The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1997) Vol. XXXV

Absolute Processes: A Nominalist Alternative

Eric M. Rubenstein Colgate University

A nice way to enter the age-old debate between Platonists and Nominalists is to see them both as granting that an ac- ceptable ontology must explain how there can be truths about other than the singular. There must, in some fashion, be room for the general. For instance, how can two numerically distinct particulars be said to be qualitatively identical?

Familiarly enough, the Platonist answers by appeal to a general entity, one that is at two places at once. The price for this move is the endorsement of abstracta, a price the Nomi- nalist is unwilling to pay. So in a n effort to avoid such abstracta, the Nominalist denies such general entities. Of course, the Nominalist now has the problem of explaining how two distinct things can be said to have the same quality if they have no shared constituent, if there is no generality in the world.

Typically, however, Nominalists have turned to the unsatis- fying (and as I shall argue, inadequate) strategy of explaining such generality by constructing sets of particulars. Trope theo- rists have recently come t o the aid of the Nominalist project, but as we will see, they too fall short. As it stands, a success- ful Nominalist account has yet to be provided.

Despite such difficulties, it is with a Nominalist bent that I will approach the puzzle. But what I have in mind is a differ- ent sort of Nominalism, one tha t emerges from the texts of Wilfrid Sellars and his ontology of absolute processes.' From the Nominalist perspective, what is needed it seems, is an en- tity that is concrete and yet general. To that end I introduce an ontology of absolute processes-entities that are both gen- eral and concrete. For as I argue, absolute processes are enti- ties conceived by analogy with stuffs. Stuffs can be in two

Eric M. Rubenstein is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Colgate University. His most recent publication, on the ontology of color, appeared in Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1996.

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places a t once, and thus can be said to be general, but are still concrete. By assimilating the qualitative aspect of reality to such absolute processes, and thus to stuffs, the door is open for an account of generality without abstracta.

In the end, I will recommend conceiving reality in total as the goings-on of absolute processes. Thus, in an attempt to se- cure an adequate solution to the problem of generality, I end up rejecting the substance-paradigm tha t has held sway in metaphysics. Indeed, my hunch is that only with an ontology of absolute processes can we secure an adequate Nominalist account of such generality.

I will begin with a few words about Platonism. I shall then canvas the two most prominent and familiar Nominalist solu- tions (Class Nominalism and Trope Nominalism), arguing that they are ultimately unacceptable. Finally, I will bring absolute processes to center stage and see how they fare. Given the complexities of the dialectic and tha t absolute processes are new to the ontological scene, this essay can hope only to be an introduction to a larger project.

I. THE DEBATE

“Platonism” is said in many ways. Here is how I care to carve things up. Following one tradition, if one countenances multi-exemplifiable entities, i.e., repeatables, entities that can be in two places at once, then one is a Platonist. Additionally, an ontology is Platonistic if it recognizes abstract entities, i.e., non-spatiotemporal ones. These two hallmarks of Platonism, repeatables and abstracta, are sometimes linked in the litera- ture in the following manner (albeit typically implicitly). The Platonist speaks of a universal, a repeatable as being in two places at once. In most ontological discussions i t is assumed tha t physical, i.e., non-abstract, enti t ies cannot be in two places at once. The Platonist happily replies that the repeat- able she has in mind is not spatiotemporal, but is abstract. I t is the sort of entity which, while itself abstract and thus non- spatiotemporal, can manifest itself, via its instances, in two places a t once.

As I noted, the Nominalist is unhappy with making gener- ality a feature of the world. So to explain how there can be general truths, the Nominalist has to locate generality else- where. A favorite ploy of Nominalists has been to account for the quality of an individual, not by reifying the qualifying ele- ment as does the Platonist, but by ‘constructing’ sets of par- t iculars, whereby particulars a re collected in virtue of resemblance relations-members of the set resemble each other more closely than they resemble any non-member. So, x’s being F is accounted for by the fact that x belongs to the set of F-things. Similarly, tha t x and y are both F is explained by

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their both belonging to the set of F-things. Nelson Goodman, however, offers two well-known and serious objections to such a strategy; the problem of coextension, and that of imperfect communities.2

The problem of coextension begins with the possibility of there being two constructed sets of particulars that are exten- sionally equivalent. This would entail t h a t the properties which have been accounted for via this construction are identi- cal. Yet, this may happen in cases where clearly we do not want to grant that the properties are the same. Citing an ex- ample from Campbell, were it the case that all and only pan- das eat bamboo, we would be forced t o conclude that being a panda is the same property as being a bamboo eater, which clearly it is

The second problem for the Class Nominalist arises when we wonder about the set construction. To account for x being F we have to build a se t with x as a member with other F- things. It turns out, however, that not all of the members of the set need be F t o be members of that set. We would have then “explained” x being F by recourse to a set with some non- F-things, and thus would not have offered a n explanation at all. Here is the problem.

According to traditional accounts, the construction of the set proceeds via the grouping of particulars that resemble each other. But as we know from Goodman, things resemble each other, not simpliciter, but only in various respects. From this observation it follows that particulars can resemble each other in different ways. Being unable to build the set by fixing on only those things which are F-since that is the notion to be explicated-the best we could do would be to begin with a similarity-based set which might include two things that re- semble each other in one respect, include a third thing based on its resemblance in a different respect, a fourth based on its resemblance in an entirely different respect, and so on. The result would be a set in which some of the members are not F.4 Apparently we have not then explained x’s being F.

These standard objections to Class Nominalism should give us pause, for it seems we have not yet provided a suitable on- tological assay of an entity’s character with such a strategy. There is, in addition, a deeper problem with this approach.

We ask the Class Nominalist: What explains the qualitative identity of two distinct particulars; How is i t tha t they a re both F? The answer is that they are both F because they be- long to the set of F-things. But how does membership in such a set explain each particular’s being F? The Class Nominalist can answer either that that is all there is to say, or, can tell us that some particular belongs to the set of F-things because it is F. As for the latter, this of course was just the original fact we wanted an explanation for: How is it that some particular

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has the quality F? The latter option gets us nowhere. As for the former reply, we a re told t o stop asking questions jus t when we feel the need for a n answer most acutely. We are thereby never given a n adequate explanation for how se t membership can explain facts about a particular’s quality.

To avoid Platonism then, the Class Nominalist offers an ac- count that resists explaining the quality of a particular in vir- tue of a constituent of that particular. Presumably, the Class Nominalist avoids talk of constituents of particulars for fear tha t to do so is to start on the road tha t leads to Platonism. For if x and y both are F in virtue of an F constituent, we are now forced to explain the nature of this shared constituent. In- sofar as there looks (at least at first pass) to be one thing in two places, i n x and y , we look t o be endorsing multi- exemplifiables and thus embracing Platonism.

In avoiding the move to quality-constituents, however, the Class Nominalism gives an unsatisfying response to the ques- tion of what makes a thing the way i t is. I t is to avoid jus t such worries that the philosophy of tropes has been advanced by Nominalists. To that theory I now turn.

11. TROPES

A trope is a particular property instance. A trope theorist, that is, makes properties into particulars. The blue of the sky then is a particular trope numerically distinct from the blue trope of my t-shirt, even if the two tropes are qualitatively identical. On such a view, ordinary objects are but bundles or collections of tropes and a n ordinary object (what might be called a complex particular) has the character it does in virtue of having as a member of the complex a particular trope, which is that particular character.

Allegedly, a trope theorist can now explain qualitative iden- t i ty among distinct particulars without falling prey t o Platonistic worries, i.e., without abstracta, and without reli- ance on the Nominalist’s unhelpful classes. On this view, two things can be said to have the same property, but that means that they really just have two numerically different tropes as their constituents. As for those numerically different tropes, their exact resemblance is left as an unanalyzable relation. Campbell puts it this way.

What is it about those tropes in virtue of which they are both red tropes? Their likeness to one another is what makes them tropes of the same kind .... To the question: What is it for the two objects to share a common property? the reply must be: There is no such sharing, except joint membership in a natural kind, which is not a universal but a collection of tropess

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Now trope theories have been developed with a good deal of sophistication by such philosophers as Campbell, Armstrong, and Simons.6 As promising as such an approach is, there are significant problems that still need to be resolved. Let me il- lustrate three.

One problem for tropes stems from the observation tha t each trope is a single property. Recall t h a t this move was needed to prevent the construction of similarity circles with imperfect community. If we imagine a square, red spot, the tropist would have i t tha t this is a complex particular, com- prised of the two tropes red and square. These two tropes are present in a relation known as compresence. Campbell tells us that “[Elverything spatio-temporal occurs in a compresence tie with its ~ l a c e . ” ~

Now we need not worry here over what t o make of places, whether they themselves are tropes, or over whether we need endorse an absolute or relative theory of time and space. What is essential to note is that tropes s tand in this relation of compresence with one another. And each genuine particular, each trope, is itself only one quality. Any further qualification of particular tropes, i.e., their having more than one quality each would endanger the tropists program. For the tropist, like the Class Nominalist, relies on similarity circles to ex- plain qualitative similarity across particulars. Again,

[I]f the members of our similarity circle are tropes, the red ones will form one group, the blue a second, the wooden a third .... There will not be any similarity circles with hybrid members, and it is only hybrid members that allow the construction of similarity circles exhibiting imperfect community. Resemblance theory with tropes does not manufacture the spurious ‘properties’ that emerge from resemblances among concrete particulars.8

What I wish to demonstrate is that the tropist is in fact com- mitted, on pain of nonsense, to endorse multi-qualitied tropes, and is thereby vulnerable to Goodman’s objection. Showing that would be devastating to the tropist, as a chief goal of the tropist project is to avoid the problems that plague the Class Nominalist. The guiding principle of my objection will be, metaphorically, tha t form and content are corequisites. That is, form requires content and conversely, content requires form. The latter is the easier of the two, for it is a more gen- eral version of the thesis that everything that is colored is ex- tended. The former is far more controversial as it is a strike against the geometric-mathematizable model of reality handed down from Descartes. In other words, that form requires con- tent is a picturesque way of uniting such views as: primary qualities require secondary qualities (as held by Berkeley), ex-

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tensive magnitudes require intensive ones (Kant), and feeling must be present in genuine existents (Whitehead).

And while a defense of this thesis tha t form and content necessarily go together would require a paper of its own, I can quickly say some things on i ts behalf, particularly about the more difficult of the two conditionals-that form requires con- tent. We never encounter, for example, a shape without that shape having some color, some filler of the shape which allows us to tell where tha t shape ends or begins. What's more, we take this to be no mere accident or contingency of our experi- ence. There cannot be such experiences as there cannot be such entities; the only thing that distinguishes where a thing ends and its environment begins is the content, the nature, of that thing. I t follows that all entities must be somehow-they must have a qualitative (content) as well as a quantitative di- mension (form).

Moving to the easier of the claims about form and content, tha t content requires form, how can the tropist handle this phenomenon? We might expect the tropist to argue that

(1) Everything colored has a shape.

amounts to the claim that

(2) Wherever there is a color trope, there will be a shape trope compresent with it.

However, (1) is not merely contingently true. For something can be colored only if there is room or space for it to be col- ored. Thus, everything colored must be extended, must have some shape. To preserve the necessity of (1) then, we should offer up the following.

(2') Necessarily, where there is a color trope there will be a shape trope compresent with it.

In this way, the trope theorist can apparently explain the ne- cessity of (l), as well as why we cannot even imagine what a color trope would be like without a shape. The tropist can ar- gue that we cannot imagine what such a trope is like because we have never experienced one on its own, and the reason is that there is this necessary relation between shape and color tropes.

That the tropist would take this line is suggested by our earlier considerations that require the tropist to maintain one tropelone property. But notice what has happened. (1) is a claim about every thing. For the tropist, the things a t issue a re tropes. The tropist's basic entities must now include a square trope and a color trope. But as each thing, each trope,

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is only one quality, the square trope does not have any content properties, nor does the content trope have any structural properties. In forcing each trope, each individual, to be simply one property, the tropist has failed to meet the constraint of (1).

Now the tropist may respond that his account provides all that is needed: Everything that is shaped has a color and vice versa. However, in saying that , the tropist is talking about complex particulars: they always have different kinds of tropists present. But what of the particular basic tropes, the true individuals, in the ontology? They, on their own, have only one property. Of course, that is what the tropist has been saying all along. Autobiographically, however, I no longer un- derstand the trope theory.

For my part, I can understand a complex of a shape trope and a color trope. That would be a color patch. But when asked to understand the basic entities, a shape trope or a color trope, each with only one property, the only recourse for en- lightenment is by appeal to the complex of tropes. And that does not help, because when we try t o mentally abstract the shape trope out, we find (as Berkeley did) that we simply can- not. How could there be a thing (a trope) which has, which is, only this one property? What would it be to be just a shape en- tity? How could there be a color entity that did not have a shape?g At best, it seems, we can understand only the complex particulars, not the basic particulars. But complexes are built out of the basics, and as of yet we have no elucidation of the fundamental items of the tropist’s ontology. And I fear the tropist has nothing more to offer us here.1°

Apparently unable to further explain the basic entities of their ontology, the tropist has failed to provide an assay which truly carves our square, red patch into two tropes: such a carv- ing leaves mysterious the entities on which the whole story re- lies. The only other option it seems is to hold that patch itself to be the basic particular. But that is just to force the tropist to concede multi-qualitied particulars; each trope has (at least) a form and a content, i.e., two properties. And that is to force the tropist back into the earlier problems the Class Nominalist faced. Contra to the tropist’s declared view, tropes on this horn do allow for similarity circles with hybrid members and thus allow the construction of imperfect communities.

A second problem for tropists turns on reflections of the phenomena of change, and the above discussion of necessary relations between certain tropes. A tropist typically explains change of a complex particular by reference to tropes that ei- ther cease to be part of the complex, or to tropes that come to join the complex, o r by some combination of these two pro- cesses. But if tropes are to “leave” the complex, that means the compresence relation that binds tropes together must be a

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contingent and “breakable” one. But to capture the necessity of (1) from above the tropist now has to introduce a second kind of compresence relation-a necessary and “unbreakable” one.

Upon inspection, however, these compresence relations are most puzzling. If some compresence relations are contingent, what holds the tropes together in a complex particular when they are together? How are they bundled, and how can this bundling be such that some tropes can leave the bundle? As for the necessary compresence relation, how does it differ from the contingent one? Why do some tropes have to stay together? How is this accomplished? What sort of constraints are there on what can and what cannot come apart?

In short, we have a proliferation of mysteries as we explore the tropist’s program. That is not t o say the tropists cannot answer our questions, but for the time being, such a prolifera- tion strikes me as a count against trope theories.

Here is a final worry for the tropist. Recall that to avoid Goodmanesque problems over the construction of sets of par- ticulars, the tropist makes each particular but one quality. And qualitative similarity among distinct tropes is explained by recourse to a relation of exact resemblance. And as we saw, such a relation is left as a primitive notion.

There is something unsettling, however, about making such a relation unanalyzable. How do we account for the qualitative similarity among complex particulars on the tropist account. How do we, that is, explain generality? We note, says the tropist, that ordinary macro-objects are really complexes of tropes and that there can be qualitatively identical but nu- merically distinct tropes present in each of these complexes. And, in virtue of the fact that such qualitatively identical tropes are so present, we can explain the qualitative similarity among the ordinary objects.

But when pressed to account for the qualitative identity of these distinct tropes, the tropist resists. The relation, we are told, is unanalyzable. I t is simply a brute fact tha t those tropes are distinct but qualitatively identical. What is puz- zling and somewhat disconcerting, is that it is precisely a t the level of tropes that we expect an account of generality to be given. After all, trope theories are a form of Nominalism, and as such, are designed to explain how there can be truths about other than the singular-to explain the appearance of general- ity in reality. But what we end up with is the insistence that the qualitative identity across distinct particular is but a brute fact, not analyzable. In essence then, the tropist solves a question about the possibility of generality by making i t a brute fact. As such, the tropist goes to great lengths to develop a theory, which in the end offers no real explanation of gener- ality. We are left with qualitative identity as a brute, unex-

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plained phenomenon, triggering the reasonable question: What then have we really gained with trope theories?

111. ABSOLUTE PROCESSES

Given the shortcomings of Class Nominalism and trope theories in their attempts to explicate the qualities of particu- lars, and of generality, it would be wise to look elsewhere. In her Properties as Processes, Seibt makes the intriguing sugges- tion that Sellars’ ontology of absolute processes may allow us to sustain the only consistent and plausible Nominalist solu- tion to this problem. She notes, however, tha t to cash this promissory note requires a “painstaking analysis of absolute processes.” I think Seibt is right in her suggestion, and thus will take it up, though I do not think it need be as painful as she fears. In an attempt to offer a new solution for the Nomi- nalist, I propose a conceptual revolution of sorts, one that gets us quality in two places at once without abstracta; something general but concrete.

The term “absolute processes” comes from C. D. Broad and is later put to use by Wilfrid Sellars in his discussions of the mindhody problem. I will use them in a different role. Abso- lute processes, as I conceive them, are not objects but events, events of a special kind. What makes them absolute processes is that they are pure goings on-there is no object that is in- volved in the process.

Let me elaborate. Consider the flight of a golf ball, which itself is an event or process. ( I am foregoing any distinction between the two.) In such an event, there is a subject (the golf ball) undergoing the process, the various changes of position, temperature, etc. Compare such an event, an object-bound pro- cess we might say, with events that lack a proper subject, such as lightning or thundering, or the sounding of a pure C# from the corner of the room. As a grammatical guide, we might think of absolute processes as picked out by event locutions with prima facie dummy subjects, such as “It lightnings,” “It is thundering,” “There is a C#ing in my ear.” Without apparently genuine subjects in such processes we should countenance as a distinct category a realm of subjectless events or “absolute processes.”

To put this category to work, I propose we imagine reality as comprised solely of entities that are like the absolute pro- cesses of thundering, lightning, and C#ing. In such a picture, reality would be truly nothing but a complex of such absolute processes. There are no objects. The world is a complex tissue of goings-on. Everything flows.

Before returning to the issue of generality, however, i t is necessary to say more about what such a world of only abso- lute processes would be like.

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Imagine a pure C# sounding from the corner of the room. Focus on the sound itself, regardless of what, if any, object produced it. As we are presented with that sound, we are in- clined to think of it as something real, something occurrent. I t does not strike us as a mere disposition, power, or something mind-dependent. In more traditional terms, I am suggesting that in our primary experience of the world, secondary quali- ties have the status of occurrent existences, not mere disposi- tions. Let us continue to think this way.

Examining that C# more closely we see it has what may be called a form and a content. The quality of the sound, its con- tent, is that particular pitch; while its structure is its tempo- ral duration. (Recall our square red patch, where the form is its shape, its content its color.) Important for our later consid- erations is that bit of content, that structured amount of C#, can be understood as being a stuff. As philosophers like Quine have noted that “red” is a mass term, signifying a stuff, so too we might say for our C#.” What we encounter in this case is a portion of that stuff, an amount of that quality sounding from the corner of the room.

Here is an important rider. For illustrative purposes I have been speaking, and will continue to, of secondary qualities as if they are the genuine qualities of reality. But this is only for illustrative purposes. The real qualities of nature, as I see it, will be determined by physics. I do not wish, at least here, to confine the ultimate qualitative dimension of reality to those qualities revealed by the senses. That would be to t ie too tightly the hands of the physicist.

Just the same, what I say about the reconception of second- ary qualities in terms of stuffs goes equally for whatever the qualities of reality turn out to be. We should still think of them, from the standpoint of categorical ontology, as modeled on stuffs, dynamic ones at that.

I am proposing then that the world is nothing but absolute processes. And these absolute processes are akin to the abso- lute processes we have been discussing. Alongside of C#ings then, we will have processes like reddings, bluings, stinkings, and sweetings. As such, all entities will have a form and a content. Reality, that is, will have a qualitative dimension as well as a mathematical or metrical one. The qualitative di- mension will be the contents of those absolute processes; something like the secondary qualities we are at home with in common sense. The twist is tha t the qualities of the world thus turn out to be absolute processes, dynamized-structured- quality-s tuffs.

Of course, the world is not just a goings-on of simple de- tached absolute processes, it is complex. We should therefore consider complex states of affairs within this imagined world as complexes of absolute processes. Complex particulars, that

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is, may be built out of bundles of individual absolute pro- cesses.12

To remove a bit of the strangeness of this picture we might model absolute processes on the physicist’s notion of fields. Roughly, fields may be conceived as fillers of space which, in virtue of their intrinsic nature, provide the categorical basis for the dispositional nature of forces. A particle, for instance, placed in a field will be subjected to a certain force because there is an electromagnetic field present in that region.13

With this model in mind we might reconceive reality as a tissue of fields, of absolute processes, which can interact and hang together in ways that free us from the substance- paradigm tha t plagues even the trope theorist. For we can model interaction among absolute processes on the sorts of in- terference that results when different fields are overlapped. We can further imagine “process interference”; interference giving rise to differently qualitied processes.

This way of thinking offers an important step in reconceiv- ing our fundamental entities, not as static objects, but as dy- namic processes. Matter and objects in turn would be but constructions out of the deeper reality, this tissue of goings-on.

IV. GENERALITY AGAIN

With these extremely broad brush strokes in place, we can now return in more detail to the problem that drives the de- bate over generality. Take two particulars, two apples say, that are qualitatively identical. We have seen how a Platonist and Tropist explain this fact. Here is a first pass at my solution. From my perspective, the apples are themselves complex par- ticulars; they have as ingredients various absolute processes. The two apples are qualitatively identical because they have an absolute process content in common. There is, if you will, redding present in each. The content, i.e., quality of the abso- lute process is present in both complex particulars as an in- gredient. On this story, we do not need to link the two complex particulars by a relation of resemblance, nor by constructing classes of particulars. We can explain their resemblance by noting that they contain the same stuff. In short, there is an absolute process, with its distinct qualitative content, present in both places at once.

We can now develop our story by returning to the various puzzles discussed above. For one, with this picture in mind we can now tackle our earlier worries over the necessity claims about shape and color (form and content) and see that abso- lute processes, as structured stuffs, are immune. For we can explain the intuition that “necessarily, everything colored has a shape,” by noting that this is just a species of one half of the more general thesis tha t form and content are corequisites;

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namely that where there is content there is form. We can ac- count for tha t claim’s t ru th , without reliance on conjoined, ontologically unacceptable entities. In our ontology, everything is just an absolute process, and thus everything has, by its na- ture, a form and a content.

As for worries over the relation of exact resemblance, no such relation is called for here. Two numerically distinct abso- lute processes are qualitatively identical because the content of one is just a portion of the same stuff that is the content of the other. We do not need to link the two particulars by a relation of resemblance. We can link them by noting that they are por- tions of the same stuff. Without having to appeal t o resem- blance we need not start down the road t h a t leads to Goodman’s objection and others. We have not been forced to en- dorse single property entities in order to account for resem- blance without the fear of imperfect communities, and thus have not been forced to endorse entities which at bottom are simply mysterious.

We can also apparently answer the question tha t leads to Platonism and to the Nominalist alternatives, i.e., the question, “How can i t be tha t two complex particulars can both be F?” The answer is straightforward from the absolute process per- spective. The content of the absolute process that is in the one complex particular is the same content, the same stuff, as the one in the other. That content makes for the particulars having the quali t ies they do, though there is only one content present-present in both places a t once.

Now to flesh this out more fully gets a bit tricky. As i t s tands, it looks like absolute processes a re multi- exemplifiable-they are two places a t once. And as I carved things out that would make this strategy Platonistic. Of course, if this account provides a real solution, whether i t is properly classified as Nominalist or Platonist is immaterial. But there is a more substantive reason why I want t o reject the assimila- tion of absolute processes t o universals in being multi- exemplifiable, i.e., repeatables, i.e., being in two places at once. Here is why.

According t o the theory under development, absolute pro- cesses are the building blocks of reality. Each absolute process is a dynamic structured stuff, and the qualities of reality are to be conceived as the contents of these absolute processes. With these building blocks we can reconceive the macro- objects of ordinary experience as bundles of absolute processes. An apple, we might say, is a complex of a portion of whiting, a bit of redding, and numerous other qualities. But as a bundle theory of sorts, one may suspect this view falls prey to an old enemy of bundle theories, the Identity of Indiscernibles.

Following many others, I am inclined to deny the Indiscernibility thesis. But given the apparent affinities of my

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view with the Platonist, one may be tempted to wield against my view a standard objection to the Platonist who also denies the Identity of 1ndi~cernibles.l~

The objection is simply this. I t is a necessary truth that if A and B are composed of numerically identical constituents, A and B themselves must be one and the same. And for the bundle theorist whose ontology is universals, two complex items, as bundles, a re what they a re in virtue of their con- stituent universals. But as universals can be in two places at once, indeed that is the hallmark of a universal, were these two complex particulars qualitatively identical, they would be composed of numerically identical ingredients. But from the necessary t ru th about ingredients it follows tha t not only would they be qualitatively identical, they would be numeri- cally identical. They would be numerically identical because they are qualitatively identical. And that is to affirm the Iden- t i ty of Indiscernibles. And the objection continues, such a bundle theory must be false because i t commits one to the In- discernible thesis, which we have already said is false.

As for a bundle theory of absolute processes of the kind I have introduced, it would be problematic if absolute processes are tied too closely to universals, given my stand on the Iden- t i ty of Indiscernibles. How close then is the connection be- tween absolute processes and universals? Absolute processes are akin to universals in that there is a sense in which abso- lute processes are in two places at once. They are modeled, af- t e r all, on stuffs. Here is the crux though. If you have two complex particulars that are qualitatively identical, you have two absolute processes, one present in each; not one absolute process in two places at once.

Consider two square patches of red. On my view, the square portion of red of one is not numerically identical with the square portion of red of the other. While the content-the quality-present in each similarly qualitied particular is the same content, we should not say that there is a red entity in two places at once. There are two reddings, I say, two numeri- cally distinct absolute processes. What is in common is their content, their quality. The quality is in two places at once, but there are two entities here, not one. Why?

On the model of individuation I wish to endorse, what makes for an entity is not just a quality, but a quality with a certain structure. I t is only the structured form of redding that makes for the proper particulars of my system. Each bit of structured stuff, on this account, is a particular. Without the structure you do not have a particular, you just have a content; one that can be potentially part of a particular, but is not as such. In traditional terminology, I follow Aquinas in making “matter under terminate dimensions” my principle of individuation for particular absolute processes.15

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Again, with those red patches, I count two entities, not one as the Platonist does. What is the same in both of those par- ticulars-those structured bits of redding-is their content. The redding, as a stuff of sorts, is in both places, but only once we have not just content, but structured content-form and content if you like-do we have a particular. As for the issue of generality, there is a content that is in two places at once. The content of each is the same, a quality like a stuff, present in two places, though the patches themselves, as structured stuffs, are distinct particulars. We explain the qualitative identity across the particulars by recourse to the same stuff in each, though the structured stuff of one is numerically distinct from that of the other.

Thought of this way, absolute processes are immune to the objection tha t tries to foist upon it the Identity of Indiscernibles. For we do not have two complex particulars comprised of numerically identical ingredients. We can have two complex particulars, comprised of numerically distinct in- gredients, though their shared content, quality, explains their qualitative similarity.16

In summary then, the contents of absolute processes can be in two places a t once, for they are akin to stuffs. Against the Platonist, such contents are not abstracta. They are spatially and temporally locatable. As for the tropist, the absolute pro- cess theory grants that (suitably structured) properties are particulars. But while the tropist has to explain the similarity of complex particulars by recourse t o numerically distinct tropes and an unanalyzable relation of “exact resemblance,” absolute processes explain qualitative similarity by speaking of one content being structured in different places, as distinct ingredients in distinct complex particulars.

This last point may be put more fully as follows. The tropist accounts for generality, a t bottom, by recourse to a primitive relation of exact resemblance. I, on the other hand, opt for a primitive relation of part/whole. I believe this to be superior in that, as we have seen, the tropists’ opting for a primitive notion of resemblance is problematic in that what initially started the dialectic was a concern about similarity, that is, resemblance. To answer that initial puzzle by ultimate recourse to the same sort of notion we began wondering about is to offer no real answer. By making the relation of part/ whole my primitive, I hope to have gotten “below” the level of qualitative similarity, resting such troubling notions on one that is perhaps simpler, and one which does not make our ac- count circular.

Of course, a drastic ontological overhaul of the kind I have been suggesting requires a more in depth exploration of this and many other topics; including the relation of absolute pro- cesses to space and time, and responding fully to the objection

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tha t bundle theories force all predication t o be tautologous. But for now, however, I must plead that the project, like the entities it introduces, is a dynamic g~ings-on.’~

NOTES

Most vividly in his Carus Lectures: Wilfrid Sellars, “Founda- tions for a Metaphysics of Pure Process,” Monist 64 (19811, 3-90. As readers of Sellars will recall, absolute processes (and elsewhere in his corpus, sensa) a r e proposed to solve t h e mind-body problem. I will pu t them to a different use here. Johanna Seibt too has been working independently on a similar project, and I have been fortu- n a t e to have seen some of h e r work i n progress. (See, Properties a s Process: A Synoptic S tudy of Wilfrid Sellars’ Nominalism [Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing, 19901 ).

* Nelson Goodman, The Structure of Appearance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951).

Keith Campbell, Abstract Particulars (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,

Goodman, Structure of Appearance, 125. Campbell, Abstract Particulars, 31-32. See D. M. Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction

(Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), though Armstrong ultimately re- jects tropes after a thorough examination.

Campbell, Abstract Particulars, 130. Campbell, Abstract Particulars, 34. Were we considering sounds, we would be led to countenance a

duration (form) trope and a pitch (content) trope. We would have, for instance, a 10-second trope t h a t was not the 10-seconding of any- thing. That is even stranger.

lo Now one may claim t h a t tropes a re “abstract particulars,” as Campbell does, meaning that by processes of abstraction we come to understand the particular entities, i.e., tropes. What I have tried to show is t h a t when we at tempt such abstraction, we a r e unable to make sense of the entities as proposed by Campbell.

l1 Cf. W. V. 0. Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge: MIT Press, 19601, 98.

l2 One inheri ts a l l sor ts of objections in proclaiming a bundle view. One particularly nasty view is that bundle theorists seem to be committed to holding all predication is essential-were there any dif- ference in the constituent members of the bundle, there would be a different complex particular. Against this, Peter Simons (“Particulars in Particular Clothing: Three Trope Theories of Substance,” Philoso- phy and Phenomenological Research 54 [ 19941, 553-5751, advances what he calls a “nuclear theory,“ whereby certain tropes constitute t h e essence of t h e bundle, while others a r e merely supplemental . What Simons does not offer is any means for determining which are the essential members. Rather than face tha t problem, I am initially inclined to simply bite the bullet and hold all members of the bundle necessary. I think I can explain away the intuition t h a t some predi- cation is contingent by resorting to a Humean explanation. “A change in any considerable par t of a body destroys its identity; but ‘tis re- markable, tha t where the change is produc’d gradually and insensi-

19901, 33.

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bly we are less a p t to ascribe to it the same effect. The reason can plainly be no other, than tha t the mind, feels a n easy passage from the surveying its condition in one moment to the viewing of it in an- other ... from which ... it ascribes a contin’d existence and identity to the object” (David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19281, 256). And from here, perhaps, we are led to believe t h a t the object would have been one and the same even if some of its properties were different. So, if a gradual change in color does not impugn the numerical identity, it is but a small step to mis- takenly supposing the object would have been t h e same no mat te r what its color. Therefore, we come to think of color as a contingent property of physical objects.

l3 The historical precedent for this final move comes from Kant. In short, the intensive magnitudes of the first Critique turn out to be forces: the content or qualitative dimension of reality turns out to be forces, forces which a re posited as explanatorily useful ra ther than as revealed by the senses, forces which are only analogically natured (at best) to the sort of force experienced by the senses. Cf. Immanual Kant, “The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science,” in Phi- losophy of Material Nature (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1985).

Campbell develops something like this view in the later chapters of his book. The trouble is tha t the earlier portions of the book focus on tropes as particulars-which cannot be in two places at once, and which are not general in the sense we need them to be. This will be- come clearer as we proceed.

l4 Michael J. Loux, Substance and Attribute (Holland: D. Reidel Publishing, 1978), presents a version of this argument against the Platonist in Chapter 7.

l5 One remaining puzzle concerns t h e ontological s t a t u s of t h e form of each entity-its structure which makes a n individual an indi- vidual. In short, is such form another component of the entity? Do in- dividual absolute processes really unfold into two components, a form and a content? No. For I believe t h a t we can make use of Whitehead’s method of extensive abstraction to allow us to recover a metric which can account for the form of absolute processes without any additional ontological baggage. This is done by start ing with the notions of par t and whole and t h e relation of overlapping. We can then imagine regions t h a t overlap other regions, such as rectangles within larger rectangles, which produce something like a Chinese box. Geometric points a re then taken to be the entire converging set of such overlapping regions. A similar method will yield lines, and thus the resources for ‘constructing’ space. Cf. Alfred North White- head, The Concept of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).

l6 Given tha t it is the content of processes tha t is doing the work, and given t h e parallels between the content of absolute processes and stuffs, one may wonder why I do not simply endorse a stuff- based ontology. In a sense, though, I have endorsed a stuff-based on- tology. The difference being tha t I have refined this with dynamized stuffs, as i t were. The reason is threefold. Processes, like events, are the sorts of entities tha t can be said to be in more than one place a t once. This makes processes good modeling entities for the solution I am advancing. Second, processes (as opposed to stuffs) allow for use- ful ways of thinking of the interaction of the basic entities of the pro-

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posed ontology, and how reality might be constructed from such basic entities. Here I have in mind the useful analogies between processes and fields mentioned above. Finally, stuffs, as thing-like, inherit a persistent problem that has plagued atomists from Democritus to the present, namely, how do various atoms, or bits of mattedstuff stay together? The sort of causation and interaction suggested by model- ing our entities on fields may provide a way out of this. This again will have to be worked out subsequently.

l7 Thanks to Jay Rosenberg, Mary MacLeod, and David Bain for helpful comments and suggestions. Special thanks to Bill Lycan, who endured numerous versions and discussions, and who offered sub- stantial help throughout. A shortened version of this paper was pre- sented to the North Carolina Philosophical Society, and I would like to thank the participants for their various comments. Finally, I wish to thank a referee for the Southern Journal of Philosophy for com- ments on an earlier version of this paper.

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