The metaphysics of properties in causal systems

by

Professor John Collier
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
<http://web.ncf.ca/collier>http://web.ncf<http://web.ncf.ca/collier>.ca/collier

Bolsista do Programa Ciências sem Fronteiras

In order to discuss properties in any depth it is necessary to establish a bit of metaphysics and the relevant epistemology first. There are two broad metaphysical systems: nominalism and realism. Nominalism is the view that all of our terms are purely nominal creations of ours, and that we divide up the world according to these terms. Another aspect of nominalism is the dictum that everything that is is a particular. I will argue that nominalism fails because the world can surprise us. Despite this, nominalism became established in English language philosophy from the time of William of Ockam, and became firmly entrenched by the 20th Century. Realism divides into two kinds, metaphysical realism and scientific realism. The latter is compatible with some relaxed versions of nominalism, and is widely accepted. Metaphysical realism has two components. The first is that our best theory of the world could still be false, even if all the data is in. This is a fairly recent invention. The second is ancient, going back to Aristotle at least, and holds that general terms are real, and, in some versions, that they exist. I will argue that to understand causation we do indeed need to assume that generals are real, but only in the sense that they can reflect a putative structure of the world. They cannot properly be said to exist.  look at particulars, and reject the idea that generals (or essences) determine causal properties, but take them to be supervenient on particular instances of causation instead. A consequence of this is that causal properties are fundamentally individual (particulars). I will argue that the nominalist idea that every thing that exists is a particular, but not everything that is real. The position is still realist in both the scientific and realist sense, however, defeating recent philosophical arguments (Putnam, Ellis among others) that the two are incompatible.

———-