In this volume, John Bacon argues that it is difficult to deny the existence of particularized properties and relations, which in modern philosophy are sometimes called `tropes'. In so doing, he advances a powerful and sophisticated metaphysical theory according to which both ordinary particulars and properties and relations are bundles of tropes.

The theory of events as property-instances has been considered one of the most widely accepted metaphysical theories of events. On the other hand, several philosophers claim that if both events and objects perdure, then objects must be identified with events. In this work, I investigate whether these two views can be held together. I shall argue that if they can, it depends on the particular theory of instantiation one is to adopt. In particular, I shall conclude that the (...) theory of events as property-instances and the view that identifies objects with events can be held together only if instances of eventive universals are temporal parts of objects – namely, those temporal parts that have the universals in question. (shrink)

This book is a systematic study of the uses of tropes in metaphysics. By a trope Bacon says he understands either a thing’s having a property or the property as localized to that thing. Bacon believes that entities belonging to the following ontological categories, among others, may all be constructed out of tropes: individuals, universals, states of affairs, and possible worlds. Evidently, if you have tropes, the other categories are all de trop. Bacon also uses trope theory to (...) provide analyses of time, causation, belief, and duty. (shrink)

This book is a systematic study of the uses of tropes in metaphysics. By a trope Bacon says he understands either a thing’s having a property or the property as localized to that thing. Bacon believes that entities belonging to the following ontological categories, among others, may all be constructed out of tropes: individuals, universals, states of affairs, and possible worlds. Evidently, if you have tropes, the other categories are all de trop. Bacon also uses trope theory to (...) provide analyses of time, causation, belief, and duty. (shrink)

This book is a systematic study of the uses of tropes in metaphysics. By a trope Bacon says he understands either a thing’s having a property or the property as localized to that thing. Bacon believes that entities belonging to the following ontological categories, among others, may all be constructed out of tropes: individuals, universals, states of affairs, and possible worlds. Evidently, if you have tropes, the other categories are all de trop. Bacon also uses trope theory to (...) provide analyses of time, causation, belief, and duty. (shrink)

This thesis explores the prospects of a distinction between subjective and objective properties in terms of how they are instantiated. While there are many ways in which the subjective can be separated from the objective, the one that interests me here is the difference between properties instantiated subjectively and properties instantiated objectively. The idea is that in some cases what makes it so that object o has the property p is what a thinking subject thinks of it or how (...) she reacts to it, while in other cases what makes it so that o has p has nothing to do with what the subject thinks or does. In the first kind of case, the instantiation of the property is mind-dependent, or subjective, and in the second kind of case the instantiation is mind-independent, or objective. I examine ways to draw a distinction between subjective and objective properties in this sense and defend the possibility of such a distinction against conceivable threats. I then go on to arguing that instead of sorting properties into two groups, subjective and objective, it is more fruitful to think of them as on a continuum ranging from entirely subjective to entirely objective. While there may be cases of properties that are entirely objective, i.e. instantiated only objectively, finding entirely subjective properties if more difficult. Candidates for subjective properties do not seem to be exclusively subjective; i.e. they are instantiated objectively to some extent. I use color as a paradigm case to argue for my account of properties whose instantiation is partly objective and partly subjective. I then go on to arguing that all sensory properties should be treated as color in this respect. (shrink)

Thomas Polger and Lawrence Shapiro (or P&S) have recently (2008) criticized ?causal-mechanist? views of realization that dominate research in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics of science. P&S offer the internal criticism that any account of realization focusing upon property instances, as views of causal-mechanist realization routinely do, must lead to incoherence about multiple realization. P&S's argument highlights important issues about property instances that have recently been neglected, as well as raising a challenge to the standard (...) approach to understanding the non-causal relations between properties and their instances in the sciences. In response, I clarify some important background issues about property instances and their relations to properties which show why P&S's main argument fails. In addition, I provide a second reason to doubt their argument by highlighting reasons to think that instances, as well as properties, are plausibly sometimes multiply realized in the sciences. (shrink)

A framework for representing a specific kind of emergent property instance is given. A solution to a generalized version of the exclusion argument is then provided and it is shown that upwards and downwards causation is unproblematical for that kind of emergence. One real example of this kind of emergence is briefly described and the suggestion made that emergence may be more common than current opinions allow.

Is property-awareness constituted by representation or not? If it were, merely being aware of the qualities of physical objects would involve being in a representational state. This would have considerable implications for a prominent view of the nature of successful perceptual experiences. According to naïve realism, any such experience—or more specifically its character—is fundamentally a relation of awareness to concrete items in the environment. Naïve realists take their view to be a genuine alternative to representationalism, the view on which (...) the character of such experiences is constituted by representation. But naïve realists must admit qualities or property instances as items of awareness if they are to remain wedded to common sense, and the nature of property-awareness may smuggle constitutive representation into the naïve realist account of character. I argue that whether property-awareness involves representation, and consequently whether naïve realism is distinct from representationalism or not, depends on what qualities are fundamentally. On universalist and nominalist accounts, property-awareness turns out to involve representation. Not so under tropism. (shrink)

Property rights of personal data have been advocated for some time. From the perspective of economics of law some argued that they could lower transaction costs for contracts involving personal data. This may be the case, but new transaction costs are introduced by propertization and the issue has not been settled. In this paper, I focus on a different and potentially more important aspect. In the actual situation, data collectors externalize costs and internalize benefits. An ownership regime that enables (...) every citizen to hold a personal data account, like a bank account, and that gives people ownership rights over secondary use of personal data could correct these misallocations. I hope to shed new light on the normative implications of the issue by offering normative justifications for property rights of personal data (Sections 2–4). Secondly, I present fundamental goals and building blocks of a property regime of personal data (Section 5) and, thirdly, I illustrate how income from personal data ownership could for instance contribute to financing pensions under proper regulation (Section 6). (shrink)

Property rights of personal data have been advocated for some time. From the perspective of economics of law some argued that they could lower transaction costs for contracts involving personal data. This may be the case, but new transaction costs are introduced by propertization and the issue has not been settled. In this paper, I focus on a different and potentially more important aspect. In the actual situation, data collectors externalize costs and internalize benefits. An ownership regime that enables (...) every citizen to hold a personal data account, like a bank account, and that gives people ownership rights over secondary use of personal data could correct these misallocations. I hope to shed new light on the normative implications of the issue by offering normative justifications for property rights of personal data (Sections 2–4). Secondly, I present fundamental goals and building blocks of a property regime of personal data (Section 5) and, thirdly, I illustrate how income from personal data ownership could for instance contribute to financing pensions under proper regulation (Section 6). (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a puzzle that emerges from what J. P. Moreland has called the traditional realist view of quality instances. Briefly put, the puzzle is to figure out how quality instances fit into the overall structure of a concrete particular, given that the traditional realist view of quality instances prima facie seems incompatible with what might be called the traditional realist view of concrete particulars. After having discussed the traditional realist views involved and the (...) puzzle that emerges from their juxtaposition, I propose an alternative realist view of quality instances which resolves the puzzle. In short, the puzzle is solved by treating the distinction between a concrete particular and its quality instances as a distinction of reason, and by adopting the view that the individuating element of a concrete particular must also serve as its unifying element – a view which Moreland, one of traditional realism’s most stalwart contemporary defenders, rejects. (shrink)

The consensus is that novels can be fully appreciated only through an experiential engagement with their well-formed instances. But what are the entities that serve as such instances? According to the orthodox view, these entities are primarily inscriptions—concrete texts written or printed on something or displayed on the screen of some electronic device. In this paper, I argue that this view is misguided, since well-formed instances of a novel must manifest certain sonic properties, but such properties cannot (...) be manifested by inscriptions. As an alternative, I put forward the view that the entities that serve as well-formed instances of novels are readings and sums of readings and graphic elements. (shrink)

Visual perception is widely taken to present properties such as redness, roundness, and so on. This in turn might be thought to give rise to accuracy conditions for experience, and so content, regardless of which metaphysical view of perception one endorses. An influential version of this argument—Susanna Siegel’s ’Argument from Appearing’—aims to establish the existence of content as common ground between representational and relational views of perception. This goes against proponents of ‘austere’ relationalism who deny that content plays a substantive (...) role in philosophical explanations of conscious perceptual experience. Though Siegel’s argument purports to be neutral with respect to the metaphysics of perception, it relies upon an equivocation between the presentation of property-types and property-instances. Consequently, the argument begs the question against the austere relational view, and so fails to establish the desired conclusion. So while relationalists can and should allow that experiences have accuracy conditions, it does not follow from this that they have contents of any philosophically interesting or significant kind. (shrink)

A critical but underdeveloped part of the libertarian debate about immigration is the question of who, if anyone, owns public property, and the consequences of the answer to this question. Libertarians who favor restrictive immigration policies, such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe, argue that taxpayers own public property, and that the state, while it is in control of such property, should manage it on behalf of taxpayers in the same way private owners would manage their own property. In (...) other words, it should be quite selective about who may enter. Walter Block, who takes an “open borders” position, does not appear to dispute the claim that taxpayers own public property, but nevertheless argues that immigrants are entitled to ignore the state’s control of, and thus may freely enter, such property. In this article I explore the question of public property ownership using Rothbardian property rights principles. I conclude that, at least with respect to a particular type of public property, neither Hoppe’s nor Block’s reasoning is consistent with these principles. I also consider the idea that the state ought to have a role in managing public property in light of some libertarian anarchist ideas about the state. I conclude that supporting a legitimate role for the state as an immigration gatekeeper is inconsistent with Rothbardian and Hoppean libertarian anarchism, as well as with the associated strategy of advocating always and in every instance reductions in the state’s role in society. (shrink)

Should property owners have a unique right to express their opinion just because they own property? While current law recognizes owners’ rights to express their voices in certain instances, it does not provide comprehensive and coherent answers to this question. This article provides an analytical framework for recognizing the owners’ right to voice as an independent property entitlement within the owners’ property bundle of rights and delineates its boundaries. Yet even when the owners’ voice is (...) property-dependent, there is a difference between voice that facilitates the realization of another property entitlement (such as the right to exclude, use, or trade) and voice that is constitutive to ownership in and of itself. Only the latter instances justify recognition of the owners’ right to a voice as an independent property entitlement. By examining different branches of both tangible and intellectual property law, such as inheritance law, eminent domain, homeowners’ association law, zoning law, and copyright law, this article demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed analytical framework in explaining certain parts of the current law and suggests modifications of other parts. (shrink)

We give three counterexamples to the folklore claim that in an arbitrary theory, if a complete type p over a set B does not divide over $C\subseteq B$, then no extension of p to a complete type over $\operatorname {acl}(B)$ divides over C. Two of our examples are also the first known theories where all sets are extension bases for nonforking, but forking and dividing differ for complete types (answering a question of Adler). One example is an $\mathrm {NSOP}_1$ theory (...) with a complete type that forks, but does not divide, over a model (answering a question of d’Elbée). Moreover, dividing independence fails to imply M-independence in this example (which refutes another folklore claim). In addition to these counterexamples, we summarize various related properties of dividing that are still true. We also address consequences for previous literature, including an earlier unpublished result about forking and dividing in free amalgamation theories, and some claims about dividing in the theory of generic $K_{m,n}$ -free incidence structures. (shrink)

Attention has been drawn, particularly since Kant, to propositions which can not have negative instances. They used to be called a priori, axioms, first principles. Today, they are usually called postulates—C. I. Lewis uses both the old and new terminology—because there is a growing recognition of the fact that at least some of them are not “necessary” in the traditional sense. Kant placed a limitation on the apriorism of the continental rationalists. Current epistemologists and logicians have outstripped Kant in (...) the direction signalled by him. Both he and they, however, concur in the opinion that apriori propositions are subject to negation of a sort. The Kantian dinge-an-sich, though they can not contradict these propositions by being negative instances of them, do nevertheless stand to them in the relation of insubordination, thereby exerting on them a “negative action” of a sort. And, according to current views, there are instances which, though they fall outside the range of significance of a proposition or system and hence can not contradict it, do nevertheless tend to bring about a revision of it by a negative action of some sort. The purpose of this brief essay is to coin a convenient name for such instances and to describe certain properties of their peculiar negative action. (shrink)

If artworks and their aesthetic properties stand in constitutive relationships to historical context and circumstances, so that some understanding of relevant facts is involved in responding to a work, what becomes of the intuitive view that we see artworks and at least some of their aesthetic properties? This question is raised by arguments in both aesthetics and art history for the historical nature of works of art. The paper argues that the answer needs to take philosophy of perception into account. (...) The principal development that has shaped philosophy of perception in the last thirty years—explaining perceptual experience in terms of contents that represent that such-and-such is the case—is directly relevant to key arguments for the historical nature of art because contents can represent complex kinds and properties. Conceptual realism is especially well-suited for explaining perception of artworks and aesthetic properties because it emphasizes that forms of understanding—in the sense of capacities, abilities and techniques—are involved in perceptual engagement with individual objects and instances of properties. To make this case, the paper examines influential arguments for the historical nature of art and aesthetic properties by Arthur C. Danto and Kendall L. Walton; and examines art-historical discussions by Michael Baxandall, Linda Nochlin and T. J. Clark. The paper argues that the aesthetic properties of an artwork depend on human intentional uses of properties, colours and contours among them, and such uses may themselves be aesthetic. The Wittgensteinian notion of use is contextual and historical, and uses are perceptible. (shrink)

Corporate property rights present an interesting challenge to the liberal conception of property rights, for it is unclear that the self-respect of individuals is promoted by the existence of a system of property rights for corporations. I argue that it is difficult even to identify who the individuals are who are the owners of large corporations, and why these individuals should be given the same claims, protections and immunities as other property rights holders since the liabilities (...) of corporate property rights holders are not the same as of those, for instance, who own their own homes. In this paper I first try to understand who it is who owns the large corporation. Secondly, I show that the limited liability of these corporate property owners makes the justification of corporate property rights quite difficult, from the classical liberal perspective. I end with a few brief remarks on changes in legal policy which would be consistent with my arguments on the nature and justification of corporate property rights. (shrink)

Call a quantifier unrestricted if it ranges over absolutely all things: not just over all physical things or all things relevant to some particular utterance or discourse but over absolutely everything there is. Prima facie, unrestricted quantification seems to be perfectly coherent. For such quantification appears to be involved in a variety of claims that all normal human beings are capable of understanding. For instance, some basic logical and mathematical truths appear to involve unrestricted quantification, such as the truth that (...) absolutely everything is self-identical and the truth that the empty set has absolutely no members. Various metaphysical views too appear to involve unrestricted quantification, such as the physicalist view that absolutely everything is physical. (shrink)

William Perm summarized the Magna Carta thus: “First, It asserts Englishmen to be free; that's Liberty. Secondly, they that have free-holds, that's Property.” Since at least the seventeenth century, liberals have not only understood liberty and property to be fundamental, but to be somehow intimately related or interwoven. Here, however, consensus ends; liberals present an array of competing accounts of the relation between liberty and property. Many, for instance, defend an essentially instrumental view, typically seeing private (...) class='Hi'>property as justified because it is necessary to maintain or protect other, more basic, liberty rights. Important to our constitutional tradition has been the idea that “[t]he right to property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty.” Along similar lines, it has been argued that only an economic system based on private property disperses power and resources, ensuring that private people in civil society have the resources to oppose the state and give effect to basic liberties. Alternatively, it is sometimes claimed that only those with property develop the independent characters that are necessary to preserve a regime of liberty. But not only have liberals insisted that, property is a means of preserving liberty, they have often conceived of it as an embodiment of liberty, or as a type of liberty, or indeed as identical to liberty. This latter view is popular among contemporary libertarians or classical liberals. Jan Narveson, for instance, bluntly asserts that “Liberty is Property,” while John Gray insists that “[t]he connection between property and the basic liberties is constitutive and not just instrumental.”. (shrink)

This paper argues that, assuming properties exist and must be located in spacetime, the prevailing view that they are exactly located where their instances are is false. Instead a property is singularly located at just one region, namely the union of its instance's locations. This bears not just on issues in the metaphysics of properties, but also on the debate over whether multi-location is conceivable and/or possible.

One controversial position in the debate over dispositional and categorical properties maintains that our concepts of these properties are the result of partially considering unitary properties that are both dispositional and categorical. As one of its defenders (Heil 2005, p. 351) admits, this position is typically met with “incredulous stares”. In this paper, I examine whether such a reaction is warranted. This thesis about properties is an instance of what I call “the Partial Consideration Strategy”—i.e., the strategy of claiming that (...) what were formerly thought of as distinct entities are actually a unified entity, partially considered. By evaluating its use in other debates, I uncover a multi-layered prima facie case against the use of the Partial Consideration Strategy in the dispositional/categorical properties debate. In closing, I describe how the Partial Consideration Strategy can be reworked in a way that would allow it to sidestep this prima facie case. (shrink)

This paper presents a generalization of the standard notions of left monotonicity (on the nominal argument of a determiner) and right monotonicity (on the VP argument of a determiner). Determiners such as “more than/at least as many as” or “fewer than/at most as many as”, which occur in so-called propositional comparison, are shown to be monotone with respect to two nominal arguments and two VP-arguments. In addition, it is argued that the standard Generalized Quantifier analysis of numerical determiners such as (...) “more than three/at least three” is a simplification which ignores the fundamental parallellism with the propositional comparatives. Furthermore, the symmetric monotonicity configurations of the existential “some” and “no” are shown to be straightforwardly related to those of numerical comparatives with the limit numeral zero, whereas the asymmetric configurations of universal “all” and “not all” involve the extra complicating mechanism of polarity reversal, which is related to Keenan's notion of co-intersectivity (as opposed to intersectivity). A second aim of the paper is to investigate some of the factors reducing the inferential potential of determiners. Different types of comparative determiners and their modification will be considered in detail. In addition, a systematic interaction will be revealed between the monotonicity properties of the determiners in propositional comparatives and the differ ent types of ellipsis in the “than”-complement. Different degrees of ellipsis are defined in terms of informational dependencies between the “than”-complement and the main clause. A general balancing mechanism is observed by virtue of which an increase in informational dependency is compensated by a reduction of the inferential potential of the comparative determiner. The structure of the paper is as follows. Part two deals with propositional comparison and introduces the two basic monotonicity configurations. Part three distinguishes three types of informational dependencies or ellipsis between the “than”-complement and the main clause. In Section 3.1 the “than”-complement only contains a VP constituent, whereas in Section 3.2. it only consists of a nominal constituent. Section 3.3 considers more complex instances of multiple dependencies. Section 3.4 then looks at the interaction of these three types with the modifier “proportionally”. Part four presents the two basic monotonicity configurations for numerical comparison, whereas part five deals with more complex numerical determiners. Bounding determiners, such as “between five and ten”, and other boolean combinations are discussed in Section 5.1, whereas Section 5.2 goes into approximative determiners involving modifiers such as “only” or “almost”. Section 5.3. is devoted to proportional determiners such as “more than two out of three”. Part six then considers the standard existential and universal quantifiers. Section 6.1 reformulates the standard Generalized Quantifier analysis in comparative terms, whereas Section 6.2 deals with exception determiners of the form “all but five”. (shrink)

I call anti-resemblism the thesis that independently of any contextual specification there is no determinate fact of the matter about the comparative overall similarity of things. Anti-resemblism plays crucial roles in the philosophy of David Lewis. For instance, Lewis has argued that his counterpart theory is anti-essentialist on the grounds that counterpart relations are relations of comparative overall similarity and that anti-resemblism is true. After Lewis committed himself to a form of realism about natural properties he maintained that anti-resemblism is (...) true about the relations of overall similarity that enter his counterpart theory and his analysis of counterfactuals. However, in this article I argue that Lewis’s account of degrees of naturalness for properties combined with his modal realism entails that anti-resemblism is false. The Lewisian must amend Lewis’s system if she aims to benefit from the alleged virtues of anti-resemblism. I consider two ways of amending it, neither of which is a free lunch. (shrink)

The Socratic discussion in the Hippias Major, 300-303, is not a passing comment on plural reference; it is a theory of plural subjecthood. It has escaped attention because it is a small part of a larger complex argument on the topic of which pleasures are fine. Socrates’s theory is further concealed by the fact that it is presented as an antithesis between Hippias and himself, whereas in fact, Hippias’s position becomes part of Socrates’s theory. I begin by examining Hippias’s position, (...) and subsequently Socrates’ criticism of it. I then turn to Socrates’s further proposal, and the development of a theory of plural subjects that incorporates elements of Hippias’s position, and Socrates’s own. At the end, I address the question of the ontology of plural subjects. I argue that the key to sharing a property between subjects is not in the way that the plural terms refer to these subjects, or in any decomposition of the commonly owned property instance into parts distributed to these subjects. Rather, I follow Socrates in finding the common ownership of a property instance central to plural subjecthood, and develop an account of how this metaphysical function can be performed by the plural subjects without threatening their distinctness and plurality. (shrink)

This paper investigates the semantic bases of class membership in the noun class system of Gújjolaay Eegimaa (Eegimaa henceforth), a Niger-Congo and Atlantic language of the BAK group spoken in Southern Senegal. The question of whether semantic principles underlie the overt classification of nouns in Niger-Congo languages is a controversial one. There is a common perception of Niger-Congo noun class systems as being mainly semantically arbitrary. The goal of the present paper is to show that physical properties and culture-specific factors (...) are central principles of semantic categorisation in the Eegimaa noun class system. I argue that the Eegimaa overt grammatical classification of nouns into classes is a semantic categorisation system whereby categories are structured according to prototypicality, family resemblance, metaphorical and metonymic extensions and chaining processes, as argued within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. I show that the categorisation of entities in the Eegimaa nominal classification system productively makes use of physical properties such as shape as well as using culture-specific, less productive parameters for the semantic categorisation of entities denoted by nouns. The analysis proposed here also shows that the cases of multiple morphosyntactic classifications of nouns reflect multiple conceptual categorisation strategies. A detailed examination of the formal and semantic instances of multiple classification reveals the existence of conceptual correlations between the physical properties and the culture-specific semantic parameters of categorisation used in the Eegimaa noun class system. (shrink)

§1. Introduction.The motivation of this work comes from two different directions: infinite abelian groups, and ordered algebraic structures. A challenging problem in both cases is that of classification. In the first case, it is known for example (cf. [KA]) that the classification of abelian torsion groups amounts to that of reducedp-groups by numerical invariants called theUlm invariants(given by Ulm in [U]). Ulm's theorem was later generalized by P. Hill to the class of totally projective groups. As to the second case, (...) let us consider for instance the class of divisible ordered abelian groups. These may be viewed as ordered ℚ-vector spaces. Their theory being unstable, we cannot hope to classify them by numerical invariants. On the other hand, being o-minimal, the theory enjoys several good model theoretic properties (cf. [P-S]), so the search for some reasonable invariants is well motivated. The common denominator of the two cases, as well as of many others, is valuation theory. Indeed given an ordered vector space, one can consider it as a valued vector space, endowed with the natural valuation. Also, the socleG[p] of a reduced abelianp-groupG, endowed with the height functionhG, is a valued vector space over(the prime field of characteristicp) with values in the ordinals (cf. [F]). (shrink)

Two experiments investigated whether 4- and 5-year-old children are sensitive to whether the content of a generalization is about a salient or noteworthy property (henceforth “striking”) and whether varying the number of exceptions has any effect on children’s willingness to extend a property after having heard a generalization. Moreover, they investigated how the content of a generalization interacts with exception tolerance. Adult data were collected for comparison. We used generalizations to describe novel kinds (e.g., “glippets”) that had either (...) a neutral (e.g., “play with toys”) or a striking property (e.g., “play with fire”) and measured how willing participants were to extend the property to a new instance of the novel kind. Experiment 1 demonstrated that both adults and children show sensitivity to strikingness in that striking properties were extended less than neutral ones, although children extended less than adults overall. The responses of both age groups were significantly different from chance. Experiment 2 introduced varying numbers of exceptions to the generalization made (minimal: 1 exception; maximal: 3 exceptions). Both adults and children extended both types of properties even in the face of exceptions, but to a lower degree than in Experiment 1. Striking properties were extended less than neutral ones, as in Experiment 1. We observed that the greater the number of exceptions, the lower the rates of extension we obtained, for both types of properties in adults, but only with striking properties in children. Children seemed to keep track of varying numbers of exceptions for striking properties, but their performance did not differ from chance. The findings underscore that 4- and 5-year-old children are sensitive to strikingness and to exception tolerance for generalizations and are developing toward an adult-like behavior with respect to the interplay between strikingness and exception tolerance when they learn about novel kinds. We discuss the implications of these results with regards to how children make generalizations. (shrink)

Whitehead’s cosmology centers on the self-creation of actual occasions that perish as they come to be, but somehow do combine to constitute societies that are persistent agents and/or patients. “Instance Ontology” developed by D.W. Mertz concerns unification of relata into facts of relatedness by specific intensions. These two conceptual systems are similar in that they both avoid the substance-property distinction: they differ in their understanding of how basic units combine to constitute complex unities. “Process Structural Realism” (PSR) draws from (...) both of these approaches in developing an account of how combinations of processes may produce ontologically significant coherences. When a group of processes achieves such closure that a set of states recurs continually, the effects of that coherence differ from what would occur in the absence of that closure. Such altered effectiveness is an attribute of the system as a whole, and would have consequences. This indicates that the network of processes, as a unit, has ontological significance. The closed network of processes, together with the conditions that prevail, constitute the form of definiteness of the coherence. That form continues to obtain as long as the coherence persists. Constituents contribute to, rather than share, that characteristic. Aspects of some recent research in systems biology, microeconomics, and social psychology illustrate the application of PSR. (shrink)

The two main theses of are: (i) that persons possess an original, non-acquired right not to be precluded from making extra-personal material their own (or from exercising discretionary control over what they have made their own); and (ii) that this right can and does take the form of a right that others abide by the rules of a (justifiable) practice of property which facilitates persons making extra-personal material their own (and exercising discretionary control over what they have made their (...) own). I articulate some of the good reasons we have to affirm persons' possession of an original, non-acquired right of self-ownership and argue that the same good reasons support the ascription to persons of a natural right of property. I contrast an conception of the actions through which (initial) rights over extra-personal objects arise with a conception of (initial) entitlement-generating actions. I argue that the fact that the natural right to property can and does take the form of persons' rights that others abide by the rules of a (justifiable) practice of property explains how there are many instances of (initial) entitlement generation which are not plausibly explained by those wed to the inherent feature conception of entitlement-generating actions and why there is a strong conventional dimension in the procedures through which persons acquire (initial) property rights. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the causal theory of properties (CTP). CTP states that properties must be understood via the complicated network of causal relations to which a property can contribute. If an object instantiates the property of being 900C, for instance, it will burn human skin on contact, feel warm to us if near, etc. In order to best understand CTP, I argue that we need to distinguish between properties and particular instances of them. Properties should be analysed (...) via the causal relations their instances stand in, it is this oven’s being 900C which causes my skin to burn, etc. The resulting CTP offers an illuminating analysis of properties. First, it provides a criterion of identity for properties, their identity being analysed via the causal roles property instances realise. It also offers an account of how property instances are sorted into genuine kinds, in cases of determinables and determinates. I show how we can distinguish between genuine and non-genuine similarity via the property instances of objects. The implications of CTP for an analysis of causation are then investigated. I argue that the proposed CTP offers a plausible causal ontology. The fine-grainedness of property instances enables us to capture the subtleties involved in questions concerning what causes what. But, even more importantly, CTP enables us to reconcile two highly attractive theses concerning the causal relation. The first of these is the generalist’s thesis. This states that causal relations are part of more general patterns. The second of these is the singularist’s thesis. This states that the causal connection between two entities, doesn’t depend upon anything extraneous to that relation. I argue that by combining CTP with an ontology of tropes, we can thereby respect what is driving both singularism and generalism.Logic & Metaphysics. (shrink)

I argue there is a distinct and integrated property-concept applying directly, not to things, but to actions. This concept of Property in Activities describes a determinate ethico-political relation to a particular activity – a relation that may (but equally may not) subsequently effect a wide variety of relations to some thing. The relation with the activity is fixed and primary, and any ensuing relations with things are variable and derivative. Property in Activities illuminates many of the vexing (...) problem cases arising in property theory. Communal, intangible, fugacious, hunting, fishing, customary and recreation property rights are not ersatz instances of owning things – they are paradigms of Property Protected Activities. The same is true of the functioning of property in various aspects of contemporary law, its application in philosophical arguments such as Locke’s, and much of its historical application prior to the Nineteenth Century. By illustrating how one stable concept can resolve this myriad of otherwise puzzling cases, I argue that Property in Activities is as important and influential a concept as Ownership of Things. (shrink)

Kim has defended a solution to the exclusion problem which deploys the «causal inheritance principle» and the identification of instantiations of mental properties with instantiations of their realizing physical properties. I wish to argue that Kim's putative solution to the exclusion problem rests on an equivocation between instantiations of properties as bearers of properties and instantiations as property instances. On the former understanding, the causal inheritance principle is too weak to confer causal efficacy upon mental properties. And on (...) the latter understanding, the identification of mental and physical instantiations is simply untenable. (shrink)

There has been a recent surge in interest in two questions concerning the nature of perceptual experience; viz. the question of whether perceptual experience is sometimes cognitively penetrated and that of whether high-level properties are presented in perceptual experience. Only rarely have thinkers been concerned with the question of whether the two phenomena are interestingly related. Here we argue that the two phenomena are not related in any interesting way. We argue further that this lack of an interesting connection between (...) the two phenomena has potentially devastating consequences for naïve realism. Finally, we consider the possibility of a disunified view of experience that takes perceptual experience to be a matter of both being directly perceptually related to mind-independent objects and property instances as well as consciously representing these entities. (shrink)

Recently, there is a renewed debate concerning the role of perspective in vision. Morales et al. (2020) present evidence that, in the case of viewing a rotated coin, the visual system is sensitive to what has often been called “perspectival shapes.” It has generated vigorous discussions, including an online symposium by Morales and Cohen, an exchange between Linton (2021) and Morales et al. (2021), and most recently, a fierce critique by Burge and Burge (2022), in which they launch various conceptual (...) and empirical objections. Although Morales and Firestone (2022) have responded to them recently, and we are in agreement with Morales and Firestone in general, there are further problems in Burge and Burge (2022) that are worth highlighting. The main point of this comment is that what the Burge–Burge team call “viewpoint-dependent relational properties” are simply instances of what the Morales–Firestone team call “perspectival shapes”; the confusion arises from Burge and Burge’s misconstrual of Morales et al.’s claims. This shows that conceptually, the two teams are in large agreement, as Morales and Firestone (2022) also point out, and the focus should be put on the empirical disagreements, which has been covered by Morales and Firestone (2022). Relatedly, we argue that Burge and Burge (2022) misinterpret Morales et al. (2020) as supporting a new entity in perception science, and that this misinterpretation is a primary source of their apparent disagreement. This is worth pointing out because such misunderstanding generates many unnecessary quarrels that hinder progress. (shrink)

One controversial position in the debate over dispositional and categorical properties maintains that our concepts of these properties are the result of partially considering unitary properties that are both dispositional and categorical. As one of its defenders (Heil 2005, p. 351) admits, this position is typically met with “incredulous stares”. In this paper, I examine whether such a reaction is warranted. This thesis about properties is an instance of what I call “the Partial Consideration Strategy”—i.e., the strategy of claiming that (...) what were formerly thought of as distinct entities are actually a unified entity, partially considered. By evaluating its use in other debates, I uncover a multi-layered _prima facie_ case against the use of the Partial Consideration Strategy in the dispositional/categorical properties debate. In closing, I describe how the Partial Consideration Strategy can be reworked in a way that would allow it to sidestep this _prima facie_ case. (shrink)

abstract In a number of contexts one comes across the suggestion that cultures are collective owners of cultural property, such as particularly significant works of art. Indigenous peoples are often held to be collective owners of cultural property, but they are not the only ones. Icelandic culture is said to have a claim on the Flatejarbók and Greek culture is held to own the Parthenon Marbles. In this paper I investigate the conditions under which a culture is the (...) rightful owner of cultural property. I argue against the claims that cultures inherit cultural property. I also argue that a culture's claim to own cultural property is seldom, if ever, founded on either practices employed in the culture or collective production of cultural property. I maintain, however, that the very value of cultural property for some culture can, in some instances, provide the basis for the culture's claim on the property. (shrink)