more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
It is not clear to me that we easily distinguish ways a property is from the property itself.
Gist of Idea
Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property?
Source
John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.6)
Book Ref
Heil,John: 'From an Ontological Point of View' [OUP 2005], p.122
A Reaction
To defend properties as qualities, he is confusing ontology and epistemology. Presumably he means by 'ways a property is' what I would prefer to call 'ways a property seems to be'. I don't believe a smell is simply what it seems to be.
| 1532 | Sensible qualities can't be real if they appear different to different creatures [Democritus, by Theophrastus] |
| 12478 | A 'quality' is a power to produce an idea in our minds [Locke] |
| 6991 | We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect [Jackson] |
| 15509 | Some say qualities are parts of things - as repeatable universals, or as particulars [Lewis] |
| 7028 | If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil] |
| 7029 | Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil] |
| 7030 | Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil] |
| 8276 | Properties or qualities are essentially adjectival, not objectual [Lowe] |