Abstract

In Object and Property, Arda Denkel tries to base metaphysics on perceivable objects—or, rather, to articulate an ontology saying what such particular objects really are. Basically, the world consists of Aristotelian substances, but, for Denkel, substances turn out to be bundles, or “compresences,” of properties, and properties themselves are asserted to be particulars. In the end, everything and everything’s “analytic constituents” are particular: objects are bundles of property occurrences having some necessary unity; pieces of matter are bundles of property occurrences which lack the unity of objects; and, finally, properties are particulars. Denkel’s aim, at least in part, is to avoid any temptation to posit either “mysterious” prime matter or universals.