tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post5019308325382602511..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Adverbial ontology and dispensing with partsAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-31378534365019777892011-12-30T20:19:07.980-06:002011-12-30T20:19:07.980-06:00On the medieval route, option 1: as I understand ...On the medieval route, option 1: as I understand it, the view is that the relation embodied in Fargo being north of Waco and Waco being south of Fargo consists in Fargo having one mode, viz. “being north of Waco,” and Waco having a different mode, viz. “being south of Fargo.” A relation, then, sounds like a conjunction. If that’s a correct statement of the view, I have one-and-a-half problems with it. (1) Not all conjunctions are relations. Possible reply: we could construct such “relations,” and while they might not be interesting most of the time, they’re still relations. Okay. (2) It ought to be a matter of logic (an analytic truth) that x is north of y iff y is south of x; the mention of Fargo and Waco in the modes should be a specific instance of a more general case. However I don’t see a way to get this on the story you’re telling. Maybe I am not understanding it.Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-14366065462142255852011-12-28T14:32:44.500-06:002011-12-28T14:32:44.500-06:00Option 1: The medieval route. Relations typically...Option 1: The medieval route. Relations typically inhere in both relata, but do so differently. Waco has the relation of being south of Fargo and Fargo has the relation of being north of Waco. So there are two modes, one in each town (on the fictitious assumption that our ontology should include towns). I said "typically", because there is the further medieval doctrine that we're related to God and God isn't related to us. So relations to God are one-sided: the mode only inheres in the creature.<br /><br />Option 2, which is the one I mentioned at one point in the post: Relations are shared modes. Unfortunately, I don't see any way to make that work for non-symmetrical relations. I thought when writing the post that it could be done somehow, but can't remember how I thought it could be done, and am now dubious.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-40871362087575773802011-12-28T12:32:50.486-06:002011-12-28T12:32:50.486-06:00I am cautiously sympathetic with the adverbial ont...I am cautiously sympathetic with the adverbial ontology (I have no great love for more standard ontologies) but I have a worry involving relations.<br /><br />Pre-analytic Anglophone philosophy was dominated by idealism, which included the idea that reality was really One Big Thing. This view rested on a claim that all sentences were of subject-predicate form (and therefore attributed a property to a substance). I believe one argument was this: “Waco is south of Fargo” has the same truth conditions as “Fargo is north of Waco”; but one of these is about Waco and the other is about Fargo; therefore Fargo and Waco are just two different partial aspects of one larger reality. Once non-Aristotelian logic allowed Russell and Moore to acknowledge the reality of relations, then they could be pluralists, and say that Fargo and Waco are two different things.<br /><br />I am worried that making all sentences attribute modes to substances is recapitulating the error that Russell and Moore got away from, and its Spinozistic inspiration adds to the worry because he is champion of One Big Thingness in philosophy.<br /><br />So what is the story about relations (between, say, Fargo and Waco) in terms of modes, that allows us to keep the independence of the substances? <br /><br />And if you solve that problem, perhaps you can revisit issues about composition and parthood. For “is (partly) composed of” is arguably a relation between independent entities: the apple tree is composed of carbon atoms, but is not identical to any of them, and can maintain its identity without any given atom, and likewise for the human body. Then you can say (along with intuition) that one carbon atom maintains its identity, though it partly composes an apple tree at one point and partly composes a human body at another.Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.com