Date: Thu,  4 Apr 2002 18:47:54 +0200
Subject: RE: BHA: Ellis, Scientific Essentialism


Quoting Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca>:

Hi Ruth,

[...]

> Hence my excitement about our exchange!

I agree, the exchange has been valuable for me too.

> Regarding my confusion about whether it is substance kinds or property kinds
> that are in some sense ontologically primary, I am willing to take your word
> for it that there is a way to state Ellis' position that is not
> contradictory.  It sounds as though the point is that the relationship of
> "ontological dependence" that holds between properties and substances (in
> which, as you put it "there are no free-floating tropes") is different from
> the relationship of ... what shall I call it? ... "determination," let's say,
> that also holds between properties and substances (in which the former
> constitute the real essence of the latter).   

I think it is wring to say that they (the tropes) constitute the essence of a 
substance. I think Aristotle and Ellis agree on the following: Socrates IS a 
human-being (essentially) but he happens to have brown hair (accidentally). In 
that Socrates essentially is a human being, he essentially has som irreducible 
cauasl powers in respect of being a human being - consciousness. It is not so 
that having the property consciousness constitute Socrates but that being a 
human being necessarily implies having consciousness. (As Aristotle says there 
cannot be any wedge between essence and substance as substance is essence.) 
Properties are ontological dependent on a particular for existence, at the same 
time to be a substance means to have some properties essentially, especially 
dispositional properties. (this is Aristotle's position in the Physics II: 
Being a substance means having an internal principle of change). The relation 
of determination on the other hand is another matter. Some causal powers are 
grounded in the proper parts of a thing (a stone is endowned with inertial mass 
but this dispositional property is not grounded in the stone qua stone but in 
its proper parts (its atoms maybe). The stones causal properties are therefore 
determined by having the microstructure the stone has. Do you agree?

[...]

> 
> You wrote:
> "I don't see however, the relation between #2 and materialism. Neither do I
> see 
> what this has to do with ontological monovalence."
> 
> [I had written:   
>  > 2. SUBSTANCE-kinds are in some sense more basic than PROPERTY and 
>  > PROCESS-kinds, because tropes, which are the instances of PROPERTY-kinds,
> are 
>  > ontologically dependent on the instances of SUBSTANCE-kinds.]
> 
> The connection to materialism that I saw is this: To say that all properties
> are grounded in, or are properties OF, substances is, at some level, to adopt
> a materialist ontology.   No?  

Well, you can argue for mental substance for example or maybe substance 
pluralism. But it seems to me that Bhaskar (at least until FEW) accepts the 
position called (actually many positions) called non-reductive materialism. 
This position is compatible with chemical evolution at the same time it is not 
reductionistic as it presupposes some theory of emergence.

> Meanwhile, my understanding of what Bhaskar is talking about when he employs
> the term ontological monovalence is that he uses it to refer not to the kind
> of ontological pluralism that you correctly ascribe to Ellis, but rather
> (perhaps idiosyncratically) to the idea that it is only those things that
> exist which can be counted as real.  As I understand it, then, Bhaskar's
> opposition to ontological monovalence is a form of meinongianism.  

Well OK. Then it is maybe two philosophers who are not ontological monovalent. 
It seems to me that ontological monovalence is a species of "crazy" 
metaphysics. It seems to me that Bhaskars concept of absence is level of 
description relative (as he talks about holes in the ground, open spaces in the 
text and so on.) There have to be another alternative to Bhaskars theory about 
Absences? What do you think?

[...]

> You wrote:
>   He 
> >is not committed to non-existing objects however, but he explicitly says he
> 
> >would have liked a sparse theory of uninstated universals on page 82. 
> 
> Yes.  What do you think his final word is on the ontological status of
> non-existing objects? 

He would have rejected concrete non-existent objects, but note that through his 
theory of spectral kinds he accepts non-instantiated quantities etc. I think he 
also would be symphatetic to a theory of non-instantiated objects if the 
objects in question is restricted to abjects that are on some way de re 
possible (this presupposes a robust theory of possibility).

[...]

> This gets back to your earlier comment about event causation and what you see
> as Ellis' residual Humeanism.  In the section that you are referring to, what
> he says that not that causality is a relationship between events, but rather
> that it is a relationship between KINDS of events.  When you spell it out,
> the position does eventually come to rest on the existence of dispositional
> properties.  But the formulation matters, I think.  To draw loosely on Ellis'
> typology of substance, process and property, I would say that Ellis' emphasis
> is on causality as a species of process-kind.   Harre and Madden, by
> contrast, emphasize the idea that substances are causal agents.   Bhaskar, I
> think, implicitly puts the emphasis on the idea that causality is the
> display, or exercise, of a dispositional property, a power.  It's a matter of
> emphasis, but I think it is significant.

So you think Bhaskar and Ellis are in the same philosophical camp on this 
topic? I prefer Harre's (and Aristotle's) account.

It seem to me to be highly problematical in saying that properties bear the 
capacity to cause. Substances are endowned with causal powers by bearing 
dispositional propertes, but these properties cannot be said to cause anything.

> When you say "I think he would have done better to theorise this as
> substance-causation = events and processes are 
> produced by powerful particulars, substances, etc." are you proposing a
> formulation that is closer to Harre and Madden's?

Yes.

> 
> Moving on ...you wrote:
> "In any case consciousness is a real emergent entity in that it 
> consists of irreducible causal powers. Causation is "reduced" by Ellis as 
> substances endowned with causal powers producing causal processes in concert
> 
> with other substances endowned with causal powers."
> 
> Can you say more about this?

Causation is basically this: Substances endowned with causal powers 
(irreduclible or not) produces causal processes. This is what causation is is.
(In some way we may say that this is a "reduction", albeit not an ontological 
reduction more a explanatory reduction) Causation is reduced to the exercise of 
causal powers. Bhaskar, Shoemaker, Harre and Ellis would all agree on this.

Ellis has never said anything about emergence to my knowledge but his position 
is compatible with a theory of real emergence.

> 
> Finally, you conclude:
> It seems to me that both Ellis and Bhaskar together with 
> >Shoemaker would agree with the following position: Substances (properties
> and 
> >processes) are emergent iff they are endowned with separate causal powers
> that 
> >are irreducible to its constituents parts. This amounts to saying that 
> >organisms, molecules, atoms, stars, meiosis, alpha-radiation etc are
> emergent 
> >real substances or proceses while rocks, chairs, computers,
> football-matches, 
> >etc are not real substances or processes as they are not endowned with 
> >seperate, irreducible causal powers.
> >
> >Any thoughts?
> 
> I dont think that Bhaskar would like the conclusion.  I'm not sure whether he
> would contest it by saying that chairs and computers etc DO have causal
> powers (if absences can have causal powers, I don't see why chairs can't) or
> if he would say that there are many things that are real that are not
> especially causally efficacious.  Bhaskar says that being a cause is one
> criterion of existence.  But in *RTS*, at least, he also seems to think that
> being an object of perception is a criterion of existence.  Not sure about
> Ellis.  But he seems to think that various social phenomena exist, even
> though he doesn't want to say that they have real essences.  Don't know
> Shoemaker.  

I was not arguing for a criterion of existence but a criterion of emergence. 
What emergent entities are there? It seems to me that only those objects that 
are endowned with irreducible, independent causal powers are really emergent. 
That means that rocks and football matches are not emergent entities (if I am 
correct in saying that they don't have any independent irreducible causal 
powers). My position is Aristotelian, not exactly the staunchest reductionists 
in the history of science and philosophy! In the Physics and Metaphysics argue 
that some beings are primary beings. He names the primary beings Substances and 
argue that only substances qua those substances have an internal principle of 
change. An excellent book that discusses these themes are: Sarah Waterlow: 
Nature, Change and Agency in Aristotle's Physics (Oxford: Clarendon Press) 
another excellent book on this is Theodore Scaltsas: Substances and Universals 
in Aristotle's Metaphysics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).

Overall, what do you think about Ellis' book in relation to 
Harre/Madden's "Causal Powers" and Bhaskar's "RTS"?

Note: I never closely proofread my mails so they probably contain a lot of bad 
grammar and misspellings. I hope you manage to read and understand them without 
too much pain.

Best Regards,

Ronny 

> Back to you for thoughts!
> 
> Warmly,
> Ruth
> 
> 
> 
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