Tropic of Value*

The authors of this paper earlier argued that concrete objects, such as things or persons, may have final value (value for their own sake), which is not reducible to the value of states of affairs that concern the object in question. Our arguments have been challenged. This paper is an attempt to respond to some of these challenges, viz. those that concern the reducibility issue. The discussion presupposes a Brentano‐inspired account of value in terms of fitting responses to value bearers. Attention is given to a yet another type of reduction proposal, according to which the ultimate bearers of final value are abstract particulars (so‐called tropes) rather than abstract states or facts. While the proposal is attractive ((fone entertains the existence of tropes), it confronts serious difficulties. To recognise tropes as potential bearers of final value, along with other objects, is one thing; but to reduce the final value of concrete objects to the final value of tropes is another matter.     

Three Trope Theories

Universals are usually considered to be universal properties. Since tropes are particular properties, if there are only tropes, there are no universals. However, universals might be thought of not only as common properties, but also as common aspects (“determinable universals”) and common wholes (“concrete universals”). The existence of these two latter concepts of universals is fully compatible with the assumption that all properties are particular. This observation makes possible three different trope theories, which accept tropes and no universals, tropes and determinable universals and tropes and concrete universals.

The Treasury of Metaphysics and the Physical World

Most modern analytic philosophers have ignored works of Indian philosophy such as Vasubandhu's 'Treasury of Metaphysics'. This neglect is unjustified. The account of the nature of the physical world given in the 'Treasury' is a one-category ontology of dharmas, which are simple, momentary tropes. They include bade physical tropes, the most fundamental level of the physical world, as well as higher-level tropes, including sensible properties such as colours, which are known as derived form. I argue that the relationship between the basic physical tropes and derived form is one of supervenience. Vasubandhu's theory is a powerful and flexible one, which can be adapted so as to be consistent with modern science.     

Tropes in space

Tropes are particular features of concrete objects. Properties—the extensions of predicates—are primitive resemblance classes of tropes. Friends of tropes have been criticized for failing to answer three questions. First, are there fundamental items other than tropes? Second, what criteria determine whether some tropes are all and only the features of some one object? Third, can trope classes be formed adequately using only primitive resemblance? Trading on the spatiotemporal status of tropes, this essay offers new responses to each of these questions. The novel thesis is that there is a sui generis property called ‘markedness’, whose tropes “mark” certain locations in an ontologically basic way. The spatiotemporal distribution of markedness tropes fixes the distribution of familiar characterizing tropes like mass and charge, and characterizing tropes are bundled by being co-contained in the location of a maximally connected markedness trope. This novel theory of trope bundling is defended by appeal to theoretical utility: it is ontologically parsimonious and solves outstanding problems involving co-location and resemblance class construction.     

Aristotle on the Unity of Composite Substance

Aristotle claims that a sensible substance is composed of form and matter, while he insists that it is a unity in a strict sense. So there is the question—in what sense can a composite thing be a unity? Aristotle’s key solution lies in his account of matter as potentiality and form as actuality. Many scholars are bewildered by his laconic solutions, and there are mainly two approaches undertaken in interpretations. One is called “projective”; the other is called “explanatory.” But neither interpretation is satisfying. The main tasks of this paper are to reexamine the problem and the two interpretations, then to argue that the composition of a sensible substance should be understood in light of its coming-to-be; that its unity refers to its being a functional unity.     

Emergent Individuals

We explain the thesis that human mental states are ontologically emergent aspects of a fundamentally biological organism. We then explore the consequences of this thesis for the identity of a human person over time. As these consequences are not obviously independent of one's general ontology of objects and their properties, we consider four such accounts: transcendent universals, kind-Aristotelianism, immanent universals, and tropes. We suggest there are reasons for emergentists to favour the latter two accounts. We then argue that within such ontologies, emergentism about properties pushes one to the stronger claim that there are emergent individuals, though not individuals which are dual to person's bodies — substance emergentism, but not substance dualism.     

论伦理学与诠释学的内在关系

人的行为活动趋于善的特性,是人类活动的价值特性。人通过教化、通过自己的价值活动,能够对自己的本性作出决定,能够化性起伪,决定自己是什么人或成为什么样的人,从而建构一个道德价值意义的世界,使自己获得作为诠释的诠释视域。同时,在一个多元性价值观念的世界,对于事物产生误解或理解分歧的可能性直接要求诠释学的在场。诠释学的理解要求一种回到前理解的共享性前见中去,在这个意义上,人具有作为伦理诠释和诠释理解的双重身份。伦理学与诠释学的内在贯通,从根本上看,在于它们都分有着实践理性的特性。这种实践理性体现在,普遍的东西的具体化。换言之,是普遍性知识与具体实践情境的结合。     

Anaxagoras’s Qualitative Gunk

Are there atoms in the constitution of things? Or is everything made of atomless ‘gunk’ whose proper parts have proper parts? Anaxagoras (fifth-century BC) is the first gunk lover in the history of metaphysics. For him gunk is not only a theoretical possibility that cannot be ruled out in principle (as it is for modern gunk lovers). Rather, it is a view that follows cogently from his metaphysical analysis of the physical world of our experience. What is distinctive about Anaxagoras’s take on gunk is not only what motives the view, but also the particular type of gunk that he develops. It is qualitative gunk, rather than material gunk. Anaxagoras’s ontology was developed before matter was ‘invented’. It includes quality tropes only; they are gunky. The resulting metaphysical view – a world of qualitative gunk – is new, in the sense of being hitherto unexplored; and yet, it is derived from Anaxagoras’s writings. Drawing on Anaxagoras’s insights, this paper offers a sketch of what qualitative gunk ontology looks like; it explores what motives it; and it highlights the differences of qualitative gunk from material gunk.     

The Uniqueness of Persons

Persons are thought to have a special kind of value, often called "dignity," which, according to Kant, makes them both infinitely valuable and irreplaceably valuable. The author aims to identify what makes a person a person in a way that can explain both aspects of dignity. She considers five definitions of "person": (1) an individual substance of a rational nature (Boethius), (2) a self-conscious being (Locke), (3) a being with the capacity to act for ends (Kant), (4) a being with the capacity to act for another (Kant), and (5) an incommunicably unique subject (Wojtyla). She argues that none is capable of grounding both aspects of dignity since they are incompatible kinds of value; it is impossible for the same thing to ground both. Human persons are infinitely valuable in virtue of shareable qualities of their nature, whereas they are irreplaceably valuable because of a nonqualitative feature of their personhood.     

No logic of cogency: Reply to Oakley

Despite the fact that the nature of the properties of causation is rarely discussed within the mental causation debate, the implicit assumption is that they are universals as opposed to tropes. However, in recent literature on the problem of mental causation, a new solution has emerged which aims to address the problem by appealing to tropes. It is argued that if the properties of causation are tropes rather than universals, then a psychophysical reductionism can be advanced which does not face the problem of multiple realizability. However, the 'trope solution' rests upon the assumption that one can combine a trope monism with a type dualism. I argue that such a combination cannot be allowed. Given a plausible interpretation of types within a trope ontology, trope monism in fact entails type monism. Consequently, if one identifies mental tropes with physical tropes, one must also identify mental and physical types and in doing so face a modified version of the multiple realizability argument.     

The issue of human existence as represented in dreaming: A new Daseinsanalytic interpretation of the meaning of dreams

Abstract

Dreams are associated with those issues of our waking life which preoccupy us emotionally. According to our Daseinsanalytic view, however, the issue that concerns us while dreaming is actually not the concrete worrying matter itself, but its existential dimension. This view is based on Martin Heidegger's concept of human being as that being to which its own being is an issue. It means that all feeling and understanding dealing with concrete issues concurrently refer to fundamental issues of our existence. Dreaming though, we are focused entirely on the fundamental aspects. Dreams show the very individual and specific struggle of the dreamer with certain conditions of human life, which he or she is unable or unwilling to accept because they seem too difficult to endure. I want to demonstrate this method of interpretation on a dream of a depressive patient. The example illustrates that the concerns of dreaming are rooted in and refer to an existential dilemma that is hidden in the concrete difficulties of waking life and represented in the concrete dream events. In addition, it gives us the opportunity to inquire into the specificity of the fundamental dilemma of a personality with a “depressive view” of the world.     

The Right Stuff

This paper argues for including stuff in one's ontology. The distinction between things and stuff is first clarified, and then three different ontologies of the physical universe are spelled out: a pure thing ontology, a pure stuff ontology, and a mixed ontology of both things and stuff. (The paper defends the latter.) Eleven different reasons for including stuff (in addition to things) in one's ontology are given (seven of which the author endorses and four of which would be sensible reasons for philosophers with certain metaphysical positions that the author does not happen to hold). Then five objections to positing stuff are considered and rejected.     

通以显体——从老庄道论看中国古代哲学的本体学说

中国古代哲学本体论的特色 ,可以“通以显体”一语来概括 ,老庄的道论集中体现了这一特色。道是“一” ,或超越的本体 ;但它是在事物个体实存的“通”性中显现出来的超越性 ,而非形式实体性之“一”。“通以显体” ,强调事物自然差异的肯定性意义。因任事物自然性命差异性以实现其在价值上的平等性或齐一性 ,则万物“道通为一”。“道通为一”的境界 ,要在人文义的“有名”上开显 ,并通过“日损”去蔽的修为功夫或生命实现的历程来达成。道家对道的证显 ,采取的是一条存有实现论或人学的进路     

The Logic of Causal Explanation An Axiomatization

Three-valued (strong-Kleene) modal logic provides the foundation for a new approach to formalizing causal explanation as a relation between partial situations. The approach makes fine-grained distinctions between aspects of events, even between aspects that are equivalent in classical logic. The framework can accommodate a variety of ontologies concerning the relata of causal explanation. I argue, however, for a tripartite ontology of objects corresponding to sentential nominals: facts, tropes (or facta or states of affairs), and situations (or events). I axiomatize the relations and use canonical models to demonstrate completeness.     

Identity Through Time and Trope Bundles

This paper brings together two theories that I have propounded separately elsewhere. The first is the view that concrete individuals are constituted completely by tropes, that they are trope bundles. The second and more recently developed theory is that of the two major categories of concrete individuals, continuants and occurrents, the latter are ontologically more basic than the former and that continuants are to be viewed as invariants among occurrents under equivalence relations. The latter theory embodies on its own an account of the nature of identity through time of things that are in time but not extended in time. The question is whether this view is compatible with the trope bundle account of concrete particulars, and, assuming it is (both theories being separately attractive) whether bringing them together entails any modifications (other than complexity) to either theory. After examining likely metaphysical difficulties the tentative conclusion is that the attractiveness of the trope bundle theory persists despite the marriage, but that the mental picture of what tropes and trope bundles are must be overhauled. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Review of Nie Minli’s Being and Substance: On Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z1–9

In his new book Being and Substance: A Study of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z1–9, Nie Minli, taking a holistic perspective, argues that the primary substance—that is, the individual in Categories—is identical to form, which is the primary substance in Metaphysics Z, and that Z3 has finished arguing what the real candidate of substance is and the inserted Z7–9 texts are the “core and key” of the entire book. In spite of his excellent scholarship and masterful interpretation of Metaphysics Z4–6, Z7, Categories 1–5 and Physics Α, Nie offers insufficient textual support for his interpretation of the primary substance in Metaphysics Z and the content of Z3. Although substance is the subject (hypokeimenon) and a “this” (tode ti) in Categories, it is the ultimate subject (hypokeimenon eschaton) and a “this” (tode ti) and separable (choriston) in Metaphysics. As the ultimate subject, substance is form and matter but not the individual. As a “this” (tode ti) and separable (choriston), substance is form; moreover, the primary substance is form. In my view, that form is substance in Z3 serves more as a plan or outline needed to prove in the following than as a definite conclusion. This article also points out that tode ti in Z8, 1033b21 refers to the individual but not the form. Homōnuma in Z9 cannot be understood as “sharing the same name but with different meaning,” but, rather, simply as “having the same name.”     

The Ontology of Thisness

This paper seeks to give an account of what it is for an individual to instantiate thisness (i.e. primitive individual essence). Thisnesses are peculiar entities, and even those who endorse their existence and instantiation by objects/entities, have said very little about how an individual and its thisness are related. My approach will be to seek out a model for the instantiation of thisness by canvassing broadly Aristotelian accounts of the substance/attribute relation, and then by making appropriate modifications to the most likely candidates in order to accommodate an individual's instantiation of thisness. What will emerge is that the model with the most utility makes thisness redundant in the case of material substances. Nonetheless, I will suggest that a version of the model can be appropriately applied in the case of other individuals which might instantiate thisness: for example, events (where these are conceived as a fundamental category of ontology distinct from material substances).

     

Non-mereological pluralistic supersubstantivalism: an alternative perspective on the matter/spacetime relationship

In both the historical and contemporary literature on the metaphysics of space (and, more recently, spacetime), a core dispute is that between relationism and substantivalism. One version of the latter is supersubstantivalism, according to which space (or, again, spacetime) is the only kind of substance, such that what we think of as individual material objects (electrons, quarks, etc.) are actually just parts of spacetime which instantiate certain properties. If those parts are ontologically dependent on spacetime as a whole, then we arrive at an ontology with only a single genuinely independent substance, namely the entire spacetime manifold. This is monist supersubstantivalism. A view on which the parts of spacetime are ontologically prior to the whole has been called pluralistic supersubstantivalism. As currently formulated, supersubstantivalism (in either its monist or pluralistic forms) carries significant advantages and encounters major difficulties. I argue that some of the latter motivate an alternative formulation, non-mereological pluralistic supersubstantivalism, according to which spacetime is a real substance, but what we think of as material objects are also real substances, irreducible to and numerically distinct from that larger spacetime manifold and any of its parts. Yet, the underlying nature of those material objects is ultimately the same type as that of spacetime: at bottom, a particle is just a smaller quantity of spacetime embedded in or contained by or co-located with the larger whole that we would normally think of as ‘spacetime,’ capable both of genuine movement within/across the larger spacetime manifold and (at least in principle) independent existence from it.     

Processio and The Place of Ontic Being: John Milbank and James K.A. Smith On Participation

James K.A. Smith argues that the ontology of participation associated with Radical Orthodoxy is incompatible with a Christian affirmation of the intrinsic being and goodness of creatures. In response, he proposes a Leibnizian view in which things are endowed with the innate dynamism of ‘force’. Creatures have a certain depth of being, and are intrinsically good, just because they each have an inner virtuality that they bring into expression. Such force is said to be a metaphysical component of the agent. In this paper it is asked whether John Milbank's ontology of participation can be defended by distinguishing between two senses of being a subject. Perhaps it is possible for a creature to bring into expression what is an infused ‘alien’ gift rather than a metaphysical component – to be expressive subject, but not ontic subject, for divine power. However, while this distinction promises to make sense of the reception of an indwelling ‘other’ in grace, knowledge and love, neither proper substance nor proper existence can be received in this way. A creature must be the ontic subject for its being, after all. Still, divine being might proceed from God as radical indwelling gift, as non‐ontic ground for ontic being.     

How to Be a Substantivalist Without Getting Shifty About It*

According to substantivalism, spacetime points and regions are real entities whose existence is not dependent on matter. In this paper, I motivate and defend a version of substantivalism which takes the totality of spacetime as fundamental, and show how this position avoids certain problem cases, in particular the objection from static Leibniz shifts, and better conforms to how we think about space in physics. I argue that, even though the static Leibniz shifts do not show ordinary substantivalism is committed to in‐principle undetectable physical structure (pace Dasgupta (2015a)), they do indicate something problematic about the modal profile of space‐time and its constituents. While the problem is modal, the solution cannot be solely a matter of revising the substantivalist's modal claims. Rather, I argue, the substantivalist must revise her background ontology of space‐time. I show how this can be done by developing substantivalist theory that rejects this picture in favor of an alternative ontology of space‐time in the spirit of priority monism.