An astute reader comments:
Allowing for multiple modes of being may lead to too many or infinitely many modes. Using your own example and oversimplifying on purpose: if the mode of being of the house made of bricks is different from that of the bricks, what prevents us from claiming that there are different modes of being for all other structures that could be made from these bricks? I think there should be explicit arguments against this motivation.
A side note/question: "no individual can be instantiated." You state this as a self evident truth. It would help if you elaborate on this point.
I have read your blog for over a year, mostly due to my interest in identity, existence and other basic notions that I consider fundamental. I respect your intellectual honesty and find your general reflections stimulating and deep but not dry.
1. My claim is not that a house, a corral, a wall, etc. made of the same bricks each has a different mode of being. These wholes have the same mode of being as each other. The claim is rather that certain types of whole -- not necessarily every type of whole -- possess a different mode of being than their parts.
In the argument I gave, I made the simplifying assumption that the bricks are simples. But of course they are not and so the argument can be iterated in their case assuming that each brick is a whole of parts of the same type as the whole of bricks. Iterating the argument 'all the way down' we come finally to simples which exist-independently while all the wholes 'on the way up' exist-dependently.
My concern is to legitimate the very idea of there being modes of being as against the analytical orthodoxy according to which there cannot be any such modes. I grant, however, that if the MOB doctrine led to an endless proliferation of modes then that upshot would strongly count against it.
2. "No individual can be instantiated." This follows if you accept the following definitions.
D1. X is an individual =df X has properties but is not itself a property.
D2. X is a property =df X is possibly such that it is instantiated.
Since no individual is a property and only properties can be instantiated, no individual can be instantiated. To be instantiated is to have an instance.
3. "I respect your intellectual honesty and find your general reflections stimulating and deep but not dry." I shall try to live up to that comment. Thank you!
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