Cf. E.g., Seibt 1990, 1996a, B, C, D, 2005. On This See in Particular Seibt 2004a, B and 2008

Seibt, 08-10-2010, Particulars
Particulars
Johanna Seibt
University of Aarhus
As any other field of inquiry, ontological research is guided by fundamental

premises pertaining to method and content. One of the content-related premises, and
arguably the most fundamental and decisive one, consists in the claim that particulars
are ontologically ‘prior’ in two senses of the term. They are either taken to be the
natural choice for the type of basic entities, i.e., entities that are in their being and
their identity so straightforwardly intelligible that ontological definitions ideally
should be formulated only in terms of (structures, classes, or mereological
relationships) of such entities. Alternatively, particulars are sometimes considered
the prior object of ontological investigation, since in cognition and action we focus on
things, it is claimed, which are particulars par excellence.
Let us call the first sort of commitment, i.e., the thesis that particulars are
primary explanantia, ‘foundational particularism’ and the second sort of commitment,
i.e., the thesis that particulars are primary ontological explananda, ‘target
particularism’. The majority of contemporary ontologists endorse either foundational
particularism or target particularism. In fact, particularism is not the only unreflected
presupposition operative in current ontological theory construction. Particularism is
part of a more comprehensive network of assumptions that 20th century ontology has
imported from the ontological tradition by adopting semantic standard interpretation
of predicate logic, its main analytical tool. Some of these traditional assumptions
have been challenged, opening the path to so-called “revisionary” ontologies, but by
and large the premises of the ontological tradition operate like the constraints of a
Kuhnian research paradigm, restricting the domain of legitimate problems and the
space of legitimate solutions. Elsewhere I have called this network of unreflected
presuppositions “the myth of substance” or “the substance paradigm,” and I have
shown in which ways these hidden premises of (a large part of) the contemporary
debate are hampering ontological theory construction. Put in a somewhat simplified
fashion, it can be shown that at least three of the central ontological questions: the
problem of individuation, the problem of universals, and the problem of persistence,
receive most of the dilemmatic character from the presuppositions of the substance
paradigm—without these presuppositions, these questions are not ‘problems’ but
tasks with a wide range of alternative solutions.1
In the following I will investigate notions of particularity and the viability of
foundational particularism; certain implications for target particularism will become
apparent but I will not take issue here with this aspect of the traditional
methodological bias for the particular.2 I will show that foundational particularism is a
highly problematic, if not untenable, position as long as it is combined with certain
premises of the myth of substance, as the current research paradigm has it. In section
1 I offer a brief reconstruction of the methodology of analytical ontology. In section
2 I will mention some core elements of the substance paradigm and illustrate in which
ways the standard interpretation of predicate logic surreptitiously hampered the
innovative efforts of the early analytical ontologists, playing into the hands of the
myth of substance. In sections 3 and 4 I discuss the most commonly used sorts of
1
Cf. e.g., Seibt 1990, 1996a,b, c,d, 2005.
2
On this see in particular Seibt 2004a,b and 2008.
1
basic particulars, namely, so-called ‘bare particulars’ and ‘tropes’. As shall become
apparent, current accounts of particulars are thwarted with difficulties precisely to the
extent to which they incorporate the constructional principles of the substance
paradigm. Thus in conclusion I suggest that the notion of particularity should be
separated from the network of constructional principles in which it has been
traditionally embedded, or, alternatively and preferably in my view, be replaced with
a modally weakened version of the term that should better be called ‘contingent
uniqueness’.
Section 1: Ontology—the theory of categorial inference
Twentieth century ontological research has been methodologically highly

diversified, more, in fact, than ever before, and one of the aims of this volume is to
document this methodological breadth. My focus here is on the method of
mainstream analytical ontology, which begins with R. Carnap’s idea—formulated in
the early 1920s—of using modern logic for the precise description of the structure of
denotational domains. In its various adaptations and modifications by W.v.O. Quine,
N. Goodman, and W. Sellars, that program took centerstage in American philosophy
during the 1940-50s, and continuously grew more sophisticated with respect to both
its formal resources and the target of its reconstructive efforts, especially in
interaction with the development of philosophical logic and formal semantics since
the 1970s. Since that time analytical ontologists have been in the comfortable
position to apply a “standard methodology” and to swim with the mainstream instead
of engaging in foundational methodological reflections. However, as shall become
apparent in the course of this paper, it is questionable whether contemporary ontology
can afford such methodological complacency typical of what T. Kuhn called “normal
science”. I will argue here that this is not so, and this section and the following shall
prep the reader with some methodological reflections that prepare the general ground
for specific arguments to follow. Here I begin with a reconstruction of the most
general methodological commitments of analytical ontology as theory of categorial
inference, before turning to more specific and problematic additions in section 2.
According to the analytical mainstream the task of ontology is to explore
various ways of structuring the referential domain of a language or theory L. The
entities in the referential domain of L are nowadays often called the “truthmakers”.
The term 'truthmaker,' originating from Husserl, was brought again into currency to
denote any kind of entity "in virtue of which sentences and/or propositions are true",
e.g., objects, properties, events, states of affairs; it contrasts with the familiar notion
of a 'truth-bearer', which is any kind of entity that can be said to be true or false, e.g.,
a sentence or proposition.3 The contrast between truth-makes and truth-bearers also
signals—and that I consider to be the decisive advance introduced by Carnap—that
the ontological investigation of truthmakers can be undertaken quite independently of
any metaphysical investigation into the nature of truth and the status of this domain as
discovered or constructed.4
In a pithy formulation, ontology might be thus called ‘the theory of
truthmakers.’ More precisely, an ontological theory has the form of the quadruple
3
Cf. Mulligan, Simons, and Smith 1984: 287.
4
For historical and systematic reconstruction of Carnap’s influence on analytical ontology cf. e.g.,
Seibt 1996e, 1997.
2
<M, TM, f, L>: it specifies an assignment f which correlates the elements of a class L
of true (i.e., taken as true) L-sentences with structures of the domain of interpretation
M as described by a domain theory TM.5 TM describes simple and complex
ontological correlates for sentences and parts of sentences of L. Strictly speaking,
truthmakers are the ontological correlates of whole sentences of L, but to simplify
terminology let ‘truthmaker’ refer to not only to ontological correlates of true L-
sentences but also to their components.
The assignment function f, which is rarely explicitly defined, abides by the
following requirements. First, the assignment should be such that it can be used to
explain, in terms of suitable structural descriptions of the domain of a language L,
why L-speakers are justified in drawing material inferences of a certain type. These
inferences, which I call categorial inferences, define the meaning of the ‘ultimate
genera terms’ of L (e.g., ‘thing,’ ‘property,’ ‘person’ etc.). Mostly the justification at
issue takes the form of an entailment from the definition of the truthmaker for an L-
sentence S to the inferences licensed by S in L. That is, the domain theory provides
definitions for basic types of entities (categories) in terms of certain features (category
features); the inferences licensed by a sentence S are justified if they can be shown to
follow from the category features of the truthmakers of S. For example, consider the
English sentences:
[1] This is an aggressive dog.

[2] This is a 1970’s color.
[3] This is an exciting journey we are on right now.
Sentence [1] licenses the inference:
[4] The dog to the left of this dog is not identical with this dog.
but [2] does not license the sentence analogous to [4]:
[5] The color to the left of this color is not identical with this color.
Furthermore, sentence [3] licenses [6]:
[6] Whatever I will see of this journey in five minutes from now will not be
identical with this journey.
while sentence [1] fails to entail the analogon to [6]:
[7] Whatever I will see of this dog in five minutes from now will not be
identical to this dog.
5
Unlike semantical theories, ontologies are not developed specifically for one language (conceptual
scheme) only but aspire to articulate structures of the world as viewed from any language (conceptual
scheme). Elsewhere (e.g. Seibt 2000) I discuss the possible scope of ontological theories, given the
possibility of ontological and linguistic relativity, and the relationship of language and conceptual
schemes. Here the variable ‘L’ should simply be read as ‘L or any language functionally equivalent to
L’ and expressions such as ‘our concept C’ should be read as ‘the concept C consisting in the
inferential role R of L or functional equivalents of R in other languages.’
3
That [1] licenses [3] has traditionally been explained by the fact that the ontological
correlate (truthmaker) of the demonstrative in [1] is a substance, which has the
category feature of particularity, i.e., it cannot occur in two places at the same time,
and thus entails [3]. In contrast, in order to explain why [2] does not entail [5], the
ontological correlate of the demonstrative in [2] traditionally has been described as an
attribute, an ‘universal’ or ‘repeatable’ entity that may—in some fashion or other—
‘occur multiply’ in space at the same time. Similarly, to explain that [1] does not
licence [7], ontologists determined that the category substance not only has the
category feature of particularity, but in addition also the category feature of
persistence (later called ‘endurance’) or identity through time understood as being
wholly present at any moment in time at which the substance exists.
Second, ontological interpretations are restricted by the desideratum that the
number of explanantia, i.e., the number of categories and category features, should be
kept at a minimum. This is Occam’s well-known 'principle of parsimony,' whose full
rationale and justification comes into view only if ontology is understood as an
explanatory theory, as I am suggesting here.
Third, given that ontology is an explanatory theory, the basic categories in the
domain theory TM must be chosen according to their explanatory potential.
Ontological categories need a model to serve their explanatory function, as much as
theoretical concepts in science. In physics, water current or an ideal pendulum serve
as cognitive models for the theoretical entities of an electrical current or a harmonic
oscillator, respectively. Similarly, in ontology the notion of a substance is frequently
introduced by way of comparing it to a thing, monads are compared to minds, or
Whiteheadian occasions are compared to events. The models of ontology stand in a
slightly different relationship to the theoretical terms they elucidate, however. In the
sciences the relationship between theoretical term and cognitive model is one of
analogical illustration—there are structural similarities between the empirical
properties of the model and the theoretical properties of the theoretical entity, but the
model is not an instance of the kind of entity introduced by the theoretical term. In
contrast, the models of a theoretical entity in ontology are specific instances of the
category or entity type they are to elucidate and literally possess many (though not
all) features of that category. The model must be familiar to L-speakers or, as I say,
‘founded’ in their agentive experience.6 Only if TM operates with founded categories,
L-speakers will be able to understand what kind of entities make their true sentences
true, and only then L-speakers can accept the TM-descriptions of such entities as
explanations for why they are justified in entertaining certain concepts, i.e., in
drawing the associated inferences.
In short, then, the data of an ontology are patterns of categorial inferences
determining the inferential role of the ultimate genera terms of L; the task of an
ontology is to offer structural descriptions of truthmakers for L-sentences involving
certain ultimate genera terms of L (and, optionally, more specific kind terms of L
belonging to these genera in L); and the goal of an ontology is to operate with
6
This is a new way to read the Carnapian postulate of foundedness in the Aufbau, for further details on
the methodological claims sketched her see Seibt 1997 and 2000. The 'model' of the ontological
category is denoted by an ulimate genera term of L (English). One of the primary difficulties for
theories of tropes (or 'moments') consists in the fact that the category 'trope' lacks a model in this
sense--in English there is no term expressing the ultimate genus of 'this red' versus 'that red.' This
lacuna is covered up by the tropist's quick move to technical jargon like 'property instances' or
'exemplifications of attributes,' which does not ‘found’ the category in the required sense.
4
structural descriptions that involve only founded categories, i.e., that L-speakers can
accept as a plausible description of what it is that makes their sentences true.
So far my reconstruction of the general methodology of mainstream analytical
ontology; even though the terminology may be partly unfamiliar, I trust that in
content the reconstruction is an uncontroversial description of the actual procedure of
analytical ontologists. Let us now look at some of the additional assumptions that
standardly enter into the concrete implementation of this methodology.
Section 2: The Myth of Substance and the “dirty hands” of logic
The explanatory tasks of ontology introduce a problematic psychological

element into theory choice in ontology: the greater the familiarity of the model of an
ontological entity (category), the greater the latter’s initial plausibility. Whether the
initial plausibility of a category is ultimately warranted depends on whether it can be
used to formulate coherent structural descriptions of truthmakers. But even if the
relevant theory of truthmakers displays obvious short-comings, the initial plausibility
of the category will incline researchers to try and fix the specifics of the theory rather
than to abandon the category altogether.
The history of Western ontology—in Hegel’s quip “the tendency towards
substance”—provides a striking illustration of this principle. Aristotle’s search for a
suitable conception of “ousia” centered on an investigation of our reasoning about
material things, non-living and living. In this way denotations of the kind term
‘thing’ became the model of the theoretical entity Aristotle aimed to introduce. Given
the central practical significance of things in our everyday interactions, the model for
ousia endowed the postulated theoretical entity substance with very high initial
plausibility. Aristotle famously experimented with various notions of ousia which he
assigned various sets of category features. In one of its characterizations of ousia was
said to be a particular, persistent, the locus of change, countable or one of its kind,
non-instantiable, independent, discrete, simple, unified.7 This version of the category
that was later translated as ‘substance’ turned out to be incoherent but instead of
abandoning the category of substance metaphysicians tinkered with the specifics of a
theory of truthmakers based on substance.
More precisely, the history of Western ontology since Aristotle is striking in
three regards. First, the term ‘substance’ is faithfully traded and consistently applied
for the most basic ontological category in an ontological domain theory. Second, the
intensional and extensional definitions of the category ‘substance’, its definitions in
terms of lists of category features or in terms of paradigmatic instances, differ so
widely that there is no ‘least set of common denominators’ or intersection of
extensions of all or even only the main historical notions of substance. To put it
poignantly, there is ‘no substance to the notion of substance.’8 (Facile references to
7
Cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 1042a34, Physics 200b33, Metaphysics 1038b35f, ibd. 1017b16ff,
Categories 2a13ff, Metaphysics 1037b1ff, Categories 3b33, Metaphysics 1041a4f, and ibd. 1041b11ff,
respectively.
8
Cf. Seibt 1990; cf. also Stegmair 1977, who summarizes the situation in similar terms. The lack of
internal semantic integration of the historical notions of substance is both documented and obscured in
classical and more recent studies (e.g., by L.Prat, B. Bauch, E. Cassirer, R. Jolivet, J. Hessen, M.
Latzerowitz, A. Reck. D. Hamlyn, A. Leschbrand, B. Singer, T.Scaltsas), which typically retreat to a
purely inventatory approach. Rosenkrantz/Hoffmann 1991 and Simons 1994 offer definitions of
independent particulars called ‘substance’ without, however, discussing whether the definiendum is
representative for the notion of substance in a wider historical perspective.
5
“the traditional notion of substance” or “substances in the old sense”, as these can
often be found in recent texts, are thus strictly speaking semantically empty if the
term is not further historically contextualized). Third, while there is no notion of
substance common to all substance ontologies, there are certain restrictions on how
substance-ontological domain theories are constructed. As I have shown elsewhere,
there are around 20 characteristic principles about linkages between category features
that substance ontologists typically employ in the construction of their domain
theories. As I shall elaborate presently, the core elements of this set of principles
establish in combination the ontological primacy of concrete individual particulars.
Thus, even though not every historical definition of substance explicitly
stipulates that substances are particulars, particularism (both in the sense of
foundational and of target particularism) is nevertheless an effect of the longstanding
“tendency towards substance” since it is implied by traditional domain principles that
have been operative in Western ontology since Aristotle. These principles form a
research paradigm in the Kuhnian sense: they restrict the collection and the
interpretation of the data of an ontological theory as well as the space of legitimate
problems and solutions. In fact, since most of these traditional assumptions have sunk
deeply into the systematic sediment of ontological debate and appear nowadays as
‘laws of thoughts’ that do not need further reflection, we may speak not only of a
“substance paradigm” but even of a theoretical ‘myth’ akin to the “myth of the ghost
in the machine” or the “myth of given”: the “myth of substance.”9
If particularism is part and parcel of the myth of substance, any discussion of
particularism and particulars should aim, first, to identify those aspects of current
accounts of particulars that are not implied by the notion of particularity itself but are
dispensable additions due to the presuppositions of the substance paradigm; in a
second step one should then investigate to what extent these additional aspects
hamper the formulation of a coherent conception of a particular. This is what I aim to
do in this contribution. Let me thus first highlight some of the principles of the
traditional systematic embedding of the notion of particularity, before I trace the
damaging effect of these additional principles for some current accounts of
particulars.
The notion of particularity as such is rather easily determined: it is a category
feature that applies to all entity types (object, event, property, relation, mode etc.) and
expresses a form of uniqueness that contrasts with generality. There are two ways to
formulate such uniqueness:
Particularity-1: Something is particular if by necessity it occurs in one

spatiotemporal location only.10
Particularity-2: Something is particular if by necessity it occurs in one entity

only.11
9
Cf. Seibt 1990, 1996a, 1996c, 2005.
10
Throughout this essay I will use the notion of a spatiotemporal location or region not in the sense of
relativity theory but more generally to denote the pair of a spatial region and a certain temporal period;
something occurs in the spatiotemporal region r = <S, T> if it occupies the spatial region S during T.
Here and hereafter I simply speak of a ‘location’, with the understanding that such locations are
extended regions that are connected (possibly multiply connected, i.e., containing holes).
11
The predicate ‘x occurs in y’ is here used to as a placeholder for a variety of more specific
ontological relations such as spatiotemporal inclusion, exemplification, constitution, parthood,
containment in the ontological assay etc.
6
The second definition of particularity is obviously wider than the first, since the entity
in which the candidate particular is said to occur might exist as whole at several
points in time, or it might be spatially scattered at some time t. Nevertheless,
ontologists use both definitions interchangeably, as we shall see below, and thus
apparently proceed from two hidden assumptions. The two definitions of particularity
are co-extensional only if one adopts (a) an a-temporal perspective and (b) considers
only spatially connected (‘unified’) entities. The first of these restrictions reflects the
traditional bias against change and becoming, the idea that true being is the domain of
the eternal, which has been prevalent in Western metaphysics and ontology since
Parmenides onwards. The second restriction is, in fact, one of the core elements of
the substance paradigm or myth of substance and can be formulated as a linkage
between the category features of ‘individuality’ and ‘unity’:
(P1) Principle of Unity: All concrete individuals are unified.
The precise sense of the envisaged unification or unity is notoriously a matter of

debate, but one underlying shared intuition is clearly that the relevant sense of unity
should imply that individuals occur in topologically connected regions.
Principle (P1) is one of about 20 principles that derive from linkages between
category features introduced by Aristotle’s investigations into the notion of ousia.
Here are eight further principles creating a rich systematic embedding of the notion of
particularity.
(P2) Principle of Concreteness: All particulars are concrete.

(P3) Principle of Independence: All particulars are independent.
(P4) Principle of Individuality: All and only concrete particulars are
individuals.
(P5) Principle of Countability: All (and only) individuals are countable.
(P6) Principle of determinateness: All and only individuals are fully
determinate.
(P7) Principle of subjecthood: The properties that are truly attributed to an
entity are attributed to the ontological factor that individuates the entity.
(P8) Principle of categorial dualism: Ontological structures consist of (simple
and complex) particular entities or (simple and complex) universal or multiply
occurrent entities, or combinations of both.
(P9) Principle of Endurance: All concrete individuals are identical through
time; they do not have temporal parts.12
This is, I submit, the characteristic systematic context of the notion of particularity in
the Western ontological tradition. Of course, there are many different ways to
formulate the relevant linkage principles, some less and some more redundant in
inferential regards, and one might question the content of the principles as long as the
meaning of the linked category features is not further specified. But precisely in the
given vague formulation working ontologists will recognize in (P1) through (P9)
12
For other examples and the full list of characteristic Aristotelian presuppositions to be found in the
ontological tradition and the contemporary debate see Seibt 1990b, 1995, 1996a, b, c, 2000d, and 2002.
Note that the simple version of (P2), the principle of particularism: all and only individuals are
particulars, is championed in the substance-ontological tradition, but it seems not by Aristotle himself
(cf. Gill 1994).
7
some of the ‘core intuitions’ of their discipline. In fact, in the course of the historical
hegemony of the substance-ontological tradition principles like (P1) through (P9)
gradually received the status of ‘laws of thought’ that could also serve as constraints
for the task of finding precise definitions for the category features mentioned in (P1)
through (P9).
Taken in combination principles (P1) through (P9) generate a concept of
particularity that hereafter I shall call ‘substantial particularity’, contrasting the latter
with ‘particularity per se’ or necessary uniqueness as defined above in ‘Particularity-
1’. Substantial particulars are unique, concrete, fully determinate individuals that are
unified, persisting subjects. As I shall argue below, such a category is, prima facie at
least, multiply incoherent and the fact that, to the present day and with few exceptions
only, ontologists operate with the notion of substantial particularity can only count as
a striking illustration of Bergson’s observation that “the human mind has the tendency
to consider the concept it uses most frequently to be the clearest.”
Most striking in this regard is the fact that even though the notion of substance
is no longer popular, the myth of substance is alive and well in the very tools that
analytical ontology has introduced in the 20th century to rid metaphysical research
from murky principles and chase shadowy assumptions into the light of reason. For
instance, as W. Sellars noted, our default reading of the existential quantifier as ‘there
is an x” clandestinely introduces a problematic restriction on countable items; "in
logic”, he concluded, “we come always with dirty hands."13 In fact, not only
countability is a built in feature of individuals in our standard interpretation of
predicate logic, but also assumptions about linkages between individuality, identity,
particularity, unity, and concreteness. Consider the following passages from Quine's
Methods of Logic. Quine reminds us that "despite its simplicity, identity invites
confusion"14 and proceeds to introducing identity as the relation of sameness:
[8] Identity is such a simple and fundamental idea that it is hard to explain
otherwise than through mere synonyms. To say that x and y are identical is to
say that they are the same thing.15
He continues to explain that the essential function of identity statements is to establish

informative redundancies among (complex) names.
[9] For the truth of a statement of identity it is necessary only that '=' appear
between names of the same objects. (...) If our language were so perfect a
copy of its subject matter that each thing had but one name, then statements of
identity would indeed be useless.16
Finally, Quine translates quantified identity statements, e.g. "(x)(y)(x is a god . y is a

god.→.x=y)," as numerical statements, e.g., "There is one god at most."17 Altogether
these—uncommented—transitions yield the following result. The notion of identity
to be introduced is the notion of sameness simpliciter; it is not the relation 'x is the
same substance or physical object as y' but rather the supra-categorial or
13
Sellars 1960: 502.
14
Quine 1952: 208.
15
Op. cit.
16
Op. cit. 209.
17
Op. cit. 211.
8
transcendental (in the scholastic sense) notion of individuality that is the target here.18
And yet, the subsequent elucidations of this general relation of sameness introduce
conceptual linkages that are unproblematic only if such a restriction to physical
objects is already in place. For in [9] the relation of sameness is said, without further
explanation, to be functionally exhausted in the indication of coreference of names,
i.e., expressions that denote particular “objects”, and so reveals that all and only
particular entities stand in the relation of sameness. Moreover, in the final
elucidation, the relation of sameness is read as the relation of numerical oneness,
which states that all and only countable and unified entities stand in the relation of
sameness. Altogether, then, entities standing in the relation of sameness are said to be
countable particulars—identity in the sense of sameness or individuality is effectively
linked to countability, unification, and particularity, just as principles (P1) through
(P5) prescribe.
In sum, contemporary ontological inquiry is still profoundly influenced by the
theoretical presuppositions of the traditional research paradigm in ontology, which I
call the substance paradigm or, more polemically, the myth of substance. Since these
presuppositions have entered the standard readings of logical constants, i.e., the
existential quantifier and the identity sign, the myth of substance is written into the
formal tool of analysis most commonly used by contemporary ontologists. The
default interpretation of logical individual constants and variables are entities that are
‘substantial particulars’ in the sense defined above: they are concrete, unified,
countable, individual, enduring, independent, and determinate entities that are
‘particulars-per-se’, i.e., that have exactly one spatial occurrence at any point in time
at which they exist. In the following section I will now investigate whether the
category of a ‘substantial particular’ forms at all a coherent notion—as I shall argue,
the longstanding conviction that ‘particular objects’ or ‘substances’ are an
unproblematic type of basic entities is quite unfounded.
Section 3: Particulars and the debate about individuality
References to ‘particulars’ are ubiquitous in ontological discussion but there are

two main areas of debate that anchor the term systematically: the debate about
universals and the debate about individuality or identity. Both of these debates, in
past and current versions, are infused with the presuppositions of the myth of
substance and thus, by default, references to ‘particulars’ invoke the notion of what I
called above ‘substantial particulars’, i.e., entities that are not only necessarily unique
(particular-per-se) but also unified, concrete, individual, independent, determinate,
and enduring logical subjects, in accordance with (P1) through (P9) above.
This is most palpable perhaps in the debate about universals with its typical
association of the general and the abstract. Often the problem at issue is couched in
terms of an exclusive theoretical alternative: ‘do we need universals, i.e., abstract and
general entities, in addition to concrete particulars, in order to make sense of the fact
that the same predicate can be truthfully applied to several things?’ Such a set-up of
the problem of universals immediately restricts the solution space, in accordance with
(P8), (P6) and (P4). If particulars and universals are the only categories to choose
from, and if particulars are ‘apriori’ taken to be concrete and determinate, then the
additional category to be taken into consideration must consist of abstract and
18
The expression 'thing' occurring [8] is supposed to have the wide reading as ‘item’ or ‘entity’, it is
not to carry any categorial restrictions to physical things.
9
determinable or general entities. Aristotle himself postulated general entities called

“forms” that were also concrete repeatables, but in the subsequent scholastic
discussion the option of operating with concrete repeatables receded into the
background; the dispute between ‘realists’ and ‘nominalists’ polarized the debate into
the opposition between those supporting and those denying the existence of universals
that by default were taken to be general and abstract. The traditional linkage between
the general and the abstract was further reinforced by the contemporary revival of the
debate about universals in the first half of the 20th century, when metalogical results
and arguments from the discussion about the foundations of mathematics
(questionable status of the axiom of choice, incompleteness of 2nd order theories etc.)
were used to make a case for or against interpreting predicate constants in terms of
abstract entities such as classes or functions.
The debate about individuality on the other hand is less palpably biased in its very
set-up, but it provides the richest material for an analysis and critical discussion of
traditional presuppositions in the current use of the term ‘particular’. The classic
expository gambit for postulating ‘particulars’ is a pointer to violations of Leibniz’
so-called ‘principle of the identity of indiscernibles’. Leibniz assumed that any
difference between “substances” is not “solo numero” but based on descriptive
features—if substances are distinct, there is at least one attribute that is had by one but
not by the other. In this formulation the principle pertains to substances and attributes
and thus is a prescriptive principle governing the domain of ontological interpretation.
In an alternative formulation by means of ‘semantic ascent’, the principle says that if
we can truly ascribe the same predicates to two names, then these names are
coreferential. In this formulation the principle makes a descriptive claim about the
truth-conditions of L-sentences, i.e., about the data that an ontological theory must try
to accommodate. The second reading dominates in the contemporary debate and thus
it shall be adopted here.19 If the Leibniz principle holds, the ontological correlate for
the ultima genera L-term ‘thing’ or ‘object’ could make do with nothing else but a
‘bundle’ of attributes (properties, relations), i.e., with a suitable collection of those
general entities that are the ontological correlates of our common talk about features.
If the Leibniz principle fails and there are cases of numerical distinctness or two-ness
without descriptive difference, then the ontological correlate of an object must include
at least one additional ontological constituent besides general entities (otherwise the
data of an ontological theory of things or objects, i.e., the inferential role of the
common sense term ‘thing’ or ‘object’, would not be adequately accounted for).
Consider the following passage:
[10] 'How shall we define the diversity which makes us count objects as two in a census?' We
may put the same problem in words that look different, e.g., 'What is meant by 'a particular'?'
20
or 'What sorts of objects can have proper names?'
The author of this passage in effect declares that particulars are to account for (i)
numerical difference as well as (ii) distinctness (diversity), and that particulars are the
ontological correlates of proper names, assigning them thus (iii) the role of logical
subjects (cf. P4, P5, P7 above). The following passage connects individuality and
particularity-per-se or uniqueness as in (P4) above:
19
The two readings are frequently conflated and little attention has been paid to the fact that in
addition the principle may be read either as a principle of individuation (stating conditions of
distinctness) or of numerical identity (stating conditions of plurality), cf. Seibt 1996b.
20
Russell HK.
10
[11] To be an individual is to be at a place at a time...thus the individuality or uniquess of

individuals is ensured... This guarantees the genuine individuality of most of what we should
21
ordinarily call 'individuals.'
In fact, contributions in the debate about the Leibniz principle typically connect in
their initial characterizations of the problem (i) numerical identity (“oneness,”
“numerical distinctness”, “numerical difference”), (ii) individuality, (“difference”,
“thisness” (versus “thatness”)) and (iii) logical subjecthood (“thisness“ (versus
“suchness”)), compare [12] through [15]:
[12] "A: ...Different things have at least one property not in common. Thus, different things
must be discernible; and hence, by contraposition, indiscernible things must be identical.
Q.E.D.
B: ...Do you claim to have proved that two things having all their properties in common are
identical?
A: Exactly."22
[13] "Assume that there are two things both of which have the same non-relational characters.
What accounts for their being (numerically) different? That is the problem of individuation.
To grasp it as well as to solve it, one must attend to the uses of 'same' and 'different.'...[The
problem of individuation is the problem of] how to account for the thisness of this."23
[14] [The proponent of the Leibniz Principle] "doubts whether there can be any sense in
talking of a plurality of objects unless it is a way of talking about differences of
preoperties...If [a certain rule] is valid, the principle of the identity indiscernibles becomes
analytic; for it will then be necessarily true that there is no difference between things that
cannot represented as a difference between properties."24
[15] [The question at issue in the Leibniz Principle is whether] "thisnesses are primitive and
nonqualitative... In order to establish the distinctness of thisnessses from all suchnesses,
therefore, one might try exhibit possible cases in which two things would possess all the same
suchnesses, but with different thisnesses."25
The authors of these quotations take themselves to explicate basic and uncontroversial
intuitions, but in effect endorse powerful traditional principles pertaining to the
linkages of category features. To my knowledge only one author protested against the
habitual identification of the explanatory tasks of accounting for individuality qua
subjecthood and accounting for numerical plurality:
[16] Nous-A and Nous-B [two copies of a certain issue of Nous] are two individuals. Each
one is an individual. Even if the other disappeared, each one is an individual, a possessor of
properties, whether qualities or not, and itself not a property...The distinctness or diversity that
creates a problem about individuality is the contrast between individuals and non-individuals,
26
and it has nothing to do with a plurality of individuals.
Even more problematical, however, might be the fact that contributors to the debate
about individuality commonly assume that “one” and “the same” of re-identification
21
Stove PI 183.
22
Black II 282, emphasis supplied.
23
Allaire ALBP/Blackman, 305 and 309.
24
Ayer II 219, emphasis supplied.
25
Adams PTPI 10 and 12; emphasis supplied.
26
Castañeda INI 132.
11
is “one and the same”.27 But what matters most for present purposes, as witnessed by
the passages just quoted, contributors to the debate about individuality presuppose
that a particular or necessarily unique entity can and should fulfill also a number of
additional explanatory roles. A particular is an ontological constituent that can and
should also serve as the ‘individuator’ of a thing, as logical subject for what we
predicate of a thing, should help us to explain in which sense the features of a thing
depend on the thing but not vice versa, etc. But as I will argue now, it is questionable
whether any one constituent could fulfill all these explanatory roles at once.
Section 3.1. The Bare Particular Theory
Let us assume, then, in line with the debate about individuality, (i) that there
are scenarios with two or more objects with exactly the same descriptive features, (ii)
that these cases are violations of the Leibniz Principle, and (iii) that these cases
therefore imply that the ontological correlate of an object must contain not only
general entities but also a constituent warranting necessary uniqueness and
distinctness.
[17] [One way] of solving the problem of individuation is to make the further constituent a
bare particular. This notion...has two parts. Bare particulars neither are nor have natures.
Any two of them, therefore, are not intrinsically but only numerically different. That is their
bareness. It is [impossible in the sense of yielding an ill-formed ontological statement] for a
bare particular to be 'in' more than one ordinary thing. That is their particularity…....A bare
28
particular is a mere individuator.
The bare particular theory has a venerable history in similar stipulations of

constituents without qualitative determinations, such as Aristotle's (report on a) notion
of bare matter, Aquinas' materia signata , or Locke's "unknown support". But the
bare particular theory is more advanced in its formulation and thus the historical
dialectics repeats itself only to some extent. Critics of bare particulars target the
'bareness' of the postulated particular constituents with two sorts of objections. The
first objection is epistemological: bare particulars are ontological components which
are either empirically inaccessible or even unknowable. Given that epistemological
complaints of this kind are not relevant in ontology—even though they might matter
in metaphysics—I will not take them into account here.29 The second objection is
semantical: bare particulars amount to an "obscure metaphysical commitment,"30 or
even to outright "absurdity,"31 since the very concept is unsound. These are the
criticisms I will consider here and fortify with a new argument.
Let us reconstruct the two basic arguments in favor of particular individuators
in greater detail. The first argument has two strands, one in which the Leibniz
Principle is shown to fail, and one in which this failure is presented as implying the
introduction of individuating particular constituents. Let us call those ontological
constituents which account for the descriptive aspects of a thing, i.e., traditionally
27
Seibt 1996.
28
Bergmann R 24.
29
Proponents of the bare particular view agree that we may not "directly recognize a particular as the
same" or "as such" but claim that we are acquainted with them "when we see two indistinguishable
white billard balls" (Grossman 1983:57; cf. also Allaire 1963).
30
Kripke 1980: 18.
31
Sellars 1952:282.
12
speaking its qualities, properties, and relations, its 'descriptors.' The first argument
which I call the ‘duplication argument’ thus aims to establish that something else is
needed beyond descriptors in order to account for the individuality—taken to be
tantamount with the numerical identity—of a thing. In an informal and abbreviated
reconstruction the duplication argument runs as follows.
(I) THE DUPLICATION ARGUMENT
Premise 1: There are things which are exact qualitative duplicates.

Premise 2: Duplicates are different individuals.
Premise 3: The "properties" or "characters" of a thing are "literally the same."
Inference 1: In certain cases the individuality of a thing cannot be accounted
for in terms of the thing’s descriptors alone.
Premise 4: The Leibniz Principle postulates that the individuality of a thing is
determined by its descriptors.
Conclusion 1: Exact qualitative duplicates present counterexamples to the
Leibniz Principle -- the individuality of a thing cannot in all circumstances be
accounted for in terms the thing’s descriptors.32
Premise 5 (partly supported by conclusion 1): The ontological analysis of

'individuation' must introduce an additional constituent besides the descriptors
of a thing.
Premise 6: The additional individuating constituent is either a particular or a
descriptor.
Premise 7 (partly supported by premise 3): The additional individuating
constituent cannot be a descriptor.
Conclusion 2: The additional individuating constituent is a particular.
For present purposes let us simply accept the duplication argument, noting that
premise 1 may be supported either by the claim that duplication scenarios are
conceivable or factually given in the quantum-physical domain, where certain
measuring results may be described as reflecting pluralities of indistinguishable
‘particles’ (bosons). Furthermore, it should also be kept in mind that bare particular
theorists do have an argument in support of premise 3:
[18] [I]t appears that two characters [i.e., qualificators] may be merely
numerically different. But we cannot give a sense to such difference without
either putting characters in space or blurring the difference between characters
and things.33
32
Cf. Bergmann 1967: 7ff, Allaire 1963:293, Allaire 1965: 305ff.
33
Allaire 1963:299. The passage contains a rather compressed reduction argument, to be unfolded into
something along the following lines. (i) Descriptors are either universal or particular. (ii) Two things
α and β can be thought to be exact qualitative duplicates, i.e., to be qualitatively identical. (iii) The
qualitative descriptors of the two things are numerically different, since they occur in numerically
different things, i.e., in two different space-time locations. (iv) In order to account for the numerical
difference of the qualitative descriptors of α and β we would need to choose between the following two
options: (a) descriptors are universals but nevertheless they are individuated by their space-time
location; (b) descriptors are particulars. (v) Neither option in (iv) is acceptable; therefore thesis (iii) is
to be rejected -- the qualitative descriptors of α and β are not numerically different but are "literally the
same."
13
While the duplication argument aims to show that we need particulars as ontological
constituents establishing the individuality (numerical identity) of a thing, the second
argument is to evince that these individuating particulars must be bare.
(II) THE EXEMPLIFICATION ARGUMENT
Premise 1: The ontological factor that individuates an entity is also the logical
subject of the entity’s predicates.
Premise 2: Predication is exemplification.
Conclusion: The logical subject that exemplifies a descriptor (attribute) may
exhibit features but must itself be something without any features..
Michael Loux offers the following reconstruction of this argument.
The dialectic which leads to this view takes as its starting point the assumption that where P is
an exemplified property, the possessor of P is something that can be apprehended
independently of P; it is a thing such that whatever it is its being that does not presuppose its
possessing P. According to this assumption, then, properties are something added to their
possessors; in itself, the possessor of a property has a being that is distinct from and
independent of the property it possesses...Let us consider a small red ball...That assumption
forces us to say that whatever it is that possesses the color associated with the ball, it is
something which in itself is not red. It is such that the property of being red is something
added to it, so as to characterize it as red. But while the possessor of this property is not in
itself red, it is not something which in itself is some color other than red; for we associate with
the ball not just the color red, but also the generic property of being colored, so that whatever
possesses the color red also possesses the generic property of being colored. But, then, the
assumption just stated forces us to say that the possessor of the properties associated with the
ball is something which in itself has no color at all; it is something to which the property of
34
being colored is added.
And so on for every attribute of the ball, however specific or general. In this
reconstruction the argument indeed is "likely to appear shocking."35 Let me supply
some considerations and further premises which should make the argument somewhat
more palatable, in an effort to ‘strengthen the opponent’.
First, it is important to realize that the proponent of the reported argument
must be taken to operate with a specific account of predication. The subject whose
bareness is to be demonstrated is a relatum of the relation of exemplification; it is not
a relatum of Tarski's relation of satisfaction, holding between the referent of the
subject-term and the predicate-term, and it is not the argument of predicative
functions in the Fregean sense. Second, the proponent of the argument can
recommend her or his analysis of predication on two counts, showing its superiority
to both the Tarskian and Fregean analysis. On the one hand, unlike functional
application, the relation (or “tie”, “nexus”) of exemplification accounts for the unity
of a thing since it ties the constituents of a thing into a complex.
(EX1) Exemplification generates a unified complex.
On the other hand, the relation of satisfaction does not express a definite type of
connectedness which could explain why we call a sentence 'a is F' true if the referent
of 'a' satisfies 'F'. But the relation of exemplification answers to this explanatory
34
Loux 1978: 108.
35
Ibid. 110.
14
demand -- 'a is F' is true insofar as the referent of 'a' is an example of the feature or
kind denoted by 'F'.
(EX2) A predicate-term 'F' is truly predicated of a subject-term 'a' iff the

referent of 'a' is an example of the attribute denoted by 'F'.
As we shall see presently, one might refrain from such a literal, essentially Platonist,
reading of the relation of exemplification and assign it a more technical interpretation,
thereby again losing the explanatory asset of the literal account. But insofar as the
Platonist reading as in (EX2) is retained, this implies, so one might argue, that logical
subjects must be logically independent of the attributes they exemplify. For assume
(EX2) as a premise.
Premise 3: = (EX2)
Now consider a tennis ball T which is round, white, weighs 48 grams, and has a
certain degree of elasticity d. What exemplifies the attribute whiteness cannot be
anything which is essentially round, weighs essentially 48 grams, or has essentially
degree of elasticity d. For an example of whiteness must 'in itself' be just white and
nothing else. Thus what exemplifies whiteness cannot be the ball T which qua ball is
in itself essentially round, but it must be something about T which can fail to be
round. Let's call that α. Factor α cannot be 'in itself' or essentially white, however,
for otherwise α could not be an example of roundness. Now assume the following
premise holds:
Premise 4: every thing has more than one descriptive aspect and the subject of
predications about it always exemplifies several attributes.
The subject in premise 4 cannot in itself, or essentially, be an example of any one of

them. Assume we further accept the equivalence stated in premise 5:
Premise 5: 'x is in itself an example of y' is true ⇔ 'x exemplifies y

essentially' is true.
Then we reach another version of the conclusion stated above:
Conclusion: The subject of the predicate F-ness is (i.e., the denotatum of the
predicate-term 'F') is not in itself but only contingently an example of F-ness.
In this, more differentiated formulation, the conclusion of the exemplification

argument will appear less scandalous. Thus, before dismissing the exemplification
argument all too quickly, one should ask whether one’s interpretation of 'bare'
individuators as "lacking in all properties,"36—which is certainly correct for the
historical notion of bare matter—indeed represents the commitments of today’s bare
particularists. Contemporary defendants of the bare particular view have vividly
rejected the common reading as an overly puritanic reaction that blurs a sensitive
distinction in types of bareness. "Those who claim that there are bare particulars,
Russell, Bergmann, Allaire, et. al., claim that they are nude of natures, not that they
36
Loux 1978: 110. Loux himself does go some way to investigate this question.
15
are naked of properties."37 Let us get clearer on this distinction. The proponent of
naked particulars champions either one of the following conceptions of 'bareness.'
(BP1a) The individuator of α is logically independent of any attribute of α.

(BP1b) The individuator of α is a factor which is entirely dissociated of attributes, i.e., it does
not have or exemplify any attribute.
The proponent of nude particulars on the other hand is content with more modest
forms of exposure.
(BP2a) The individuator of α is logically independent of each attribute.

38
(BP2b) "Bare particulars neither are nor have natures [i.e., essential attributes]."
Thus it will not do to argue against bare particulars along the following lines:
Perhaps the neatest way in which to expose the absurdity of the notion of bare particulars is to
show that the sentence, 'Universals are exemplified by bare particulars,' is a self-contradiction.
As a matter of fact, the self-contradictory character of this sentence becomes evident the
moment we translate it into the symbolism of Principia Mathematica. It becomes, '(x).(∃F)
Fx.∧ ¬(∃F)Fx', or in other words, 'If a particular exemplifies a universal, then there is no
39
universal which it exemplifies.
But even if we may rescue bare particulars qua nude particulars from objections
against naked particulars, ultimately the notion is fraught with incoherence, as I will
show now.
Section 3.2 Paradise lost: incoherent nude particulars
Even though immune against some of the arguments put forth against the
naked particular approach, the notion of a nude particular becomes suspect once we
step back from the specific dialectics of the debate and take a more general angle.
Would not any entity about which we can say anything at all—for instance that it is a
particular, concrete, and nude—seem to need some essential attributes? Some
opponents of nude particulars have thus argued that we cannot coherently claim that
the definitional trait of being nude is something that a nude particular exemplifies
only contingently: could nude particulars be logically independent even of their
nudity and particularity-?40
There is, thus, the problem about the modal status of the definitional features
of nude particulars. The difficulty I want to draw attention to resides at an even more
general plane. As I shall argue now, it is the very idea of having individuating
constituent also perform the role of a logical subject that renders the nude particular
approach inconsistent. To begin with another look at the principle of exemplification
that has proved so useful in defending the bare particular view.
The nexus ...will be represented by 'e' and called exemplification. 'a ε A' is a well-formed
sentence if and only if 'a' and 'A' stand for a bare particular and a universal, respectively; it is
37
Baker 1967: 211.
38
Bergmann 1967: 24.
39
Sellars 1952: 282f.
40
E.g. Loux 1978:110ff.
16
true if and only if a is the bare particular and A is one of the universals 'in' an ordinary
41
thing.
According to this definition the bare particular α of a thing u exemplifies all and only
those attributes that are constituents of u. For instance, if u is a square thing, then
squareness and α are both constituents of u, u is said to be square, and α exemplifies
squareness. Thus, according to the definition of exemplification just cited there are
two ways in which an attribute can be related to another entity which is not an
attribute.
(R1) x has attribute F iff x is a thing and there is a bare particular y which
is the bare particular of x and α exemplifies F.
(R2) x exemplifies F iff there is a thing u and x is the bare particular of u and x
and F are constituents of u.
As we noted previously, bare particulars must be assumed to be essentially concrete

and particular-per-se, i.e., necessarily uniquely occurrent, entities, if they are to play
of individuators. But how can we predicate of a particular α that it is bare, or a
particular entity, or is a constituent of a thing? How are we to understand the
relationship between α and these attributes? It seems that we have three possibilities
in order to explain how the bare (nude) particular α and, say, the attribute of being a
bare particular, are related.
(a) α neither has nor exemplifies the attribute of being a bare particular.
(b) α has the attribute of being a bare particular in the sense of (R1).
(c) α exemplifies the attribute of being a bare particular in the sense of (R2).
If the proponent of the bare particular view were to choose the first option, the
position would remain obscure. The second option amounts to assimilating the
ontological structure of things and bare particulars. This option is not open to bare
particularists, since they insist things belong into the ontological category of “facts”
and thus are structurally very different that the category of bare particulars. Thus, we
are left with the third option in order to specify the relationship between bare (nude)
particulars and their attributes.
Let us assume then that bare particulars exemplify the attribute of being a bare
particular. The following difficulty arises. Bare particulars exemplify all and only
those attributes which are said to be true about things or which are had by things.
But a thing, which is within the bare particular view categorized as a fact, cannot be
said to be a bare particular. Thus, against our initial assumption, bare particulars
cannot exemplify the attribute of being a bare particular. To restate the arising
inconsistency more formally:
(1) Assumption: Definition of predication.

'a is F' is true iff the denotatum of 'a' has a bare particular constituent which
exemplifies the denotatum of 'F.'
(2) Assumption: Definition of exemplification.
41
Ibid. 26.
17
Entity x exemplifies attribute F iff there is a thing A and there is an entity x

which is the bare particular of A and x and F are constituents of A.
(3) Assumption: Definition of a bare particular:
(x) (x is a bare particular iff
x ∈ {y| (∃z) (y is a constituent of z &
(f) (f is a constituent of z ↔ y exemplifies f))}).
(4) Assumption:
Some predications about things, i.e., some sentences of the form 'a is F' are
true.
(5) From (1), (2), (3), (4):
There are bare particulars, i.e.,
(∃x)(x ∈ {y| (∃z) (y is a constituent of z &
(6) From (3):
There is the attribute BP of being a bare particular:
BP := λy [(∃z) (y is a constituent of z &
(7) Assumption: An entity which is a thing is not a bare particular.
(8) From (7):
The predicate which denotes the attribute BP cannot be truly predicated of any
thing.
(9) From (1), (2), (8):
There is no entity x which exemplifies the attribute BP.
(10) From (9):
The class BP which consists of all and only things exemplifying the attribute
BP, is empty:
¬(∃x)(x ∈ {y| (∃z) (y is a constituent of z &
There are two ways in which proponents of bare particulars could try to rebut this
argument. First, they might try to question the overall strategy of the argument,
namely, the idea of applying the bare particularist’s account of predication (see
assumption 2) both for predications about things, i.e., at the level of the ‘object
language’ or language to be analyzed, and for predications about bare particulars, i.e.,
at the level of the ontological meta-theory. This line of rebuttal is not promising in
my view since ontological theories of predication are commonly taken to be self-
applicatory. The analysis of predication as stated in the metalanguage normally can
also be applied to the assertions of the metalanguage, by entering the level of a meta-
metalanguage. But precisely this step up into the meta-metalanguage is not possible
with the account of predication stated in assumption 2 and, for that matter, with any
account of predication that postulates that the logical subject of the predicates of a
thing is not the thing but an ontological constituent of the thing that has a different
ontological make-up that the thing itself.
Second, proponents of bare particulars might reject the equivalence in
assumption 3, i.e., the postulate that all and only those attributes are constituents of a
18
thing that are denoted by the thing’s predicates. Instead a bare particularist might
postulate that all the denotata of predicates which are truly predicated of a thing A are
constituents of A, allowing for attributive constituents that are exemplified by the bare
particular of A but are not features predicated of A. In other words, bare particulars
may argue that assumption 3 should be formulated as an implication:
(x) (x is a bare particular iff

x ∈ {y| (∃z) (y is a constituent of z &
(f) (f is a constituent of z → y exemplifies f))}).
Such a change, however, would remove an essential constraint on the notion of

exemplification and render the term all but semantically empty—for example, the
bare particular α of grey cube A could then be said to exemplify also the attributes of
redness and triangularity and, in fact, any available attribute.42
In sum, even though ‘knock-down-drag-out’ arguments are very rare in
ontology, even though there might be epicycles that one could add to the bare
particular view to undercut the stated argument, postulating bare particulars does not
seem a promising strategy to arrive at an account of the individuality of things.
However, what our brief discussion also should have shown is that main difficulties
of the bare particular view do not stem from the notion of particularity itself, but from
the fact that the particular constituents of things were also assigned other explanatory
functions. Some linkages between category features turned out to be more
problematic than others. The traditional link between particularity and logical
subjecthood is clearly at the center of the problems arising for the bare particular
view.43
Section 4. Alternative conceptions of particulars
Particularism is the conviction that particular entities enjoy ‘ontological

primacy’ either as ontological explanantia or explananda, either as basic ontological
entities or as primary targets of ontological investigation. The argument in section 3
was to show that the notion of a bare particular is not a promising candidate for a
basic ontological category. Is there any other type of particular, then, that one could
postulate as basic ontological category? Wilfrid Sellars introduced in 1952 the notion
42
There are additional difficulties for Bergmann’s account of a bare particular. Since Bergmann’s
bare particulars are “momentary entities” (1967:34), they could in fact exemplify only very few of the
attributes which we ascribe to things with predicates like ‘three years old’ or ‘getting colder’ or
‘doubled in size.’ Bergmann would need to hold that common-sense predicates of things express very
complicated structures of attributes for momentary entities. Another sort of problem arises with
relational properties. Consider the predicate ‘bigger than thing B’ predicated of A; if the attribute
expressed by this predicate were to contain the ontological correlate of B, as this would be commonly
constructed, the ontological description of A would contain two bare particulars, that of A and,
embedded, that of B. But by definition a bare particular “cannot be ‘in’ more than one ordinary thing”
(1967: 24).
43
The link between particularity and individuality on the other hand is more innocuous. Initially
Bergmann postulates just one explanatory function for bare particulars: “A bare particular is a mere
individuator. Structurally that is its only function. It does nothing else”(1967: 25) If bare particularists
had taken this modest characterization to heart, the theory might be in better shape. Unfortunately,
however, the mono-functional entity apparently struck Bergmann and others as explanatorily shallow
and thus the traditional linkages between individuality and other category features made their way into
the functional characterization of bare particulars.
19
of a “basic particular” or “instance of one quale” and in effect formulated an early

version of what nowadays is known as ‘trope ontology’, the view that “property
particulars” are all there is.44 Tropes theories come in many different varieties, with
more or less striking deviations from the presuppositions of the substance paradigm or
myth of substance. Tropes are particular entities that are often taken to be concrete,
enduring, and determinate; in some frameworks, however, they are defined as abstract
particulars (against P2 above), or as instantaneous particulars (against P9), or as
determinable particulars (against P5). Most importantly, all trope theories reject (P3)
and (P6), the presupposition that particulars are to be independent and logical
subjects—tropes are dependent entities, where this dependence is often, but not
always, characterized as the dependence of logical predicates.
However, trope theories do retain the presuppositions (P1), (P4), and (P5)—
tropes are unified, countable, and individuals, i.e., not only a plurality but also each a
distinct ‘this’, and it is precisely here where again some of the main difficulties of the
trope theory can be located. Critics of tropes have charged that since tropes are
supposed to be simple (without internal complexity), we cannot make coherent sense
of a relation of exact similarity holding among tropes of what is intuitively the ‘same
character’ but different locations.45 This also spells trouble for a coherent elucidation
of their individuality and particularity. Since tropes may spatially superposed—for
instance, a red-trope and a round-trope may be co-located on the skin of a tomato—
most trope theorists consider them to be abstract (holding on to the traditional
principle of non-superposition for concrete particulars). But then the particularity of
tropes cannot consist in the unique spatial occurrence in the sense of the definition of
‘Particularity-1” above. The alternative account of “Particularity-2” above,
postulating that a particular is an ontological constituent that occurs in one (complex
ontological correlate of a) thing only, is not amenable to the trope theorist who
considers things to be trope structures. Thus the only way to establish that tropes are
particulars would be in terms of Particularity-1 together with the postulate that tropes
with the same (exactly similar) character may not be spatially superposed. The
particularity of tropes thus stands and falls with a convincing definition of the exact
similarity among tropes.
In fact, the problem just highlighted for the particularity of tropes is quite
general. Any theory that (a) treats things as ‘bundles’ of ‘unanalyzable ‘here-such’
units, e.g., particular tropes, events or states of affairs, and (b) retains the principle
(P4) that all and only concrete particulars are individuals, must give an account of the
distinctness of these particular constituents. In this way some internal complexity is
grafted onto the particular constituents, which conflicts with the demand that they be
simple.
Finally, let us briefly consider the thesis that particulars are ‘bundles’ of
universals. Proponents of the ‘universalist’ sort of bundle theory obviously reject
foundational particularism. But, like trope theorists, they have not succeeded in
renouncing the myth of substance altogether. Participants in the debate about the
universalist bundle theory agree the theory has the following three tasks. (i) The
theory must show that ‘thing-like’ bundles of universals (i.e., the complexes of
universals that are the ontological correlates of things) are necessarily uniquely
located in space, i.e., are particulars in the sense of Particularity-1. (ii) It must be
44
Present-day trope ontologists are wont to trace their roots back to D.C. Williams 1953, or, more
rarely, to G. F. Stout’s “particular characters” postulated in the early 1920s. Sellars’ attempt at logical
atomist trope theory is largely overlooked.
45
Cf. Hochberg 1992.
20
shown that such particulars also can play the role of the logical subject for a thing’s
predicates. (iii) The theory must warrant that any two of such complexes of
universals necessarily are distinct. The latter two tasks derive directly from
presuppositions (P4) and (P5) above and, again, generate the main difficulties for the
position: how to ensure the possibility of accidental predications, and how to exclude
duplication scenarios in support of the Leibniz Principle.46 These difficulties are so
notorious that I can perhaps make do with a quick pointer here. For present purposes
it is important to have a brief look at the first task, namely, of how to account for the
particularity of those universal complexes (bundles) that are the ontological correlates
of things. Proponents of the universalist bundle theory cannot resort to particularity-2
(i.e., particularity in the sense of being necessarily unique to one entity), since the
constituted particulars precisely do not enter as ontological constituents into any
further entities, or if do, then only contingently so. This leaves particularity in the
sense of particularity-1, but how could the co-occurrence of general entities establish
necessary spatial uniqueness of occurrence? The traditional bundle theorist is faced
with the choice of either having to include particular spatio-temporal locations within
the bundle or to give up on the necessity of spatial uniqueness.47 Russell famously is
among those who opt for the latter, thereby in effect introducing a new notion of
particularity48:
‘Particularity’-3: An entity is particular iff it occurs (contingently) in a single

spatial location at any point in time at which it exists.
But does ‘particularity-3’ really deserve the name? Particularity-3 merely formulates
a notion of ‘contingent uniqueness’. Given that some traditional universals also may
fulfill this definition—compare for instance the extension of the universal of ‘center
of a circle that is concentric to the dome of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome’—the
categorial difference between particulars and universals is profoundly compromised.
In one sense the universal-based bundle theories of particularity and substantial
particulars thus can be said to fail relative to their reductional aims. In another sense,
however, they point towards an eliminative solution of the problem of particularity.
Before elaborating on this—essentially Leibnizian—idea of doing ontology
without particulars, let us quickly review the result of this section. In the
contemporary ontological literature we find two main alternatives to the traditional
presumption that ‘substantial particulars’ are ontological primary, namely, theories
based on tropes and theories based on universals. These two strategies differ
profoundly regarding the role of the notion of particularity—trope theorists subscribe
to foundational particularism and take particularity to be a primary, undefined
category feature, while universal theorists try to offer reductive definitions of
traditional particulars. However, at the presuppositional level there are striking
similarities between both strategies. Both tropists and universalists retain the
traditional substance-ontological linkages between the category features of
particularity, individuality, countability, unification, and—in the case of the
universalists—also logical subjecthood. Interestingly, the main problems arising for
each theory type can be traced directly to these substance-ontological presuppositions.
46
Cf. Russell 1948, Van Cleve 1985, Losonsky 1987, Casullo 1988.
47
Cf. Casullo 1988:133, Lomg 1968:197; Jones 1950:68f.
48
Russell 1968: 298, 304ff.
21
5. Non-particular individuals
In the preceding sections I have highlighted difficulties arising from an

unreflected commitment to foundational particularism, the thesis that particulars have
ontological primacy at least in the sense that they form a basic ontological category,
in combination with unreflected commitments to the myth of substance, i.e., to certain
traditional linkages between category features. The arguments presented may not
suffice to shatter particularist intuitions—few, if any, arguments in ontology are
inescapable—but may at least lead us to review the notion of particularity and its role
in ontology. This might even benefit foundational particularism, since once we are
clear on the contrast between ‘substantial particularity’ and ‘particularity per se’,
foundational particularism can be extended into new domains. For example, P. Teller
has suggested that the field quanta of quantum-physical field theory (Fock space
formulation) should be categorized as non-individual particulars.49
On the other hand, reflections on the notion of particularity might also lead us
to reject the notion altogether. If we follow the line of the universalist bundle
theorists we also can entertain the research hypothesis that the classical binary
contrast between particularity and universality is altogeter ill-conceived—all we need
in ontology to model our inferences about things and persons are entities which are de
facto or contingently unique. Separating the traditional linkage between individuality
and particularity provides an effective heuristics for the construction of new non-
particularist ontologies: will a theory based on non-particular individuals serve the
explanatory aims of ontologies not equally well or even better? Will it not be
preferable, for a reconstruction of our reasoning about the world in common sense
and science, to replace the traditional contrast between universals and particulars by a
gradient field of more or less general entities, with contingently unique individuals—
Leibniz ‘infima species’—as one extremal point of the scale?
To provide at least a pointer to a non-particularist ontology that may support a
first, and affirmative, answer to these questions, let me outline the main ideas of
General Process Theory (hereafter ‘GPT’), and ontology based on general dynamics
or activity-like processes that are individuals but not particulars in the sense of
particularity-1 or particularity-2.50 GPT operates with a conception of individuality
that focuses not on location but on ‘specificity-in-functioning’ in the widest sense of
‘functioning’, i.e., focuses on the dynamic role of an entity (e.g. an activity) within a
certain dynamic context. The practice of individuating in terms of what is happening
or going-on, rather than where, is just as well-entrenched in our common sense and
scientific reasoning as the practice of individuating by location. The following
sentences about concrete occurrences of activities and stuffs, for example, clearly
involve a function-based notion of individuation: ‘it is snowing, not raining,’ ‘the
radiation has decreased by 50%,’ ‘the erosion runs all along the coast,’ or ‘the fire
spread rapidly,’ ‘there’s water in the next valley,’ or ‘you can’t see the gin in your
glass, since it is just as transparent as the tonic.’51
49
Cf. Teller 1995.
50
Cf. Seibt 1996a, b, c, 1997a, b, 2004a, b, 2007, 2008.
51
Historically viewed, this second sense of individuality as specificity-in-functioning has been
discussed in the Aristotelian tradition in individualistic interpretations of the “to ti en einai”, such as
Duns Scotus’ “haecceitas”. Leibniz’ so-called principle of the identity of indiscernibles can count as
an attempt to revive the understanding of individuality or thisness as specificity-in-functioning, against
22
Concrete activities come in two kinds. Some, like swimming or sliding, are the
doings of a person or a thing (or of collections thereof), while others, so-called
“pure” or “subjectless” activities, like snowing, raining, lightening cannot be
attributed to logical subjects of this kind and are typically expressed with impersonal
constructions such as ‘it is snowing’ etc.52 The basic category of GPT, a new
category labeled ‘general processes,’ is modelled on the common sense notion of a
subjectless activity or pure dynamics in the sense described above in Section 1: even
though general processes are theoretical entities that are axiomatically defined, their
explanatory power derives to a large extent from their model or prime illustration,
subjectless activities, which exhibit the most characteristic features of of the new,
postulated entity type.53 Here, then, are seven characteristics of subjectless activities
that can illustrate the theoretical properties of general processes resulting from the
axiomatics of GPT. (i) Subjectless activities are occurrences in their own right rather
than modifications of persons or things—like things, and unlike properties and
relations, they are independent in the sense that their occurrence in space and time
does not necessarily require the existence of a different sort of entity they occur in or
qualify (they may of course be constituted or caused by other entities). (ii)
Subjectless activities are temporally extended—there are no instantaneous activities.54
(iii) However, quite unlike things, and much like stuffs (water, wood, etc.)
subjectless activities occur in space and time both with indeterminate and with
determinate locations (cf. ‘there is lots of rain in Denmark’ vs. ‘on Oct. 12 it rained
in Aarhus between 8am and 1pm’). Most importantly, a subjectless activity does not
necessarily occur in a unique spatiotemporal location—ontologically speaking, a
subjectless activity is not a particular. While things are located at any time in one
place only, subjectless activities are multiply locatable like properties and stuffs—
they can, and mostly do, occur in many places at the same time: ‘it is snowing’ can
be true of many different scattered regions at the same time. (iv) Subjectless activities
also resemble stuffs in that they are not “countable”, i.e., they do not come in ‘natural’
countable units’ but only measurable in portions or amounts (e.g., an hour of snowing,
1000 lumens of light), which then may be counted. (v) Like stuffs and properties,
subjectless activities are not necessarily determinate in all of their qualitative or
the more prevalent understanding of thisness as determined by unique location that enabled, and was
supported by, the Cartesian geometrical approach to the physical world.
52
Sellars, following C.D. Broad, takes “subjectless” or “pure” activities to be expressed by sentences
with “dummy subject”, cf., ‘it is snowing,’ ‘it is lightening’ (Sellars 1981). Even though this might be
helpful for illustrational purposes, it cannot serve as a criterion since many activities that cannot be
understood as the ‘doings’ of a thing (or a collection of things) are expressed by nouns.
53
In earlier expositions of the new ontological framework the basic category was called “dynamic
masses” and “free processes,” but due to the ubiquitous presumption of foundational particularism it
became increasingly necessary to highlight more clearly that the basic individuals of the new scheme
are non-particular, i.e., general entities. The reader should note that even though GPT is a process
ontology, general processes have little in common with Whiteheadian “actual occasions”; in fact, the
closest categorial cognates to general processes are E. Zemach’s concrete “types” (Zemach 1970). –
The predicate ‘x is a model for category y’ is defined in Seibt 2004, ch. 1. To simplify I use here
‘semantic descent’ and characterize subjectless activities directly in terms of ontological features
(independent, concrete, non-particular etc.); the proper methodological procedure is to show how the
logical role of sentences about subjectless activities dovetails with ontological features of the entities in
terms of which these sentences are interpreted. Cf. Seibt 2004b, ch. 2 and 3.
54
That is, there are no instantaneous activities in the sense of stages constituting temporally extended
activities. GPT certainly acknowledges—and, in fact, makes much of this—that in common sense
reasoning we do assume that activities exist continuously in time, and thus are dynamic features that
can be ascribed to any point in the time period during which they are going on.
23
functional aspects—ontologically speaking, they are determinables. (vi) Subjectless

activities are individuated in terms of their roles within a dynamic context, rather than
by their location in space and time. (vii) Subjectless activities are dynamic but they
are not changes. Constitutive ‘phases’ of their overall dynamicity (for example: the
change of place of every single flake constituting the dynamicity of the snowing)
contribute to the functionality of the activity but not as temporal stages or phases. In
contrast to developments, activities have no internal temporal differentiation. These
seven aspects of subjectless activities dovetail with the main category features of
general processes: they are independent, individual, concrete, spatiotemporally
extended, non-particular, non-countable, determinable, and dynamic entities. Each
of the mentioned category features is well-known from the ontological debate, but
their combination is new (in fact, it is outright inconceivable as long as one chooses to
remain spellbound by the presuppositions of the substance paradigm).
However, GPT is not only a framework designed to show that ontology can do
well without particular entities, it is also to show that non-particular entities are all we
need in ontology. That is, GPT is a monocategoreal ontology in the sense that general
processes are the ontological counterparts not only of statements about subjectless
activities but also of statements about things, stuffs, events, properties, actions,
relations, persons, etc. In other words, any concrete individual can be said to be a
general process, since the logical differences between statements about, say, things
and stuffs, or activities and events, can be accounted for in terms of ontological
differences among varieties of general processes. These differences are articulated
within a typological matrix based on the values of five classificatory dimensions, four
of which can be straightforwardly described. First, the participant structureof a
dynamics specifies the number and type of causal agents and patients involved in the
dynamcis. Second,general processes are classified relative to basic varieties of
dynamic constitution or process architecture, such as sequences, forks, joints, cycles
etc. Third, the parameter of dynamic shape classifies dynamics according to their
typical (part of) trajectories in phase space, some of which correspond with
distinctions familiar from linguistic theories of ”Aktionsarten” and verbal aspects.
(telic/atelic, ingressive, egressive, repetitive, conative etc.). Finally, the parameter
specifying the dynamic context of a dynamics classifies a dynamics (e.g. a biological
organism) relative to its influence on its generative environment (e.g., the organism’s
ecosystem).
The most important of these classificatory dimensions, relating to the so-called
homomerity and automerity pattern or mereological signature of a dynamics, requires
special elaboration. Already Aristotle observed that common stuffs such as water and
flesh are “like-parted (homoeomerous) bodies”: they are “composed of parts uniform
with themselves.”55. As various contemporary authors observed, there is an
analogous mereological condition for activities, holding with respect to time—they
are ‘monotonous’ or ‘homogenous’ occurrences where beginning, middle, and end of
the interval of their duration are ‘of the same nature as the whole’.56 Just as any
spoon of a puddle of water is like the whole, namely, an expanse of water, so any
minute of an hour of snowing is like the whole, namely, a period of snowing. Thus
we can formulate the following general mereological condition:
55
Cf. History of Animals, 487a2. Aristotle speaks of ‘homoeomerous’ entities, which could be
translated as ‘similar-parted’ (of a similar kind) and contrasted with ‘like-parted’ (homomerous, of the
same kind). This difference has been neglected in the discussion of “homogeneous” entities and here I
will do so as well.
56
Cf. e.g., Vendler 1957, Verkuyl 1978: 224, Mourelatos 1978: 431.
24
Like-partedness or homomerity: An entity of kind K is homomerous iff all of

its spatial or temporal parts are of kind K.
Upon a closer look, however, activities express an even more remarkable

mereological condition than like-partedness. Since activities are purely ‘functionally’
individuated, it does not make sense to distinguish between an activity and its
nature—an activity is a concrete type of dynamics. Of course we may say that every
minute of an hour of snowing is of the same nature as the whole, but then we are
talking not about the activity of snowing at all, but rather about a particular
spatiotemporal amount of snowing. For the activity itself, the following holds:
Self-partedness or automerity: An entity E is automerous iff for any spatio-

temporal r it holds that if r is a subregion of a spatiotemporal region R in
which all of E occurs, then r is a region in which all of E occurs.57
Some entities are less homogenous or monotonous than others, (e.g., mixtures such as
fruit salad and repetitive sequences such as folding shirts), and there are entities for
which it holds that there are no parts like them or containing them, namely, things and
events (developments). For example, computers and symphonies are not like-parted:
no spatial part of my computer is a computer, and no temporal part of a baptism or a
symphony is again a baptism or symphony; and similarly for self-partedness.
The features of like-partedness and self-partedness can be generalized in two
respects: first, with respect to dimensionality, and, second, with respect to degree:
Maximal, normal, minimal homomerity: An entity α of kind K is maximally /

normally / minimally like-parted in space (/time) iff all / some / none of the
spatial (/temporal) parts of the spatiotemporal extent of α are of kind K.
Maximal, normal, minimal automerity: An entity α is maximally / normally /

minimally self-contained in space (/time) iff a spatiotemporal region in which
α exists has only / some / no spatial (/temporal) parts in which all of α exists.
Figure 1 offers a graphical illustration of spatial and temporal automerity. (Insert

Figure 1 here).
57
Self-partedness is a coherent concept only within a mereology with non-transitive part-relation, cf.
the following section. For a theory of persistence based on self-partedness see Seibt 2007.
25
a a
MA(a)
MA(a)
Normal automerity
Maximal automerity
MA(a)
Minimal automerity
Figure 1. Graphical illustration of degrees of spatial or temporal self-partedness (automerity). ‘MA(a)’
denotes the minimal amount of the dynamics denoted by ‘a’. The horizontal and vertical axes
represent orderings in space and time, here on purpose unassigned: if the horizontal dimension is time,
the graphics represent temporal automerity, and vice versa.
General processes in GPT are sorted into different types in terms of their like-
partedness (homomerity) and self-partedness (automerity) in space and time.
For example, (i) general processes denoted by statements about activities (e.g. the
process denoted by ‘it is snowing’) are type-1 processes, that is, they are temporally
maximally automerous (and spatially unmarked); (ii) general processes denoted by
statements about stuffs (e.g., the process denoted by ‘…is water’ and ‘Water (is)…’)
are type-2 processes, i.e., they are spatially normally automerous and temporally
maximally automerous; (iii) general processes denoted by statements about spatial
amounts of stuffs (‘this expanse of water’) are type-3 processes, i.e., they are spatially
normally homomerous but minimally automerous, and temporally maximally
automerous; (iv) general processes denoted by statements about developments (e.g.,
the process denoted by ‘the explosion’ and ‘it exploded’) are type-4 processes, i.e,
they are temporally minimally homo- and automerous, (v) general processes denoted
by statements about things (e.g. the process denoted by ‘this cup’ and ‘is a cup’) are
type-5 processes, i.e., they are spatially minimally homo- and automerous but
temporally maximally automerous. Since homomerity and automerity patterns can be
embedded, we can define more complex ‘recurrence profiles’ for the processes that
are the denotations of statements about series of developments, collections of things,
and so forth.
All general processes are thus self-parted and like-parted, but to different
degrees in the three spatial dimensions, and/or the temporal dimension. In a sense,
then, GPT precisely inverts the traditional bias of the substance paradigm and its
commitment to foundational particularism. According to foundational particularism,
it is ‘most natural’ to analyze non-countable, non-particular entities such as stuffs and
activities (e.g., water or snowing) in terms of countable and uniquely located entities
such as portions or quantities of stuff and bounded developments (as denoted by e.g.,
‘this puddle of water’, ‘a dl of water’, or ‘snow flake’s S1’s moving from p1 to p2’).
In contrast, in GPT the countable is treated as a subform of the stuff-like or non-
26
countable: a thing is treated as the minimal amount of an extremely inhomogenous

stuff, and a development as the minimal amount of a least monotonous activity.
In sum, general processes are concrete dynamics that are best understood on
the model of subjectless activities. The theory of general processes, GPT, takes the
‘route to individuality less traveled’: traditional substance ontology typically has tied
individuality to particularity-1 or necessary uniqueness of location, and consequently
could ascribe individuality only to concrete entities that are determinately located in
bounded regions and occur in countable units. But individuality may also be
grounded in an entity’s ‘specificity-in-functioning’. This is strategy pursed in the
construction of the theory of general processes, GPT, whose basic individuals are
concrete entities that are multiply locatable and ‘stuff-like’, i.e., do not occur per se in
countable units nor in determinate regions. Once we adopt a notion of individuality
based on ‘specificity-in-functioning’ the traditional entity dualism between particular
individuals and universal non-individuals dissolves, and the path is open to a
monocategoreal framework where subtypes of basic individuals is all there
(concretely) is for the interpretation of common sense and scientific reasoning.
5. Conclusion
Foundational particularism, the assumption that all ontological basic entities

are particulars, is a longstanding but questionable premise of ontological theory
construction. The viability of foundational particularism obviously depends on how
the notion of a particular is defined. The main aim of this paper was to draw attention
to the fact that many contemporary ontologists conceive of particularity from within
the ‘substance paradigm’ or ‘myth of substance’, a network of powerful traditional
presuppositions about linkages between category features, and thus associate with the
notion of particularity systematic connections rooted in theoretical habituation rather
than the meaning of particularity per se. Thus common references to ‘particulars’ are
de facto references to ‘substantial particulars’, i.e., to entities that necessarily occur in
a unique spatial location at any point in time at which they exist, but are also concrete
entities, individuals, logical subjects, determinate, and enduring. That this
combination of category features—and in particular the combination of particularity
with independence, individuality, and logical subjecthood—does not seem to form a
coherent category was shown with reference to the debate about bare and nude
particulars. I also highlighted that the most recent versions of particularist ontologies,
such as trope theory, relinquish some of the presuppositions of the myth of substance
and thus circumvent objections familiar from the debate about bare and nude
particulars. But I also adumbrated that these approaches inherit traditional problems
precisely to the extent to which they retain the traditional presuppositions of the
substance paradigm. The same holds for the ‘universalist bundle theory of
individuals’ and more generally any non-particularist ontology that aims to construct
particulars out of general entities.
There are two overall conclusions one might draw from the foregoing
observations. First, in order to entitle oneself to a coherent use of the notion of a
particular one needs to separate between the explanatory roles of particularity,
subjecthood, individuality, and deteminateness even more than trope theorists have
done so far. As the reader may have noticed, much of the literature cited in this paper
is from the middle of the 20th century up to the 1980s, and this is not by accident.
During the last two decades other topics such as reduction, causation, persistence, and
parthood have been in the center of attention of the ontological discussion and the
27
notion of a ‘particular’ is used with disturbing casualty. But the problem of

particulars that exercized authors in the 1960s has merely been forgotten, not solved,
and thus the current facile recourse to ‘particulars’ does not yet seem legitimate.
Second, once we can contrast ‘substantial particularity’ with ‘particularity per
se’, foundational particularism can be extended into domains where entities
notoriously do not fit our reasoning about things, e.g., quantum physics. Vice versa,
the contrast between substantial and pure particulars and the separation of the
traditional linkage between individuality and particularity provides an effective
heuristics into the construction of new non-particularist ontologies. To illustrate this
claim I sketched basic ideas underlying the construction of General Process Theory
(GPT) whose basic entities are activity-like dynamics that are individuals but not
particulars in the sense of particularity-1 or particularity-2. GPT is a scheme designed
to show not only that ontology can do without particulars, but also that non-particular
entities are all we need—once we give up on foundational particularism, ontological
frameworks can operate one basic category only.
The fact that the ‘ontologies’ used in recent knowledge representation
software are based on concepts or descriptions, i.e., on terms for general entities,
suggests strongly, I believe, that foundational particularism is more a matter of a
longstanding theoretical habituation in philosophy than a transcendental requirement
of thought—it does not seem to be a condition for the possibility of making sense of
the world we reason about in common sense and science that this world is an
assembly of particulars. To be sure, this is a research hypothesis to be explored by
non-particularist ontologies in computer science and philosophy alike, and the sense
of ‘possibility’ will differ in each field. Unlike computer scientists philosophers will
have to pay attention to the larger systematic context of a notion of individuality that
is based on specificity rather than on location. For example, intimately connected
with the two strategies for defining individuality—as implying necessary uniqueness
vs. qualitative/ functional distinctness—are two intuitions of the meaning of concrete
being—being as being placed vs. being as ‘acting’ or ‘functioning’. Or again, if all
individuals and in particular also you and I could, in principle, occur multiply in space
or recur in time, this may bruise our egos, or it might create some theological
difficulties for the necessary uniqueness of souls. But one person’s modus tollens is
another modus ponens and so philosophers might choose to adapt the systematic
context to the new commitment to non-particular individuals. The thought of
everything being merely contingently unique is existentially just as challenging and
comforting as the traditional presumption of necessary uniqueness or particularity.
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Seibt, 08-10-2010, Particulars

As any other field of inquiry, ontological research is guided by fundamental

Section 1: Ontology—the theory of categorial inference

Twentieth century ontological research has been methodologically highly

[1] This is an aggressive dog.

Sentence [1] licenses the inference:

but [2] does not license the sentence analogous to [4]:

Furthermore, sentence [3] licenses [6]:

while sentence [1] fails to entail the analogon to [6]:

Section 2: The Myth of Substance and the “dirty hands” of logic

The explanatory tasks of ontology introduce a problematic psychological

Particularity-1: Something is particular if by necessity it occurs in one

Particularity-2: Something is particular if by necessity it occurs in one entity

(P1) Principle of Unity: All concrete individuals are unified.

The precise sense of the envisaged unification or unity is notoriously a matter of

(P2) Principle of Concreteness: All particulars are concrete.

He continues to explain that the essential function of identity statements is to establish

Finally, Quine translates quantified identity statements, e.g. "(x)(y)(x is a god . y is a

Section 3: Particulars and the debate about individuality

References to ‘particulars’ are ubiquitous in ontological discussion but there are

determinable or general entities. Aristotle himself postulated general entities called

[11] To be an individual is to be at a place at a time...thus the individuality or uniquess of

Section 3.1. The Bare Particular Theory

The bare particular theory has a venerable history in similar stipulations of

(I) THE DUPLICATION ARGUMENT

Premise 1: There are things which are exact qualitative duplicates.

Premise 5 (partly supported by conclusion 1): The ontological analysis of

(II) THE EXEMPLIFICATION ARGUMENT

Michael Loux offers the following reconstruction of this argument.

(EX1) Exemplification generates a unified complex.

(EX2) A predicate-term 'F' is truly predicated of a subject-term 'a' iff the

The subject in premise 4 cannot in itself, or essentially, be an example of any one of

Premise 5: 'x is in itself an example of y' is true ⇔ 'x exemplifies y

Then we reach another version of the conclusion stated above:

In this, more differentiated formulation, the conclusion of the exemplification

(BP1a) The individuator of α is logically independent of any attribute of α.

(BP2a) The individuator of α is logically independent of each attribute.

Section 3.2 Paradise lost: incoherent nude particulars

As we noted previously, bare particulars must be assumed to be essentially concrete

(1) Assumption: Definition of predication.

Entity x exemplifies attribute F iff there is a thing A and there is an entity x

(x) (x is a bare particular iff

Such a change, however, would remove an essential constraint on the notion of

Section 4. Alternative conceptions of particulars

Particularism is the conviction that particular entities enjoy ‘ontological

of a “basic particular” or “instance of one quale” and in effect formulated an early

‘Particularity’-3: An entity is particular iff it occurs (contingently) in a single

In the preceding sections I have highlighted difficulties arising from an

functional aspects—ontologically speaking, they are determinables. (vi) Subjectless

Like-partedness or homomerity: An entity of kind K is homomerous iff all of

Upon a closer look, however, activities express an even more remarkable

Self-partedness or automerity: An entity E is automerous iff for any spatio-

Maximal, normal, minimal homomerity: An entity α of kind K is maximally /

Maximal, normal, minimal automerity: An entity α is maximally / normally /

Figure 1 offers a graphical illustration of spatial and temporal automerity. (Insert

countable: a thing is treated as the minimal amount of an extremely inhomogenous

Foundational particularism, the assumption that all ontological basic entities

notion of a ‘particular’ is used with disturbing casualty. But the problem of