Maverick Philosopher

Accidents of a Substance: Simple or Complex?

Dr. Novak is invited to tell me which of the following propositions he accepts, which he rejects, and why:

0. I have reservations about an ontology in terms of substances and accidents, but anyone who adopts such an ontology needs to provide a detailed theory of accidents.  This post sketches a theory. It has roots in Aristotle, Brentano, Chisholm, Frank A. Lewis, and others who have written about accidental compounds or accidental unities. 

1. Accidents are particulars, not universals, where particulars, unlike universals, are defined in terms of unrepeatability or uninstantiability.

2. The accidents of a substance are properties of that substance.  Tom's redness, for example, is a property of him.  That there are properties is a datanic claim; that some of them are accidents is a theoretical claim. Accidental properties are those a thing need not have to exist.  I am using 'property' in a fairly noncommittal way.  Roughly, a property is a predicable entity.

3. It follows from (1) and (2) that some properties are particulars. 

4. A substance S and its accident A are both particulars.  S is a concrete particular while A is an abstract particular.  For example, Tom is a concrete particular; his redness is an abstract particular.  It is abstract because there is more to Tom than his being red.

5. Accidents are identity- and existence-dependent upon the substances of which they are the accidents.  An accident cannot be the accident it is, nor can it exist, except 'in' the very substance of which it is an accident.  Accidents are not merely dependent on substances; they are dependent on the very substances of which they are the accidents.  'In' is not to be taken spatially but as expressing ontological dependence.  If the being of substances is esse, the being of accidents is inesse.  These are two different modes of being.

6. It follows from (5) that accidents are non-transferrable both over time and across possible worlds.  For example, Peter's fear cannot migrate to Paul: it cannot somehow leave Peter and take up residence in Paul.  Suppose Peter and Paul are both cold to the same degree.  If coldness is an accident, then each has his own coldness.  The coldnesses are numerically distinct.  They cannot be exchanged in the way jackets can be exchanged.  Suppose Peter and Paul both own exactly similar jackets.  The two men can exchange jackets.  What they cannot do is exchange accidents such as the accident, being jacketed.  Each man has his own jacketedness.

Now for a modal point.  There is no possible world in which Peter's coldness exists but Peter does not.  Peter's coldness does not necessarily exist, but it is necessarily such that, if it does exist, then Peter exists.  And of course the accident cannot exist except by existing 'in' Peter.  So we can say that Peter's coldness is tied necessarily to Peter and to Peter alone: in every possible world in which Peter's coldness exists, Peter exists; and in no possible world does Peter's coldness inhere in anything distinct from Peter.  The same goes for Peter's jacketedness.  Peter's jacket, however, is not necessarily tied to Peter: it can exst without him just as he can exist without it.  Both are substances; both are logically capable of independent existence.

The modal point underins the temporal point.  Accidents cannot migrate over time because they are necessarily tied to the substances of which they are the accidents.

7.  It follows that the superficial linguistic similarity of 'Peter's jacket' and 'Peter's weight' masks a deep ontological difference: the first expression makes reference to two substances while the second makes reference to a substance and its accident.

8 If A is an accident of S, then A is not related to S by any external relation on pain of Bradley's regress.

9 If A is an accident of S, then A is not identical to S.  For if A were identical to S, then A would be an accident of itself.  This cannot be since 'x is an accident of y' is irreflexive.

10.  If A is an accident of S, then A cannot be an improper or proper part of S.  Not an improper part for then A would be identical to S.  Not a proper part of S because accidents depend on substances for their identity and existence.  No proper part of a whole, however, depends for its existence and identity on the whole: it is the other way around: wholes depend for their identity and existence on their parts.

11.  How then are we to understand the tie or connection between S and A?  This is the connection expressed when we say, for example, that Socrates is white.  It is an intimate connection but not as intimate as identity.  We need a tie that is is less intimate than identity but more intimate than a relation. 

We saw in #10 that an accident cannot be a part (ontological consituent) of its substance.  But what is to stop us from theorizing that an accident is a whole one of the proper parts of which is the substance?  This is not as crazy as it sounds.

12.  Let our example be the accidental predication, 'Socrates is seated.'  Start by giving this a reistic translation:  'Socrates is a seated thing.'  Take the referent of 'Socrates' to be the  substance, Socrates.  Take the referent of 'a seated thing' to be the accidental compound Socrates + seatedness.  This compound entity has two primary constituents, Socrates, and the property of being seated.  It has as a secondary constituent the tie designated by '+.'  Now read 'Socrates is a seated thing' as expressing, not the strict identity, but the accidental sameness of the two particulars Socrates and Socrates + seatedness.  Thus the 'is' in our original sentence is construed, not as expressing instantiation, or identity, but as expressing accidental sameness.   Accidental sameness ties the concrete particular Socrates to the abstract particular Socrates + seatedness.

13.  The accidental compound is an extralinguistic particular having four constituents:  a concrete particular, a nexus of exemplification, a universal, and a temporal index.  Thus we can think of it as the thin fact of Socrates' being seated.  'Thin' because not all of Socrates' properties are included in this fact.

14. My suggestion, then, is that accidents are thin facts.  To test this theory we need to see if thin facts have all the features of accidents.  Well, we have seen (#1) that accidents are particulars.  Thin facts are as well.  This is a case of what Armstrong calls the Victory of Particularity: a particular's exemplification of a universal is a particular.

Accidents are properties and so are thin facts: both are ways a substance is. Both are predicable entities. 'Socrates is seated' predicates something of something.  On the present theory it predicates an abstract particular of a concrete particular where the predicative tie is not the tie of instantiation (exemplification) but the tie of accidental sameness.

Accidents are abstract particulars, and so are thin facts.  They are abstract because they do not capture the whole reality or quiddity of the substance. 

Accidents depend on substances for their identity and existence.  The same is true of thin facts.  A fact is a whole of parts and depends for its identity and existence on its parts, including the substance. 

Accidents are non-transferrable.  The same holds for thin facts. 

Accidents are necessarily tied to the substances of which they are accidents.  The same goes for thin facts: the identity of a thin fact depends on its substance constituent.

An accident is not identical to its host substance.  The same is true of thin facts. Socrates' being seated is not identical to Socrates. 

An accident is not externally related to its substance.  The same is obviously truth of thin facts. 

Accidents are not parts of substances.  The same holds for thin facts. 

Finally, no accident has two beginnings of existence.  If Elliot is sober, then drunk, then sober again, his first sobriety is numerically distinct from his second: the first sobriety does not come into existence again when our man sobers up.  The same is true of thin facts.  Elliot's beng sober at t is distinct from Elliot's being sober at t*.

15.  On the above theory, an accident is a complex. It follows that an accident is not a trope, pace Dr. Novak.  Tropes are very strange animals.  A whiteness trope is an abstract particular that is also a property and is also ontologically simple.  An example is the particular redness of Tom the tomato.  I can pick out this trope using 'the redness of Tom and Tom alone' where the 'of' is a subjective genitive.  But note that  the 'of Tom and Tom alone' has no ontological correlate.  The trope, in itself, i.e., apart from our way of referring to it, is simple, not complex.  And yet it is necessarily tied to Tom. This, to my mind, makes no sense, as I explained in earlier posts.  So I reject tropes, and with them the identification of accidents with tropes.

My conclusion, then, is that IF -- a big 'if' -- talk of substances and accidents is ultimately tenable and philosophically fruitful, THEN accidents must be ontologically complex entities.  Anyone who endorses accidents is therefore a constituent ontologist. 

Bare Particulars and Lukáš Novák's Argument Against Them

In his contribution to the book I am reviewing, Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic (Ontos Verlag, 2012), Lukáš Novák mounts an Aristotelian argument against bare particulars.  In this entry I will try to understand his argument.  I will hereafter refer to Professor Novák as 'LN' to avoid the trouble of having to paste in the diacriticals that his Czech name requires.

As I see it, the overall structure of LN's argument is an instance of modus tollens:

1. If some particulars are bare, then all particulars are bare.
2. It is not the case that all particulars are bare.
Therefore
3. No particulars are bare.

On the Very Idea of a Bare Particular

'Bare particular' is a technical term in philosophy the provenance of which is the work of Gustav Bergmann. (D. M. Armstrong flies a similar idea under the flag 'thin particular.')  Being a terminus technicus,  the term does not wear its meaning on its sleeve. It does not refer to particulars that lack properties; there are none.  It refers to particulars that lack natures or nontrivial essential properties.  (Being self-identical is an example of a trivial essential property; being human of a nontrivial essential property.)  Bare particulars differ among themselves solo numero: they are not intrinsically or essentially different, but only numerically different.  Or you could say that they are barely different. Leibniz with his identitas indiscernibilium would not have approved. 

The notion of a bare particular makes sense only in the context of a constituent ontology according to which ordinary particulars, 'thick particulars' in the jargon of Armstrong, have ontological constituents or metaphysical parts.  Consider two qualitatively indiscernible round red spots.  There are two of them and thay share all their features.  What is the ontological ground of the sameness of features?  The sameness of the universals 'in' each spot.  What grounds the  numerical difference? What makes them two and not one?  Each has a different bare particular among its ontological constituents.  BPs, accordingly, are individuators/differentiators. On this sort of ontological analysis an ordinary particular is a whole of ontological parts including universals and a bare particular.  But of course the particulars exemplify the universals, so a tertium quid is needed, a nexus of exemplification to tie the bare particular to the universals. 

The main point, however, is that there is nothing in the nature of a bare particular to dictate which universals it exemplifies: BPs don't have natures.  Thus any BP is 'promiscuously combinable' with any first-order universal.  On this Bergmannian ontological scheme it is not ruled out that Socrates might have been an octopus or a valve-lifter in a '57 Chevy.  The other side of the coin is that there is no DE RE metaphysical necessity that Socrates be human.  Of course, there is the DE DICTO metaphysical impossibility, grounded in the respective properties, that an octopus be human.  But it is natural to want to say more, namely that it is DE RE metaphysically impossible that Socrates be an octopus.  But then the problem is: how can a particular qua particular 'contradict' any property?  Being an octopus 'contradicts' (is metaphysically inconsistent with)  being a man.  But how can a particular be such as to disallow  its exemplification of some properties? (116)

Thus I agree with LN that if there are bare particulars, then there are no DE RE metaphysical necessities pertaining to ordinary particulars, and vice versa. This is why LN, an Aristotelian, needs to be able to refute the very notion of a bare particular.

LN's Argument for premise (2) in the Master Argument Above

LN draws our attention to the phenomenon of accidental change.  A rock goes from being cold to being hot.  Peter goes from being ignorant of the theorem of Pythagoras to being  knowledgeable about it.  These are accidental changes: one and the same particular has different properties at different times.  Now a necessary condition of accidental change is that one and the same subject have different properties at different times.  But is it a sufficent condition?  Suppose Peter is F at time t and not F at time t* (t* later than t).  Suppose that F-ness is a universal.  It follows that Peter goes from exemplifying the universal F-ness at t to not exemplifying it at t*.  That is: he stands in the exemplification relation to F-ness at t, but ceases so to stand to t*.  But there has to be more to the change than this.  For, as LN points out, the change is in Peter.  It is intrinsic to him and cannot consist merely in a change in a relation to a universal.  Thus it seems to LN that, even if there are universals and particulars, we need another category of entity to account for accidental change, a category that that I will call that of property-exemplifications.  Thus Peter's being cold at t is a property-exemplification and so is Peter's not being cold at t*.  Peter's change in respect of temperature involves Peter as the diachronically persisting substratum of the change, the universal coldness, and two property-exemplifications, Peter's being cold at t and Peter's being not cold at t*.

These property-exemplifications, however, are particulars, not universals even though each has a universal as a constituent.  This is a special case of what Armstrong calls the Victory of Particularity: the result of a particular exemplifying a universal is  a particular.   Moreover, these items have natures or essences: it is essential to Peter's being cold that it have coldness as a constituent.  (This is analogous to mereological essentialism.) Hence property- exemplifications are particulars, but not bare particulars.  Therefore, (2) is true: It is not the case that all particulars are bare. 

I find LN's argument for (2) persuasive.  The argument in outline:

4. There are property-exemplifications
5. Property-exemplifications are particulars
6. Property-exemplifications have natures
7. Whatever has a nature is not bare
Therefore
2. It is not the case that all particulars are bare.

Premise (1) in the Master Argument

LN has shown that not all particulars are bare.  But why should we think that (1) is true, that if some particulars are bare, then all are?   It could be that simple particulars are bare while complex particulars, such as property-exemplifications,  are not bare.  If that is so, then showing that no complex particular is bare would  not amount to showing that no particular is bare.

The Master Argument, then, though valid, is not sound, or at at least it is not obviously sound: we have been given no good reason to accept (1).

Property-exemplifications, Tropes, and Accidents

But in all fairness to LN I should point out that he speaks of tropes and accidents, not of property-exemplifications.  I used the latter expression because 'trope' strikes me as  out of place.  Tropes are simples.  Peter's being ignorant of the theorem of Pythagoras at t, however, is a complex, and LN says as much on p. 117 top.    So the entity designated by the italicized phrase is not a trope, strictly speaking.  'Trope' is a terminus technicus whose meaning in this ontological context was first given to it by Donald C. Williams.  

Well, is the designatum of the italicized phrase an accident?  Can an accident of a substance have that very subtance as one of  its ontological constituents?  I should think not.  But Peter's being ignorant of the theorem of Pythagoras at t has Peter as one of its constituents.  So I should think that it is not an accident of Peter.

I conclude that either I am failing to understand LN's argument or that he has been insufficiently clear in expounding it.

A Final Quibble

LN suggests that the intuitions behind the theory of bare particulars are rooted in Frege's mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive distinction between concepts and objects. "Once this distinction has been made, it is very hard to see how there might be a genuine case of logical de re necessity." (115) The sentence quoted is true,  but as I said above, the notion of a bare particular makes no sense except in the context of a constituent ontology.   Frege's, however, is not a constituent ontology like Bergmann's but what Bergmann calls a function ontology.  (See G. Bergmann, Realism, p. 7.  Wolterstorff's constituent versus relation ontology distinction is already in Bergmann as the distinct between complex and function ontologies.)  So I deny that part of the motivation for  the positing of bare particulars is an antecedent acceptance of Frege's concept-object distinction.  I agree that if one accepts that distinction, then logical or rather metaphyscal de re necessity goes by the boards.  But the Fregean distinction is not part of the motivation or argumentation for bare particulars. 

Just what considerations motivate the positing of bare particulars would be a good topic for a separate post. 

Transitivity of Predication?

I dedicate this post to London Ed, who likes sophisms and scholastic arcana.

Consider these two syllogistic arguments:

A1. Man is an animal; Socrates is a man; ergo, Socrates is an animal.
A2. Man is a species; Socrates is a man; ergo, Socrates is a species.

The first argument is valid.  On one way of accounting for its validity, we make two assumptions.  First, we assume that each of the argument's constituent sentences is a predication.  Second, we assume the principle of the Transitivity of Predication: if x is predicable of y, and y is predicable of z, then x is predicable of z.  This principle has an Aristotelian pedigree.  At Categories 3b5, we read, "For all that is predicated of the predicate will be predicated also of the subject." So if animal is predicable of man, and man of Socrates, then animal of Socrates.  

Something goes wrong, however, in the second argument.  The question is: what exactly?  Let's first of all see if we can diagnose the fallacy while adhering to our two assumptions.  Thus we assume that each occurrence of 'is' in (A2) is an 'is' of predication, and that predication is transitive.  One suggestion  -- and I take this to be the line of some Thomists -- is that (A2) equivocates on 'man.'  In the major, 'man' means 'man-in-the-mind,' 'man as existing with esse intentionale.'  In the minor, 'man' means 'man-in-reality,' 'man as existing with esse naturale.'  We thus diagnose the invalidity of (A2) by saying that it falls afoul of quaternio terminorum, the four-term fallacy.  On this diagnosis, Transitivity of Predication is upheld: it is just that in this case the principle does not apply since there are four terms.

But of course there is also the modern Fregean way on which we abandon both of our assumptions and locate the equivocation in (A2) elsewhere.  On a Fregean diagnosis, there is an equivocation on 'is' in (A2) as between the 'is' of inclusion and the 'is' of predication.  In the major premise, 'is' expresses, not predication, but inclusion: the thought is that the concept man includes within its conceptual content the subconcept species.  In the minor and in the conclusion, however, the 'is'  expresses predication: the thought is that Socrates falls under the concepts man and species.  Accordingly, (A2) is invalid because of an equivocation on 'is,' not because of an equivocation on 'man.'

The Fregean point is that the concept man falls WITHIN but not UNDER the concept animal, while the object Socrates falls UNDER but not WITHIN the concepts man and animal.  Man does not fall under animal because no concept is an animal.  Animal is a mark (Merkmal) not a property (Eigenschaft) of man.  In general, the marks of a concept are not its properties.  But concepts do have properties.  The property of being instantiated, for example, is a property of the concept man.  But it is not a mark of it.  If it were a mark, then man by its very nature would be instantiated and it would be a conceptual truth that there are human beings, which is false.

Since on the Fregean scheme the properties of concepts needn't be properties of the items that fall under the concepts, Transitivity of Predication fails.  Thus, the property of being instantiated is predicable of the concept philosopher, and the concept philosopher is predicable  of Socrates; but the property of being instantiated is not predicable of Socrates. 

Via Platonica Versus Via Aristotelis

I have spoken more than once of the fruitful tension between Athens (philosophy) and  Jerusalem (Biblical revelation). But there is also a tension, and it is also a fruitful one, within Athens. It is depicted, if such a thing can be depicted at all, in Raphael's School of Athens.   Take a gander at the close-up below.  Plato points up, Aristotle, the younger man, points down. The Forms are, in a manner of speaking, up yonder in a topos ouranos, in a heavenly place; his star pupil would, again in a manner of speaking, bring them down to earth.  In a terminology I do not wholly endorse, Plato is an extreme, while Aristotle is a moderate, realist.

The vitality of the West is due, in part, to the fruitful tension between Athens and Jerusalem. And much of the vitality of philosophy derives from the fruitful tension between the Platonic and Aristotelian ways of thinking, not just as regards the problem of universals, but on a wide range of issues.

Another Round with Hennessey on Accidental Predication

Having had my say about what is known in the trade as Occam's Razor, and having secured some welcome agreement with the proprietor of Beyond Necessity in the combox of the aforelinked post, I am now ready to address the meat of Richard Hennessey's response to my three-post critique of what I took to be his theory of accidental predication.

There is no need to stray from our hoary example of accidental predication: 'Socrates is seated.'  I took Hennessey to be saying that in a true accidental predication of this simple form subject and predicate refer to exactly the same thing.  If they didn't, the sentence could not be true.  Here is how Hennessey puts it:

Let us take the proposition “Socrates is sitting” or the strictly equivalent “Socrates is a sitting being.” The referent of the subject term here is the sitting Socrates and that of the predicate term is one and the same sitting Socrates. . . . only if the referent of the “Socrates” and that of the “sitting” of “Socrates is sitting” are identical can it be true that Socrates is actually the one sitting.

Since Hennessey uses the word 'identity' we can call this an identity theory of accidental predication: in true predications of this sort, the referent of the subject term and the referent of the predicate term are identical, and this identty is what insures that the predication is true.  If so, then the same goes for all other true predications which are about Socrates.  So consider 'Socrates is standing' which is the logical contrary (not contradictory) of 'Socrates is sitting.'  These sentences cannot both be true at the same time, but they can be true at different times.  Suppose we ask what the truth-maker is in each case.  Given that subject and predicate terms refer to exactly the same thing, namely, Socrates, it follows that in each case it is Socrates and Socrates alone that is the truth-maker of both sentences.  When he is sitting, Socrates makes-true 'Socrates is sitting' and when he is standing Socrates makes-true 'Socrates is standing.' 

What I do not understand, however, is how these obviously different sentences, which differ in their truth-conditions, can have one and the same entity as truth-maker.  The same problem does not seem to arise for such essential predications as 'Socrates is human.'  For there is no time when he is not human, and (this is a distinct modal point), at every time at which he is human he is not possibly such as to be nonhuman.  In the case of essential predications an identity theory may be workable.  Perhaps we can say that Socrates himself is the truth-maker of 'Socrates is human,' 'Socrates is rational,' and Socrates is animal.'

In the case of accidental predications, however, it seems definitely unworkable. This is because different accidental predications about Socrates need different truth-makers. It is not Socrates, but Socrates'  being seated that is the truth-maker of 'Socrates is seated' and it is not Socrates, but Socrates' standing that is the truth-maker of 'Socrates is standing.'

Without worrying about what exactly the italicized phrases pick out (facts? states of affairs? tropes?), one thing seems crystal clear: there cannot be a strict identity of, e.g., the referent of 'Socrates' and the referent of 'seated.'  And since there cannot be a strict identity, there must be some difference between the referents of the subject and predicate terms.  Hennessey seems to show an appreciation of this in his response (second hyperlink above):

If we tweak the [B.V.] passage a bit, we can, it strikes me, improve the thesis about the referencing at work in the sentence “Socrates is sitting” so that it offers a more satisfactory support of the neo-Aristotelian thesis of anti-realism in the theory of universals, one indeed getting along “without invoking universals.” First, let us speak of “particular property” instead of “particularized property,” for the latter expression suggests, at least to me, that the property would be, prior to some act of particularization, a universal and not a particular. Let us then accept, but with a precision, Bill’s statement that “‘sitting’ refers to a particularized property (a trope),” saying instead that while the “Socrates” in our statement refers to Socrates, the person at present sitting, the “sitting” primarily refers to Socrates, the person at present sitting, and also co-refers to the particular property of sitting that inheres in Socrates. (An alternative terminology might have it that the “Socrates” in our statement denotes Socrates and the “sitting” primarily denotes Socrates, still the person sitting, and also connotesthe property of sitting that inheres in Socrates; come to think of it, I believe I recall having read, long ago, a similar distinction in the Petite logique of Jacques Maritain, a book which I no longer have, thanks to a flooded basement.)

This is definitely an improvement.  It is an improvement because it tries to accommodate the perfectly obvious point that there must be some difference or other between the worldly referents of the subject and predicate terms in accidental predications.  Hennessey is now telling us that 'Socrates' in our example refers to exactly one item, Socrates, while 'sitting' refers to two items, Socrates and the particular property (trope, accident) seatedness which inheres in Socrates.

But Hennessey is not yet in the clear.  For I will now ask him what the copula 'is' expresses.  It seems he must say that it expresses inherence.  He must say that it is because seatedness inheres in Socrates that 'Socrates is seated' is true.  Now inherence is an asymmetrical relation: if x inheres in y, then it is not the case that y inheres in x.  But there is no sameness relation (whether strict identity, contingent identity, accidental sameness, Castaneda's consubstantiaton, etc) that is not symmetrical.  Thus if x is in any sense the same as y, then y is (in the same sense) the same as x.  Therefore, Hennessey's bringing of inherence into the picture is at odds with his claims of identity.  Inherence, being asymmetrical,  is not a type of identity or sameness.  So why the talk of identity in the first passage quoted above?

Why does Hennessey say that 'seated' refers primarily to Socrates but also to the particular property seatedness?   Why not just say this: 'Socrates' refers to the primary substance (prote ousia) Socrates and nothing else; 'is' refers to the inherence relation or nexus and nothing else; 'seated/sitting' refers to the particular property (trope, accident) seatedness and nothing else.  This would give him what he wants, a theory of predication free of universals.

But this is not what Hennessey says.  He is putting forth some sort of identity theory of predication.  He thinks that in some sense the subject and predicate terms refer to the very same thing.  He tells us that 'seated' refers both to a substance and to an accident.  The upshot is that Hennessey has given birth to a hybrid theory which I for one do not find  intelligible. 

Here is the question he needs to confront directly: what, in the world, makes it true that 'Socrates is seated' (assuming of course that the sentence is true)?  Here is a clear answer: the sentence is true because seatedness inheres in Socrates.  But then of course there can be no talk of the identity of Socrates and seatedness.  They are obviously not identical: one is a substance and the other an accident.  The relation between them, being asymmetrical, cannot be any sort of sameness relation.

The other clear answer which, though clear, is absurd is this:  the sentence is true because 'Socrates' and 'seated' refer to the very same thing with the result that the copula expresses identity.  Now this is absurd for the reasons given over several posts. This was his original theory which he has wisely moved away from.

Instead of plumping for one of these clear theories, Hennessey gives us an unintelligible hybrid, a monster if you will, as we approach Halloween.

The Use and Abuse of Occam's Razor: On Multiplying Entities Beyond Necessity

Self-styled neo-Aristotelian Richard Hennessey's response to my three posts concerning his theory of accidental predication is now online. 

He graciously declines my suggestion that he make use of accidental compounds or accidental unities in his theory despite the excellent Aristotelian pedigree of these items, a pedigree amply documented in the writings of Frank Lewis and Gareth Mathews.  Following Mathews, I characterized accidental compounds as 'kooky' objects with as little pejorative intent as I found in Mathews who defends these items. Hennessey, however, apparently takes the label pejoratively:

I cannot help but agree that the seated-Socrates in question, as a being other than Socrates, is a “‘kooky’ or ‘queer’ object.” And I cannot help but wonder how anyone who rejects universals could be tempted to multiply entities and accept such a “‘kooky’ or ‘queer’ object.”

So before examing the meat of Hennessey's response to me, in a later post, we must first tackle some preliminary matters including the nature of Occam's Razor, its use and abuse, and the role of explanation and explanatory posits in philosophy.

On Brandishing the Razor

I am not historian enough to pronounce upon the relation of what is standardly called Occam's Razor to the writings of the 14th century William of Ockham. The different spellings of his name will serve as a reminder to be careful about reading contemporary concerns into the works of philosophers long dead. Setting aside historical concerns, Occam's Razor is standardly taken to be a principle of theoretical economy or  parsimony that states:

   OR. Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.

It is sometimes formulated in Latin: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. The principle is presumably to be interpreted qualitatively rather than quantitatively, thus:

   OR*. Do not multiply TYPES of entity beyond necessity.

Thus it is not individual entities that are not to be multiplied, but types or kinds or categories of entity.  To illustrate.  Some criticized David Lewis' extreme modal realism on the ground that it proliferates concreta: there are not only all the actual  concreta , there are all those merely possible ones as well.  He responded quite plausibly to the proliferation charge by pointing out that the Razor applies to categories of entity, not individual entities, and that category-wise his ontology is sparse indeed.

'Multiply' is a picturesque way of saying posit. (Obviously, there are as many categories of entity as there are, and one cannot cause them to 'multiply.')  And let's not forget the crucial qualification: beyond necessity.  That means: beyond what is needed for purposes of adequate explanation of the data that are to be explained.  Hence:

OR**  Do not posit types of entity in excess of what is needed for purposes of explanation.

So the principle enjoins us to refrain from positing more types of entity than we need to explain the phenomena that need to be explained. It is obvious that (OR**) does not tell us to prefer theory T1 over theory T2 if T1 posits fewer types of entity than T2. What it tells us is to prefer T1 over T2 if T1 posits fewer types of entity AND accounts adequately for all  the data. So there is a trade-off between positing and accounting.

Our old pal Ed over at Beyond Necessity often seems to be unaware of this.  He seems to think that simply brandishing the Razor suffices to refute a theory.  Together with this he sometimes displays a tendency to think that whole categories of entity can be as it were  shamed out of existence by labeling them 'queer.'  I picked up that word from him.  A nice, arch, donnish epithet.  But that is just name-calling, a shabby tactic best left to the ideologues. 

Hennessey is perhaps not guilty of any name-calling or entity-shaming but I note that he too seems to think that merely waving the Razor about suffices as a technique of refutation. One piece of evidence is the quotation above where he states in effect that to posit accidental compounds such as seated-Socrates is to multiply entities.  But this is to ignore the crucial question whether there is any need for the positing. 

What is offensive about Razor brandishing is the apparent ignorance on the part of some brandishers of the fact that we all agree that one ought not posit types of entity in excess of the needs of explanation. What we don't agree on, however, is whether or not a given class of entities is needed for explanatory purposes.  That is where the interesting questions and the real disagreements lie. 

Hennessey eschews universals in the theory of predication, and elsewhere.  Fine.  But he cannot justify that eschewal solely on the basis of Occam's Razor which is a purely methodological principle.  In other words, the Razor does not dictate any particular ontology.  Taken as such, and apart from its association with the nominalist Ockham, it does not favor nominalism (the view that everything is a particular) over realism (the view that there are both particulars and universals).  It does not favor any ontology over any other. 

Nor does it rule out so-called 'abstract objects' such as Fregean propositions.  I gave an argument a while back (1 August 2010 to be precise) to the conclusion that there cannot, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, be nothing at all, that there must be at least one abstract object, a proposition.  Hennessey commented on that post, Thinking about Nothing, and made the objection that I was multipying entities.  But again, the salient question is whether the entity-positing is necessary for explanatory purposes.  If my argument was a good one, then it was.  One cannot refute such an argument simply by claiming that it introduces a type of entity that is less familiar than one's favorite types.

To sum up.  Philosophy is in large part, though not entirely, an explanatory enterprise.  As such it ought to proceed according to the methodological principle formulated above as (OR**).  This principle is not controversial.  Hence it should not be presented to one's opponents as if it were controversial and denied by them.  Nor is it a principle that takes sides on the substantive questions of ontology.  Thus the following argument which is suggested by Hennessey's remarks is invalid:

1. OR**
2. Accidental compounds are a category of particular distinct from both substances and accidents.
Ergo
3. There are no accidental compounds. 

Non sequitur!  He needs a premise to the effect that the positing of accidental compounds is otiose since the explanatory job can be adequately done without them.  He needs such a premise, and of course he needs to defend it.

What I am objecting to is the idea is that by earnest asseverations of a wholly uncontroversial methodological principle one actually  advances the substantive debate.  

Accidental Sameness and its Logical Properties

I should thank Richard Hennessey for motivating me to address a topic I haven't until these last few days discussed in these pages, namely, that of accidental sameness.  Let us adopt for the time being a broadly Aristotelian ontology with its standard nomenclature of substance and accident, act and potency, form and matter, etc.  Within such a framework, how can we account for an accidental predication such as 'Socrates is seated'? 

In particular, what is expressed by 'is' in a sentence like this?  Hennessey seems to maintain that it expresses an identity which holds, if the sentence is true, between the referent of the subject term 'Socrates' and the referent of the predicate term  'seated.'  Here is what Hennessey says:

Let us take the proposition “Socrates is sitting” or the strictly equivalent “Socrates is a sitting being.” The referent of the subject term here is the sitting Socrates and that of the predicate term is one and the same sitting Socrates. Similarly, the referent of the subject term of “Plato is sitting” is the sitting Plato and that of its predicate term is one and the same sitting Plato. Here, once again, only if the referent of the “Socrates” and that of the “sitting” of “Socrates is sitting” are identical can it be true that Socrates is actually the one sitting. And, only if the referent of the “Plato” and that of the “sitting” of “Plato is sitting” are identical can it be true that Plato is actually the one sitting.

Hennessey is making two moves in this passage.  The first is the replacement of 'Socrates is seated' with 'Socrates is a seated being.' (I am using 'seated' instead of 'sitting' for idiosyncratic stylistic reasons;  the logic and ontology of the situation should not be affected.) I grant that the original sentence and its replacement are logically equivalent.  Hence I have no objection to the first move.

The second move is to construe the 'is' of the replacement sentence as expressing identity.  Together with this move goes Hennessey's  claim that ONLY in this way can the truth of the sentence be insured.  This claim is false for reasons given earlier, but this is not my present concern.  My concern at present is the second move by itself.  Can the 'is' of the replacement sentence be construed as expressing identity?

The answer to this is in the negative if by 'identity' is meant strict identity.  Strict identity, symbolized by '=,'  is an equivalence relation: it is reflexive, symmetrical, and transitive.  It is furthermore governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals (If a = b, then everything true of a is true of b and vice versa) and the Necessity of Identity (If a = b, then necessarily a = b).  Now if the referent of 'Socrates' and the referent of 'seated' are strictly identical, then this is necessarily so, true in every possible world in which Socrates exists, in which case our sentence cannot be contingently true as it obviously is.  Socrates is seated only at some of the times at which he exists, not at all such times.  And at any time at which he is seated he is possibly such as not to be seated at that time.  (The modality in question is broadly logical.)

So if Hennessey wants to construe the 'is' as expressing a type of sameness, it cannot be that sameness which is strict identity.  An option which is clearly open to him as an Aristotelian is to construe the 'is' as expressing accidental sameness.  But what is that?

It is a dyadic relation that connects one substance and one accidental compound.  (Thus by definition it never connects two substances or two compounds.)  An accidental compound is a particular, not a universal.  It is a hylomorphic compound the matter of which is a substance and the form of which an accident inhering in that substance.  It is admittedly a somewhat 'kooky' object, to borrow an epithet from Gareth Mathews.  An example is seated-Socrates.  Socrates is a substance.  His seatedness is an accident inhering in him.  The two together form an accidental compound which can be denoted by 'seated-Socrates' or by 'Socrates + seatedness.'  Seated-Socrates is neither a substance nor an accident, but a transcategorial hybrid composed of one substance and one accident, but only if the accident inheres in the substance. (An accidental compund is therefore not a mereological sum of a substance and any old accident.)

The compound is not a substance because it cannot exist on its own, but it is parasitic upon its parent substance, in our example, Socrates. It is also not a substance because it is not subject to alterational change.  Change for an accidental compound is existential change, either coming into being or passing out of being.  When Socrates sits down, seated-Socrates comes into being, and when he stands up it passes out of being.  An accidental compound is not an accident because it is not related to its parent substance by inherence, but by accidental sameness.  A key difference is that inherence is an asymmetrical relation, while accidental sameness is symmetrical.

Hennessey can say the following: 'Socrates is seated' expresses the accidental sameness of Socrates with the accidental compound, seated-Socrates.  He needs to posit two objects, not one: a substance and an accidental compound.  If he holds that the referent of 'Socrates' and the referent of 'seated' are strictly identical, then the accidentality of the predication cannot be accommodated, and all predications become essential. That was my initial objection to Hennessey's view before I figured out a way to salvage it. 

What are the logical properties of the accidental sameness relation?  Like strict identity, it is symmetrical.  This should be obvious.  If Socrates is accidentally the same as seated-Socrates, then the latter is accidentally the same as the former.  The inherence relation, by contrast, is asymmetrical: if A inheres in S, then S does not inhere in A. This is one of the differences between the accidental sameness relation and the inherence relation. 

Accidental sameness is irreflexive.  This can be proven as follows:

1. No substance is an accidental compound.
2. If a is accidentally the same as b, then either a is a subtance and b a compound, or vice versa.
Therefore
3. No object, whether substance or compound, is accidentally the same as itself.

It can also be proven that accidental sameness is intransitive.  Thus, if a is accidentally the same as b, and b accidentally the same as c, it follows that a is not accidentally the same as c.  Suppose a is a substance.  Then b is a compound.  But if b is a compound, then c is a substance, with the result that a substance is accidentally the same as a substance, which violates the definition of accidental sameness.  On the other hand, if a is a compound, then b is a substance, which makes c a compound, with the result that a  compound is accidentally the same as a compound, which also violates the definition.  So accidental sameness is intransitive.

Clearly, there is accidental sameness only if there are accidental compounds.  But are there any of the latter?  Consider a fist.  A fist is not strictly identical to the hand whose fist it is. (They have different persistence conditions.) But a fist is not strictly different from the hand whose fist it is.  But surely there are fists, and surely what we have in a situation like this is not two individuals in the same place.  So it is reasonable to maintain that a fist is an accidental compound which is accidentally the same as the hand whose fist it is.

Still, there is something 'kooky' about accidental compounds.  So I'll end with a challenge to Hennessey, enemy of universals.  Why are accidental compounds less 'kooky' than universals, whether immanent or transcendent? 

Accidental Sameness: Defending Hennessey Against My Objection

Yesterday I made an objection to Richard Hennessey's neo-Aristotelian theory of accidental predication.  But this morning I realized that he has one or more plausible responses.  By the way, this post has, besides its philosophical purpose, a metaphilosophical one.  I will be adding support to my claim lately bruited that philosophy -- the genuine article -- is not a matter of debate, as I define both 'philosophy' and 'debate.'  For have you ever been to a debate in which debater A, having made an objection to something debater B has said, says, "Wait a minute!  I just realized that you have one or more plausible ways of turning aside my objection.  The first is . . . ."?

1. 'Socrates is seated' is an example of an accidental predication.  For surely it is no part of Socrates' essence or nature that he be seated.  There is no broadly logical necessity that  he be seated at any time at which he is seated, and there are plenty of times at which he is not seated.  'Socrates is seated' contrasts with the essential predication 'Socrates is human.'  Socrates is human at every time at which he exists and at every world at which he exists.

2. Hennessey's theory is that ". . . only if the referent of the 'Socrates' and that of the 'sitting' of 'Socrates is sitting' are identical can it be true that Socrates is actually the one sitting."  The idea seems to be that accidental predications can be understood as identity statements.  Thus 'Socrates is seated' goes over into (what is claimed to be) the logically equivalent  'Socrates is (identical to) seated-Socrates.'  Accordingly, our sample sentence is construed, not as predicating a property of Socrates, a property he instantiates, but as affiming the identity of Socrates with the referent of 'seated-Socrates.'

3.  But what is the referent of 'seated-Socrates'?  If the referent is identical to the referent of 'Socrates,' namely Socrates, then my objection kicks in:  how can the predication be contingently true, as it obviously is, given that it affirms the identity of Socrates with himself?  Socrates is essentially Socrates but only accidentally seated.

4. Perhaps Hennessey could respond to this objection by saying that 'Socrates' and 'Socrates-seated' do not refer to the same item: they refer to different items which are, nonetheless, contingently identical.  This would involve distinguishing between necessary identity and contingent identity where both are equivalence relations (reflexive, symmetrical, transitive) but only the former satisfies in addition the Indiscernibility of Identicals (InId) and the Necessity of Identity (NI).  It is obvious that if a and b are contingently identical, but distinct, then these items must be discernible in which case InId fails.  It is also obvious that NI must fail for contingent identity.

5. Closer to Aristotle is a view described by Michael C. Rea in "Sameness Without Identity: An Aristotelian Solution to the Problem of Material Constitution" in Form and Matter, ed. Oderberg, Blackwell 1999, pp. 103-115.  I will now paraphrase and interpret from Rea's text, pp. 105-107.  And I won't worry about how the view I am about to sketch differs -- if it does differ -- from the view sketched in #4.

When Socrates sits down, seated-Socrates comes into existence. When he stands up or adopts some other nonseated posture, seated-Socrates passes out of existence.  This 'kooky' or 'queer' object is presumably a particular, not a universal, though it is not a substance.  It is an accidental unity whose existence is parasitic upon the existence of its parent substance, Socrates.   It cannot exist without the parent substance, but the latter can exist without it.  The relation is like that of a fist to a hand made into a fist.  The fist cannot exist without the hand, but the hand can exist without being made into a fist.Though seated-Socrates is not a substance it is like a substance in that it is a hylomorphic compound: it has Socrates as its matter and seatedness as its form.  As long as Socrates and seated-Socrates exist, the relation between them is accidental sameness, a relation weaker than strict identity. 

Accidental sameness is not strict identity presumably because  the former is not governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals.  Clearly, Socrates and seated-Socrates do not share all properties despite their sameness.  They differ temporally and modally. Socrates exists at times at which seated-Socrates does not exist (though not conversely).  And it is possible that Socrates exist without seated-Socrates existing (though not conversely). 

Are Socrates and seated-Socrates numerically the same?  They count as one and so they are one in number though not one in being.   So says Aristotle according to Rea.  After all, if Socrates and Alcibiades are seated at table we count two philosophers not four.  We don't count: Socrates, seated-Socrates, Alcibiades, seated-Alcibiades.

But I will leave it to Hennessey to develop this further.  It looks as if this is the direction in which he must move if his theory is to meet my objection.

What about essential predication?  Is there a distinction between Socrates and human-Socrates?  These two cannot be accidentally the same.  They must be strictly identical. If 'Socrates is human' is parsed as 'Socrates is identical to human-Socrates' then how does the latter differ from 'Socrates is Socrates'?  The sense of 'Socrates is human' differs from the sense of 'Socrates is Socrates.'  How account for that?  'Socrates is Socrates' is a formal-logical truth, trivial and uninformative.  'Socrates is human' is not a formal-logical truth; it is informative. 

Comments on Richard Hennessey's Neo-Aristotelian Theory of Predication

Richard Hennessey of Gnosis and Noesis sketches a neo-Aristotelian theory of predication in Another Aristotelian Basis for a Neo-Aristotelian Anti-Realism in the Theory of Universals.  Drawing as he does upon my discussion in Scholastic Realism and Predication, he has asked me to comment on his post.  I will do so with pleasure.

I first want to agree partially with something he says at the close of his post: 

. . . we have in the so-called problem of universals not a genuine problem, but merely a pseudo-problem. That is, we have a problem of universals only if we posit their existence. If we do not posit them, there is no genuine problem.

I would put the point somewhat differently.  The phrase 'problem of universals' is a misnomer. For what is in dispute in the so-called problem of universals is the nature of properties.  Not their existence, but their nature.  That there are properties is a given, a datum.  What alone can be reasonably questioned is their nature.  If you deny that sugar is sweet, then I show you the door.  But if you deny that sweetness is a universal, then I listen to your arguments.  For it is not at all obvious that the sweetness of a sugar cube is a universal. (Nor is it obvious that it isn't) That it is a universal is a theoretical claim that goes beyond the data.  It is consistent with the data that the sweetness be a particular, an unrepeatable item, such as a trope (as in the theories of D. C. Williams and Keith Campbell, et al.) or some other sort of particular. 

The correct phrase, then, is 'problem of properties,' not 'problem of universals.'  But that is not to say that there is no legitimate use for 'problem of universals.'  If one posits universals, then one will face various problems such as the problem of how they connect to particulars.  Those problems are genuine, not pseudo, given that there are universals.

In any case, Richard sees no need to posit universals, whether Platonic or Aristotelian, to explain either essential or accidental predication.  Here is the gist of Richard's theory:

Let us take the proposition “Socrates is sitting” or the strictly equivalent “Socrates is a sitting being.” The referent of the subject term here is the sitting Socrates and that of the predicate term is one and the same sitting Socrates. Similarly, the referent of the subject term of “Plato is sitting” is the sitting Plato and that of its predicate term is one and the same sitting Plato. Here, once again, only if the referent of the “Socrates” and that of the “sitting” of “Socrates is sitting” are identical can it be true that Socrates is actually the one sitting. And, only if the referent of the “Plato” and that of the “sitting” of “Plato is sitting” are identical can it be true that Plato is actually the one sitting.

What we have here could be called an identity theory of predication: if 'Socrates is a sitting being' is true, then the referent of the subject term 'Socrates' and the referent of the predicate term 'sitting being' are numerically identical.  Accordingly, the 'is' is the 'is' of identity.  ONLY on this analysis, says Richard, can the sentence be true. I rather doubt that, but first we need to consider whether Richard's theory is not open to serious objection.

If x and y are identical, then this is necessarily so. Call this the Necessity of Identity.  More precisely: for any x, y, if x = y, then necessarily, x = y.   Equivalent contrapositive: if possibly ~(x = y), then ~(x = y).  It follows that if Socrates is identical to some sitting being, then necessarily he is identical to that sitting being.  But in that case it would not be possible for Socrates not to be a sitting being.  This, however, is possible.  Sometimes he is on his feet walking around, other times he is flat on his back, and he has even been observed standing on his head.  And please note that even if, contrary to fact, Socrates was always seated, it would still be possible for him not to be seated.  The mere possibility of his not being seated shows that he cannot be identical to some sitting being.

This is an objection that Richard needs to address if his theory is to be tenable.  Note that my objection can be met without invoking universals.  One could say that 'Socrates' in our sample sentence refers to Socrates, that 'sitting' refers to a particularized property (a trope), and that the 'is' is the 'is' of predication, not identity.  Accordingly, there is not an identity between Socrates and a sitting being; the particularized property being-seated inheres in Socrates, where inherence, unlike identity, is asymmetrical.

The other claim that Richard makes is that ONLY on his theory can the truth of 'Socrates is sitting' be accommodated.  That strikes me as false.  I just gave an analysis on which the truth of the predication is preserved.  And of course there are others. 

 

How Are Form and Matter Related in Compound Material Substances?

Favoring as I do constituent ontology, I am sympathetic to that type of constituent ontology which is hylomorphic ontological analysis, as practiced by Aristotelians, Thomists, et al.  The obscurity of such fundamental  concepts as form, matter, act, potency, substance, and others is, however, troubling. Let's see if we can make sense of the relation between form and matter in an artifact such as a bronze sphere. Now those of you who are ideologically committed to Thomism may bristle at an exposure of difficulties, but you should remember that philosophy is not ideology. The philosopher follows the argument to its conclusion whether it overturns his pet beliefs or supports them, or neither. He knows how to keep his ideological needs in check while pursuing pure inquiry.  If the inquiry terminates in an aporetic impasse, then so be it.

1. Although it perhaps requires arguing, I will here take it for granted that form and matter as these terms are used by Aristotle and his followers are items 'in the real order.' 'Item' is a maximally   noncommittal term in my lexicon: it commits me to very little. Anything in whatever category to which one can refer in any way  whatsoever is an item. 'Real' is that which exists whether or not it is an intentional object of an act of mind. So when I say that form and matter are items in the real order I simply mean that they are not projected by the mind: it is not as if bronze spheres and such have  form and matter only insofar as we interpret them as having form and matter. The bronze sphere is subject to hylomorphic (matter-form) analysis because the thing in reality is made up of form and matter.   'Projectivism' is off the table at least for the space of this post. I am thus assuming a version of realism and am viewing form and matter as distinct ontological constituents or 'principles' of compound   substances.

2. The foregoing implies that the proximate matter of the bronze sphere,  namely, the hunk of bronze itself, is a part of the bronze sphere.  After all, 'ontological constituent' is just a fancy way of saying  'ontological part.'  But an argument I now adapt from E. J. Lowe ("Form Without Matter" in Form and Matter: Themes in Contemporary  Metaphysics, ed. Oderberg, Blackwell 1999, p. 7) seems to show that  the notion that the proximate matter of a compound material substance is a part of it is problematic.  The argument runs as follows.

A. If the hunk of bronze composing the sphere is a part of the sphere, then either it is a proper part or it is an improper part, where an improper part of a whole W is a part of W that overlaps every part of   W.

B. The hunk of bronze is not an improper part since it is not identical to the bronze sphere. (One reason for this is that the persistence conditions are not the same: the piece of bronze will still exist if the sphere is flattened into a disk, but the sphere cannot survive such a deformation. Second, the two are modally discernible: the hunk of bronze is a hunk of bronze in every possible world in which it exists, but the hunk of bronze is not a sphere in every possible world in which it exists.)

C. The hunk of bronze is not a proper part of the bronze sphere since there is no part of the bronze sphere that it fails to overlap.

Therefore

D. The hunk of bronze is not a part of the bronze sphere.

Therefore

E. The composition of form and matter is not mereological. (Lowe, p. 7)

This raises the question of how exactly we are to understand form-matter composition. If the proximate matter of a substance cannot  be a part of it in any sense familiar to mereology, the form-matter composition is 'unmereological,' which is not necessarily an objection except that it raises the question of how exactly we are to understand this unmereological type of composition. This problem obviously extends to essence-existence composition.

3. Now let's look at the problem from the side of form. Could the spherical form of the bronze sphere be a part of it? A form is a principle of organization or arrangement, and it is not quite clear how an arrangement can be a part of the thing whose other parts it arranges. Lowe puts the point like this: ". . . the arrangement of certain parts cannot itself be one of those parts, as this would involve the very conception of an arrangement of parts in a fatal kind of impredicativity." (p. 7)

4. In sum, the difficulty is as follows. Form and matter are real 'principles' in compound substances. They are not projected or supplied by us. We can say that form and matter are ontological constituents of compound substances. This suggests that they are parts of compound substances. But we have just seen that they are not parts in any ordinary mereological sense. So this leaves us in the dark as to just what these 'principles' are and how they combine to constitute compound material substances.

Being Dead and Being Nonexistent, or: How to Cease to Exist without Dying

In general, being dead and being nonexistent are not the same 'property' for an obvious reason: only that which was once alive can properly be said to be dead, and not everything was once alive.  Nevertheless, it might be thought that, for living things, to be is to be alive, and not to be is to be dead.  But I think this Aristotelian view can be shown to be mistaken.

1. A human person cannot become dead except by dying.

2. But a human person can become nonexistent without dying in at least four ways. 

2a. The first way is by entering into irreversible coma.  Given that consciousness is an essential attribute of persons, a person who enters into irreversible coma ceases to exist.  But the person's body remains alive.  Therefore, a human person can cease to exist without dying. 

2b. The second way is by fission.  Suppose one human person A enters a Person Splitter and exits two physically and behaviorally and psychologically indiscernible persons, B and C.  B is not C.  So A is not B and A is not C.  What happened to A?  A ceased to exist.  But A didn't die.  Far from the life in A ceasing, the life in A doubled!  So human person A became nonexistent without dying.

2c.  The third way is by fusion.  Two dudes enter the Person Splicer from the east and exit to the west one dude.  The entrants have ceased to exist without dying.

2d.  The fourth way is theological.  Everything other than God depends on God for its very existence at every moment of its existence.  If God were to 'pull the plug' ontologically speaking on the entire universe of contingent beings, then at that instant all human persons would cease to exist without dying.  They would not suffer the process or the event of dying  but would enter nonexistence nonetheless.  Because they had not died, they could not be properly said to be dead.

Therefore, pace the Peripatetic,

3.  Being dead and being nonexistent are not the same  -- not even for living things.

(Time consumed in composing this post: 40 minutes. )

Ontological Analysis in Aristotle and Bergmann: Prime Matter Versus Bare Particulars

Hardly anyone reads Gustav Bergmann any more, but since I read everything, I read Bergmann. It is interesting to compare his style of ontological analysis with that of the great hylomorphic ontologists, Aristotle and Aquinas. The distinguished Aristotelian Henry B. Veatch does some of my work for me in a fine paper, "To Gustav Bergmann: A Humble Petition and Advice" in M.S.Gram and E.D.Klemke, eds. The Ontological Turn: Studies in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann (University of Iowa Press, 1974, pp. 65-85)

I want to focus on Veatch's comparison of Aristotle and Bergmann on the issue of prime matter/bare particulars. As Veatch correctly observes, "all of the specific functions which bare particulars perform in Bergmannian ontology are the very same functions as are performed by matter in Aristotle . . . ." (81) What are these functions?

A Battle of Titans: Plato Versus Aristotle

It is sometimes said that there are only two kinds of philosophers, Platonists and Aristotelians.  What follows is a quotation from Heinrich Heine which expresses one version of this useful simplification.  Carl Gustav Jung places it at the very beginning of his Psychological Types (Princeton UP, 1971, p. 2.)

Plato and Aristotle! These are not merely two systems: they are also types of two distinct human natures, which from time immemorial, under every sort of disguise, stand more or less inimically opposed. The whole medieval period in particular was riven by this conflict, which persists down to the present day, and which forms the most essential content of the history of the Christian Church. Although under other names, it is always of Plato and Aristotle that we speak. Visionary, mystical, Platonic natures disclose Christian ideas and their corresponding symbols from the fathomless depths of their souls. Practical, orderly, Aristotelian natures build out of these ideas and symbols a fixed system, a dogma and a cult. Finally, the Church eventually embraces both natures—one of them entrenched in the clergy, and the other in monasticism; but both keeping up a constant feud. ~ H. Heine, Deutschland

Plato, on the left carrying The Timaeus, points upwards while Aristotle, on the right carrying his Ethics, points either forward (thereby valorizing the 'horizontal' dimension of time and change as against Plato's 'vertical' gesture) or downwards (emphasizing the foundational status of sense particulars and sense knowledge.)  At least  five contrasts are suggested: vita contemplativa versus vita activa, mundus intelligibilis versus mundus sensibilis, transcendence versus immanence, eternity versus time, mystical unity versus rational-cum-empirical plurality.

Heine is right about the battle within Christianity between the Platonic and Aristotelian tendencies.  Trinity, Incarnation, Transubstantiation, Divine Simplicity -- these are at bottom mystical notions impervious to penetration by the discursive intellect as we have been lately observing.  Nevertheless,"Practical, orderly, Aristotelian natures build out of these ideas and symbols a fixed system, a dogma and a cult."  But the dogmatic constructions, no matter how clever and detailed, never succeed in rendering intelligible the  transintelligible, mystical contents.

Aquinas on Why Being Cannot Be a Genus

At 998b22 of his Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that being cannot be a genus. Thomas Aquinas gives his version of the argument in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, ch. 25, para. 6. I find the presentation of the doctor angelicus clearer than that of the philosophus. After quoting Thomas' argument, I will offer a rigorous reconstruction and explanation of it. The argument issues in an important conclusion, one highly relevant to my running battle with the partisans of the 'thin' conception of being.

The Anton C. Pegis translation reads as follows:

Now, that being cannot be a genus is proved by the Philosopher in the following way. If being were a genus we would have to find a difference to contract it to a species. But no difference shares in the genus in such a way that the genus is included in the notion of the difference, for thus the genus would be included twice in the definition of the species. Rather, the difference is outside what is understood in the nature of the genus. But there can be nothing that is outside that which is understood by being, if being is included in the concept of the things of which it is predicated. Thus, being cannot be contracted by any difference. Being is, therefore, not a genus. (127)

Quod autem ens non possit esse genus, probatur per Philosophum in hunc modum: Si ens esset genus, oporteret differentiam aliquam inveniri, per quam traheretur ad speciem; nulla autem differentia participat genus, ita scilicet quod genus sit in ratione differentiae; quia sic genus poneretur bis in diffinitione speciei. Sed oportet differentiam esse praeter id quod intellegitur in ratione generis. Nihil autem potest esse quod sit praeter id quod intelligitur per ens, si ens sit de intellectu eorum de quibus praedicatur; et sic per nullam differentiam contrahi potest. Relinquitur ergo quod ens non sit genus.

I think it best to reconstruct the argument as a reductio ad absurdum. In such a style of proof one attempts to derive a contradiction (a logical absurdity) from an assumption together with premises that are believed by the producer and the consumers of the argument to be incontrovertible. The emergence of a contradiction shows that the assumption is false.

I Get a Rise Out of Aristotle

Michael Gilleland, the Laudator Temporis Acti, in his part-time capacity as 'channel' of Aristotle, submits this delightful missive:

Dear Dr. Vallicella:

You wrote:

"Society and its various coercive and noncoercive arrangements exist for the sake of the individual and not the other way around. Given that the individual is the locus of value and the reason for the being of state and society, the latter cannot be ends in themselves, whence it follows that the political life, useful as it is, cannot be the highest life."

I once argued otherwise, in my Nicomachaean Ethics 1.2.8 (tr. H. Rackham):

"For even though it be the case that the Good is the same for the individual and for the state, nevertheless, the good of the state is manifestly a greater and more perfect good, both to attain and to preserve. To secure the good of one person only is better than nothing; but to secure the good of a nation or a state is a nobler and more divine achievement."

Regards,

Aristotle the Stagirite

Dear Aristotle,

I will begin by thanking your for your interest in my humble weblog. If it were not for you and your teacher Plato -- to whom, if I may say so, you do not accord sufficient respect in your otherwise outstanding writings -- none of us epigoni would be so much as thinkable. But now to the matter at hand.

You do indeed argue that politics is the master science of the good in Book I, Chapter 2 of your excellent Nicomachean Ethics, and you do indeed state at 1094b8 that the good of the state is nobler than the good of the individual. But I must remind you of what you say in the tenth and last Book of Eth. Nic. beginning in Chapter 6 and continuing until the concluding Chapter Nine. May I be so bold as to summarize the immortal thought of these inspiring chapters?

Chapter Six: Happiness and Activity. Happiness is a an active state, not one of passivity or amusement. Happiness, as the ultimate goal of human striving, cannot be identified with pleasure as certain 19th century English blockheads thought, and certainly not with bodily pleasures. (The German philosopher Nietzsche, whom you may have heard of, once quipped, "Man does not seek pleasure, only the Englishman does." I think you would approve of that line.) Happiness is an activity of the soul, not the body, in accordance with virtue.

Chapter Seven: Happiness, Intelligence, and the Contemplative Life. Now if happiness, eudaimonia, is an activity of the soul, an ergon of the psyche, in accordance with virtue or excellence, then it ought to be an activity in accordance with the highest virtue or excellence. You wisely distinguished the moral from the intellectual virtues and gave precedence to the latter. But among the intellectual virtues theoretical knowledge or contemplation, what you call theoria, stands in first place. Thus the highest life is the bios theoretikos, the life of theory, of contemplation, of philosophy. This is what your students in the Middle Ages called the vita contemplativa.

One of the arguments you give for the superiority of the theoretical life is the argument from sufficiency (1176b25 ff.) One who practices such virtues as justice, courage, and self-control needs other people. Thus a just legislator, a just judge, and a just executive requires other people as a condition of his virtuous behavior, a fact which brings in its train a lack of self-sufficiency. But he who follows the bios theoretikos needs little beyond the necessities of life. As you put it, "a wise man is able to study even by himself, and the wiser he is the more he is able to do so."

You go on to point out that the theoretical life is legitimately regarded as an end in itself and is a life of true leisure. By contrast, those who engage in military and political pursuits live in unleisurely and servile fashion, and insofar forth can do little to advance the cause of culture. As you point out, we are busy in order to have leisure just as we wage war for the sake of peace. The vita activa is for the sake of the vita contemplativa. Have you read Josef Pieper's Leisure The Basis of Culture? He does an excellent job of expounding this idea of yours. All neg-otiation, whether econonomic or political, is for the sake of otium, leisure. Sorry to employ the inferior language, Latin, but it is nearer to me and my readers than Greek.

Your view, then, is that the contemplative life stands higher than the political life. As the first to investigate logic systematically, you will not take it amiss if I set forth your view in a syllogism:

1. The highest activity is self-sufficient, an end in itself, and productive of the highest pleasure attainable.
2. Only theoretical, but not political, activity is self-sufficient, an end in itself, and productive of the highest pleasure attainable.
Therefore
3. The highest activity is theoretical, not political, activity.

Chapter Eight: The Advantages of the Contemplative Life. The contemplative life is the happiest life since it is the life in accordance with the best in us, nous or intelligence, that in us which make us godlike and self-sufficient.

Chapter Nine: Ethics and Politics. If I may say so, this chapter, something of a grab bag of tentative considerations, does not attain the level of the chapters I have just summarized, and indeed leaves unresolved a tension that you must have felt while composing the various parts of your excellent book.

Is politics the master science of the good, as you say in Book One, so that ethics is a branch of politics? That would seem to suggest that the good of the polis is superior to the good of the individual, and that the happiness and self-realization of the individual must be subordinated to the welfare of the state. But this conflicts with your plain commitment to the thesis that the theoretical life is superior to the political life, not to mention the economic life and the pleasure-seeking life.

I don't need to point out to you that the theoretical life is the individual life par excellence. Indeed, you underscore its solitariness and self-sufficiency as key advantages of it. It is not a group life. And its thinking is not group-think. Indeed, your god, the primum mobile (pardon the Latin!) is noesis noeseos, thought thinking itself, in your beautiful phrase. And you would be the first to admit that no group of thinkers is a thinker.

So I think there is a bit of a tension here. Is politics the master science of the good, or is ethics? Which is subordinated to which? You can't have it both ways, and I would resolve the tension by giving the palm to ethics and to the happiness of the individual. And I would do so invoking your authority!

If over the centuries you have come to any further conclusions on this weighty matter, I should like to hear them, either directly, or via the good graces of your acolyte the estimable Dr. Gilleland.

Yours in the love of wisdom,

MP

Wonder: Theaetetus 155 d with Aristotelian and Heideggerian Glosses

Plato puts the following words in the mouth of Socrates at Theaeteus 155 d (tr. Benjamin Jowett): "I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus had a true insight into your nature when he said that you were a philosopher, for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."

Aristotle echoes the Theaetetus passage at 982b12 of his Metaphysics: "It was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophize and still leads them." Martin Heidegger, commenting on both passages, writes in Was ist das — die Philosophie?:

Das Erstaunen ist als pathos die arche der Philosophie. Das griechische Wort arche muessen wir im vollen Sinne verstehen. Es nennt dasjenige, von woher etwas ausgeht. Aber dieses "von woher" wird im Ausgehen nicht zurueckgelassen, vielmehr wird die arche zu dem, was das Verbum archein sagt, zu solchem, was herrscht. Das pathos des Erstaunens steht nicht einfach so am Beginn der Philosophie wie z. B. der Operation des Chirurgen das Waschen der Haende voraufgeht. Das Erstaunen traegt und durchherrscht die Philosophie.

Retortion and Non-Contradiction in Aristotle, Metaphysics, Gamma 3, 4

Retortion is the philosophical procedure whereby one seeks to establish a thesis by uncovering a performative inconsistency in anyone who attempts to deny it. It is something like that benign form of ad hominem in which person A points out to person B that some proposition p that B maintains is inconsistent with some other proposition q that B maintains. "How can you maintain that p when your acceptance of p is logically ruled out by your acceptance of q? You are contradicting yourself!" This objection is to the man, or rather, to the man's doxastic system; it has no tendency to show that p is false. It shows merely that not all of B's beliefs can be true. But if the homo in question is Everyman, or every mind, then the objection gains in interest. Suppose there is a proposition that it is impossible for anyone (any rational agent) to deny; the question arises whether the undeniability or ineluctability of this proposition is a reason to consider it to be true. Does undeniability establish objective truth? Consider

A Protreptic Puzzler

A curious passage from Aristotle's Protrepticus:

. . . the fact that all men feel at ease in philosophy, wishing to dedicate their whole lives to the pursuit of it by leaving behind all other concerns, is in itself weighty evidence that it is a painless pleasure to dedicate oneself wholeheartedly to philosophy. For no one is willing to engage in exhausting work for a long time. (#53, p. 24)

To set the Stagirite straight, I should like to shunt his shade into some Philosophy 101 classroom for a spell.

Is Bradley's Regress Already in Aristotle?

At Metaphysics Zeta (Book VII, Chapter 17, Bekker 1041b10-30), there is a clear anticipation of Bradley's Regress and an interesting formulation of what may well count as the fundamental problem of metaphysics, the problem of unity. What follows is the W. D. Ross translation of the passage. It is a mess presumably because the underlying Greek text is a mess. The Montgomery Furth and Richard Hope translations are not much better. But the meaning is to me quite clear, and I will explain it after I cite the passage: