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Single Idea 7965

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 12. Denial of Properties ]

Full Idea

An object's being two inches long seems to guarantee an infinite number of other properties, such as being less than three inches long. If we must understand the second property to understand the first, then there seems to be a vicious infinite regress.

Gist of Idea

Does the knowledge of each property require an infinity of accompanying knowledge?

Source

Cynthia Macdonald (Varieties of Things [2005], Ch.2)

Book Ref

Macdonald,Cynthia: 'Varieties of Things' [Blackwell 2005], p.242

A Reaction

She dismisses this by saying that we don't need to know an infinity of numbers in order to count. I would say that we just need to distinguish between intrinsic and relational properties. You needn't know all a thing's relations to know the thing.

The 18 ideas with the same theme [rejection of the category of properties]:

16621 Accidents are not parts of bodies (like blood in a cloth); they have accidents as things have a size [Hobbes]
4546 We realise that properties are sensations of the feeling subject, not part of the thing [Nietzsche]
6063 Russell can't attribute existence to properties [McGinn on Russell]
18439 Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine]
9017 Predicates are not names; predicates are the other parties to predication [Quine]
7925 There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine]
10295 Quine suggests that properties can be replaced with extensional entities like sets [Quine, by Shapiro]
3322 Quine says that if second-order logic is to quantify over properties, that can be done in first-order predicate logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA]
6078 Quine brought classes into semantics to get rid of properties [Quine, by McGinn]
8479 Don't analyse 'red is a colour' as involving properties. Say 'all red things are coloured things' [Quine, by Orenstein]
7618 Very nominalistic philosophers deny properties, though scientists accept them [Putnam]
5456 Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis]
8959 Field presumes properties can be eliminated from science [Field,H, by Szabó]
3906 If possible worlds are needed to define properties, maybe we should abandon properties [Scruton]
4029 Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all [Mellor/Oliver]
16263 Fundamental physics seems to suggest there are no such things as properties [Maudlin]
7965 Does the knowledge of each property require an infinity of accompanying knowledge? [Macdonald,C]
19121 We can reduce properties to true formulas [Halbach/Leigh]