Abstract
What is the Bare Particular Theory? Is it committed, like the Bundle Theory, to a constituent ontology: according to which a substance’s qualities—and according to the Bare Particular Theory, its substratum also—are proper parts of the substance? I argue that Bare Particularists need not, should not, and—if a recent objection to ‘the Bare Particular Theory’ (Andrew Bailey’s ‘New Objection’) succeeds—cannot endorse a constituent ontology. There is nothing, I show, in the motivations for Bare Particularism or the principles that distinguish Bare Particularism from rival views that entails a constituent ontology. I outline a version of Bare Particularism that in rejecting a constituent ontology avoids the New Objection. I argue against Theodore Sider that this really is a distinct theory to the version of Bare Particularism that endorses a constituent ontology, and not a mere terminological variant. I show that this, the best version of the Bare Particular Theory, is also defensible against the old objections.
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Notes
I will say more about Locke’s discussion, and substantiate this interpretation, in footnote 15.
Gustav Bergmann, who introduced the term ‘bare particular,’ was a constituent ontologist: see Bergmann (1967). The view that ‘The Bare Particular Theory’ refers only to Bergmann’s precise position and any theory that differs in any detail from Bergmann’s doesn’t merit the name would clearly be misguided though. A theory with the same core content is a version of Bare Particularism. The core content of the theory can be determined by examining the motivations behind the theory and its position in relation to other theories in the space of possible theories. At the end of the day I am willing to call the view I will defend here ‘the Bare Particular Theory*’. But I think the considerations of Sects. 2 and 5 show that the ‘*’ is not needed.
Bailey says a ‘non-mereological’ constituent. But Sider’s characterisation of Bare Particularism takes substrata and qualities to be ordinary mereological parts.
Although I find it pretty persuasive, I am not assuming that this objection definitively refutes the position it targets. Bailey considers a couple of replies to his objection. One distinguishes between two ways of having properties, and maintains that two co-located things that have the same properties but in different ways don’t present a problem. Wildman (2014) elaborates this reply and defends it against Bailey’s rejoinder.
Zimmerman, Robert. ‘Masters of War’ The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Columbia Records. 1963.
If qualities are universals, that is. If qualities are tropes the problem for the Bundle Theory is explaining the similarity of distinct substances [see Allaire (1963), p. 1]. Positing universals in addition to tropes solves both problems, but makes for an ontology that is no more parsimonious than Bare Particularism’s two category ontology.
The ‘Haecceity Theory’ I discuss is the theory Rosenkrantz (1993) defends that defines the identity of particulars in terms of haecceities; rather than anti-essentialist ‘haecceitism’ [see for e.g. Mackie, who describes the ‘extreme haecceitism’ she argues for as involving a commitment ‘to something like ‘bare particulars’’ (Mackie 2006, p. 154)].
Strictly speaking (see below), part of a bundle of compresent properties, or part of a ‘bundle’ in the sense of ‘compresent collection’ of properties.
Nathan Wildman argues that Bare Particularists should hold that a substance’s substratum bears the substance’s qualities, because this allows an account of the ‘unity’ (Wildman 2014, pp. 3–4) of the substance’s qualities. I think what is meant by this is an account of the co-instantiation of the substance’s qualities. Interestingly, Wildman denies that Bare Particularists, just to count as such, must hold that a substance’s substratum bears the substance’s qualities. He envisages a version of Bare Particularism which deploys substrata solely in the role of individuators. I am denying Bare Particularists must hold one supposedly defining tenet of Bare Particularism (THE CONSTITUENT THESIS). But the supposedly defining tenet that a substance’s qualities are borne by its substratum seems to me to be non-negotiable. The view Wildman envisages posits a substratum as an additional proper part of a bundle of qualities that plays no special role in the account of instantiation. But this view’s account of instantiation then is the Bundle Theory’s account, and this would have it that the additional part—a part in just the same way the qualities are parts—is instantiated by the substance. Yes, this additional part is not a universal. But neither is a haecceity a universal. I suggest that the envisaged view is just the Haecceity Theory.
See footnote 11 above however. There is an alleged version of Bare Particularism that doesn’t hold this. This position de-mystifies instantiation just if the Bundle Theory does. I will argue in a moment though that the Bundle Theory doesn’t actually de-mystify instantiation.
This is a familiar point. See Sider (2006, p. 389).
I could also call it the ‘Lockean Theory’. The account of substances Locke considers in (1975, II, xxiii) identifies a substance and its substratum: ‘we accustom ourselves, to suppose some substratum, wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result, which therefore we call substance’ (1975, II, xxiii, Sect. 1). Locke says that the (complex) idea of a particular kind of substance is constituted by the ideas of the substance’s qualities and the ‘confused’ idea of a substratum (Sect. 3). But the relation between a substance and a substratum, if this confused idea is an idea of anything at all, is identity, not part-hood. Although Locke also speaks of qualities ‘subsist[ing] [in]’ and ‘existing in’ (Sect. 3) substances/substrata, he cannot mean existing in as parts. ‘…we cannot conceive, how [qualities] should subsist alone, nor one in another’ (Sect. 4) he says. The substance that ‘supports’ (Sects. 2, 4) the substance’s qualities, then, isn’t simply constituted by them, and of course it isn’t constituted by the qualities plus a substratum because the substratum just is the substance.
This interpretation of Locke echoes Korman (2010). Korman’s ‘deflationary interpretation’ has it that for Locke ‘the relationship between substrata and associated particular substances themselves is one of identity’ (63). I refer readers to this article for arguments that support the attribution of something like the Identity Theory to Locke, and for considerations bearing on the understanding of and plausibility of the Identity Theory. (Thank you to an anonymous referee for drawing it to my attention.)
Substances are not thick particulars according to Sider’s definition of ‘thick particular’, I maintain. But the terms ‘thick particular’ and ‘thin particular’ have been used by David Armstrong (see Armstrong 1978, p. 114) to mean something else. As I understand Armstrong ‘thick particular’ and ‘thin particular’ are terms with different senses but which stand for the same thing, like ‘Superman’ and ‘Clark Kent’. I’m not sure how helpful Armstrong’s terminology is but the view he uses it to express in (Armstrong 1978) seems to be something like the Identity Theory.
Mackie’s ‘extreme haecceitism’ (see footnote 4) accepts the first scenario—that a tomato could have been a tiger—as a possibility; but Mackie refrains from insisting the second scenario—that a tomato could become a tiger—is possible.
(Author, article date pp) goes further, mistakenly I now think, than I wish to here, in taking the Bare Particular Theory to entail that a tomato could become a bare particular.
Sider notes but doesn’t accept the objection that Armstrong’s theory imposes ‘an ad hoc restriction on an otherwise liberal combinatorial component to our modal thinking’ (2006, p. 393).
And compare Priest (2005).
Compare Williamson (2013, pp. 19–20).
This doesn’t mean there are no fictional horses and fictional detectives (see Author, article date and Priest 2005).
Compare the version of essentialism Williamson suggests is compatible with the view that every substance could have been a non-concrete bare possibilium, according to which ‘a tiger is essentially if concrete a tiger’ (2013, p. 8).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Nathan Wildman, Christopher Buckels, James Levine, Antti Kauppinen, Meredith Plug and an anonymous Philosophical Studies referee for helpful comments on drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank Fiona Macpherson, Peter Simons, Markus Schlosser, James O'Shea and participants at the IPC conference in Drogheda 2014 for helpful questions and suggestions.
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Connolly, N. Yes: Bare Particulars!. Philos Stud 172, 1355–1370 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0353-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0353-5