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How to Individuate Universals—Or Not

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Abstract

In a recent article in this journal, J. P. Moreland (2013) extends his theory of individuation to include universals. In this note, I show how Moreland’s novel proposal leads to the unwanted conclusion that every concrete particular exists of necessity and has but a single essential property.

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Notes

  1. The contemporary debate here originates with Moreland’s robust defense of bare particulars (1998, 2001), which is endorsed to varying degrees by Oaklander and Rothstein (2000), Ten Elshof (2000), Preston (2005), Sider (2006), and Gould (2013). Criticisms of bare particular theory may be found in Mertz (2001, 2003), Davis (2003, 2004), Davis and Brown (2008), Loux (2006), Morganti (2011), Giberman (2013), and Bailey (2012). For replies to some of these criticisms, see Moreland and Pickavance (2003) and Pickavance (2009).

  2. For the sake of convenience, I shall use the terms ‘property’ and ‘universal’ more or less interchangeably. Some philosophers make a sharp distinction between properties that are multiply exemplifiable (i.e., universals such as being human) and those that are not (e.g., being identical with Socrates). For example, see Plantinga (1974: 60–62). We should note that Moreland accepts only the former, which he classifies as pure properties—that is, universals that do not “incorporate” or “involve” a concrete particular. Thus being conscious and being corpulent are pure properties, while being married to Bill Clinton is not. The latter is an impure property, since it “incorporates” Bill Clinton in the following way: in every world in which an object has this property, it bears some relation or another to Bill Clinton. For a brief but helpful discussion, see Armstrong (1997: 91–93). For a sustained argument against impure properties, see Moreland (2001: 143–147).

  3. van Inwagen refers to this principle as “obvious” (2001: 93). See Plantinga (1974: 71) for a detailed modal proof.

  4. Campbell eventually conceded this point: “To meet these disasters, let us abandon the view that a colour trope is individuated by its place” (1990: 68). Campbell now takes the individuation of tropes to be “basic and unanalyzable” (ibid.: 69).

  5. Here it is important to distinguish metaphysical from epistemic individuation. In the epistemic sense, to individuate merely involves ‘singling out’ an object “as a distinct object of perception, thought, or linguistic reference” (Lowe 2003: 75). Naturally, this presupposes individuation on the metaphysical level, since there must be the “parts of reality which constitute single objects” (ibid.) before we can discriminate between them, or even specify criteria of identity for objects of the same kind (e.g., events). Moreland is very clear that his concern lies solely with the metaphysical problem of individuation. See Moreland (2000: 31).

  6. “individuated externally”: for suppose that being human were complex and included its individuator. That individuator, one thinks, would either be a bare particular, or (if abstract) something like a basic identity property (e.g., being identical with being human). However, it cannot be a bare particular, for then being human would be a particular and not a universal. But neither can it be a basic identity property (BIP), since (as Moreland thinks) there are no such properties. A BIP such as being identical with Socrates succumbs to the charge of circular individuation, he says; for it includes “the very entity (e.g., Socrates) that being identical to Socrates is supposed to individuate” (2001: 147). For a reply to this line of thought and in defense of BIPs, see the discussion in Davis (2003 ).

  7. Objection: “you say that simple universals, like simple tropes, require individuation. But this is by no means certain. For one thing, tropes are concrete objects; universals are not. Furthermore, there is nothing in what Moreland explicitly says to rule out the possibility of universals existing unexemplified and unindividuated.” Reply: stipulate that there are unexemplified universals. The question is whether they are also unindividuated. Why think that? The only answer, it seems, is that they are unindividuated because they are unexemplified. In other words, the property being individuated is the same property as being exemplified by a concrete particular, or is at least co-extensive with this property. But that cannot be right. We know, for example, that Socrates is individuated. Shall we also say that (like the property of being human) he himself is exemplified by a concrete particular? Surely not. While Socrates exemplifies properties, he cannot be exemplified. He is simply the wrong sort of thing for that.

  8. Compare Moreland: “Indeed, I am a Platonist about uninstantiated universals but a constituent ontologist regarding the way universals are in ordinary objects” (Moreland 2013). Moreland also agrees that arch-Platonist Alvin Plantinga is “surely correct” when he says that abstract properties cannot “have contingent beings as constituents” (2001: 147). For then, of course, those properties would exist in only some worlds (just where those contingent beings existed) but not others, thereby compromising the necessary existence of properties.

  9. The proof that follows is constructed in QML, a system of natural deduction for a quantified, free modal logic described in Gensler (1990). The notation used here is adapted from Konyndyk (1986 ).

  10. I am indebted to an anonymous reader for this objection.

  11. “But it is possible to hold a bare particular theory of individuation for particulars and not for universals because, it could be argued, what individuates blue from red…must leave the resultant state of affairs (e.g. blueness is this colour) as either an abstract state of affairs or a universal” (Moreland 2001: 149).

  12. The importance of this objection was drawn to my attention by an anonymous reader to whom I express my thanks.

  13. Special thanks to Paul Gould, Christopher Campbell, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Tyndale University College, Toronto, M2M 4B3, Canada

    Richard Brian Davis

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Davis, R.B. How to Individuate Universals—Or Not. Axiomathes 23, 551–566 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-012-9196-x

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