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Metaphysics lecture notes - Categories of being (1)
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Lecture notes for third-year metaphysics module
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XII. Categories of being: substances (I)XII. a. Recap
- Ontological category of property
o Properties = features of objects
o Properties = tropes (= particulars/token-level entities) ; properties =
universals/type-level entities
- Problem of universals: question of type-level of tropes
o Response: sets of exactly resembling tropes
o Problem: criterion for analysing resemblance risk collapsing tropes into
universals by relying on principle of identity
XII. b. Armstrong’s two-category ontology
- Question: nature of thing instantiating properties
- Relation between property of object & object intuition of object instantiating
own property (i.e., apple instantiating own redness)
- Problem: double counting object’s properties object including properties &
instantiating properties (i.e., intrinsically red apple instantiating own property of
being red)
- Properties + thin particular substantiating properties (pin cushion analogy) =
constituents of object
- Object remaining once abstraction of all properties thin particular
- Substance = thin particular instantiating properties (i.e., apple’s redness)
- Thin particular having ≠ properties differing numerically ≠ qualitatively from any
other thin particular
- Thin particular = particularising entity
- Two-category ontology necessitating accepting ‘states of affairs’ in virtue of
truthmaker principle (= all truths having truthmaker(s))
- Thin particular S1 instantiating property P1 need for ontological glue for
truthmaking of thin particular S1 instantiating property P1
- Something needed for welding substance & property together
o ≠ sole existence of S1 & P1
o ≠ instantiation relationship (establishing instantiation relationship as third
constituent still need for gluing S1, P1 & instantiation relationship
together problem of Bradlian regress)
State of affair ‘S1 instantiating P1’ welding S1 & P1 together
XII. c. Problems with thin particulars
- Question entity lacking properties ontologically dubious
o Thin particular having property of instantiating properties (?) difference
property/capability (?)
- Problem 1: impossibility distinguishing thin particulars from each other in absence
of defining properties question possibility of characterising nature of thin
particular
- Problem 2: thin particulars = bare lacking capabilities lacking necessary
capability of having properties
- Problem 3: thin particulars lacking properties counter-intuitively totally causally
immune
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