A Plea for Concrete Universals
| Autor | Eduardo García-Ramírez - Ivan Mayerhofer |
| Cargo | Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - Independent Researcher |
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CRÍTICA, Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía. Vol. 47, No. 139 (abril 2015): 3–46
A PLEA FOR CONCRETE UNIVERSALS
EDUARDO GARCÍA-RAMÍREZ
Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México edu@filosoficas.unam.mx
IVAN MAYERHOFER
Independent Researcher ivanm@umich.edu
SUMMARY: This paper is concerned with the metaphysics of created repeatable objects, such as musical works and literary fictions. In section 2 we lay out what we take to be intuitive and plausible desiderata for any theory of created repeatable objects. In sections 3 and 4 we proceed with an extended disjunctive syllogism. Created repeatable objects are either concrete universals, concrete particulars, abstract universals, or abstract particulars. We show how accounts that take them to be either one of the latter three fail egregiously. Therefore, we must take them to be concrete universals. In section 5 we offer a brief account of the metaphysical nature of concrete universals and then show how concrete universals can account for the desiderata while avoiding the objections presented against alternative theories.
KEY WORDS: creation, repeatability, musical works, literary fictions, metaphysics
RESUMEN: Este artículo trata el problema de los objetos creados que pueden ser repetidos, como las obras musicales y las literarias. En la sección 2 presentamos una serie de desiderata intuitivos que toda teoría debe satisfacer. En las secciones 3 y 4 presentamos un silogismo disyuntivo extendido. Los objetos en cuestión pueden ser o bien universales concretos, particulares concretos, universales abstractos o particulares abstractos. Mostramos cómo es que las teorías que consideran que son cualquiera de las tres últimas opciones fracasan. Por lo tanto, debemos entender a dichos objetos como universales concretos. En la sección 5 ofrecemos una teoría breve pero detallada de la naturaleza metafísica de los universales concretos para después mostrar cómo esta propuesta permite dar cuenta de los desiderata intuitivos a la vez que se evitan las objeciones presentadas en contra de teorías alternativas.
PALABRAS CLAVE: creación, repetibilidad, obras musicales, obras literarias, meta-física
1 . Introduction
Why concrete universals? When thinking about things in general, a pair of metaphysical distinctions comes immediately to mind: concrete versus abstract and particular versus universal. Each notion may be difficult to analyze, but the categories are intuitive enough to work with. For example, abstract objects are typically understood to be non-spatiotemporal entities that are, thus, causally isolated and
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necessarily existing.1 On the other hand, concrete objects are contingent entities and enter into causal relations. Universals can have instances, whereas particulars cannot. Unlike universals, particulars exist in a specific location and at a specific time (or set of locations and set of times) without repetition.
Putting these two sets of distinctions together, we get the following space of possible kinds of objects: (i) concrete universals, (ii) concrete particulars, (iii) abstract universals, and (iv) abstract particulars. Examples of some of these are obvious enough. Nominalists opt for concrete particulars in their account of properties, whereas Platonic realists opt for abstract universals. Abstract object theorists such as Parsons (1980) take abstract particulars seriously and provide sophisticated theories about them, whereas some might hold that there are only concrete particulars and everything else supervenes on them. But among this space of views, concrete universals are not taken seriously.2 We think they should be.
By taking a closer look at the existence of created repeatable objects such as musical works, we argue that a satisfactory account of what kind of objects they are must treat them as concrete universals. In section 2 we lay out what we take to be intuitive and plausible desiderata for any theory of created repeatable objects. In sections 3 and 4 proceed with an extended disjunctive syllogism. Created repeatable objects are either concrete universals, concrete particulars, abstract universals, or abstract particulars. We show how accounts that take them to be either one of the latter three fail egregiously. Therefore, we must take them to be concrete universals. This establishes our plea for the acceptance of concrete universals. In section 5 we show how concrete universals can account for the desiderata while avoiding the objections presented against alternative theories. Finally, in section 6 we offer a brief account of the metaphysical nature of
1 Even though this seems to be the most widely accepted view of abstract objects, it is not without troubles (see Rosen 2012). There seem to be several different ways of drawing the abstract/concrete object distinction. Some even seem to think that abstract objects may be concrete (see ibid.) as they consider them to be the result of a process of abstraction from concrete particulars. Settling this debate is irrelevant for the debate concerning created repeatable objects, and it is definitely outside the scope of this paper. It will be enough, for our purposes, to settle on the abovementioned (widely accepted) distinction and simply assume that by “abstract” we mean “non-spatiotemporal”.
2 In fact, most people seem to think that universals must be abstract objects (see Rodríguez-Pereyra 2014) since, it is argued, they would otherwise have to be multi-located spatiotemporal objects (i.e., concrete objects that can be fully present in distinct locations). More on this in section 5.
Crítica , vol. 47, no. 139 (abril 2015)
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A PLEA FOR CONCRETE UNIVERSALS 5 concrete universals. As such, the acceptance of concrete universals has substantial benefits. By accounting for created repeatable objects concrete universals do not only explain the nature of musical works and literary fictions, they also account for photographs, car models, computer models, drugs, scientific creations, and all sorts of created reproducible objects that are part of our ordinary life.3A brief note on terminology is in order. We use “objects” to refer to either particulars or universals. When we specifically want to talk about either particulars or universals, we will use the appropriate qualification or names to signal our intention. “Properties” refers to any object that can have instances. Since we need a term to talk about properties that does not presuppose an ontological thesis about the nature of properties, this term is meant to leave open whether properties are reducible to particulars or are irreducible ontological entities. On the other hand, “universals” refers to irreducible properties, if there are any at all. When we say that concrete universals are objects we do not mean to say they are particular entities. We intend our uses of these terms to broadly cohere with general usage in the philosophical literature, while recognizing that this is a difficult task to achieve.
This terminological clarification should illuminate our claim that created repeatable objects, such as musical works, are concrete universals. In what follows, we provide an extended argument intended to support the acceptance of concrete universals as part of our ontology, leaving it for a later occasion to discuss the deeper metaphysical nature of this kind of object.
2 . Created Repeatable Objects
What is it that Beethoven created when he composed his Sonata No. 29? We believe that whatever Beethoven created should play the following roles. First, it should be capable of being created voluntarily. What Beethoven created came into existence in 1818; it
3 Benacerraf (1973) argued that mathematics presents a substantial challenge for philosophers, for what is necessary for mathematical truth appears to make it unknowable. The best (or perhaps most common) way to account for the necessity of mathematical truths is to take mathematical objects to be abstract. This naturally prompts the question: how is it that concrete human beings can learn anything about them? It is tempting, then, to take mathematical truths to be about concrete objects. That would help us explain how mathematical knowledge is possible. Yet, when we think about concrete objects we usually think of the realm of concrete particulars that are what they are only contingently so. We seem to need concrete entities to account for knowability, and universal entities to account for necessity. Perhaps concrete universals may be of help here.
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did not exist prior to this time. It follows from this that Beethoven is responsible for creating it. Put another way, Sonata No. 29 depends for its existence on Beethoven. Put the other way around, if the Sonata exists independently, in the relevant sense, of Beethoven, then he cannot be said to have created it. One way in which there can be independent existence is that of preexistence. For example, had Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29 preexisted Beethoven, it would be false to say that he created it. Thus, dependence turns out to be a necessary condition for creation.4 Second, it is repeatable. Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29 can be performed and written down. Whether written down or performed on different occasions, it is one and the same object, namely, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29 that is written or performed in each of these cases. Thus, there are two important ideas here. First, to say that Beethoven’s Sonata is repeatable is to say that it is the very same object that is repeated every time —in other words, it is not to say that there can be several numerically different objects that are similar to it—. Second, the musical work does not depend on any one medium for its existence. It...
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