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Load bare-ing particulars

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Abstract

Bare particularism is a constituent ontology according to which substances—concrete, particular objects like people, tables, and tomatoes—are complex entities constituted by their properties and their bare particulars. Yet, aside from this description, much about bare particularism is fundamentally unclear. In this paper, I attempt to clarify this muddle by elucidating the key metaphysical commitments underpinning any plausible formulation of the position. So the aim here is primarily catechismal rather than evangelical—I don’t intend to convert anyone to bare particularism, but, by looking at a series of questions, to instead specify what, if one is a bare particularist, one is committed to. Along the way, I address three major objections: a classic objection about whether bare particulars have properties, a new objection raised by Bailey, and an understanding objection that questions some of the position’s resources.

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Notes

  1. The term ‘constituent ontology’ originates in Wolterstorff (1970), though the idea has been around since at least Plato. Further, a third view, Aristotelian hylomorphism, is also (arguably) a constituent ontology, but since I’m primarily interested in bare particularism, I’ll set it to one side.

  2. Bare particularism is sometimes also called the ‘substance/attribute’ or ‘substratum’ theory, or even ‘thick/thin particularism’; for ease, I’ll stick with ‘bare particularism’.

  3. See also e.g. Allaire (1963), Alston (1954), Armstrong (1989, 1997), Baker (1967), Bergmann (1967), and Casullo (1982) for similar motivations for bare particularism.

  4. See e.g. Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1997, pp. 47–52) for a discussion of this motivation. The standard bundle theorist response is to invoke a compresence relation, which the substance’s properties stand into each other. There has been much discussion over whether this move succeeds; however, as the present concern is elucidating bare particularism, this issue need not bother us here.

  5. See Sider (2006, p. 388) and (Lewis 1983, pp. 351–355).

  6. Van Inwagen (2001, pp. 1–2, 2011) offers an objection along these lines.

  7. See e.g. Sider (2006) and Paul (2002) for mereological versions of bare particularism and bundle theory, respectively. However, there are good reasons for rejecting these accounts; for example, if we grant, as is standard, that mereological fusions have their parts essentially, then they seem to entail that all of a substance’s properties are essential to it—a rather unpalatable result.

  8. Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1997, pp. 47–52) call these positions ST1 and ST2 respectively, though the former is sometimes also called ‘Identity Theory’. For further discussion of One-thingism, see Garcia (2014). Connolly (forthcoming) also offers an original argument for a version of One-thingism, primarily driven by the problems highlighted by Bailey's New Objection.

  9. See Timaeus 48c–53c, Metaphysics 1029a20–33, Locke’s Essay II, xxiii, Sect. 2. and, for more recent discussion, Sellars (1952, 1963, 282fn1), Anscombe (1964, p. 38), Loux (1978, pp. 149–152), Armstrong (1989, p. 95) (who calls it the ‘Antinomy of Bare Particulars’), Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1997, pp. 17–20), and Lowe (2003, p. 86). Moreland (1998) discusses several variants of the objection, all of which are blocked by a positive answer to Classic.

  10. The notion of sparse properties has its clearest articulation in Lewis, who distinguishes between the (potentially gruesomely gerrymandered) abundant properties, which carve nature every which way, and the sparse properties, which carve nature at its joints, and puts the latter to such extensive use that he thinks doing systematic philosophy without them is ‘out of the question’ (1986, p. 61). For further discussion, see e.g. Lewis (1983, 1984), Armstrong (1978) and Schaffer (2004).

  11. Moreland (2001) and Sider (2006) both note this ‘sparse’ response to the Classic Objection.

  12. See e.g. Moreland (2001), Moreland and Pickavance (2003), and Oaklander and Rothstein (2000). The one exception might be Bergmann, who says that, ‘Bare particulars neither are nor have natures. Any two of them are not intrinsically but only numerically different. That is their bareness’ (1967, p. 24). Some—e.g. Magalhaes (2007)—have read this as denying properties to bare particulars. If correct, then Bergmann’s version of bare particularism bears the full brunt of the Classic Objection.

  13. But why ‘bare’ particulars if they aren’t bare of properties? Three answers: first, not everything is in a name—the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ wasn’t holy, Roman, or an empire, and being named ‘Armstrong’ doesn’t guarantee mighty biceps (Lewis 1983, p. 366). Plus there is a long history of philosophical positions being misleadingly named—‘modal fictionalism’ isn’t fictionalism about modality, ‘nominalism’ about universals isn’t really about names, etc. So, bare particularists needn’t trouble themselves too much with nomenclature. Second, following Baker (1967, p. 211) and Alston (1954, p. 257), they could say that bare particulars are ‘bare’ in the sense that they lack essential properties. Finally, bare particularists could hold that, unlike substances, bare particulars are bare in that they lack constituents. I’d favour the first of these, if only because the latter two bring with them substantive theses about the nature of bare particulars that would be nice to avoid if possible.

  14. I use ‘borne’ to preserve the grammaticality of the English expression; nothing significant turns on the matter. If we wanted to express the thesis in terms of metaphysical grounding, Possession states that, for all substances x and all properties Φ, [x’s possessing Φ] is grounded in [Φ’s constituting x], which in turn is grounded in [y’s bearing Φ], where ‘y’ names x’s bare particular.

  15. Sider (2006) and Allaire (1963, 1965) seem to offer versions of this One-relationist package.

  16. Moreland (1998), Connell (1988) and Pickavance (2009) (who is defending Moreland’s position) all advance versions of the Two-relationist package.

  17. Note that this horn of the dilemma doesn’t depend upon picking a sortal property like being a tomato; it works equally well with any other property, provided we can describe a scenario wherein there is thought to be only one entity in the vicinity that has the property.

  18. For example, Two-relationists might appropriate Zalta’s (1983) typography, retrofitting it to suit their needs.

  19. An additional benefit of this account is that it can rebut the objections Benovsky (2008) makes to bare particularism; however, assessing this here would take us too far afield.

  20. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pushing me on this point.

  21. It’s controversial whether properties from other levels of science also are sparse [see e.g. (Schaffer 2004) for a discussion], but all hands agree that these fundamental physics properties are, which is what is needed here.

  22. Another move is to parrot a quote that is (apocryphally) attributed to Russell, who,  in response to a similar sort of objection, is said to have replied, ‘Accounting for your intellectual failures is not my responsibility’. But while this is pithy, I fear it will do little to appease two-relationism’s opponents.

  23. On constitution as an internal relation, see Davis (2013).

  24. Thanks to Niall Connolly for suggesting this as a line of future research.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Niall Connolly, Christian Folde, Max Kölbel, Robert Schwartzkopf, Benjamin Schnieder, Alex Skiles, Richard Woodward, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments, and to audiences at Hamburg, Groningen, and Lille. Special thanks to Amanda Cawston for her help and support. This research was partially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation sinergia project ‘Grounding: Metaphysics, Science, and Logic' (Project 147685).

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    Nathan Wildman

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Wildman, N. Load bare-ing particulars. Philos Stud 172, 1419–1434 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0356-2

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