Some Comments on Professor Oaklander's 'Particulars, Positional Qualities, and Individuation'

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Some Comments on Professor Oaklander's "Particulars, Positional Qualities, and Individuation" Gustav Bergmann Philosophy of Science, Vol. 44, No. 3. (Sep., 1977), pp. 491-493. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248%28197709%2944%3A3%3C491%3ASCOPO%22%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T Philosophy of Science is currently published by The University of Chicago Press.

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DISCUSSION SOME COMMENTS ON PROFESSOR OAKLANDER'S "PARTICULARS, POSITIONAL QUALITIES, AND INDIVIDUATION"*

GUSTAV BERGMANN University of Iowa

1. As Oaklander [2] himself tells us, for what his paper is about, speaking of ordinary things is mere byplay. So we may safely stay with the familiar momentary spots. These spots, though not simples, are yet existents and as such members (I reserve 'element' for class membership) of a subcategory of the category of facts. 2. 'Existent' and 'simple', the two basic terms of all ontological discourse, do not themselves stand for existents. For this reason alone, such discourse can never be literal; yet it can be reflected and illuminated by literal discourse about a calculus and the interpretation of it which one hopes will make it the ideal language (IL). That is, essentially unchanged, the metaphilosophical position of my 1960 paper ([I]) to which Oaklander refers. The only change since then has been the increasing emphasis on the rock bottom layer of what is expressed by literal talk of the sort called phenomenological. 3 . Apart from some subtleties about classes, which latter are here ignored throughout, every existent that is a complex, i.e., not a simple, determines uniquely and is uniquely determined by (a) a collection (I avoid 'class') of ultimate constituents (u.c.) and (b) one of the ways (in case there is more than one) in which the members of the collection determine the complex. Thus, every U.C. is a simple and (fqr all we here need) conversely. Specifying (a) and (b) corresponds to specifying (a) the vocabulary and (b) the formation rules of the IL an ontologist explicitly or implicitly proposes. 4. The division of all U.C. and, mutatis mutandis, of all complexes into categories and subcategories rests entirely on the "similarities" and "dissimilarities" among the ways in which their members determine complexes. In my world there have long been two main categories of U.C.A simple is either a function or a thing (not: ordinary thing). *Received November, 1976. Philosophy of Science, 44( 1977) pp. 491 -493.

Copyright @ 1977 by the Philosophy o f Science Association.

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GUSTAV BERGMANN

As to subcategories, a function is either an exemplification or a connective or a quantifier; a thing is either a particular or one of the several sorts of universals corresponding to an initial segment of the Russellian type hierarchy. (But see 9 below.) 5 . Ontologically, the particulars and the universals of my world are in all respects "similar," except of course for the obvious type differences. The only other difference, viz., that, if a particular, which is momentary, recurred, we would not recognize it, is (as one says) epistemological. 6. All I now mzan and all I have ever meant and said when claiming that in my world individuality is more deeply grounded than in those of the bundle-theorists, is that in it, but not in theirs, there is a subcategory of things whose members serve (as one says) as individuators. 7. The odd view Oaklander attributes to me is essentially a fusion or confusion of very different things; on the syntactical side of the IL, between (a) its vocabulary and (b) its formation rules; and, at the phenomenological rock bottom, which of course controls the interpretation of any calculus one might propose for the IL, my insistence on the "feature" that (c) whenever presented with two spots, I am, provided only I attend, also presented with two particulars. 8. Some may hold that there is a vicious regress lurking behind the feature (c) just introduced without further ado. One who holds this may plausibly be tempted to ascribe to me that odd view. From where I stand, there is at this point no danger of a vicious regress. That is indeed one of the main tenets of the metaphilosophy I have expounded since at least 1960. Perhaps Oaklander wants to reject this metaphilosophy of mine. If so, why not critically examine it instead of attributing to me, against the heavy preponderance of evidence in what I have said in print, a view I have never held? I say heavy preponderance because at some place or other I may indeed have used some term or other either uncautiously or even improperly. 9. A "negative" example should help. In my world, and I trust in the world, there are no heterogeneous relations. More precisely, since, contrary to a view I once held, no "defined character" exists, there are no heterogeneous things. E.g., there is no thing-one would have to write its name in the IL with the superscript '((0),0)', say 'a?,ccO).O)'-such that (1) d , " O ' . O ) ( d , ' O ) , 3d

)

would be well-formed in the IL. Suitably restricting the term, one may if one wishes call this "negative" feature of the world categorial.

COMMENTS ON OAKLANDER

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The clearest and safest way, however, of drawing attention to it is to say that a calculus in which (1) is well-formed cannot be so interpreted that it becomes the IL. As to 'ill-formed,' the most significant use the ontologist, or at least this ontologist, makes of the word in this context is to point out that any ill-formed string, of the calculus he hopes can be so interpreted that it becomes the IL, purports in vain to stand for what he "cannot even think (intend)," let alone say, and which therefore (by one of my most fundamental gambits) does not exist. Finally, calling the negative feature either analytic or, more weakly, synthetic a priori would in this world be most misleading. For, all details apart, any explication of these two notions I have ever proposed makes use of the syntax of the calculus that presumably can be so interpreted that it becomes the IL, in conjunction with, as I would now emphasize, a few distinctions presented to me at phenomenological rock bottom. Concerning the regress the 'can' and 'cannot' just emphasized may or may not open up, see 8 above. As for them, so for the 'can' in the 'cannot even think' between double quotes. The latter, though, belongs t o phenomenological talk; the former occur in the literal discourse that reflects and illuminates ontology (see 2 above). REFERENCES

[ I ] Bergmann, G. "Ineffability, Ontology and Method." Philosophical Review 69( 1960):18-40. Reprinted in Logic and Reality. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964. [2] Oaklander, N. "Particulars, Positional Qualities and Individuation." Philosophy of Science 44(1977):478-490.