I have already shown that the concept prime matter is a limit concept. The same holds for the concept bare particular. Both are lower limits of ontological analysis. I will be using 'bare particular' in Gustav Bergmann's sense.
What is a Particular?
Particulars in the sense relevant to understanding 'bare particular' may be understood in terms of impredicability. Some things can be predicated of other things. Thus being black can be predicated of my cat, and being a property can be predicated of being black; but my cat cannot be predicated of anything. My cat is in this sense 'impredicable.' Particulars are subjects of predication but cannot themselves be predicated. Particulars, then, are ultimate subjects of predication. Thus my cat is an ultimate subject of predication unlike being black which is a subject of predication, but not an ultimate subject of predication. Particulars have properties but are not themselves properties. Properties may be characterized as predicable entities. The particulars I am referring to are of course concrete particulars. They are not those abstract particulars known in the trade as tropes. (This curious nomenclature derives from Donald C. Williams. It has nothing to do with tropes in the literary sense.) A trope is a particularized property; better: a property assayed as a particular, an unrepeatable, as opposed to a universal, a repeatable entity. Unrepeatability is the mark of particulars, whether concrete or abstract.
What is a Bare Particular?
First, what it is not. It is a complete misunderstanding to suppose that philosophers who speak of bare or thin particulars, philosophers as otherwise different in their views as Gustav Bergmann, David Armstrong, and J. P. Moreland, mean to suggest that there are particulars that have no properties and stand in no relations. There is no such monstrosity as a bare particular in this sense. What makes a bare particular bare is not its having no properties, but the way it has the properties it has.
A bare particular is a particular that lacks a nature or (real) essence. It is therefore quite unlike an Aristotelian primary substance. Every such substance has or rather is an individual nature. But while lacking a nature, a bare particular has properties, and it cannot not have them. This 'having' is understood in terms of the asymmetrical external nexus of exemplification. A bare particular is thus tied to its properties by the external nexus of exemplification. To say that the nexus that ties a to F-ness is external is to say that there is nothing in the nature of a, and nothing in the nature of F-ness to require that a exemplify F-ness. After all, a, as bare, lacks a nature, and F-ness, while it has a nature, is not such that there is anything in it to necessitate its being exemplified by a. In this sense a bare particular and its properties are external to each other. So, while it is necessary that bare particulars have properties, none of the properties a bare particular has is essential to it.
This mutual externality of property to bearer entails promiscuous combinability: any bare particular can exemplify any property, and any property can be exemplified by any bare particular.
Similarities between Bare Particulars and Prime Matter
S1. Bare particulars in themselves are property-less while prime matter in itself is formless. The bare particular in a thing is that which exemplifies the thing's properties. But in itself it is a pure particular and thus 'bare.' The prime matter of a thing is the thing's ultimate matter and while supporting forms is itself formless.
S2. Bare particulars, though property-less in themselves, exemplify properties; prime matter, though formless in itself, is formed.
S3. There is nothing in the nature of a bare particular to dictate which properties it will exemplify. This is because bare particulars do not have natures. Correspondingly, there is nothing in the nature of prime matter to dictate which substantial forms it will take. This is because prime matter, in itself, is without form.
S4. Bare particulars, being bare, are promiscuously combinable with any and all first-level properties. Thus any bare particular can stand in the exemplification nexus with any first-level property. Similarly, prime matter is promiscuously receptive to any and all forms, having no form in itself.
S5. Promiscuous combinability entails the contingency of the exemplification nexus. Promiscuous receptivity entails the contingency of prime matter's being informed thus and so.
S6. Bare particulars are never directly encountered in sense experience. The same holds for prime matter. What we encounter are always propertied particulars and formed matter.
S7. A bare particular combines with properties to make an ordinary, 'thick' particular. Prime matter combines with substantial form to make a primary substance.
S8. The dialectic that leads to bare particulars and prime matter respectively is similar, a form of analysis that is neither logical nor physical but ontological. It is based on the idea that things have ontological constituents or 'principles' which, incapable of existing on their own, yet combine to from independent existents. Hylomorphic analysis leads ultimately to prime matter, and ontological analysis in the style of Bergmann and fellow travellers leads to bare or thin particulars as ultimate substrata.
Differences Between Bare Particulars and Prime Matter
D1. There are many bare particulars each numerically different from every other one. They differ, not property-wise, but solo numero. In themselves, bare particulars are many. It is not the case that, in itself, prime matter is many. It is not, in itself, parceled out into numerically distinct bits.
D2. Bare particulars are actual; prime matter is purely potential.
D3. Bare particulars account for numerical difference. But prime matter does not account for numerical difference. (See Feser's manual, p. 199) Prime matter is common and wholly indeterminate. Designated matter (materia signata) is the principle of individuation, i.e., differentiation.
Bare Particular as Limit Concept in the Positive Sense
It is obvious that the concept of bare particular, in the early Bergmann at least, is a limit concept. (The item-sort distinction in the later Bergmann of New Foundations of Ontology complicates matters.) But is the limit concept bare particular negative or positive? There is no prime matter in itself, which fact makes the concept of prime matter a limit concept in the negative sense: the concept does not point to anything real beyond itself but merely sets a limit to our hylomorphic analysis of the real. Should we say the same about the concept of bare particular? Not in Bergmann's constituent ontology. If an ordinary concrete particular -- a round red spot to use an 'Iowa' example -- is built up out of more basic constituents, then the 'building blocks' must be real.
Comments