JAMES VAN CLEVE

T H R E E V E R S I O N S OF T H E B U N D L E T H E O R Y

(Received 27 July, 1983)

'A thing (individual, concrete particular) is nothing but a bundle of properties'.

I f we take it as it stands, this traditional metaphysical view is open to several

familiar and, to my mind, decisive objections. Sophisticated upholders o f the tradition, such as Russell and Castafieda, do not take it as it stands, but I

shall argue that even their version of it remains open to some of the same

objections. Then I shall suggest a third version of the view that avoids all the

standard objections, but only at a price I think most people would be unwil- ling to pay.

Let us begin by seeing what is wrong with the bundle theory in its crudest version. There are several subversions here, depending on how one unpacks

the 'bundle' metaphor. For Example, it could be said that a thing is a set of

which properties are members, or that it is a whole of which properties are

parts. Perhaps there are other possibilities, too, but the idea in any case would

be (i) that a thing is a complex entity of which properties are the sole constit-

uents, and (ii) that for a thing to have or exemplify a property is for that

property to be a constituent of it.

The bundle theory in this form is open to at least six objections. 1 The

statement of them below assumes the theory holds a thing to be a set of

properties, but parallel objections apply to the other alternatives as well.

ObJection 1. If a thing were nothing more than a set of properties, any set of properties would fulfill the conditions of thinghood, and there would be a

thing for every set. But in fact there are many sets without corresponding things - e.g., the set (being an alligator, being purple }.

ObJection 2. If a thing were a set of properties, it would be an eternal, indeed,

Philosophical Studies 47 (1985) 95-107. 0031-8116/85/0471-0095501.30 �9 1985 by D. Reidel Publishing Company

96 ] A M E S V A N C L E V E

a necessary, being. For properties exist necessarily, and a set exists necessari- ly if all its members do.

Objection 3. Exemplification cannot be analyzed simply as the converse of membership. Redness is a member of (redness, roundness), but it would be absurd - a category mistake - to say that that set is red.

Objection 4. I f a thing were a set o f properties, it would be incapable of change. For a thing could change its properties only if the set identical with it could change its members, but that is impossible; no set can change its members. 2

Objection 5. Similarly, if a thing were a set of properties, all of its properties

would be e#sential to it: not only could it not change its properties, but it could not have had different properties to start with. This is because it is

essential to a set that it contains the very members it does )

Objection 6. I f a thing were a set of properties, it would be impossible for two things to have all the same properties, since it is impossible for two sets to have all the same members. Thus, the bundle theory requires the Principle of the Identi ty of Indiscernibles (PII for short) to be a necessary truth. But

PII is not a necessary truth; exceptions to it are conceivable.

This last objection requires elaboration. Anyone who countenances ' impure ' properties (properties such as being identical with individual A) could maintain that PII is a necessary truth after all, since such properties are obviously unshareable. But not much reflection is needed to see that this

defense is not available to proponents of the bundle theory. Impure proper- ties, if such there be, are ontologically derivative from individuals; individuals, if the bundle theory is true, are ontologically derivative from properties. One cannot have it both ways. Hence, the bundle theory cannot admit impure properties, and is committed to the consequence that no two individuals can have all the same pure properties. 4 It is to PII in this strong form that counter- examples are conceivable. 5

So go the objections. Some readers may wonder whether certain of them,

especially Objections 4 and 5, are equally applicable if bundles are taken to be wholes rather than sets. For is it not possible for a whole to change its parts,

T H R E E V E R S I O N S O F T H E B U N D L E T H E O R Y 97

or to have had different parts originally? That depends. If a whole is a mereo-

logical sum, the answer is no. Indeed, if wholes are sums, the part-whole

relation is analogous to the member-set relation in the following ways:

wholes are individuated by their parts; they necessarily exist if their parts do;

and they have whatever parts they do essentially. So I presume that those

who believe a whole can change its parts would deny that a whole is a sum. But if wholes are not sums, what are they? I do not see what else they can

be except logical constructions out of their parts. 6 In the case at hand, this would mean that individuals are logical constructions out of their properties -

a rather different form of the bundle theory, and one to which I shall return

in section III.

II

Sophisticated defenders of the bundle theory do not say that a thing is

nothing but a bundle of properties; they say that it is a bundle whose ele-

ments all stand to one another in a certain very important relation. Let us

call the relation co-instantiation. (Russell speaks of 'compresence', Goodman

of 'togetherness', and Casta~eda of 'consubstantiation'. ~) The informal

explanation of co-instantiation is generally this: it is the relation that relates

a number of properties just in case they are all properties of one and the same

individual. This makes it sound very much as though co-instantiation either is

or is derivative from a relation that properties bear to an entity in some

other ontological category, namely, the category o f individuals or things, in

which case the bundle theorist's analysis would be circular. He must therefore

insist that the informal explanation is merely a ladder to be kicked away, and

that co-instantiation is really a relation among properties and nothing else. In Bergmann's language, it must be a homogeneous tie, connecting properties

with properties, not a heterogeneous tie, connecting properties with things, s

To make this more plausible, the bundle theorist could perhaps cite the rela-

tion o f simultaneity, which one might informally explain as the relation that

relates two events just in case they occur at the same time, but which it is

plausible to regard nonetheless as a dyadic relation holding directly between two events, rather than as a triadic relation among two events and a time. 9 I

am not entirely satisfied with the analogy, but since my main concerns with

the bundle theory lie elsewhere, I shall simply give the bundle theorist his

relation of co-instantiation.

98 JAMES VAN CLEVE

It is convenient to regard co-instantiation as a variably polyadic and possibly infinitary relation - one into which two, three, of infinitely many properties may enter. But this assumption is neither essential to the theory nor presup- posed by the objections I shall raise against it.

The cardinal point about co-instantiation is that it i.~ a contingent relation. 1 o

That is, if two or more properties are co-instantiated, it is not in general necessary that this have been so. Redness is co-instantiated with roundness in a ripe tomato, but the two properties might not have been instantiated at all (i.e., each might not have been co-instantiated with anything else), and in any

case the two need not have been instantiated together.

By introducing co-instantiation into his world, the bundle theorist neatly

avoids the first three objections. He need not say that there is a thing for every set of properties, since a collection of properties will yield a thing only

if its members are mutually co-instantiated. 11 Nor need he say that a thing

exists eternally and necessarily, since it will cease to exist if the properties constituting it cease to be co-instantiated. (The set of these properties will

still exist, of course, but the thing is not the set; it is something that exists just when the properties in the set are all co-instantiated. ~ 2) Nor, finally, is he committed to the absurdity that the doubleton (redness, roundness) is red.

For he can say that for a bundle to be red it is not enough that it have redness

as a constituent; in addition, its members must be co-instantiated, and it must be complete, i.e., it must contain every property that could be added to it without generating inconsistency. 13

But what of the remaining three objections? In so far as the new view

identifies a thing with a complex of properties that exists just when its constituents are co-instantiated, it seems to me that they apply with as much

force as before. Consider first the objection about change. It is true that in the bundle theorist 's world there can be plenty of change of one sort, namely, change in the relational characteristics of properties; a given property or group of them can be co-instantiated now with one property, now with another. But this is not to say that any individual can change. If F and G are co- instantiated first with H and later with K, so that the complex FGH is super- seded by the complex FGK, what we have is replacement of one individual by

another, not change in the properties of one and the same individual. FGH is simply not identical with FGK.

Consider next the objection about accidental predication. It is true that in the bundle theorist 's world there is room for a good deal of contingency. It

T H R E E V E R S I O N S O F THE B U N D L E T H E O R Y 99

can be contingent, for example, that snub-nosedness is co-instantiated with

wisdom, and that whatever is co-instantiated with being an emerald is also

co4nstantiated with being green. Moreover, of any individual it will be true that it might not have existed at all, since the properties constituting it might not have been co-instantiated. But it will not be true of any individual that it

might have existed with properties other than the ones it actually has: we

cannot suppose that a complex whose constituents are F, G, and H might have existed with F, G, and K as its constituents instead. Thus the bundle

theorist's world, though not a Spinozistic one in which every truth is a

necessary truth, is nonetheless a Leibnizian one in which every individual has just the properties it does necessarily. Adam need not have existed at all, but

once in existence could not have done otherwise than eat the apple.

Loux has tried to free the bundle theory from this objection by criticizing the assumption that the user of a name must "know in advance all of the properties associated with [the substance bearing the name]". 14 Russell

seems to have tried a similar strategy, maintaining that "although 'W' is, in fact, the name of a certain bundle of qualities, we do not know, when we give the name, what qualities constitute Ir Is But the objection as I have pre- sented it does not depend on any semantic or epistemological doctrines

about the use of names; it depends solely on the nature of the constituent- whole relation. I cannot see, therefore, that either of these maneuvers gets around it.

A more promising way to avoid the objection would be to divide each complete bundle of mutually co-instantiated properties into two sub-bundles, an inner core and an outer fringe, and then to identify individuals with cores rather than with complete bundles. One could then say that an individual has

essentially just those properties that belong to its core and accidentally just those properties that belong to its fringe. More formally, the suggestion

would be that an individual X has a property F i f f there is a complete bundle

of mutually co-instantiated properties Y such that (i) X is a sub-bundle within Y and either (iia) F is an element of X (in which case X has F essential-

ly) or (fib) F is not an element of X, but is an element of YOn which case X has F accidentally).

This suggestion avoids the objection, but has difficulties of its own. To

accomodate the conviction that the vast majority of a thing's properties are

accidental to it, we would have to select a very small sub-bundle as the core - in the case of a human being, perhaps the sub-bundle {animality, rationality).

100 JAMES VAN CLEVE

But surely no human being is identical with that! The core would not have to be this impoverished, of course, but add whatever other properties you think

essential to a given thing, and I think you will still find it difficult to regard the result as an individual. 16 Moreover, if we identify an individual with

anything short of a complete bundle, we get the consequence that it is possible for an individual to have several incompatible properties at once, since there is nothing to prevent the same core's occurring within several complete bundles whose fringes contain mutually incompatible elements. For example, the core (animality, rationality} may occur within one bundle

whose fringe contains wisdom and simultaneously within another bundle whose fringe contains foolishness; on the theory of predication suggested

above, this would mean that one and the same individual is both wise and foolish.

The last-mentioned difficulty would not arise if core properties could not

occur in more than one complete bundle, but how is the bundle theorist to

prevent this? We have already seen that he has none but pure properties at

his disposal, and these, it seems, are always capable of multiple occurrence. 17

I should like to consider one more attempt to free the bundle theory from

the consequence that all of a thing's properties are essential to it. In an unpublished manuscript, Paul Bowen and Ted Schick have suggested that the

bundle theorist should identify things not with bundles of ordinary properties, but with bundles of world-indexed properties (WIPs), such as being snub- nosed in world 322. Obviously, from the fact that a thing had this property essentially it would not follow that it had being snub-nosed essentially. (Compare: from the fact that someone has the property being drunk on New Year's Eve, 1982, as long as he lives, it does not follow that he is never so- ber. 18)

Leaving aside misgivings about the very idea of a world-indexed property,

I think it is questionable that a bundle theorist can make use of them. What, after all, is a world? Some philosophers apparently think of them as concrete particulars in their own right, but a bundle theorist obviously would not share

this conception. It would be more in keeping with his theory to construct worlds, too, out of properties. Bowen and Schick propose one way of doing this: let a possible world be the totality of all those properties that are indexed to the same world. But this has the appearance of being circular. If worlds are to be built out of properties, the properties in question must not involve worlds in their own constitution, and WIPs appear to do just that. Bowen and

T H R E E V E R S I O N S O F T H E B U N D L E T H E O R Y 101

Schick are aware of this objection, and seek to meet it by maintaining that

the appearance of circularity is mere appearance; it derives from the fact that we can only identify a WlP by referring to its index, but this fact does not imply that WlPs are relational properties incorporating worlds as terms. I must say in reply that if WlPs are not relational properties incorporating worlds as terms, I lose my grasp of what they are, and can no longer see how

the inference from 'S has F-in-W essentially' to 'S has F essentially' is to be blocked.

There is a further problem with the bundle theorist 's having recourse to WlPs. For a thing A to have the WlP of being F in W, it must be such that W's being actual would entail its being F. But what must a world be like in order to sustain such an entailment? It seems clear to me that it would have to contain either an irreducibly singular state of affairs with A as constituent or

else an irreducible haecceity instantiable only by A. Neither of these alterna- tives is something a bundle theorist can permit. (Compare what was said earlier about impure properties.)

Let us come around finally to the objection that the bundle theory implies

a dubious version of PII. This objection applies to the second version no less than it did to the first, since according to both versions individuals are com-

plexes whose only constituents are properties, and it can scarcely be denied

that complexes differ only if their constituents do.19 In assessing the force of

the objection against either version, however, we should stop and reconsider

what it is that gets bundled. The elements of bundles, a defender might say,

are not universals, as I have been supposing so far, but such items as 'this particular redness' or 'the redness of x ' , so conceived of as to be necessarily distinct from the redness o f y if x and y are distinct. Such items are known in

the literature variously as 'proper ty tokens' , 'particularized properties' , 'perfect particulars', 'abstract particulars', and ' tropes' . ~~ From the supposi- tion that things are bundles of items of this sort, PII still follows, of course (two things could not share a single particularized property, let alone all of them), but it is not thereby implied that two things could not be perfectly alike. As a further benefit, particularized properties would enable the bundle theorist to avoid the difficulty raised above about the repeatable cores.

My objection to this strategy is that When I read accounts of what 'partic- ularized properties' are supposed to be, I cannot help thinking that they belong to the category of particulars rather than to the category of properties. A 'particular redness' seems really to be a special kind of red particular.

102 J A M E S V A N C L E V E

(Perhaps it is a particular that exemplifies just one property, redness, and that one essentially. 2a) But if this is so, the bundle theorist who resorts to such

items is not reducing particulars t o u t c o u r t to properties; he is reducing ordinary complex particulars to more basic particulars.

III

To get around Objections 4, 5, and 6, I think one must advance to a third version of the bundle theory, a version that to my knowledge has never been

held, but one that comes naturally to mind when one considers the two forms historically taken by another reductionist doctrine, phenomenalism. The

phenomenalists of the previous two centuries tended to put their view by saying that a material thing is a clump, collection, family, or s o m e kind of

complex of sense data (or impressions or whatever). A consequence, as

Berkeley was willing to acknowledge, is that that 'we eat and drink ideas [sense data], and are clothed in ideas'. 22 The phenomenalists of the present

century, on the other hand, have generally taken the linguistic turn, main-

taining that sentences ostensibly about material things can be translated into

sentences that mention only sense data. Material things are logically con-

structed from sense data, not literally composed of them. The importance of this difference was unfortunately obscured by Carnap's

doctrine of the material and the formal modes. According to Carnap, what we

have here is not t w o versions of phenomenalism, but only one, expressed

once in the confused and misleading material mode and again in the more

perspicuous formal mode. This is wrong. Old-style phenomenalism may be a bad view, but it is not merely a bad way of saying what new-style phenome-

nalists say better. What for my purposes is the most important difference between the two

views may be brought out by considering an observation of G. E. Moore's. By way of characterizing a view he attributed to Mill and Russell, he said this:

Though there are plenty o f material things in the Universe, there is no th ing in it o f which it could t ruly be asserted tha t i t is a material thing. 23

Now at first glance this has an air of contradiction about it. How can there be

material things if there is nothing of which it is true that i t is a material thing? The air can be dispelled, however, if we understand the Mill-Russell view as follows. 24 The existential statement 'There are material things' is true,

T H R E E V E R S I O N S O F T H E B U N D L E T H E O R Y 103

but only because material things are logical constructions out of sense data;

the statement is made true by the fact that sense data exist and occur in

patterns definitive of the existence of material things. But the sense data are

the only ultimate constituents of the world; none of them singly is a material thing; nor is any clump, collection, or family o f them a material thing. Thus our existential statement is true only as a whole; there is nothing to which its

predicate, 'is a material thing', truly applies. This is in direct contrast to old-

style phenomenalism, according to which the predicate 'is a material thing' truly applies to certain groups of sense data. 2s

We can thus reconcile the two halves of Moore's puzzling remark if we

treat 'There are material things' and 'There is something such that it is a

material thing' unequally, ignoring the quantificational structure of the first

while taking seriously that of the second. I think there is good point in doing this, but do not wish to argue the matter here. So if anyone insists that 'There

are material things' and 'There is someting such that it is a material thing' must stand or fall together, I will say fine, provided he recognizes that for

latter-day phenomenalism they both fall. According to old-style phenome- nalism, by constrast, they both stand. If the terms 'reductive' and 'elimina- tive' were not already in use in a somewhat different way, one might say that what the older view reduces, the newer one eliminates.

From now on I shall lump together the first two versions of the bundle

theory under the heading 'old bundle theory'. The old bundle theory is analogous to the old phenomenalism: for each individual thing it finds some complex of properties with which to identify it. Since it is precisely this feature that makes it vulnerable to the objections about change, accidental predication, and indiscernibflity, the strategy recommends itself of adopting instead the form of the bundle theory that would be analogous to the new phenomenalism. This version would decline to identify individuals with complexes of properties, offering instead to translate any statement ostensibly

about individuals into a statement exclusively about properties. For example, it might translate 'There is a red, round thing here' as 'Redness and roundness are here co-instantiated'. 26 But it would not, to repeat, identify the red,

round thing with the complex of properties co-instantiated at the place in question; indeed, it would not identify the red, round thing with anything. 'Red, round thing' would be a non-referring phrase, susceptible only of contextual definition.

It should now be apparent both how the new bundle theory escapes the

104 J A M E S V A N C L E V E

objections to the old and at what cost. Unlike the old theory, it does not

populate the world with individuals that are incapable of change, devoid of

accidental properties, and qualitatively unique; but that is only because it

does not populate the world with individuals at all. Or if you prefer to put

the point Moore's way, the statement 'there are individuals' is true, but there

is nothing of which it is true that it is an individual; hence, there is nothing

of which it is true that it is an individual and incapable of change, etc.

What the new bundle theory amounts to is a purely Platonic ontology in

which properties are the only ultimate logical subjects. An appropriate language

for this ontology would consist simply of names of properties plus a sign for instantiation, say an exclamation mark.27 Instead o f ' 3 x (Fx)', which suggests

that there is some thing that instantiates F, we could have '! ( F ) ' (F is instan-

tiated); instead o f ' 3x (Fx & Gx)' we could have ' ! (FG)' (F is co-instantiated

with G), and instead o f ' 3 x 3 y(Fx &Fy&~(x~y ) ) ' we could have '!!( 'FJ'

( F is instantiated at least twice). 28 This notation highlights the fact that al-

though properties are instantiated, they are not instantiated by anything - not

even by bundles of properties} 9 The new bundle theory may be used in an interesting way to circumvent a

difficulty that arose for Leibniz. We have seen that the old bundle theory

rules out something that seems plainly possibly, namely, there being two individuals with all the same pure properties. The new bundle theory can

admit this possibility, or at least a facsimile of it: it allows that the same

maximal intersection of pure properties can be instantiated twice, and this

seems to be a reasonable sense in which there could be a world containing

two indiscernibles. Now according to Leibniz, a world containing two

indiscernibles would automatically have a twin world in which the indiscer-

nibles had switched places, and between two such worlds God would have no

grounds for choice. Finding this consequence repugnant, Leibniz declared

worlds containing indiscernibles to be impossible, thus affirming PII in its

problematic form. But a proponent of the new bundle theory can avoid the

embarassing consequence without going to Leibnizian lengths. He can admit

the possibility of a world containing two indiscernibles, yet deny that this wouM generate a second world indiscernible from the first. There would not

be a second world with the two things switched, for there are not in the first

world two things to be switched; there is just one set of properties instantiated at two different places, a~ Thus the new bundle theorist can admit indiscer- nibility within worlds, yet at the same time deny it between them. 31

THREE VERSIONS OF THE BUNDLE THEORY 105

IV

Is there any philosopher who has explicity advocated the new bundle theory?

Not that I know of, though A. J. Ayer has come close: he once said that he

could not 'see how asserting that an individual exists can be to assert any-

thing more than that some predicate, or set of predicates, is instantiated'. 32

In the same paragraph, however, he confessed himself inclined as a result to

uphold PII in its strong form as a necessary truth, and we have seen that there

would be no call for this unless one thought of individuals as identical with

complexes of properties in the fashion of the old bundle theory. 33

Given its success in dealing with Objections 4, 5, and 6, why hasn't the

new bundle theory been more widely adopted? Perhaps it is owing to the

realization that anyone who held it would be in the following predicament:

since properties would be the building blocks of his universe, and since he

would not be identical with any property or any complex of them, he would

have to believe that there is nothing with which he is identical - or in other

words, that there is no such thing as himself.

Anyone who wants to believe that there is such a thing as himself, there-

fore, must reject the new bundle theory; and anyone who wants to allow for

change, accidental predication, and indiscernibllity must reject the old one.

What is the alternative? In a word, it is substance: an individual is something

over and above its properties, something that has properties without being

constituted by them. 34 But the elaboration and defense of this alternative

must be left for another occasion. 3s

NOTES

The third objection below can be found in J. M. E. McTaggart, The Nature of Exis- tence (Cambridge: The University Press, t921), Vol. 1, pp. 66-67. The others or near variants of them are all discussedby Michael Loux in Substance andAttribute (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1978), pp. 115-39. 2 See Richard Sharvy, 'Why a Class Can't Change Its Members', No~s 2i (1968), pp. 303-314. 3 See my paper 'Why a Set Contains Its Members Essentially', forthcoming in No~s.

This point is also made by Loux on p. 133 and by D. M. Armstrong in Universals and Scientific Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), Vol. I, pp. 94-95. s E.g., Max Black's universe consisting of nothing but two spheres perfectly alike in color, size, corn position, etc. (Max Black, 'The Identity of Indiscernibles', Mind 61 (1962); reprinted in Universals and Particulars, ed. by Michael Loux (Garden City, N.Y.: Double- day Anchor Books, 1970), pp. 204-16.) There are those who object that to suppose such a universe possible is to beg the question, but in so far as the objectors can find nothing wrong with the universe except that it conflicts with their principle, it seems to

106 JAMES VAN CLEVE

me it is they who beg the question. Leaving aside the issue of who begs the question, it should be pointed out that PII in its strong form would preclude even a universe with a single homogeneous sphere, since any two of its hemispheres would be indiscernible in respect of pure properties. Yet what is more easily conceivable than such a universe? 6 In the manner, perhaps, of what Chisholm calls entia successiva. See R. M. Chisholm, Person and Ob/ect (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1976), pp. 97-104. 7 Bertrand Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967), pp. 89-101 and 121-123, and Human Knowledge: lts Scope and Limits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948), pp. 292-308; Nelson Goodman, The Structure o f Appearance (2nd ed.; Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1966), pp. 200- 211 ; Hector-Neri Castafieda, 'Thinking and the Structure of the World', Critica 6 (1972), pp. 43-81. It is not really one and the same relation that these authors introduce under their various names, but their relations all play the same role, and for our purposes it does not matter which is chosen. 8 Gustav Bergmann, Realism (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 26. 9 The Special Theory of Relativity introduces a third term here, but it is not a time. 10 Castafieda ('Thinking and the Structure of the World,' p. 54) calls it "the fundamental, the number one, contingent relation", and adds "in a world deprived of thinking it would be the only one". 11 This does not mean merely that any two members of the set are co-instantiated, for to impose this requirement alone would beget what Goodman calls "the problem of imperfect community". Rather, it means that all the members of the set stand in one 'big' eo-instantiation relation. If co-instantiation is not indefinitely polyadic there are other ways of avoiding this problem; see Goodman, The Structure o f Appearance, pp. 204-11. x2 To put the matter this way is to take a long step in the direction of the third version of the bundle theory, to be discussed in section III. Indeed, I sometimes wonder whether there really is any ground to occupy between the first version and the third, but I shall suppress these doubts in order to bring out other difficulties with the second version. 1~ Note this peeularity, however: The needed refinement in the definition of predication merely adds a condition on the side of the subject; it says nothing new about the relation between subject and predicate. And it must be added that McTaggart, from whom Objection 3 was taken, would find an absurdity in the idea that a set or aggregate of properties of any kind, however large and whatever the relation among its members, could have a color. 14 Substance and Attribute, p. 154. is Inquiry, p. 122. 16 A similar objection is noted by Panayot Butchvarov on pp. 233-34 of Being Qua Being (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1979), but it does not prevent him from advocating a version of the bundle theory. Owing to his systematic distinction between objects and entities, Butchvarov's theory is unlike any I consider here. 17 I shall consider a reason for denying this presently. is Indeed, Schick and Bowen also require the properties in bundles to be time-indexed, thus avoiding in analogous fashion the objection that the bundle theory does not allow for change. 19 According to Loux (Substance and Attribute, p. 157), this principle "defines for the onologist the very notion of the consistuent-whole relation." 20 For a nice exposition and defense of this tradition see Keith Campbell, 'The Meta-

.physics of Abstract Particulars', in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume VI, ed. by Peter A. French, T. E. Uehling, Jr., and Howard K. Wettstein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp. 477-88. ~1 Such seems to be SeUars' conception of a 'basic particular'. See Wilfrid Sellars,

T H R E E V E R S I O N S O F T H E B U N D L E T H E O R Y 107

"Particulars," in Science, Perception, and Reality (London: Rout ledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), pp. 2 8 2 - 9 7 . 22 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, section 38. 23 G.E. Moore, 'Some Judgment s o f Perception' , Proceedings oftheAristotelian Society, XIX ( 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 ) ; reprinted in Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing, ed. by Rober t J. Swartz (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1965), pp. 1 - 2 8 . 24 I am not sure tha t Mill really held it, bu t tha t is by the way. 2s See W . V . Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 9 8 - 9 9 . 24 The difficulties in t roduced by 'here ' are discussed in note 30. 27 Here I follow a suggestion o f Ayer ' s in The Origins o f Pragmatisrn (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper & Company , 1968), p. 300. ~8 Even if we give the new bundle theorist this much , how will he be able to say that a given proper ty is instant iated exactly n t imes? 29 There is a partial analogy here with Chisholm's theory o f states of affairs. According to this theory, a state o f affairs is an abstract ent i ty that can occur or obtain wi thout being embodied by a concrete event or fact, and the same state of affairs can occur any number of times. Similarly, according to the present theory, a property is an abstract ent i ty that can occur or be ins tant ia ted wi thout being embodied in a concrete individ- ual or instance, and the same property can be instant iated any number o f times. The analogy is imperfect , however, since on Chisholm's view states o f affairs axe 'concretised by ' sets of concrete individuals. See Person and ObJect, Chapter IV. 3o But what is the s t a t u s o f places in the bundle theory? Theories o f space may be either relational or absolute and, if absolute, either adjectival or substantival. (The latter subdivision is due, I believe, to C. D. Broad.) The new bundle theorist cannot adopt a relational theory, since he has not got individuals to be the terms o f spatial relations. Nor in the present context can he adopt the adjectival form of the absolute theory (which posits 'pure positional propert ies ' ) , since it would then be false after all that the same maximal intersection o f pure properties can be instant iated twice. So it appears that the new bundle theorist mus t adopt the substantival form of the absolute theory, which makes places individuals in their own right. Though perhaps no t inconsis tent with his theory, this is hardly a result he will find appearing. 31 For a version o f PII like this see N. L. Wilson, 'Individual Identi ty, Space, and Time in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence ' , in The Philosophy o f Leibniz and the Modern World, ed. by Ivor Leclerc (Nashville: Vanderbll t University Press, 1973), pp. 1 8 9 - 2 0 6 . 32 'The Ident i ty o f Indiscernibles' , p. 224 in Loux, Universals and Particulars. 3s Others may have commi t t ed themselves to the new bundle theory more or less tacitly; one such is N. L. Wilson, ment ioned in note 31. 34 Does it follow that an individual is a 'bare particular ' or 'featureless subs t ra tum'? Not at all; rather than following f rom the premise ( 'an individual is something tha t has properties.. . ' ) , this astonishing doctrine flatly contradicts it. On this point see Sellars, 'Particulars' , pp. 2 8 2 - 8 3 , and Chisholm, Person and ObJect, p. 43. 3s For commen t s on earlier drafts I wish to thank Diana Ackerman, Paul Bowen, Roderick Chisholm, Eli Hirsch, Philip Quinn, Ernest Sosa, and m y audience at a University o f Miami Philosophy Depar tment colloquium. My research was supported by a grant from the American Council o f Learned Societies.

Brown University,

Providence, Rhode Island 02912,

U.S.A.