Properties

4. ‘In-house’ disputes

Philosophers who agree both about what properties are and that they exist may disagree about some further issues concerning properties. These mark ‘in-house’ disputes between these philosophers. Here are two examples.

First example: the nature of particulars (see Particulars). Are there particulars in addition to properties? On the assumption that properties exist and are universals, do particulars exist in addition to them, or can all talk of particulars be reduced to talk about properties? Some philosophers advance a reductionist view about particulars. Where a given apple has such properties as being roughly spherical, being edible, being sweet to taste, and so on, these philosophers argue that the apple is not something which exists in addition to these properties. The apple – as is every particular – is a ‘bundle’ of properties. The ‘bundling’ relation between properties is standardly taken to be a relation of concurrence - of the properties concerned being present at the same time and place. Some opponents to this bundle view claim that the apple itself is a ‘bare particular’ that has properties, but is not to be identified with any collection of properties (see Loux (1978)).

Second example: the nature and existence of facts, or states of affairs as they are also known (see Facts §1). When a particular has a property, does there then exist an entity that is neither the particular nor the property, but is the fact, or state of affairs, of the particular’s having the property? (This issue arises with respect to relations too: are there such entities as facts, or states of affairs, consisting of particulars standing in relations?) Proponents of facts often take facts to solve the problem of instantiation, and advance a one-category classification of ontology in which facts comprise the most fundamental category of entities, with properties, relations, and ordinary particulars somehow reducible to facts. Opponents of the view often regard the postulation of facts as insufficiently motivated, and as lacking the alleged theoretical benefits.