A plea for concrete universals.

AutorGarcia-Ramirez, Eduardo
CargoEnsayo

RESUMEN: Este articulo trata el problema de los objetos creados que pueden ser repetidos, como las obras musicales y las literarias. En la seccion 2 presentamos una serie de desiderata intuitivos que toda teoria debe satisfacer. En las secciones 3 y 4 presentamos un silogismo disyuntivo extendido. Los objetos en cuestion pueden ser o bien universales concretos, particulares concretos, universales abstractos o particulares abstractos. Mostramos como es que las teorias que consideran que son cualquiera de las tres ultimas opciones fracasan. Por lo tanto, debemos entender a dichos objetos como universales concretos. En la seccion 5 ofrecemos una teoria breve pero detallada de la naturaleza metafisica de los universales concretos para despues mostrar como esta propuesta permite dar cuenta de los desiderata intuitivos a la vez que se evitan las objeciones presentadas en contra de teorias alternativas.

PALABRAS CLAVE: creacion, repetibilidad, obras musicales, obras literarias, metafisica

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

  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 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 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. (3)

    A 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 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 can be repeated in multiple modalities. We take these roles to be plausible desiderata for any metaphysical account of the kind of object Beethoven created when he composed his Sonata No. 29. Thus, we have two substantial desiderata for the account we are looking for:

    Creation: the object must not have existed prior to its creation, thus, its existence depends upon its creator's voluntary decision to create it.

    Repeatability: the very same object may be instantiated on several occasions and in different modalities.

    A satisfactory account must explain what kind of objects are repeatable objects, such as musical and literary works, so that they can be "brought into existence by means of the creative activity of an author or a composer" (Deutsch 1991, p. 209).

    Now, it is difficult to get clear on what these desiderata demand without prejudging the case on behalf of some or other account. This is so because distinct accounts of created repeatable objects will have different ways of understanding the desiderata. Abstract object theories, whether about particulars or about universals, tend to have problems with our first desiderata. Thus, as we will see, they end up offering their own understanding of what it is for an object to be capable of being voluntarily created. Theories that appeal to concrete particulars also have trouble, but this time with the second desiderata. Hence, they will end up offering their own view of what it is for a particular to be repeated. In what follows, we will consider how these theories interpret creation and repeatability, and argue that the resulting theories are unacceptable.

  3. Musical Works and Stories as Abstract Objects

    Like musical works, literary works of fiction (fictions) are also taken to place the same desiderata upon a proper account of them: they are both creatable and repeatable. Several philosophers have proposed what are known as "abstract object" theories of musical works and fictions (most prominently Parsons (1980) and Deutsch (1991)). In this section we will focus on Deutsch's (1991) account, as we consider it to be the best available abstract object account, and because most (if not all) other abstract object theories conceive of the relevant abstract object as a Platonic, eternal, causally isolated object. In this section we show why theories of this sort fail. Although these accounts primarily deal with abstract particulars, we go on to show that any abstract object...

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