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Exemplification and Constituent Realism: A Clarification and Modest Defense

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Abstract

In this article I present and (modestly) defend a hybrid position which we may call a Platonist constituent ontology. More specifically, I present a version of exemplification which entails (1) a certain form of Platonism, (2) a constituent ontology of ordinary objects, (3) a view of exemplification as a “tiedto” nexus, and (4) a view of properties as abstract objects that are non-spatially “in” ordinary objects. I clarify two sets of preliminary issues, present my hybrid analysis of exemplification, raise and seek to undercut an argument against my constituent realism, and surface some of the costs and benefits relevant to assessing the relative merits of relational versus constituent realism.

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Notes

  1. See Moreland (2001).

  2. See Garcia (2009).

  3. Garcia, p. 42.

  4. Garcia, p. 56.

  5. See Moreland (1989, 1997).

  6. Wolterstorff (1970), Loux (2006).

  7. Gould (2010).

  8. Armstrong (1989).

  9. See Moreland, Universals, pp. 53–73, 83–96.

  10. See Moreland (2002), Husserl (1970, 1982).

  11. LI Vol. I, pp. 332, 337, 340; LI Vol. II, pp. 441, 446–447, 453; Ideas I, pp. 7–8. Cf. LI Vol. II, pp. 773–815.

  12. LI Vol. I, pp. 340, 357, 361, 379; Ideas I, p. xxi.

  13. LI Vol. I, pp. 337, 340, 357, 389, 390–391.

  14. LI Vol. I, pp. 337, 357, 383.

  15. LI Vol. I, pp. 337, 339–340, 357, 377, 379; LI Vol II, p. 482; Ideas I, pp. 8, 25.

  16. Ideas I, pp. 39–40.

  17. Moreland (2003).

References

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Paul Gould and Dallas Willard for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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  1. Biola University, La Mirada, CA, 90639, USA

    James Porter Moreland

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  1. James Porter Moreland
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Correspondence to James Porter Moreland.

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Moreland, J.P. Exemplification and Constituent Realism: A Clarification and Modest Defense. Axiomathes 23, 247–259 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-011-9148-x

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