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Metaphysics lecture notes - Categories of being (0)
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Lecture notes for third-year metaphysics module
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XI. Categories of being – propertiesXI. a. Categories of being
- Study of categories of being: specification of beings’ nature +
differences/relations between categories of being ontology = universal
discipline
- Definition category of being
- All (non-)material things composed of substance & various properties
XI. b. Properties: definitions
- Properties = ontological category = characterising entities (= features of
things/ways of being of things) (i.e., redness of apple, scent of rose)
- Predicate = referring expression (i.e., “is happy”, “is red”) linguistic entity
referring things in world to properties (i.e., “Fred is happy” true due to Fred
possessing property of ‘happiness’)
- Identifying properties: link properties/predicates
- Relations included in category of property (i.e., “x is to the left of y” = x having
relational property of being to left of y)
The debate on the existence of properties
Nominalist ontology denying existence of properties based on semanticism
(Davidson)
XI. c. Universals & tropes
- Ontological system admitting properties as ontological category
- Properties = universals/tropes (= modes)
- Debate properties as universals/tropes implications for account of substance,
causation, laws & dispositions
o Dominant claim: properties = universals (Armstrong)
o Claim: properties = tropes (Campbell, Heil, Martin & Williams)
o Claim: properties = universals & tropes (Lowe)
- Properties = universals: objects with properties exemplifying same universal
with sameness understood as genuine identity (i.e., identically red apple & red
dress sharing same property of redness)
- Properties = tropes: property = particular numerically distinct from other
properties regardless of apparent similarity (i.e., apple’s redness & dress’s
redness distinct)
XI. d. Properties as particulars
- Spatiotemporal considerations
- Trope = property capable of being wholly present solely in single spatial location
at once (i.e., red of apple & red of dress distinct regardless of apparent similarity
due to ≠ occupying same spatial location at once)
- Universal = property capable of being wholly present at different spatial
locations at once
o Universals identical due to exact resemblance regardless of occupying
different spatial locations
- Problem with particular account of properties: all things possessing properties ≠
spatially located entities
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