| 16155 | Aristotle promoted the importance of properties and objects (rather than general and particular) [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In 'Categories' Aristotle is taking a first step in making the distinction between objects and properties central to ontology. This plays virtually no role in Plato, and was overshadowed by the distinction between general and particular. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle I | |
| A reaction: Frede says he gets in a tangle because he mixes the earlier and the new views. Because we are nowadays in a total muddle about properties, I'm thinking we should go back to the earlier view! Modern commentators make him a trope theorist. |
| 17849 | For two things to differ in some respect, they must both possess that respect [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That which is different is different from something under some aspect, so that there must be something the same in respect of which they differ. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054b26) |
| 15754 | Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The ontological correlates of true law-statements must involve properties. How else can one pick our the uniformities which the law-statements entail? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], 1) | |
| A reaction: I'm unconvinced about the 'laws', but I have to admit that it is hard to know how to describe the relevant bits of nature without some family of concepts covered by the word 'property'. I'm in favour of taking some of the family into care, though. |
| 18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The 'thing itself' seems not be a minimal truthmaker for the thing having its particular mass. ...The thing has a great many other properties. ...It seems entirely reasonable to postulate that the object has properties that are objectively there. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.2) | |
| A reaction: This is Armstrong using the truthmaker principle to argue for the existence of properties (as instantiated universals). I like truthmakers, but truths do not have enough precision in their parts for us to read off reality from them. |
| 8568 | A property is merely a constituent of laws of nature; temperature is just part of thermodynamics [Mellor] |
| Full Idea: Being a constituent of probabilistic laws of nature is all there is to being a property. There is no more to temperature than the thermodynamics and other laws they occur in. | |
| From: D.H. Mellor (Properties and Predicates [1991], 'Props') | |
| A reaction: How could thermodynamics be worked out without a prior concept of temperature? I think it is at least plausible to deny that there are any 'laws' of nature. But even Quine can't deny that some things are too hot to touch. |
| 15737 | To be a 'property' is to suit a theoretical role [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: To deserve the name of 'property' is to be suited to play the right theoretical role. It is wrong to speak of 'the' role associated with the word 'property', as if it were fully and uncontroversially settled. | |
| From: David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Once again I see a chicken-and-egg problem. Surely something has a theoretical role because of its intrinsic character, or its prior definition? How could you formulate a theory if you lacked properties? We don’t meet properties as gaps in theories. |
| 10716 | There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver] |
| Full Idea: One conception of properties says there are only as many properties as are needed to be constituents of laws. | |
| From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §03) | |
| A reaction: I take this view to the be precise opposite of the real situation. The properties are what lead to the laws. Properties are internal to nature, and laws are imposed from outside, which is ridiculous unless you think there is an active deity. |
| 18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
| Full Idea: When a tomato depresses a scale, it does so in virtue of its mass - how it is masswise - and not in virtue of its colour or shape. Were we barred from saying such things, we would be unable to formulate truths about the fundamental things. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: It doesn't follow that we have an ontological commitment to properties, but we certainly need to point out the obvious fact that things being one way rather than another makes a difference to what happens. |
| 18430 | We accept properties because of type/tokens, reference, and quantification [Edwards] |
| Full Idea: Three main reasons for thinking properties exist: the one-over-many argument (that a type can have many tokens), the reference argument (to understand predicates and singular terms), and the quantification argument (that we quantify over them). | |
| From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [Bits in brackets are compressions of his explanations]. I don't find any of these remotely persuasive. Why would we infer how the world is, simply from how we talk about or reason about the world? His first reason is the only interesting one. |