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Single Idea 14194

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 6. Categorical Properties ]

Full Idea

A proper ontology should invoke only categorical, or occurrent, properties and relations. Categorical properties involve what objects are actually like, whereas hypothetical properties 'point beyond' their instances.

Gist of Idea

Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones

Source

Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.3)

Book Ref

Sider,Theodore: 'Four Dimensionalism' [OUP 2003], p.41

A Reaction

This spectacularly leaves out powers and dispositions, which are actual properties which 'point beyond' their instances! This is the nub of the powers debate, and the most interesting topic in modern metaphysics.

The 29 ideas from 'Four Dimensionalism'

14752 Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider]
14721 Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider]
14722 Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider]
14723 Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider]
14724 Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider]
14725 Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider]
14194 Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider]
14727 Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider]
14726 Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider]
14728 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider]
14729 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider]
14730 Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider]
14731 Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider]
14734 The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider]
14735 Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider]
14736 The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider]
14740 If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider]
14741 The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider]
14743 The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider]
14747 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider]
14745 If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider]
14754 If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider]
14756 For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider]
14757 Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider]
14758 How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider]
14760 Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider]
14762 Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider]
14763 Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider]
14738 Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider]