also useful (of course, in an appropriately re-formulated form) for those who prefer a nominalistic ontology for material objects. For this reason, the paper only briefly considers the problem of how to conceive of (...) the structural universals first posited by Armstrong in order to explain partial resemblances, and focuses instead on criticisms that have been levelled against the theory (by Pautz, Eddon, Denkel and Gibb) and that apply regardless of one’s preferred ontological framework. The partial identity account is defended from these objections and, in doing so, a hitherto quite neglected connection—between the debate about partial similarity as partial identity and that concerning ontological finitism versus infinitism—is looked at in some detail. (shrink)

A formal theory of quantity T Q is presented which is realist, Platonist, and syntactically second-order (while logically elementary), in contrast with the existing formal theories of quantity developed within the theory of measurement, which are empiricist, nominalist, and syntactically first-order (while logically non-elementary). T Q is shown to be formally and empirically adequate as a theory of quantity, and is argued to be scientifically superior to the existing first-order theories of quantity in that it does not depend upon empirically (...) unsupported assumptions concerning existence of physical objects (e.g. that any two actual objects have an actual sum). The theory T Q supports and illustrates a form of naturalistic Platonism, for which claims concerning the existence and properties of universals form part of natural science, and the distinction between accidental generalizations and laws of nature has a basis in the second-order structure of the world. (shrink)

forthcoming in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.

Quantum Mechanics, and apparently its successors, claim that there are minimum quantities by which objects can differ, at least in some situations: electrons can have various “energy levels” in an atom, but to move from one to another they must jump rather than move via continuous variation: and an electron in a hydrogen atom going from -13.6 eV of energy to -3.4 eV does not pass through states of -10eV or -5.1eV, let along -11.1111115637 eV or -4.89712384 eV.

This paper discusses a distinctive kind of property that I call “distributional” properties, which include, for example, the property of being polka-dotted (a colour-distributional property) and the property of being hot at one end and cold at the other (a heat-distributional property). I argue that distributional properties exist in whatever sense other properties exist, that they do not simply reduce to the non-distributional properties of points, and that they are implicated in the correct analysis of change.

The paper is a contribution to the object ontology. The general approach assumed in the investigation is that of Roman Ingarden's The Controversy Over the Existence of the World where an object is the subject-of-properties. The analysis of the form and the mode of existence of properties leads to the rejection of both negative and general properties. Each property is an individual qualitative moment of a particular object. Its form reveals existential heteronomy: the quality of the property is not immanent (...) but refers to the object. The subject of properties has not its own qualitative content: its form is just the internal causality establishing the unity of an object. An object is not causally isolated from other objects, but external causation differs from internal either by being ramified in case of the composition and destruction of an object or reciprocal in case of interaction between coexisting objects. (shrink)

forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

Laws of nature seem to take two forms. Fundamental physics discovers laws that hold without exception, ‘strict laws’, as they are sometimes called; even if some laws of fundamental physics are irreducibly probabilistic, the probabilistic relation is thought not to waver. In the nonfundamental, or special, sciences, matters differ. Laws of such sciences as psychology and economics hold only ceteris paribus – that is, when other things are equal. Sometimes events accord with these ceteris paribus laws (c.p. laws, hereafter), but (...) sometimes the laws are not manifest, as if they have somehow been placed in abeyance: the regular relation indicative of natural law can fail in circumstances where an analogous outcome would effectively refute the assertion of strict law. Many authors have questioned the supposed distinction between strict laws and c.p. laws. The brief against it comprises various considerations: from the complaint that c.p. clauses are void of meaning to the claim that, although understood well enough, they should appear in all law-statements. These two concerns, among others, are addressed in due course, but first, I venture a positive proposal. I contend that there is an important contrast between strict laws and c.p. laws, one that rests on an independent distinction between combinatorial and noncombinatorial nomic principles.2 Instantiations of certain properties, e.g., mass and charge, nomically produce individual forces, or more generally, causal influences,3 in accordance with noncombinatorial.. (shrink)

I. Vague Properties and the Problem of Vagueness The philosophical problem of vagueness is to say what vagueness is in a way that helps to resolve the sorites paradox. Saying what vagueness is requires saying what kinds of things can be vague and in what the vagueness of each kind consists. Philosophers dispute whether things of this, that, or the other kind can be vague, but no one disputes that there are vague linguistic expressions. Among vague expressions, predicates hold a (...) special place in the problem of vagueness, for it’s their vagueness that is soritesgenerating. That puts the vagueness of predicates at the hub of the problem of vagueness, and there can be little doubt that we’ll be a short step from home if we can account for it. Any account of vagueness will of course require commitment to theses that are themselves foci of philosophical debate, but one can’t expect to get anywhere without taking on some as working hypotheses and then striving to say something that will be plausible if those hypotheses are plausible. One of the working hypotheses of this paper is that propositional attitudes and propositional speech acts are relations to propositions of some stripe or other, in the generic sense in which a proposition is an abstract, mind- and language-independent entity that has a truth condition, and has that truth condition both essentially and absolutely (i.e. without relativization to anything).1 The existence of propositions requires the existence of properties, in the generic sense in which a property is an abstract, mind- and language-independent entity that has an instantiation condition, and has that instantiation condition both essentially and absolutely. For present purposes it will be harmless to pretend that the propositions we believe and assert are Russellian propositions—structured entities whose basic constituents are the objects and properties our beliefs and speech acts are about. When a propositionalist speaks in loosey-goosey mode, she is apt to say that a sentence token is true just in case the proposition expressed in its utterance is true.. (shrink)

The paper deals with the semantics and ontology of ordinary discourse about properties. The main focus lies on the following thesis: A simple predication of the form ‘a is F’ is synonymous with the corresponding explicit property-attribution ‘a has F-ness’. An argument against this Synonymy Thesis is put forth which is based on the thesis that simple predications and property-attributions differ in their conditions of understanding. In defending the argument, the paper accounts for the way in which we come to (...) adopt the conceptual framework of properties. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker’s ‘Subset Account’ offers a new take on determinable properties and the realization relation as well as a defense of non-reductive physicalism from the problem of mental causation. At the heart of this account are the claims that (1) mental properties are determinable properties and (2) the causal powers that individuate a determinable property are a proper subset of the causal powers that individuate the determinates of that property. The second claim, however, has led to the accusation that the (...) effects caused by the instantiation of a determinable property will also be caused by the instantiation of the determinates of that property—so instead of solving the problem of mental causation, the Subset Account ends up guaranteeing that the effects of mental properties (and all other types of determinable property) will be causally overdetermined! In this paper, I explore this objection. I argue that both sides in this debate have failed to engage the question at the heart of the objection: Given that both a determinable property and its determinates have the power to cause some effect (E), does it follow that both will actually cause E when the relevant conditions obtain? To make genuine progress towards answering this question, we need to take a serious look at the metaphysics of causation. With the debate properly reframed and issues about the metaphysics of causation front and center, I explore the question of whether the Subset Account is doomed to result in problematic causal overdetermination. (shrink)

This paper defends the idea that there might be vagueness or indeterminacy in the world itself--as opposed to merely in our representations of the world--against the charges of incoherence and unintelligibility. First we consider the idea that the world might contain vague properties and relations ; we show that this idea is already implied by certain well-understood views concerning the semantics of vague predicates (most notably the fuzzy view). Next we consider the idea that the world might contain vague objects (...) ; we argue that an object is indeterminate in a certain respect (colour, size, etc.) just in case it is a borderline case of a maximally specific colour (size, etc.) property. Finally we consider the idea that the world as a whole might be indeterminate; we argue that the world is indeterminate just in case it lacks a determinate division into determinate objects. (shrink)

David Armstrong has argued that the properties of a thing are parts of it and predications are necessary. This article criticises this view and presents and alternative.

About the ontology of the Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden, as presented in his treatise 'The Controversy about the Existence of the World'.

Internal relations are nothing over and above the terms of the relation.

An essential property is a property that an object possesses in every possible world in which that object exists. An individual essence is a property (or set of properties) that an object possesses in every world in which that object exists, and that no other object possesses in any possible world. Call the claim that some artifacts possess an individual essence ‘artifactual essentialism’. I will argue that artifactual essentialism is true.

Considerations upon the nature of properties and laws have led some philosophers to claim that the correct epistemic attitude with regards to the intrinsic properties of particulars is scepticism. I examine one particularly clear version of this line of argument, and contend that a serious form of scepticism is not established. However, I argue that the theories of properties and laws underlying the argument have unwanted metaphysical implications. These provide a stronger reason to jettison the analyses. I end by sketching (...) an alternative view that avoids these difficulties. (shrink)

What is the Problem of Universals? In this paper we take up the classic question and proceed as follows. In Sect. 1 we consider three problem solving settings and define the notion of problem solving accordingly. Basically I say that to solve problems is to eliminate undesirable, unspecified, or apparently incoherent scenarios. In Sect. 2 we apply the general observations from Sect. 1 to the Problem of Universals. More specifically, we single out two accounts of the problem which are based (...) on the idea of eliminating apparently incoherent scenarios, and then propose modifications of those two accounts which, by contrast, are based on the idea of eliminating unspecified scenarios. In Sect. 3 we spell out two interesting ramifications. (shrink)

The paper covers a range of topics of recent interest in relation to response-depdendence: its characterisation in terms of 'basic equations', its application to areas such as ethics, colour theory and philosophy of mind, and the 'missing explanation' argument.