This article outlines a realist theory of aesthetic properties as higher-order manifest properties and defends it from several objections, including a possible conflict with contextualist approaches to the aesthetic properties of works of art.

The modern form of realism about properties has typically been far more austere than its Platonic ancestor. There is nothing especially austere about denying, as most modern property realists do, the reality of “disjunctive properties”—properties which would correspond, in the world, to disjunctive predicates such as “is an apple or an ocean,” “is observed by now and green or not observed by now and blue,” etc. But modern property realists typically deny far more. It has been argued, (...) for example, that the only real properties there are are properties flanked by contrary opposites—so that there is no real property corresponding, for example, to the predicate “is self-identical.” Perhaps the biggest step in the direction of austerity is the argument, offered by a number of modern property realists, that there can be in the world no “determinable properties” corresponding to such determinable predicates as “has mass,” “is colored,” or “has a valence.” For these arguments are said to establish that not even such familiar properties as redness or painfulness really exist; to predicates such as “is red” and “is painful,” no real property corresponds. The business of this paper is to examine the prevailing arguments against “determinable properties,” and to argue that the ontology which they entail is decidedly less austere than is commonly supposed. The motivation is mainly just to get a more accurate ontology of properties. But a side benefit, if my arguments are correct, will be an increased appreciation for the treatment of vague predicates that posits truth-value gaps—and with it, increased ease with the idea that corresponding to vague predicates there really are, in the world, vague properties. (shrink)

The modern form of realism about properties has typically been far more austere than its Platonic ancestor. There is nothing especially austere about denying, as most modern property realists do, the reality of “disjunctive properties”—properties which would correspond, in the world, to disjunctive predicates such as “is an apple or an ocean,” “is observed by now and green or not observed by now and blue,” etc. But modern property realists typically deny far more. It has been argued, (...) for example, that the only real properties there are are properties flanked by contrary opposites—so that there is no real property corresponding, for example, to the predicate “is self-identical.” Perhaps the biggest step in the direction of austerity is the argument, offered by a number of modern property realists, that there can be in the world no “determinable properties” corresponding to such determinable predicates as “has mass,” “is colored,” or “has a valence.” For these arguments are said to establish that not even such familiar properties as redness or painfulness really exist; to predicates such as “is red” and “is painful,” no real property corresponds. The business of this paper is to examine the prevailing arguments against “determinable properties,” and to argue that the ontology which they entail is decidedly less austere than is commonly supposed. The motivation is mainly just to get a more accurate ontology of properties. But a side benefit, if my arguments are correct, will be an increased appreciation for the treatment of vague predicates that posits truth-value gaps—and with it, increased ease with the idea that corresponding to vague predicates there really are, in the world, vague properties. (shrink)

The claim that ordinary ethical discourse is typically true and that ethical facts are typically knowable seems in tension with the claim that ordinary ethical discourse is about features of reality friendly to a scientific worldview. Cornell Realism attempts to dispel this tension by claiming that ordinary ethical discourse is, in fact, discourse about the same kinds of things that scientific discourse is about: natural properties. We offer two novel arguments in reply. First, we identify a key assumption that (...) we find unlikely to be true. Second, we identify two features of typical natural properties that ethical properties lack. We conclude that Cornell Realism falls short of dispelling the tension between ethical conservativism and ethical naturalism. (shrink)

The paper pinpoints certain unrecognized difficulties that surface for recombination and duplication in modal realism when we ask whether the following inter-world fixity claims hold true: 1) A property is perfectly natural in a world iff it is perfectly natural in every world where it is instantiated; 2) Something is mereologically atomic in a world iff all of its duplicates in every world are atomic. In connection to 1), the hypothesis of idlers prompts four variants of Lewis’s doctrine (...) of perfectly natural properties, all deemed unsatisfactory for the purposes of duplication and recombination. By means of 2), instead, we show that the principle of recombination does not countenance the atomicity or non-atomicity of duplicates; but it should, because it is genuinely possible that: a) something, which is atomic, is non-atomic; and b) something, which is non-atomic, is atomic. In discussing 1) and 2), the paper substantiates a tension in Lewis’s metaphysics between modal intuitions and the reliance on the natural sciences. (shrink)

While the phrase "metaphysics of science" has been used from time to time, it has only recently begun to denote a specific research area where metaphysics meets philosophy of science—and the sciences themselves. The essays in this volume demonstrate that metaphysics of science is an innovative field of research in its own right. The principle areas covered are: The modal metaphysics of properties: What is the essential nature of natural properties? Are all properties essentially categorical? Are they all essentially dispositions, (...) or are some categorical and others dispositional? Realism in mathematics and its relation to science: What does a naturalistic commitment of scientific realism tell us about our commitments to mathematical entities? Can this question be framed in something other than a Quinean philosophy? Dispositions and their relation to causation: Can we generate an account of causation that takes dispositionality as fundamental? And if we take dispositions as fundamental, what is the ontological ground of dispositions? Pandispositionalism: Could all properties be dispositional in nature? Natural kinds: Are there natural kinds, and if so what account of their nature should we give? For example, do they have essences? Here we consider how these issues may be illuminated by considering examples from reals science, in particular biochemistry and neurobiology. (shrink)

Objects which philosophers have traditionally categorized as abstract are standardly referred to by complex noun phrases of certain canonical forms, such as ‘the set of Fs’, ‘the number of Fs’, ‘the proposition that P’, and ‘the property of being F’. It is no accident that such noun phrases are well-suited to appear in ‘Fregean’ identity-criteria, or ‘abstraction’ principles, for which Frege’s criterion of identity for cardinal numbers provides the paradigm. Notoriously, such principlesare apt to create paradoxes, and the most (...) intuitively plausible ‘Fregean’ identity-criterion for properties is afflicted by this problem. In this case, it may be possible to overcome the difficulty by modifying the criterion in a way which requires an independent account of the existence-conditions of properties, but it appears that such a strategy demands acceptance of the doctrine of immanent realism—the view that a property exists only if it is exemplified by some object. (shrink)

Ontic structural realism refers to the novel, exciting, and widely discussed basic idea that the structure of physical reality is genuinely relational. In its radical form, the doctrine claims that there are, in fact, no objects but only structure, i.e., relations. More moderate approaches state that objects have only relational but no intrinsic properties. In its most moderate and most tenable form, ontic structural realism assumes that at the most fundamental level of physical reality there are only relational (...) properties. This means that the most fundamental objects only possess relational but no non-reducible intrinsic properties. The present paper will argue that our currently best physics refutes even this most moderate form of ontic structural realism. More precisely, I will claim that 1) according to quantum field theory, the most fundamental objects of matter are quantum fields and not particles, and show that 2) according to the Standard Model, quantum fields have intrinsic non-relational properties. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of "the species problem", arguing for a view of species as homeostatic property cluster kinds, positioning the resulting form of realism about species as an alternative to the claim that species are individuals and pluralistic views of species. It draws on taxonomic practice in the neurosciences, especially of neural crest cells and retinal ganglion cells, to motivate both the rejection of the species-as-individuals thesis and species pluralism.

Traditionally, many arguments for realism about properties rely on a priori claims. The author argues that if we make use of an abductive principle that is commonly employed by scientific realists, a new argument for property realism can be formulated which is based firmly in scientific practice. The abductive principle says that we should believe in the existence of certain theoretical entities if they figure in the best explanation for what scientists observe. The scientific argument for (...) class='Hi'>property realism then says that the best explanation for various behavioural patterns that physical scientists observe is that microscopic entities instantiate stable, causally efficacious properties. After presenting the argument, the author defends it against possible objections. More generally, the article provides a case study for how science and metaphysics can work together to generate ontological claims. (shrink)

Peut-on et doit-on admettre des propriétés non physiques? Une ontologie minimale accepte seulement la réalité des propriétés physiques. Elle prend appui sur un critère d’existence restreint : le critère causal. A l’inverse, une ontologie d’accueil affirme la réalité d’au moins certaines propriétés non physiques, et conteste par là la validité du critère causal. Le but de cette investigation est de défendre une version modérée du réalisme par rapport aux propriétés non physiques et de proposer un nouveau critère d’existence : le (...) critère explicatif. (shrink)

Peut-on et doit-on admettre des propriétés non physiques? Une ontologie minimale accepte seulement la réalité des propriétés physiques. Elle prend appui sur un critère d’existence restreint : le critère causal. A l’inverse, une ontologie d’accueil affirme la réalité d’au moins certaines propriétés non physiques, et conteste par là la validité du critère causal. Le but de cette investigation est de défendre une version modérée du réalisme par rapport aux propriétés non physiques et de proposer un nouveau critère d’existence : le (...) critère explicatif. (shrink)

In Justice as Fairness, Rawls presents a case for property-owning democracy (POD) which heavily depends on a favourable comparison with welfare state capitalism (WSC). He argues that WSC, but not POD, fails to realise ‘all the main political values expressed by the two principles of justice’. This article argues that Rawls’s case for POD is incomplete. He does not show that POD is superior to other conceivable forms of WSC. In order to present a serious contender, I sketch what (...) I call a realistically utopian welfare state (RUWS) that (a) guarantees the fair equality of political liberties and opportunity and that (b) maximises the situation of the worst.-off via a kind of participation income. The main aim of the article is to give credibility to the claim that RUWS is not obviously worse than POD by Rawlsian standards and therefore deserves a fair hearing in further research. (shrink)

The aim of this article is twofold. Recently, Lewis has presented an argument, now known as the "counting anomaly", that the spontaneous localization approach to quantum mechanics, suggested by Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber, implies that arithmetic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects. I will take this argument as the starting point for a discussion of the property structure of realist collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics in general. At the end of this I present a proof of the fact (...) that the composition principle, which holds true in standard quantum mechanics, fails in all realist collapse interpretations. On the basis of this result I reconsider the counting anomaly and show that what lies at the heart of the anomaly is the failure to appreciate the peculiarities of the property structure of such interpretations. Once this flaw is uncovered, the anomaly vanishes. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is two-fold. Recently, Lewis has presented an argument, now known as the `counting anomaly', that the spontaneous localization approach to quantum mechanics, suggested by Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber, implies that arithmetic does not apply to ordinary macroscopic objects. I will take this argument as the starting point for a discussion of the property structure of realist collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics in general. At the end of this I present a proof of the fact (...) that the composition principle, which holds true in Standard Quantum Mechanics, fails in all realist collapse interpretations. On the basis of this result I reconsider the counting anomaly and show that what lies at the heart of the anomaly is the failure to appreciate the peculiarities of the property structure of collapse interpretations. Once this flaw is uncovered, the anomaly vanishes. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 20 Tugby and Yates have recently argued that immanent realism is incompatible with the existence of intrinsic but relationally constituted genuine dispositional properties. The success of Tugby’s and Yates’ arguments depends either on a strong or on a weak assumption about the interworld identity of dispositional properties. In this paper, the author evaluates the strength of the arguments in question under those two assumptions. He also offers an alternative metaphysical picture for the fundamental dispositional properties (...) which rejects these assumptions and, consequently, undermines the arguments themselves. (shrink)

This paper attacks two contrary views. One denies that nature has joints, taking the properties we call natural to be merely artefacts of our theories. The other accepts real natural properties but takes their naturalness to come by degrees. I argue that both are wrong: natural properties are real, and their naturalness no more comes by degrees than does the naturalness of the things that have them.1.

_metaphysically transparent_: we do not arrive at a better understanding of the realm of facts that make such talk true or false when we abandon ordinary mental concepts in favor of naturalistic concepts—or, for that matter, in favor of supernaturalistic concepts, although _super_naturalism will not be my concern here. Rather, it is ordinary mental concepts themselves that provide the best framework for understanding the metaphysics of mind. In this essay, I will be concerned just with naïve realism about mental (...) _properties_. 1 I will defend naïve realism first in relation to the view that mental properties are (ultimately) realized by fundamental physical properties (property-physicalism), and, second, in relation to the broader view that mental properties are realized by the non- rational properties of some natural science or other (property-naturalism).2 Plainly, the construction of an impenetrable defense of naïve realism would be a foolhardy ambition for a single essay. Ultimately, my aim here is thus significantly more modest: I hope just to show that naïve realism is a legitimate contender in the philosophy of mind, one which is for the most part completely overlooked, but which deserves serious consideration. (shrink)

This paper attacks two contrary views. One denies that nature has joints, taking the properties we call natural to be merely artefacts of our theories. The other accepts real natural properties but takes their naturalness to come by degrees. I argue that both are wrong: natural properties are real, and their naturalness no more comes by degrees than does the naturalness of the things that havethem.

In this chapter, I make the case for platonic realism, the thesis that there are properties that lack spatial locations. After criticizing the one-over-many argument for realism and Lewis's argument for realism, I endorse a modal argument that derives the existence of platonic properties from considerations involving necessary truth. I then defend this argument from various objections. Finally, I argue that epistemic considerations and considerations of parsimony favor a weak form of platonic realism on which there (...) are platonic properties, but each property could have had an instance, and would have been located in its instances if it had any. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Aesthetic properties figure prominently in our daily lives, our conversations and many actions we take. Yet theoretical disagreement prevails over their nature, their variety, their epistemic and metaphysical status. This overview highlights the heterogeneity of aesthetic properties and examines repercussions for explanation. Aesthetic properties belong to natural objects or scenes, to artworks in any medium, to artefacts and built environments across historical eras; and they draw a wide variety of responses such as our perceptions, emotions or imaginative thought. Historicism about (...) artworks carries over to at least some aesthetic properties that depend on facts of their broader historical context just as works do. One issue is whether aesthetic properties can be demarcated solely in terms of non-aesthetic properties. If not, explanations of aesthetic properties need to draw on other aesthetic notions such as aesthetic experience, attention, judgement or value. The paper examines several accounts of aesthetic value to show how they extend to aesthetic properties. The paper concludes with an overview of the current metaphysical debate between realists and non-realists about aesthetic properties. (shrink)

This paper argues for a realist position in the metaphysics of aesthetic properties. Realist positions about aesthetic properties are few and far between, though sometimes developed by analogy to realism about colours. By contrast, my position is based on a disanalogy between aesthetic properties and colours. Unlike colours, aesthetic properties are perceived as relatively unsteady properties: as powers that objects have to cause a certain experience in the observer. Following on from this observation, I develop a realist account of (...) aesthetic properties as causally efficient powers, analogous to properties like fragility or poisonousness. To show how such a view can be made ontologically respectable, I draw on recent ‘dispositionalist’ accounts of powers in philosophical metaphysics. I then offer two arguments in favour of this view. First, the view matches the phenomenology of aesthetic judgement. Second, the view offers an explanation of how it is that critics can demand agreement with their aesthetic judgements. (shrink)

Is property-awareness constituted by representation or not? If it were, merely being aware of the qualities of physical objects would involve being in a representational state. This would have considerable implications for a prominent view of the nature of successful perceptual experiences. According to naïve realism, any such experience—or more specifically its character—is fundamentally a relation of awareness to concrete items in the environment. Naïve realists take their view to be a genuine alternative to representationalism, the view on (...) which the character of such experiences is constituted by representation. But naïve realists must admit qualities or property instances as items of awareness if they are to remain wedded to common sense, and the nature of property-awareness may smuggle constitutive representation into the naïve realist account of character. I argue that whether property-awareness involves representation, and consequently whether naïve realism is distinct from representationalism or not, depends on what qualities are fundamentally. On universalist and nominalist accounts, property-awareness turns out to involve representation. Not so under tropism. (shrink)

Some arguments against David Lewis’s modal realism seek to exploit apparent inconsistencies between it and anthropic reasoning. A recent argument, in particular, seeks to exploit an inconsistency between modal realism and typicality anthropic premises, premises common in the literature on physical multiverses, to the effect that observers who are like human observers in certain respects must be typical in the relevant multiverse. Here I argue that typicality premises are not applicable to the description of Lewis’s metaphysical multiverse, where (...) the proportions of metaphysically possible observers possessing the pertinent properties can be independently established by metaphysical reasoning. However, other kinds of reasonable anthropic premises can be seen to be consistent with and usable within modal realism. (shrink)

This paper examines whether realists can explain co-reference without appealing to subjects’ ideal convergence in judgment. This question is particularly pressing in the normative domain, since deep disagreement about the applicability of normative predicates suggests that different speakers may not pick out the same property when they use normative terms. Normative realists, we believe, have not been sufficiently aware of the difficulties involved in providing a theory of reference-determination. Our aim in this paper is to clarify the nature of (...) this reference-fixing task and the challenges that arise for a non-convergentist normative realist. Our focal point will be Richard Boyd’s externalist account, which has been a model for non-convergentist theories of reference in metaethics. A close examination of Boyd’s account of reference and the ways it could be developed or supplemented, we’ll argue, suggests that explaining co-reference without convergence in the normative domain is a more challenging problem than many realists have supposed. (shrink)

Moral realism and antirealist-expressivism are of course incompatible positions. They disagree fundamentally about the nature of moral states of mind, the existence of moral states of affairs and properties, and the nature and role of moral discourse. The central realist view is that a person who has or expresses a moral thought is thereby in, or thereby expresses, a cognitive state of mind; she has or expresses a belief that represents a moral state of affairs in a way that (...) might be accurate or inaccurate. The view of antirealist-expressivism is that such a person is in, or expresses, a conative state of mind, one that consists in a certain kind of attitude or motivational stance toward something, such as an action or a person. Realism holds that moral thoughts have truth conditions and that in some cases these truth conditions are satisfied so that our moral thoughts are true. Antirealist-expressivism holds, to a first approximation, that the distinctive moral content of a moral thought does not have truth conditions. (shrink)

This paper continues the defense of a version of scientific realism, Tautological Scientific Realism, that rests on the claim that, excluding some areas of fundamental physics about which doubts are entirely justified, many areas of contemporary science cannot be coherently imagined to be false other than via postulation of radically skeptical scenarios, which are not relevant to the realism debate in philosophy of science. In this paper we discuss, specifically, the threats of meaning change and reference failure (...) associated with the Kuhnian tradition, which depend on a descriptivist approach to meaning, and we argue that descriptivism is not the right account of the meaning and reference of theoretical terms. We suggest that an account along the lines of the causal-historical theory of reference provides a more faithful picture of how terms for unobservable theoretical entities and properties come to refer; we argue that this picture works particularly well for TSR. In the last section we discuss how our account raises concerns specifically for perspectival forms of scientific realism. (shrink)

A popular and plausible response against Laudan's “pessimistic induction” has been what I call “preservative realism,” which argues that there have actually been enough elements of scientific knowledge preserved through major theory‐change processes, and that those elements can be accepted realistically. This paper argues against preservative realism, in particular through a critical review of Psillos's argument concerning the case of the caloric theory of heat. Contrary to his argument, the historical record of the caloric theory reveals that beliefs (...) about the properties of material caloric, rejected by subsequent theories, were indeed central to the successes of the caloric theory. Therefore caloric remains a favorable case for Laudan. Further, I argue that even confirmed cases of preservation do not warrant an inference to truth. (shrink)

Realism about types is the view that types are abstract and repeatable objects. Although type realists seem to agree that types, unlike properties, are objects in their own right, they argue that there is a metaphysically intimate tie between the existence conditions of types and properties. In particular, most type realists believe that types are, in a certain sense, determined by the properties that underlie them. I argue that this is a mistake, especially for those type realists who believe (...) that social and cultural types such as works of music and fiction or words are artifacts. I offer an alternative version of type realism where social and cultural types are dependent objects that should be understood in analogy with concrete artifacts. (shrink)

It is well-known that naïve realism has difficulty accommodating perceptual error. Recent discussion of the issue has focused on whether the naïve realist can accommodate hallucination by adopting disjunctivism. However, illusions are more difficult for the naïve realist to explain precisely because the disjunctivist solution is not available. I discuss what I take to be the two most plausible accounts of illusion available to the naïve realist. The first claims that illusions are cases in which you are prevented from (...) perceiving properties you would ordinarily perceive and subsequently form a mistaken judgment about the perceived object. The second appeals to an unusual look or appearance that the perceived object instantiates. I argue that neither account is satisfactory and that, consequently, naïve realism ought to be rejected. (shrink)

The target article is an attempt to make some progress on the problem of color realism. Are objects colored? And what is the nature of the color properties? We defend the view that physical objects (for instance, tomatoes, radishes, and rubies) are colored, and that colors are physical properties, specifically types of reflectance. This is probably a minority opinion, at least among color scientists. Textbooks frequently claim that physical objects are not colored, and that the colors are "subjective" or (...) "in the mind." The article has two other purposes: first, to introduce an interdisciplinary audience to some distinctively philosophical tools that are useful in tackling the problem of color realism and, second, to clarify the various positions and central arguments in the debate. (shrink)

We argue that if one wishes to be a realist, one should adopt a Neo-Aristotelian ontology involving tropes instead of a Russellian ontology of property universals and objects. Either Russellian realists should adopt the relata-specific relational tropes of instantiation instead of facts, or convert to Neo-Aristotelian realism with monadic tropes. Regarding Neo-Aristotelian realism, we have two novel points why it fares better than Russellian realism. Instantiation of property universals by tropes and characterization or inherence between (...) tropes and objects are more transparent ontological notions than relational inherence, which is assumed in Russellian realism with the relational tropes of instantiation. Neo-Aristotelian realism makes better sense about abstract universals, which are a more viable option than concrete universals. (shrink)

Following the proposal of a new kind of selective structural realism that uses as a basis the distinction between framework and interaction theories, this work discusses relevant applications in fundamental physics. An ontology for the different entities and properties of well-known theories is thus consistently built. The case of classical field theories—including general relativity as a classical theory of gravitation—is examined in detail, as well as the implications of the classification scheme for issues of realism in quantum mechanics. (...) These applications also shed light on the different range of applicability of the ontic and epistemic versions of structural realism. (shrink)

Drawing on empirical evidence from history and anthropology, we aim to demonstrate that there is room for genealogical ideology critique within normative political theory. The test case is some libertarians’ use of folk notions of private property rights in defence of the legitimacy of capitalist states. Our genealogy of the notion of private property shows that asking whether a capitalist state can emerge without violations of self-ownership cannot help settling the question of its legitimacy, because the notion of (...) private property presupposed by that question is a product of the entity it is supposed to help legitimise: the state. We anchor our genealogical critique in recent work on ideology in epistemology and philosophy of language, and in current debates on the methodology of political theory. But, unlike more traditional approaches that aim to debunk whole concepts or even belief systems, we propose a more targeted, argument-specific form of ideology critique. (shrink)

Aristotelian, or non-Platonist, realism holds that mathematics is a science of the real world, just as much as biology or sociology are. Where biology studies living things and sociology studies human social relations, mathematics studies the quantitative or structural aspects of things, such as ratios, or patterns, or complexity, or numerosity, or symmetry. Let us start with an example, as Aristotelians always prefer, an example that introduces the essential themes of the Aristotelian view of mathematics. A typical mathematical truth (...) is that there are six different pairs in four objects: Figure 1. There are 6 different pairs in 4 objects The objects may be of any kind, physical, mental or abstract. The mathematical statement does not refer to any properties of the objects, but only to patterning of the parts in the complex of the four objects. If that seems to us less a solid truth about the real world than the causation of flu by viruses, that may be simply due to our blindness about relations, or tendency to regard them as somehow less real than things and properties. But relations (for example, relations of equality between parts of a structure) are as real as colours or causes. (shrink)

Perceptions are externally-directed—they present us with a mind-independent reality, and thus contribute to our abilities to think about this reality, and to know what is objectively the case. But perceptions are also internally-dependent—their phenomenologies depend on the neuro-computational properties of the subject. A good theory of perception must account for both these facts. But naive realism has been criticized for failing to accommodate internal-dependence. This paper evaluates and responds to this criticism. It first argues that a certain version of (...) naive realism, often called “selectionism”, does indeed struggle with internal-dependence. It then develops an alternate version of naive realism which does not. This alternate version, inspired by an idea of Martin’s, accommodates the internal-dependence of perceptions by recognizing the role that the subject’s neuro-computational properties play in shaping perceptual phenomenology. At the same time, it retains the distinctive naive realist account of the external-directedness of perceptions. (shrink)