Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

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

Hardly anyone reads Gustav Bergmann any more, but he is well worth reading. 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 versus 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?

1) One of the jobs bare particulars (BPs) perform is that of ontological individuator, in classical parlance, that of principium individuationis. Take a typical Bergmannian example, an 'Iowa example,' if you will.  There are two round, red spots on a piece of paper. The spots are identical in respect of size, shape, and (shade of) color. But there are two of them. On Bergmann's 'assay' of the situation, there are two particulars and three universals such that each of the particulars exemplifies all three universals. Since the spots are the same in respect of the universals they exemplify, there is need of a differentiating/individuating factor, and this is the particular 'in' each spot. But the particular in each spot is 'bare' in the sense that, in and by itself, it is propertyless. No doubt BPs exemplify properties and cannot exist without exemplifing properties; but in themselves they are bare of properties. But what does this mean exactly?

Although BPs exist only as exemplifying universals, there is nothing in the nature of a BP to dictate that it exemplify any particular universal: BPs have no nature. This is what makes them bare. BPs and first-order universals are promiscuously combinable, if you will. BPs, being in themselves devoid of properties, differ among themselves solo numero: their difference is bare numerical difference. This equips them to serve as the individuators or differentiators of 'ordinary' particulars which on Bergmann's assay are composites built up out of universals and bare particulars. BPs are the ontological grounds of numerical difference. Thus BPs do the same job that matter does in Aristotle.

You have not understood the notion of a bare particular if you think that they are bare of properties.  They cannot exist without properties.  Nothing can.  What makes them bare is that there is nothing in their nature to dictate which properties they have. 

2) A second job of bare particulars is to serve as substratum or support of properties. Properties are predicable entities; particulars are not. A bare particular 'in' an ordinary particular is the ontological ground of its being impredicable. For Veatch, Aristotelian matter plays a similar role: 

Likewise, for Aristotle, it is presumably just because primary substances are material that they are unable to be, as Aristotle says, either 'present in' or 'predicable of' a subject. But could one not say just the same thing of Bergmann's bare particulars? They are neither present in nor predicable of a subject. (81) 

3) Bare particulars are intrinsically indeterminate, but determinable, where universals function as determinations much as forms do for an Aristotelian. "In short, they [BPs] are to the characters [universals] which they exemplify much as potency is to act or as matter to form." (81)

Veatch Contra Bergmann

Veatch now lodges a reasonable complaint against Bergmann. How could "matter or bare particulars [be] among the ultimates that one arrives at in a process of analysis. . ."? "For how could anything which in itself is wholly indeterminate and characterless ever qualify as a 'thing' or 'existent' at all?" (81) On Bergmann's assay, an ordinary particular has more basic entities as its ontological constituents. But if one of these constituents is an intrinsically indeterminate and intrinsically characterless entity, how could said entity exist at all, let alone be a building block out of which an ordinary particular is constructed?

For Veatch, form and matter are not ontological atoms in the way bare particulars and simple universals are ontological atoms for Bergmann. "Matter and form are not beings so much as they are principles of being." (80) 'Principle' is one of those words Scholastics like to use.  Principles in this usage are not  propositions.  They are ontological factors invoked in the analysis of primary substances, but they are not themselves primary substances. They cannot exist on their own.  Let me try to make Veatch's criticism as clear as I can.

An ordinary particular is a this-such. The thisness in a this-such is the determinable element while the suchness is the determination or set of determinations. Veatch's point against Bergmann is not that ordinary particulars are not composites, this-suches, or that the thisness in a this-such is not indeterminate yet determinable; his point is that the determinable element cannot be an ontological atom, an entity more basic than the composite into which it enters as ontological building block. The determinable element cannot be a basic existent; it must be a principle of a basic existent, where the basic existent is the this-such.

This implies, contra Bergmann, that what is ontologically primary is the individual substance, the this-such, which entails that matter and form in an individual substance cannot exist apart from each other. They are in some sense 'abstractions' from the individual substance. The form in a material this-such is not merely tied to matter in general, in the way that Bergmannian first-order universals are tied to bare particulars in general; the form is tied to the very matter of the this-such in question. And the same goes for the matter: the designated matter (materia signata) of Socrates cannot exist apart from Socrates' substantial form.

Veatch says that Bergmann cannot have it both ways: "His bare particulars cannot at one and the same time be utterly bare and characterless in the manner of Aristotelian prime matter and yet also be 'things' and 'existents' in the manner of Aristotelian substances." (82-83)

Tentative Assessment

Veatch's point against Bergmann has merit, and I believe it can be adapted as a criticism of David Armstrong's thin particulars.  There is no difference that I can see between a Bergmannian BP and an Armstrongian TP.  (Armstrong gives no evidence of having read Bergmann carefully, so I discount his claim that his TPs are different from Bergmann's BPs.) 

But is Veatch's view really any better? What is the ontological status of his 'principles' form and matter?  Their status is unclear.  They cannot exist on their own, nor can they have the 'building block' status of Bergmann's ontological atoms.  Thus they don't 'promiscuously combine' as Bermann's BPs and first-order universals do.  So in some sense they are abstractions isolated by the mind of the ontologist.  And yet they have a fundamentum in re.

They therefore seem as murky as Bergmann's bare particulars.  And so we hit another impasse.

Hardly anyone reads Gustav Bergmann any more, but he is well worth reading. 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 versus 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?

1) One of the jobs bare particulars (BPs) perform is that of ontological individuator, in classical parlance, that of principium individuationis. Take a typical Bergmannian example, an 'Iowa example,' if you will.  There are two round, red spots on a piece of paper. The spots are identical in respect of size, shape, and (shade of) color. But there are two of them. On Bergmann's 'assay' of the situation, there are two particulars and three universals such that each of the particulars exemplifies all three universals. Since the spots are the same in respect of the universals they exemplify, there is need of a differentiating/individuating factor, and this is the particular 'in' each spot. But the particular in each spot is 'bare' in the sense that, in and by itself, it is propertyless. No doubt BPs exemplify properties and cannot exist without exemplifing properties; but in themselves they are bare of properties. But what does this mean exactly?

Although BPs exist only as exemplifying universals, there is nothing in the nature of a BP to dictate that it exemplify any particular universal: BPs have no nature. This is what makes them bare. BPs and first-order universals are promiscuously combinable, if you will. BPs, being in themselves devoid of properties, differ among themselves solo numero: their difference is bare numerical difference. This equips them to serve as the individuators or differentiators of 'ordinary' particulars which on Bergmann's assay are composites built up out of universals and bare particulars. BPs are the ontological grounds of numerical difference. Thus BPs do the same job that matter does in Aristotle.

You have not understood the notion of a bare particular if you think that they are bare of properties.  They cannot exist without properties.  Nothing can.  What makes them bare is that there is nothing in their nature to dictate which properties they have. 

2) A second job of bare particulars is to serve as substratum or support of properties. Properties are predicable entities; particulars are not. A bare particular 'in' an ordinary particular is the ontological ground of its being impredicable. For Veatch, Aristotelian matter plays a similar role: 

Likewise, for Aristotle, it is presumably just because primary substances are material that they are unable to be, as Aristotle says, either 'present in' or 'predicable of' a subject. But could one not say just the same thing of Bergmann's bare particulars? They are neither present in nor predicable of a subject. (81) 

3) Bare particulars are intrinsically indeterminate, but determinable, where universals function as determinations much as forms do for an Aristotelian. "In short, they [BPs] are to the characters [universals] which they exemplify much as potency is to act or as matter to form." (81)

Veatch Contra Bergmann

Veatch now lodges a reasonable complaint against Bergmann. How could "matter or bare particulars [be] among the ultimates that one arrives at in a process of analysis. . ."? "For how could anything which in itself is wholly indeterminate and characterless ever qualify as a 'thing' or 'existent' at all?" (81) On Bergmann's assay, an ordinary particular has more basic entities as its ontological constituents. But if one of these constituents is an intrinsically indeterminate and intrinsically characterless entity, how could said entity exist at all, let alone be a building block out of which an ordinary particular is constructed?

For Veatch, form and matter are not ontological atoms in the way bare particulars and simple universals are ontological atoms for Bergmann. "Matter and form are not beings so much as they are principles of being." (80) 'Principle' is one of those words Scholastics like to use.  Principles in this usage are not  propositions.  They are ontological factors invoked in the analysis of primary substances, but they are not themselves primary substances. They cannot exist on their own.  Let me try to make Veatch's criticism as clear as I can.

An ordinary particular is a this-such. The thisness in a this-such is the determinable element while the suchness is the determination or set of determinations. Veatch's point against Bergmann is not that ordinary particulars are not composites, this-suches, or that the thisness in a this-such is not indeterminate yet determinable; his point is that the determinable element cannot be an ontological atom, an entity more basic than the composite into which it enters as ontological building block. The determinable element cannot be a basic existent; it must be a principle of a basic existent, where the basic existent is the this-such.

This implies, contra Bergmann, that what is ontologically primary is the individual substance, the this-such, which entails that matter and form in an individual substance cannot exist apart from each other. They are in some sense 'abstractions' from the individual substance. The form in a material this-such is not merely tied to matter in general, in the way that Bergmannian first-order universals are tied to bare particulars in general; the form is tied to the very matter of the this-such in question. And the same goes for the matter: the designated matter (materia signata) of Socrates cannot exist apart from Socrates' substantial form.

Veatch says that Bergmann cannot have it both ways: "His bare particulars cannot at one and the same time be utterly bare and characterless in the manner of Aristotelian prime matter and yet also be 'things' and 'existents' in the manner of Aristotelian substances." (82-83)

Tentative Assessment

Veatch's point against Bergmann has merit, and I believe it can be adapted as a criticism of David Armstrong's thin particulars.  There is no difference that I can see between a Bergmannian BP and an Armstrongian TP.  (Armstrong gives no evidence of having read Bergmann carefully, so I discount his claim that his TPs are different from Bergmann's BPs.) 

But is Veatch's view really any better? What is the ontological status of his 'principles' form and matter?  Their status is unclear.  They cannot exist on their own, nor can they have the 'building block' status of Bergmann's ontological atoms.  Thus they don't 'promiscuously combine' as Bermann's BPs and first-order universals do.  So in some sense they are abstractions isolated by the mind of the ontologist.  And yet they have a fundamentum in re.

They therefore seem as murky as Bergmann's bare particulars.  And so we hit another impasse.

A 'Letter' from Aristotle and My Reply

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 must begin by thanking you 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