Penultimate Draft. Please cite published version. Bare Particulars and Exemplification* Timothy Pickavance Biola University Abstract Bare particulars tend to get a bad rap. But often, the arguments lodged against bare particulars seem to miss important aspects of the theoretical context of bare particulars. In particular, these arguments fail to situate bare particulars within a constituent ontology with substrates, and thus fail to appreciate an important consequence of that context: the need for two types of exemplification. In this paper, I do three things. First, I motivate and describe the need, given bare particulars, for two types of exemplification, and explore more generally how constituent ontologies with substrates ought to think about exemplification. Second, I show how Andrew Bailey's (2012) new argument against bare particulars fails when that need is charitably considered. Third, I highlight where bare particular theory ought to be pressed, which turns out to be precisely its account of exemplification. 1 Bare Particulars: What They Do and What They're Like Bare particulars tend to get a bad rap. Sometimes the complaint is that they violate some empiricist epistemological principle.1 Sometimes it's that they violate some combinatorial modal constraint.2 Sometimes, and most famously, it's that the very idea of a property-less particular is incoherent.3 This last argument, the Incoherence * Thanks to Patrick Grafton-Cardwell, Jarod Sickler, and especially Robert Garcia for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks as well to two referees for this journal. 1 Allaire (1965) responds. 2 See Mertz (2001) for a version of this argument lodged against Moreland (1998); Moreland & Pickavance (2003) respond. But see Giberman (2012) for a version of this argument lodged against Moreland & Pickavance (2003). Sider (2006) responds to other versions of the argument. 3 This may be the most common complaint, and comes in a number of varieties. See Anscombe (1964), Davis (2003), Mertz (2001), and Sellars (1952) for examples. Alston (1954), Moreland & Pickavance (2003), Pickavance (2009), and Sider (2006) respond. As these make explicit, a sparse theory of universals is required to deal with this type of trouble; a sparse theory is assumed here. 2 Argument, displays a failing characteristic of many criticisms of bare particular theory. In particular, it fails to take into account a particular theoretical constraint of a constituent ontology with substrates, an ontology to which most bare particular theorists are committed. The constraint is this: there must be two types of exemplification. While this has been, or anyway should have been, clear since Alston (1954) defended bare particulars against Sellars's (1952) version of the Incoherence Argument, and maybe even since Aristotle, philosophers miss or fail to appreciate the force of this constraint. Andrew Bailey's (2012) "New Argument" fails on this score, as I will display in §3. However, there are troubles to be found with respect to a bare particular account of exemplification. I gesture at these troubles in §4, where I consider two bare particular accounts of accidental predication, initially canvassed in §2, and suggest where they may falter. To understand the view of bare particular theorists, and to see how constituent ontologies with substrates will require two types of exemplification (§2), we need to step back and make a few comments about two questions to do with bare particulars.4 My discussion of these will be rather cursory; more detailed discussions exist elsewhere. Question 1: What must bare particulars do? Short answer: they must individuate and they must exemplify. We'll need to build up to these roles with backstories. Believers in bare particulars almost unanimously embrace a so-called "constituent" ontology, which is to say that they think that a thing's (sparse) properties are constituents (or "non-mereological" parts) of said thing.5 Further, though, constituent ontologists tend to embrace the following principle of 4 Bare particular theorists disagree on a great many things. Compare, for example, Moreland (1998, 2001) and Sider (2006). The views and motivations I discuss here more closely resemble Moreland's. 5 Constituent ontology dates back at least to Aristotle. Cf. Loux (2006). 3 individuation: no two things can have the same constituents. In slogan form: "same constituents, same thing". And now we run up against a problem. Suppose substances a and b exemplify the same properties. Since a thing's properties are shareable, and since those properties are the only constituents we've yet uncovered, there is no way to individuate a from b. Enter bare particulars: things that are able to individuate, for example, a from b. The need for individuators highlights one classic concern with the bundle theory, where the bundle theory is, roughly, the view that substances have only shareable universals as constituents. But there is at least one other cause for concern with the bundle theory, namely that bundles of universals can exhibit no "unity" in their properties. Suppose substance a is a red, round sphere. According to the bundle theory, a is just a bundle of redness, roundness, and sphericity. The present concern is that these properties aren't meaningfully united; indeed, they seem no more united than they are in the set containing only redness, roundness, and sphericity. Intuitively, the unity worry goes, there must be some one constituent that exemplifies all of a substance's properties. This constituent will then supply the needed unity to a thing's properties. Again, enter bare particulars: things that are exemplifiers.6 Question 2: What must bare particulars be like in order to do what they must? Short answer: they must be (i) non-shareable, (ii) constituent-less, (iii) property-bearing (iv) constituents of substances. Bare particulars must be (i) nonshareable and (iv) constituents of substances because otherwise they cannot individuate, given the "same constituents, same thing" constraint. Bare particulars must be (ii) constituent-less because otherwise the problem of individuation would arise for them as well, given that properties are the only other constituents we've come across to this point. And bare particulars must be (iii) property-bearing because otherwise they are not exemplifiers. (I realize that (iii) gives little insight into what 6 This is a seriously blunt formulation of the unity worry, and I wouldn't endorse it. I am only in the business, at this point, of highlighting motivations, not defending them. 4 bare particulars are like; it really gives no insight at all! But more presently, where I will address matters of exemplification in a bit more detail.) 2 Bare Particulars and Exemplification A failure to appreciate the relationship between bare particulars and exemplification is the source of many misguided worries about bare particulars. Most famously, the Incoherence Argument against bare particulars suffers from such a failure. Here is an uncharitable version of the Incoherence Argument, but it'll get us going. Bare particulars both have and lack properties. After all, they're bare. But they're also substrates, the things that have a substance's properties. Incoherence!7 In light of this kind of argument, it is worth stepping back to consider what a bare particular theorist might say about exemplification. As a start, I will focus on the work of J. P. Moreland.8 In my view, Moreland's bare particular theory is the most developed in the recent literature, situated as it is within a broad, developed ontological framework. This does not render the treatment idiosyncratic, for his view is importantly similar to those of Allaire (1965), Alston (1954), Bergmann (1967), and, as we will see, Aristotle. Anyway, Moreland's view will lead us to some of its close cousins. In Moreland's constituent ontology, cases of essential predication are analyzed in constituent-whole terms. For example, (1) is analyzed in terms of (2): 1. t is a tomato. 2. The property of being a tomato is a constituent of t. 7 For a much more sophisticated version, see Davis (2003). 8 See his (1996), (1998), (2001), and (2013), as well as Moreland & Pickavance (2003) and Pickavance (2009). 5 At least some bare particular theorists go further, claiming that t just is (say) the complex whole of t's bare particular, b(t), exemplifying the property of being a tomato.9 The tomato, t, therefore, is identical to a complex whole containing b(t) and the property of being a tomato "tied" together via exemplification. This "assay" of t entails (2) and reveals that (2) is, in Moreland's (1998) terms, "grounded in" (3): 3. b(t) exemplifies the property of being a tomato. Importantly, (3) is not to be analyzed in constituent-whole terms; which is to say, the property of being a tomato is not a constituent of b(t). Just as important, (3) is an expression of the "strict, philosophical notion" of exemplification (Moreland (2011), p. 4). There are two lessons in this picture. First lesson. There are two ways of exemplifying a property. One way is the way that bare particulars exemplify properties, the way expressed in (3). Parroting Moreland, call this "strict, philosophical" exemplification, or SP-exemplification. A second way is the way that substances have essential properties, the way expressed in (1) and (2), the way captured by using constituent-whole language. Call this "constituent-whole" exemplification, or CW-exemplification. Vitally, bare particular theorists have a complicated view of the relationship between character-having and exemplification. It is tempting to think that one thing exemplifies another if and only if the former is charactered by the latter. Indeed, this can seem to be the hallmark of exemplification relations. Bare particular theorists deny this. CW-exemplification does have that hallmark: one thing CW-exemplifies another if and only if the first is charactered by the second. However, bare particular theorists deny that one of the relata of an SP-exemplification relation (a bare particular, say) is charactered by the other relata (a property). Because SP- 9 Moreland, for example, has been clear about this. See his (2001) (emphasized in Pickavance (2009)) and (2013). Alston (1954) seems to embrace this view as well (cf. p. 257). I am borrowing the 'b(t)' notation from Bailey (2012). 6 exemplification thus lacks what is easily thought of as the hallmark of exemplification relations, there may seem to be no meaningful sense in which SPexemplification is a species of exemplification. Not so, say bare particular theorists. SPexemplification is a species of exemplification because every case of characterpossession and character-conferral involves SP-exemplification. Recall, for example, that (2) is "grounded in" (3), according to Moreland. There would be no CWexemplification if there were no SP-exemplification: a property F cannot characterize something that CW-exemplifies F unless something else SP-exemplifies F. Further, whenever something SP-exemplifies F, something else CW-exemplifies F. Therefore, SP-exemplification does result in something's being charactered, it's just that the something in question is not one of the relata of SP-exemplification.10 The charactered thing is whatever it is that CW-exemplifies the property that is one relata of the concomitant SP-exemplification relation.11,12 10 Maybe you think that's not enough for SP-exemplification to be a species of exemplification. If so, you can have the terminology. I don't think anything turns on it; talking about bare particulars as exemplifiers in order to account for the unity of thing's properties was, after all, just a way to get us going (cf. fn. 6). We are moving toward more explicit ways to make the same point, and I am happy to stick to talk about what's involved in character-having (which bare particulars and SP-exemplification are, whatever they happen to be called). Important for later, if SP-exemplification isn't a species of exemplification, then bare particular theorists ought to deny, and have denied Bailey's (2012) HAVING THESIS, and this would render his argument impotent. 11 I take it Moreland (1996) is expressing something like the thought driving this paragraph in the following: "[The traditional realist view of property-instances] holds that when 'Socrates is red' is true, it is because some individuating entity 'in' Socrates (where 'in' here is to be read as 'is a constituent of'...) exemplifies redness. When Socrates is red, this is to be analyzed as follows: a quality instance, moment, etc., that is 'predicatively' red, is a part of the whole, Socrates." (p. 139) What is important here is Moreland says it's the quality instance (read: the thing that CW-exemplifies redness), not the "individuating entity" (read: the bare particular that SP-exemplifies redness), that is "predicatively" red (read: charactered by redness). Moreland (p.c.) has confirmed that this is his view. Sider (2006) may not accept this picture of the relationship between character and these two types of exemplification. His view on this score is, in my estimation, non-standard. See the "interlude" on Sider below. 7 Second lesson. Bare particulars are bare in the sense that they have no constituents. Combined with the first lesson, we can see in what sense bare particulars are characterless-they never CW-exemplify-without precluding that they are property-having and involved in character-having-they do SP-exemplify. This fact is recognized by Alston (1954), who claims that the sense in which bare particulars are bare is that they "include" no universals, where that means, roughly, that bare particulars are not "complexes" of things, like ordinary substances are (cf. pp. 257-8). Already in Alston's work, there are two types of exemplification, one type that involves "inclusion" (our CW-exemplification) and another that does not (our SP-exemplification). Alston (1954) further recognized that these points (our two lessons) were crucial to giving bare particulars a fair hearing. Responding to Sellars's (1952) version of the Incoherence Objection, he says this: Whenever an old and widely held doctrine is shown to involve some simple and glaring contradiction, the suspicion quite properly arises that the doctrine in question has been distorted through translation into a language not rich enough to express it adequately. This is precisely what has happened [in the Incoherence Argument]. Of course if to call a particular "bare" were to deny that it exemplifies universals in the same sense of 'exemplify' in which its function is 12 One might object that this means that every time there's a case of character-having, the relevant property will have to enter into at least two types of relations, and that this is bad. There's one too many relation instances on this view. Whenever a particular exemplifies a property, the property should be a relata of just one instance of one relation. (Importantly, the objection has to be that requiring that instanced properties enter into two types of relations of any type at all is bad, because if the objection was that instanced properties enter into two types of exemplification relations, then it would be clearly question begging.) But the general principle on which this objection relies is just not plausible. Whenever there's a case of character-having, the relevant property enters into all manner of relations. It will stand in the co-instantiation relation to a number of other properties. It will stand in the has as its extension relation to a new set of objects. And on and on. There really is no problem here. Thanks to an anonymous referee for raising this worry. 8 just exactly to exemplify universals, then the notion would be selfcontradictory... (p. 257) Having recognized the need for two types of exemplification, and the need to understand the bareness of bare particulars in terms of just one of them, Alston points out that the Incoherence Objection trades on ignoring that need. What we see in Alston, therefore, displays that our two lessons should have been learned long ago. Further, there is a symmetry between bare particular theories of substance and (one way of understanding) Aristotle's hylomorphic theory of substance. Bare particulars play the role of prime matter, essential properties that of substantial forms. Aristotle, then-a philosopher at least worth taking seriously-has two two types of exemplification: the way that prime matter exemplifies a substantial form, and the way that a primary substance does.13 Further, it's plausible to think that Aristotle would have rejected the claim that prime matter is ever charactered, even when it exemplifies a substantial form.14 And it's fairly clear that prime matter is meant to be constituentless. Aristotle certainly didn't offer any assay of its constituents. It's reasonable to put these points together in the way that bare particular theorists do, in which case our two lessons would be old indeed. Still further, any acceptable constituent ontology with a substrate of some sort (be it prime matter, bare particulars, or whatever) demands a two-fold division of exemplification relations. Here's why. Suppose you're a constituent ontologist who believes in substrates. Then you think that a substance, my dachshund Elsie, say, is just dachshundhood exemplified by a substrate. But Elsie herself is a dachshund, too; in some sense, she exemplifies dachshundhood. But there's only one instance of 13 Brower (2010), in the context of an Aristotleian hylomorphism, also explicitly connects being non-derivatively charactered by a property to having that property as a constituent (p. 896). 14 Cf. Robinson (1974): "prime matter [is] a bare 'stuff', lacking all positive determinations" (p. 168). This is the "traditional interpretation" (ibid.), according to Robinson. 9 dachshundhood nearby Elsie herself, namely Elsie! The right way to accommodate this fact is to plump for two types of exemplification. The standard way to do this, dating back all the way to Aristotle (long before the Inocherence Argument showed up), has it that substrates exemplify essences in a non-constitution way, while substances exemplify essences by being partially constituted by them. I've simply labeled these two types of exemplification 'SP-exemplification' and 'CW-exemplification', respectively. Interlude on Sider (2006). Sider rejects the need to settle whether Elsie is a bare ("thin") particular or a bare particular together with all the properties she exemplifies (a "thick" particular). He says the issue about whether to apply the word 'particular'-and therefore, I assume, words like 'dog', 'tomato', and even 'Elsie'-to thin or thick particulars is a "nonissue" (p. 388), just a matter of semantic decision. Thus, it might seem that Sider has no need for two types of exemplification, since bare particular theorists make that move in order to find a way to say, for example, that Elsie and her bare particular both exemplify dachshundhood while there is but one instance of dachshundhood in the vicinity. For Sider, one first must decide to what 'Elsie' refers. If it refers to a bare particular, then exemplification is SPexemplification. If 'Elsie' refers to a thick particular, then exemplification is CWexemplification. One's semantic decision regarding 'Elsie' in this sense "forces" a semantic decision regarding 'exemplification'. But there's ever only one exemplification relation. While Sider's view might seem much more tidy than the standard-issue bare particular theory articulated above, the underlying metaphysics is the same. Sider admits that "thin and thick particulars both exist". Further, he maintains that thick particulars have properties as parts, and that thin particulars do not (p. 388). Immediately, then, we have a difference in the way that thin and thick particulars relate to the properties exemplified by the substance "in their neighborhood". Thick particulars relate in a constituent-whole way; thin particulars do not. Further, one's 10 semantic decision regarding words like 'Elsie' and 'tomato' and 'particular' do not affect what things exist or what relations they stand in. Therefore, regardless how one uses 'Elsie', there is a thick particular and a set a properties standing in one type of relation that could rightly be called 'exemplification', and there is a bare particular and a set of properties standing in a different type of relation that could rightly be called 'exemplification'. Even if one can't rightly and all at once call both of these relations 'exemplification relations', it is nonetheless true that whenever a property is exemplified, that property comes to stand in two different types of relations (one constituent-whole and one not) to two different things (a thick and a thin particular). Thus, even if Sider doesn't have to commit regarding questions about what to label 'particulars', his view nonetheless requires two types of relations having to do with the relationship between particulars and properties. One wants to say his view requires two types of exemplification relations.15 End interlude. Accidental predication requires a bit more care than essential predication. There are at least two ways bare particular theorists might go. The first way generalizes the above claims regarding essential predication to accidental predication.16 On this view, cases of accidental predication are analyzed in terms of a thing's CW-exemplifying a property and that thing's bare particular SP-exemplifying that property. For example, (4) is grounded in (5): 4. t is juicy. 5. b(t) exemplifies the property of being juicy. 15 It might be more accurate to say that Sider needs two bits of ideology that stand for no relation in the ontology. For he also suggests that bare particular theorists avoid taking exemplification to be a real relation; exemplification ('instantiation' in his terminology) is merely part of the ideology, and "stands for no relation" (p. 388). Making this explicit would only serve to make a mess of the prose; the underlying point is the same. 16 Bailey (2012) assumes bare particular theorists must go this way; Moreland (2013) has explicitly done so. 11 This seems a particularly natural proposal. We might represent this first view of accidental predication using Figure 1, where b represents a bare particular, E an essential property (or a cluster of essential properties), and A an accidental property, and straight lines represent SP-exemplification: Figure 1: Accidental Predication View 1 There is a second proposal that resembles Aristotle's own. On this view, (4) is to be understood as grounded in (6), in which 'exemplification' ought to be understood as SP-exemplification: 6. t exemplifies the property of being juicy. On this second view, the property of being juicy is not a constituent of t. Rather, t is playing the role with respect to accidental properties that bare particulars play with respect to essential properties: t itself SP-exemplifies the property of being juicy. Here, t and the property of being juicy form a complex whole, which we might call, mimicking Aristotle, a "coincidental". For every accidental property of t, F, t is a constituent of a coincidental constituted by t and F (and SP-exemplification). Coincidentals, rather than substances, CW-exemplify their constituting substance's accidental properties. None of the coincidentals associated with t are identical with t, but each is "accidentally the same" as t.17 We can represent the second view of accidental predication using Figure 2, where the representational elements are the 17 For a development and exploration of this type of view, though within a properly Aristotelian setting involving prime matter rather than bare particulars, see Loux (2006). See also Brower (2010). What I have said is enough for present purposes. 12 same as in Figure 1, but with the addition of a solid closed plane representing the constituent "boundary" of the substance itself, and a dashed closed plane figure representing the constituent "boundary" of a coincidental: Figure 2: Accidental Predication View 2 Panning out, maybe opting for two types of exemplification thing is problematic (see §4!). But it's not without weighty historical precedent, and it seems mandated by reflecting on the contours of a constituent ontology with substrates. This does not make the view true, or even coherent, but it does suggest that we ought to take it seriously, and work to understand what it might mean and what reasons one might have for embracing it. I will return to this briefly at the end of the paper. 3 The New Argument against Bare Particulars Let's put the preceding discussion to work. Bailey (2012) has added a new argument against bare particulars, which he helpfully dubs 'New Argument'. The New Argument begins with a question, helpfully dubbed 'Question': "Do bare particulars have the ordinary properties of their host substances?" (p. 35) The New Argument then proceeds as a dilemma. If one answers Question with a 'No', then one has abandoned bare particular theory because one has thereby denied that bare 13 particulars are property-bearing. But if one answers Question with a 'Yes', then one has walked in to the Crowding Argument. The Crowding Argument purports to show that a 'Yes' answer to Question entails that whenever there is a case of property-having, there are two cases of property-having, and that this is problematic. The Crowding Argument goes like this. Consider some tomato, t. According to bare particular theory, among t's constituents are a bare particular, b(t), and the property of being a tomato. Further, b(t) exemplifies the property of being a tomato. But if b(t) exemplifies the property of being a tomato, then b(t) is a tomato. That means t is a tomato and b(t) is a tomato. That's one too many tomatoes! t ought to be the only tomato in t's vicinity. That's the New Argument. The discussion of exemplification above displays that there is an ambiguity in the notion of exemplification, and thus it isn't yet clear how bare particular theorists ought to understand Question.18 Bailey recognizes this, and clarifies Question thusly: There is some sense in which t instantiates redness, roundness, and juiciness. It is after all, red, round, and juicy. Call that sense 'regular-old-instantiation'. Is b(t) red, round, and juicy? Does it, that is, stand in the relation...of regular-oldinstantiation to redness, roundness, and juiciness? ((2012), p. 35) It is clear that the right answer to Question, understood in this way, is 'No'. As we have seen, b(t) has these accidental properties in a way that t does not, whatever option one embraces regarding accidental predication. On the first option, b(t) SPexemplifies while t CW-exemplifies redness, roundness, and juiciness. On the second option, t SP-exemplifies those properties, and b(t) doesn't exemplify them in any sense. Further, while Bailey doesn't mention the property of being a tomato in this 18 Bailey at one point exclaims that he wishes this "strange view" of exemplification "would not keep popping up" (p. 38). But it keeps popping up precisely because of its importance, because it's almost an immediate consequence of the chain of reasoning that leads one to bare particulars, and because it's the key to seeing why many arguments against bare particulars don't work! 14 clarificatory remark, the same would go even were it included: b(t) SP-exemplifies while t CW-exemplifies the property of being a tomato. Therefore, given that regularold-instantiation is the way t exemplifies some given property, b(t) does not regularold-instantiate that property, whether accidental or essential. Further, contra Bailey, this negative answer to Question in no way impugns the claim that bare particulars are property-havers. Bare particulars do have properties, just not in the way tomatoes or any other substances do. So much for the New Argument. The New Argument turns out to be close cousin of the Incoherence Argument. Instead of exploiting bare particulars' status as both bare and propertyhaving to argue for contradiction, he exploits the property-having of both bare particulars and substances to argue for Crowding. It shouldn't, therefore, be a surprise to discover that the two types of exemplification move, already present in Alston (1954), will help bare particular theorists deal with the New Argument. To parody Alston, were bare particulars exemplifiers in the same sense of exemplify in which substances are exemplifiers, they would be clearly problematic. Good thing bare particular theorists have all along recognized that the two types of thing aren't exemplifiers in the same sense. That response to the New Argument may seem all too easy, and maybe we can reinstate the New Argument by clarifying Question differently. Maybe we should ask whether bare particulars have properties in any sense at all. Bare particular theorists have to answer Question understood in this way with a 'Yes'. And maybe we can still get a Crowding Argument going. It's bad for there to be two things in t's vicinity that have the property of being a tomoato in any sense you like, for the following reason. t is certainly a tomato. And the bare particular theorist insists as well that b(t) exemplifies the property of being a tomato in some sense. So it follows that b(t) is a tomato as well. One too many tomatoes! 15 Here is how bare particular theorists should respond. The Crowding Argument, understood this way, relies on 'Rule': RULE: If something x exemplifies (in any sense you like) property F, then x is an F (thing).19 Bare particular theorists deny RULE, and do so long before they encounter the Crowding Argument. They go to great pains to deny that bare particulars are rightly counted as tomatoes, or juicy things, or red things, or whatever. To paraphrase Bergmann (1967), bare particulars "have no nature".20 In my language, since bare particulars never CW-exemplify anything, they are not charactered in any sense. 19 RULE is almost the same as the rule Bailey claims governs instantiation, namely, "if x is tied to F [that is, SP-exemplifies], then x is (for some 'is' of predication or other) F" ((2012), p. 38). The differences are these: (i) Bailey's rule talks of simply being F, rather than of being an F (thing); (ii) Bailey's rule is specific to SP-exemplification, whereas RULE is more general. The change with respect to (ii) is merely stylistic. I make the change with respect to (i) because the conclusion of Bailey's argument relying on this quoted claim is that b(t) and t are both "red, juicy tomatoes" (p. 8). The only way to understand this conclusion is as a conjunction of the following two claims: b(t) is a red, juicy tomato, and t is a red, juicy tomato. These conclusions are not of the form 'x is F'; rather, they are of the form 'x is an F'. RULE has the further virtue of emphasizing that the 'x's in question are charactered. I doubt the difference between RULE and Bailey's rule matters much here. Bare particular theorists are likely to deny Bailey's rule, and for the same reasons they ought to deny RULE. But further, I doubt that the Crowding Argument is best understood as relying on the fact that properties are exemplified too many times. Rather, the Crowding Argument is best understood as playing off a purported consequence of that fact, namely that there are too many red things, too many juicy things, too many tomatoes, and so on. If one could say that there are two exemplifiers of red but only one red thing, it's difficult to see what the problem is. (This, I conjecture, is why Bailey concludes the argument the way he does, with the claim that there are two red, juicy tomatoes.) Anyway, to get the too-many-characteredthings consequence, one needs RULE. 20 This sentiment is echoed in Moreland's work (see, for example, his (2001) p. 145); Alston (1952) contrasts bare particulars with "qualified" particulars (p. 256), which I take to express a similar sentiment. Sider (2006) would balk: "Thin particulars have properties. They really do! Thin particulars may be red, round, juicy, whatever." (p. 388) Here, he seems to mean that thin particulars are charactered. At this point, either Sider must deny that thick particulars may have red, round, juicy, or whatever character, or he succumbs to the New Argument. I can't speak for what he would do, but it is worth emphasizing how nonstandard his view is on this point. 16 Again, this is just the reaction we would have were prime matter in view. To call a bit of prime matter a tomato because it exemplifies the form of tomatoness is a most uncharitable take on a hylomorphic metaphysics. There is, though, something right about RULE, so there must be an upstanding alternative in the neighborhood. As constituent ontologists in need of two types of exemplification, the alternative is likely going to specify which type of exemplification makes something an F or an F thing. As discussed in §2 above, the right choice is CW-exemplification: only when something CW-exemplifies a property F is that thing an F or an F thing. Thus, bare particular theorists ought to accept 'NEW RULE': NEW RULE: Something x is an F (thing) if and only if property F is a constituent of x. Bare particulars never have properties as constituents, since they have no constituents at all. Therefore, bare particulars never satisfy the right hand side of NEW RULE, and are thus never Fs or F things. The only type of exemplification relation they stand in is SP-exemplification, and thus they are never charactered things. Again, this is as it should be: bare particulars should not count as tomatoes, or red things, or juicy things, or whatever, and bare particular theorists know this. Therefore, appealing to NEW RULE to elude the Crowding Argument is not ad hoc. Upshot: The New Argument isn't much trouble for bare particular theorists. Bailey has not shown that opting for two types of exemplification has the problematic consequences he says it has. Once one appreciates the theoretical setting of bare particulars, outlined in §2, it becomes clear how the New Argument fails. 4 The Place to Press the Bare Particular Theorist Bare particular theorists are not yet in the clear. While I lack space to develop what follows in detail, I hope to foreshadow future discussions. Those discussions ought 17 to move past arguments, like the Incoherence Argument and the New Argument, that fail to take bare particular theory seriously. Consider, as a starting point, the fact that there is a tension between the Aristotle-like view of accidental predication and NEW RULE. It follows from the conjunction of the two that our tomato t is not strictly speaking (identical to) a juicy thing, for the property of being juicy is not a constituent of t. That might seem odd, since t SP-exemplifies the property of being juicy, and it's anyway plausible to think that t is a juicy thing. Somewhat surprisingly, t's not being a juicy thing will be a welcome result for the Aristotle-like view. One fundamental motivation behind constituent ontology is the desire to assay a substance in terms of its constituents. A substance is just "a composite of ontologically prior items" (Loux 2006, p. 221), so you can say what a substance is by listing its constituents (and their relationships). This idea seems to commit constituent ontologists to what Loux (2006) calls "Constituent Essentialism". Constituent Essentialism is the view that substances have their constituents essentially, in this sense: if substance x has property F as a constituent, then anything y that is identical to x has F as a constituent. Constituent Essentialism entails that something cannot have the property of being juicy and endure through a loss of that constituent. In this sense, juicy things must be juicy. Intuitively, though, t might not be a juicy thing. Thus (given an endurantist view of persistence) t had better not, strictly speaking, be a juicy thing at all. One way around this difficulty is the Aristotelian way: deny that tomatoes are juicy things, insist that they are nonetheless juicy, and find a way to make sense of what is going on. The way Aristotle goes is that described above: accidental properties of a substance are SP-exemplified by substances themselves, and the whole thereby formed is a coincidental that is numerically different from, but accidentally the same as, the substance itself. Thus, for example, it is true in a nonstrict sense that t is a juicy thing because t is accidentally the same as a coincidental 18 that is, strictly speaking, a juicy thing. Clearly, this view must reckon with the distinction between accidental and numerical sameness, that is, with understanding the relationship between substances and coincidentals. This is a well-worn issue, and I do not claim to have anything substantial to add.21 On the other hand, the first account of accidental predication, embraced by Moreland (2011), seems incompatible with Constituent Essentialism. This Morelandstyle view apparently entails that substances like t change their constituents when their accidental properties change. It is natural to think, given that this view has a thing's bare particular be the peg on which all its properties hang, that t has the property of being juicy as a constituent (when t is, in fact, juicy). Let's assume that's right, and call the resulting view, View 1A. One might picture View 1A according to Figure 3, which is like Figure 1 except for the addition of a solid closed plane figure representing the constituent "boundary" of the substance itself: Figure 3: Accidental Predication View 1A If View 1A is correct, then insofar as t is only accidentally a juicy thing, Constituent Essentialism must be false: were t to cease to be a juicy thing, t would no longer have the property of being juicy as a constituent. Proponents of this view would seem to think that b(t) and the property of being a tomato are t's essential constituents, not its 21 See, e.g., Matthews (1982), Lewis (1991), Loux (2006), Rea (1998), and White (1986). 19 only constituents. On this view, t's identity conditions are given by a small subset of its constituents.22 There are at least two challenges for View 1A. One is to explain what is special about a thing's essential properties such that they and they alone are able to be essential constituents of a thing. Presumably the account would have something to do with the nature of the properties themselves. There is really no other choice, since ex hypothesi accidental and essential features are related to the whole substance and to the substance's bare particular in precisely the same ways, and there's nothing else to the substance to produce the relevant asymmetry. But it isn't clear what an account of that sort would look like. Further, there seem to be properties that are essential to one thing but accidental to others. Consider the property of being a comember of a set with Elsie. Elsie has the property essentially, since if she exists then her unit set does as well. But other dogs, for example, are co-members of the set of dogs with Elsie, but only accidentally so. If Elsie had never existed, then they would not have this property. This property may not seem friendly to sparse property theorists, which bare particular theorists tend to be. But there are other examples. According to most orthodox Christians, for example, the property of being human is accidentally exemplified by God the Son. We mere humans, on the other hand, have this property essentially. These would be actual examples, given that Elsie exists and assuming that orthodox Christianity is true, but it is important to emphasize that this sort of thing need only be possible to cause trouble for bare particular theorists who embrace this view of accidental predication. Further, it need only be possible that one property is essential to one thing and accidental to another in order for this trouble to arise. If even one property can straddle the essential-accidental divide, then it won't be qua accidental or essential that accidental and essential properties are 22 Such a view resembles Peter Simons's (1994) "nuclear bundle theory", though in a rather different theoretical setting. 20 accidental and essential constituents, respectively. Something else would have to do the work. I'm dubious that there could be such a something else. The second challenge is to square View 1A with the plausibility, given a constituent ontology, of Constituent Essentialism. We have already canvassed the fundamental motivation for Constituent Essentialism. But to see just how attractive Constituent Essentialism is to constituent ontologists, consider Casullo's (1988) bundle theory. Casullo is in part concerned to show that the bundle theory is not committed to the claim that substances have their properties essentially. One might think this displays a straightforward rejection of Constituent Essentialism. But notice the view Casullo defends to allow for this: he says that ordinary objects are diachronic bundles of synchronic bundles of properties. That is, he goes perdurantist about persistence. One only need make this move if one is committed to the view that the synchronic bundles-the time-slices-cannot change their constituents! It is precisely a commitment to Constituent Essentialism that pushes Casullo toward perdurantism. Otherwise, one could just stick with endurantism about the synchronic bundles. Casullo's endeavor to avoid a problematic essentialism about the properties of substances is constrained by Constituent Essentialism. This flags perdurantism as an option for the Constituent Essentialist bare particular theorist. However, it is not clear that the benefits of perdurantism are worth the costs. Perdurantism does not, for example, help one deal with the first worry for View 1A canvassed above. Even if perdurantism is true, one must have a way to distinguish between a thing's perduring through change and that thing's being destroyed, and this requires being able to distinguish between accidental and essential constituents.23 Perdurantists, in other words, still face the first worry for View 1A. 23 The last two sentences aren't quite right. There are pedurantist views which deny that this issue is substantive, namely those views according to which any old collection of (temporally continuous) time-slices constitute a persisting object. On such a view, it is our semantic decisions that make the difference between persistence and destruction. I will simply register my rejection of these views; I find them extraordinarily implausible. 21 Further, perdurantism plausibly forces a counterpart theoretic account of de re modal statements.24 Even setting aside those issues, the only advantage perdurantism has is its compatibility with Constituent Essentialism. The question thus arises whether Constituent Essentialism is more plausible than endurantism. The presence of the Aristotleian view of predication discussed above musses the landscape as well. The Aristotelian view is compatible with Constituent Essentialism and offers a solution to the problem of change that avoids the typical, arguably problematic views, namely presentism, tensed properties (or instantiation), and perdurantism.25 Thus, one must also settle whether perdurantism is more plausible than that Aristotelian view. Upshot: perdurantism is not a clear path; more work is needed. There is a complication. Moreland (2001, 2011) (and maybe Alston (1954), cf. the quote of the same, above) identifies a substance with the complex whole having as constituents the substance's bare particular and the substance's essential property or properties tied together via SP-exemplification; a substance just is that complex. Let's assume that's right, and consider the resulting view, View 1B. We can picture this view according to Figure 4, where the representational elements are just like that of Figure 3: Figure 4: Accidental Predication View 1B 24 Cf. van Inwagen (1990). 25 See Brower (2010). 22 On View 1B, it's hard to see how a substance's accidental properties can be constituents of it. Consider t again. Given that t's accidental properties are exemplified by b(t), one is left to wonder what those accidental properties are constituents of. There are two parts of this puzzlement. First, what is the whole, if there is one, whose constituents include all of b(t) and t's essential and accidental properties? What, in other words, is represented by the dotted closed plane figure of Figure 5? Second, and maybe more importantly, what is the complex whole, if there is one, composed of b(t) tied to the accidental property of being juicy? What, in other words, is represented by the dashed closed plane figure of Figure 5? Figure 5 There are two further issues. First, how does the presence of the complex whole composed of b(t) together with the property of being juicy-call this thing 'Juicy'- entail that t is juicy?26 Second, Juicy seems to be a substance, since its metaphysical structure is just like that of t itself: a bare particular tied to a property. But if Juicy 26 For the purposes of this question, I don't mean for anything to hang on having chosen but a single accidental property. You might, given my purposes here, focus on the complex whole, if there is one, composed of b(t) tied to all of t's accidental properties, or just some subset of them, or whatever. 23 and its ilk exist and are substances, then every case of change is a case of substantial change. Further, consider the complex whole, if there is one, composed of b(t) together with all of t's accidental properties. This whole raises the same dilemma between Constituent Essentialism and endurantism that View 1A faced. Furthermore, assuming that this whole could change constituents, it would be a thing with no essence at all. At any rate, View 1B is quite puzzling-I'm not sure what to do with it, I confess-but at least Constituent Essentialism is not violated. Clearly, there is much work to be done with respect to how bare particular theory can accommodate accidental predication and, concomitantly, change. I have simply surveyed some views and noted certain issues those views need face. But, this much is clear: here is the place to press on bare particular theory in order to move beyond the uncharitable type of argument exemplified by the Incoherence and New Arguments. Detractors from bare particular theory ought to test whether the twotypes of exemplification maneuver can succeed, rather than pretend it doesn't exist or is obviously incoherent. The pressing and much more general question is whether one ought to opt for bare particulars and the concomitant need for two types of exemplification. 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