Dennis wrote:

I think this serves as as a very good argument as to why there is no such thing as necessity in causation. Two quick points. If I'm eating an ice cream in the sun, and  ice cream melts because God directly causes it to melt instead of the sun's causal efficacy, then God is definitely the cause of the melting. However, had God not acted would the ice cream have melted out of necessity? No, (1) there could be other conditions and powers that dispose against the power of the sun to melt, and thus the cause would be defeasible. A sufficient condition would guarantee the effect.(2) I maintain that there is no such thing as sufficient conditions in causation and no cause ever necessitates this effect. The very possibility of a cause being defeasible renders necessitation obsolete. Of course, in the case of God and divine causality things would be quite different, there I wouldn't know what to think of. 

I don't think that follows. A sufficient cause is the one that exists/is acting in a way, with the effect as it exists in a concrete case of causal efficacy being utilized to bring about the effect. A qualified kind of cause is something that already existed before the effect came about, but was still needed for the effect to come about when it came about. In the particular moment where the sun's power actually caused the ice cream to melt ( as the thing that was last added so to make that effect come about), a sufficient instance of causation is present, and only then can we find an instance of causal power.

A cause is only ever contingent if in that moment it causes the effect it has the power to refrain from causing the effect. Only creaturely and divine will cause contingently and sufficiently. If given all the relevant qualified causal conditions holds, and the sufficient cause has actually caused the effect, in a way that given all these exact same conditions held the contrary effect could not come about, then it is a necessary case of causation, and only particular causes can act as sufficient necessary causes in these cases as far as I can tell.

Dennis wrote:

I see causes as things which dispose towards an effect, although, bringing about an effect is not part of my condition of what I call a cause. Consider a room which is being conditioned by a heater an air conditioner, if I don't feel the heat because the air conditioner is too powerful, does  that mean that the heater is not serving as a cause? I think it's obvious that the heater is serving as a cause, the only thing is that the causes are not in equilibrium and thus one power succeeds over the other.

The heater is not serving as a cause of you feeling heat, but it is serving as a cause of your room being heated. Because that heat is being produced in your room by the heater, but it is not causing you to feel heat. 

Dennis wrote:

Sure, but that's a different matter. A has to act on B, and it's the A, which brings about the effect, not the B. The relation between them is a matter which is necessitated by the two terms. I only denied that you need a further universal relation between, and prefer this reduction. 

But if there is no efficacy relation of A onto B then how can you call A a cause of B ? And if there is no universal relation then how can the efficacy of A onto B hold between every particular A and particular B? I don't see how universals can do any causal work in this case. It looks like universals become less useful to account for causation in this account than in even my account. 

Dennis wrote:

Just to make sure, this supposes that a particular must be analysed as a thin/bare particular which God acts on. From what I can see, there is some sort of equivocation going on, a trope bundle or bundle of universals would do fair enough to account for things in this world, but whether that universal/trope bundle is not exactly a bundle and instead there is a reality of a substratum which is cause-less, is a different thing. But I think you have a much stronger account of substance, one that requires an independence of existence from the universal which it instantiates, I don't think this is going to work, because all the causal work, again, is done by the universal which it supposedly instantiates and not the thin/bare particular, glued together by the relation of compresence.

I think I just showed that in causation the universal does not do all the work, because it is never sufficient for a concrete effect to come about.You need a particular cause to cause a real effect, and a cause is only a cause insofar as it causes a real effect.

One issue with the bundle theory of universals or tropes is that it can't account for the identity and unity of an individual object. If each object is just a bundle of universals then how do we parse out one object from another object? Why does one bundle of universals make up object A, where another bundle makes up object B ? Is it just arbitrary conjecture on our part? How do we ground the unity of the object this way? 

The substance account has the benefit of accounting for the "whatness" the form of the object, which is discovered by it's final causes - through end that the whole object tends to. By adding on a substratum we get an account of the "thisness" , what makes something an instance of a certain universal rather than that universal itself, through the unity of matter and form which is the substance. Through the universal form we can get definitive properties so we can say what a thing is, and through the substratum being added on in a substantial unity we can parse out that a particular object is itself and remains itself, and not some other object.

If all we had were tropes or universals in a bundle then there would be no unity between my eye and my eye with a few cells scraped off. In the bundle theory case once we lose a property of quantity then there is nothing now making this new bundle identical to the last bundle. So my eye does not remain my eye. The substance existing is what makes the loss of a few cells not relevant to the identity of the eye, because it is the substance as an integral unity that is the object, the scraping of a few cells off, or a loss of a few accidental members of its "bundle" of properties is not going to be relevant to its identity. Maybe the bundle theorist can produce an account of essential/accidental members of the bundles that can sidestep this argument. But the substance account has this built into it from the get go, and seems more intuitive to me.  

Dennis wrote:

I take it that it is evident that things serve as causes, I also take it a further evident fact (perhaps requiring some argument) that the properties of a thing cause things. When something is in act, it establishes the thing into existence. The argument would be an inductive argument to cut unnecessary entities from ones ontology. If an account of ontology succeeds in doing this, and they could in fact reduce all said-entities to causal ones alone, then I think it pretty much sets the whole scene. That said, I'm not sure how I'd be defending mathematical truths at all. I understand the Eleatic principle as follows,

Sure, but you can be in act without causally affecting anything. The passive intellect is in act, but it's activity is only passively receiving forms, not inducing them in anything else. I agree to be in act is to exist, but to be in act is not to sufficiently cause any effect. Objects have two kinds of potencies, active and passive. The passive potency is one such that through its actualization one becomes able to be affected by something else. For example, to be taught my cognitive power of receiving knowledge needs to active. But my cognitive power to receive knowledge has no efficacy itself - it just has the capacity to have the efficacy of something else affect it. So we could call such a thing a qualified cause, but not a sufficient one, since it needs to be present for me to gain knowledge, but does not actually have efficacy in the production of knowledge.

Dennis wrote:

Eleatic Stranger wrote:

I say, then, that what possesses any sort of power--whether for making anything at all, of whatever nature, other than it is or for being affected even the least bit by the meagerest thing, even if only once-- I say that all this is in its very being. For I set down as a boundary marking off the things that are, that their being is nothing else but power. Plato: Sophist, 247 D - E.

The Eleatic principle would suffice for making coherent the account of matter or thin particulars undergoing change. The problem for me is why opt. for it beforehand, when the more evident things in causes are the universals? When I weigh an apple, and it weighs say, 0.250 grams, it is not the apple's color, shape, or even size that does the causal work, it's the mass which does it. While it's not imprecise to say that the apple causes the scales to tip, it's not precise enough, for it is mass-universals coupled together that do all the causal work. Given reductionism of properties, they could be in essence reduced to the entities at the bare bottom of the physical universe. Where then is the particular? I can establish the existence of such powers, but I cannot establish the existence of a property-less particular. 

It is the particular apple insofar as it has that mass that does it though, not some detached universal, because such a universal on its own is never sufficient for the effect, as I explained earlier. We can't find any instance of a detached mass, so we ought not posit that either if you are claiming that not being able to find a property-less particular is reason to not posit substances. And if we cannot posit a particular detached mass, then we can't talk about detached mass as a cause in the sufficient and unqualified sense. So it is neither the universal mass, nor the particular mass, that is primary in causation. 

Likewise, as my argument earlier showed, you can't posit any powers without particulars actually existing to sufficiently cause something. Likewise you can't identify particulars as themselves if they are just bundles, you need substances to provide unity. So any attribution of causal power to some specific particular thing or things that can be found without a substance, or a universal on its own or in conjunction with other universals, fails. As these things cannot sufficiently cause anything, so they can't account for causal powers on their own. So all that is left is substances to be the primary thing that accounts for causal power. From this we have a reason to hold on to existence of substances, that we lack for the existence of detached mass. So our not ever experiencing detached substances is defused as a reason to reject their existence, since we have more compelling evidence that we should posit their existence.

Why would we give the "reductionism of properties" any credence ? I'm not quite sure what is meant by that anyways. If you mean the most mereologically fundamental entities are the only real entities, then I don't believe that those exist, since matter is infinitely divisible (so as long as it has extension it can be divided by God's power). If these "bottom entities" are not substances of some sort then positing them runs into the same problems I mentioned above.
 

Dennis wrote:

I understand the 'super-essentialist' nature of Bundle theory, and I think it is very similar to the problem of temporary intrinsics.

Suppose we take the bare material substance, s,* and the accident F. If we identify the apple with s + F, then by the indiscernibility of identicals if the apple loses F the resulting apple isn't the same apple. If, however, we identify the apple with s, F is external to it and whether or not F is lost, the apple doesn't change. So the apple doesn't remain strictly identical through change.

But that's not the point of Scottist's objection. (It's a classic.) The point of Scottist's objection is that substance-attribute theorists have a way for objects to remain numerically identical through change (the substance)*, whereas bundle theorists don't seem to.

*That is, nothing more than the apple's substantial form and matter.
*It's still one thing undergoing the qualitative change.

No True Scotist wrote:

But all the real metaphysical work in this case is being done by the fact that the oxygen( there could be a different sufficient cause depending on exactly how the physical process works) was conserving the life. The negative cause you were talking about is something that results from our causal reasoning, as something added to the picture semi-subjectively. We are identifying a qualified kind of cause here, but it is still rooted in the reality of sufficient causation in which a real effect is present.

This is most certainly not a talk of fiction, nor is it anything subjective, since what is being ignored here is that certain biological factors dispose towards my death. This is a robust denial of negative causation, because there's what causes my death isn't a lack of oxygen, but rather something which is present in the biology. The problem here is that you're saying the effect (death) is present, but it's certainly not. But this is what we're going to quibble about I'm going to leave it at that, since this might deserve a thread of its own. (And if that's the case, then we should talk about this elsewhere.)

No True Scotist wrote:

I don't know the bundle theory per se, only the arguments you have given in this thread and some versions of it I have read long ago. Now maybe we don't need to reify the universal relation between one bundle and another, but if there is no relation that holds among the universals of the type then it is questionable how we are going to claim that there actually is a connection between the properties of one and its activity and the properties of the other and its activity, such that causation can make sense, and is not based on totally random occurrences.

I've already granted you that. Suppose there is a relation, what then?

No True Scotist wrote:

But I was meaning that we could then equally posit that because we can find powers, but no lone property ( even the bundle theorist must admit that the properties come in bundles, for example, they will not posit a whiteness that is not also conjoined with some property of extension, so we should not posit individual detached whiteness) that we should not posit a lone property, so no lone property that could do any causal work. This should be more explicit now.

I'm not sure how bundle theorists account for free floating universals, so this has been on mind for a long time. I'll look into it. However, since this is the case and everything that is in this world is tied to some other property, that'd suffice to save the compresence relation and the bundle theory. It wouldn't be a detached whiteness in the sense it is detached from other properties, but it would be detached from a substance. If it's about the unity of an object, the redness of the apple will have a compresence relation to the shape of the apple, and vice versa to every other property the apple possesses. This would be a complete complex of compresence (CCC), where no further universals could be added. Now, if you mean detached in the sense that this account is unsatisfying, I get that. But if it's a fair enough account, there's still an accounting of why properties don't freely float. So the point of it being detached would  have no venom.

Last edited by Dennis (11/27/2016 10:17 am)

Here's me: I think bundle theorists can thwart a lot of arguments in this thread. They can become trope theorists, mark off one bundle from another with the compresence relation, and adopt Héctor-Neri Casteñada's bundle-bundle theory to blunt the problem of change:

Dennis wrote:

Everything that exists has causal power. However, substances don't seem to have causal power and thus don't seem to exist. Thin particulars don't cause anything, since whenever a particular acts, it acts in virtue of the universal it possesses. I personally don't want to abandon this causal principle of being, however, I'd like to hear you guys argue against this.

But since the Eleatic principle permits entities with passive or active powers, matter is the principle of passive power (potency), and material substances are the unity of matter and kind-universals, the original argument fails against Aristotelianism.

Here is a theological argument against bundle theory: if bundle theory, the doctrine of transubstantiation is false; the doctrine of transubstantiation is a de fide teaching of the Catholic Church; hence, if bundle theory, Catholic teaching is wrong.

But you're a Catholic, Dennis. So you had better have good reasons before you abandon Aristotelianism for the bundle theory.

John West wrote:

No True Scottist wrote:

I was under the impression that bundle theorists posited that properties are always in bundles, maybe that need not be the case,

Keith Campbell (a bundle theorist) thinks there are independent tropes:

We are used to the idea that the redness of our piece of cloth, or Julius Caesar's baldness, if they are beings at all, are essentially dependent ones. Without Julius Caesar to support, so the familiar idea runs, his baldness would be utterly forlorn. Without the cloth, no redness of the cloth. On this view, concrete particulars are the basic particulars. Tropes are at best parasitic.

Being used to an idea, of course, is not a sufficient recommendation for it. When it is conceded that, as a matter of fact, tropes tend to come in clusters and that a substantial collection of them, clinging together in a clump, is the normal minimum which we do in fact encounter, we have conceded all that this traditional point of view has a right to claim. The question at issue, however, is not what is in fact the ordinary minimum in what is 'apt for being', but what that minimum is of metaphysical necessity. The least which could exist on its own may well be less than a whole man or a whole piece of cloth. It may be just a single trope, or even a minimal part of a single trope.

And some aspects of experience encourage the view that abstract particulars are capable of independent existence. Consider the sky; it is, to appearance at least, an instance of color quite lacking the complexity of a concrete particular. The color bands in a rainbow seem to be tropes dissociated from any concrete particular.

All Williams requires here, of course, is that dissociated tropes be possible (capable of independent existence), not that they be actual. So the possibility of a Cheshire Cat face, as areas of color, or a massless, inert, impenetrable zone as a solidity trope, or free-floating sounds and smells, are sufficient to carry the point.

The way concrete particularity dissolves in the subatomic world, and in the case of black holes, suggests that dissociated tropes are not just possibilities but are actually to be encountered in this world.

On the view that tropes are the basic particulars, concrete particulars, the whole man and the piece of cloth, count as dependent realities. They are collections of co-located tropes, depending on these tropes as a fleet does upon its component ships. (Keith Campbell. The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars.)

He thinks this helps with problems in philosophy of perception.

Interesting. As far as Transubstantiation goes could we not say that there is just some bundle of the properties of the bread, and then some of the individual properties are traded out for the properties that make up Christ's body, while keeping the properties that account for the appearance of the bread ? I know Ockham ends up holding that we just have the substance of Christ's body and the trope/quality of the bread in one and the same place at one and the same time. It does'nt seem particularly problematic for accounting for transubstantiation. So why not just replace the substance of Christ's body with a bundle?