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MODEL OF NEUTRAL-INCLUSIVITY by Vinsent Nandi, 41 aSWW



BOOK OF INSTRUMENTS, PART I [chapters 1-3]



1  HAVING AND THINGNESS


1.1  HAVING COMPONENT PARTS, ATTRIBUTES AND RELATIONS


1.1.1  HAVING CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT THINGS


1.1.1.1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

TO THE EARLY READERS

Once the wheel of the Norm,
the new doctrine, the new paradigm,
has been set in motion,
there is then no way anymore
to stem the anabasis,
the advance of the neutral-inclusive movement.
It may go faster,
it may go slower sometimes,
but it will never return to its original position
of nonhaving, of nonbeing.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------


There is something remarkable about having a pen, paper and a table, having
a hand with fingers, having a will and thoughts of your own, and having the
intention to write down these particular thoughts.

By itself there is nothing peculiar in saying that you have an instrument
for writing, like a pen, or that you have some paper, or a table. In theory
you could have any kind of concrete thing in the sense of being close to it,
in the sense of controlling, keeping or using it, or in the quite different
sense of owning it. By itself there is nothing peculiar either in saying
that you have a body, in saying that you have a hand, and in saying that you
have a number of fingers. You could mention any other bodily part or organ
you have, or your body has, that is, has as a component part or element. It
is of some interest, however, that both you and your body seem to have that
hand, and that you, your body and your hand or your body's hand all have the
same fingers.

Yet, even by itself there is something noteworthy about saying that you have
a will (of your own), or that you have certain thoughts and an intention to
communicate them thru the medium of paper as it carries the implicit
presupposition that wills, thoughts and intentions are entities which exist
like a pen and paper. Of course, this does not prove the existence of
abstract entities like wills, thoughts, intentions, or other attributes and
relations, mental or not. It merely shows that in the language which is our
present means of communication existence and being also cover abstract
entities. If there were no freedom of the will, it is not because freedom is
or would be something abstract. And if perfect harmony did not exist, it is
not --again-- because perfect harmony is or would be an abstract entity.
Another thing to bear in mind with respect to having a mental attribute or
relation is that it is you who does have a will, a thought, or an intention,
not your body. (Note the difference with having parts of the body.) Many
attributes and relations belong to you and not to your body: it is not your
body which is intelligent, middling or unintelligent, and it is not 'your
body which is someone else's friend'.

What is especially remarkable about all aforementioned sorts of 'having' is
that they are relations of quite dissimilar types. The first sort of having
is a relation between a person or an object and another object which is
usually extraneous to it, that is, neither a component part nor an attribute
or relation of it. The second one is a relation between a person or an
object and a component or 'proper' part it has as an element. If you mention
your whole body, you are referring to the sole component part you have in a
strict sense. The third and fourth relations of having apply between a
person or an object and the attributes and relations this person or object
has. In the language we communicate in at the moment every object in our
environment, whether a human being or a house, a virus or a body cell, has
both component parts and one or more attributes as elements, and as entities
of which the existence is taken for granted. A table, for instance, may have
a board and four legs, but this is never everything. It must also have one
or more properties and relations, properties and relations which its parts
do not necessarily have as well.

(As a matter of fact there is nothing remarkable about having a pen, having
a hand and having thoughts. What is remarkable is something with regard to
the expressions of what it is to have one or more of these things. This
distinction, which is crucial, will always be indicated here by means of
italics or angle brackets. In general "the ... < * >", or briefly "< * >",
may be read as "the ... of what is * ". Thus good or <good> is usually the
predicate, word or notion good. The predicate good is, then, the predicate
of what is good, that is goodness; the word good, the word for everything
that is good; and the notion good the notion of goodness. Unlike a change of
font from regular to italic (or from italic to regular) or angle brackets
apostrophes on both sides of an expression, like in <'having'>, can always
be deleted without change of meaning. They may emphasize that there is
something typical of the word or choice of words, for example because the
term plays a special part in the context, or because it has different
meanings, or because the whole expression has been used by others before.)

Once many people were taught (or, perhaps, many people are still taught)
that 'the world' would consist of human beings, animals, plants and
so-called 'things', that is, all the rest. This was a conception exclusively
suited to the human, material environment. All people or persons were of
necessity, human beings and vice versa, and these human beings were first of
all separated from all other animal beings, and with them from 'the' other
living beings, that is, plants. And as living beings the human beings were
again separated from 'the things' (not from all other things). This,
however, was by no means a universal conception independent of the position
of the conceiving object, even not when exclusively considering the material
world. To be universal both the material and the nonmaterial have to be
included in one system (a system which must not assign an exclusive status
to life on Earth and which must refrain from anthropocentrism or any other
kind of speciesism). In a universal, conceptual structure we are all
objects, whether independently moving and growing or not. What counts is
that all these objects can be defined in two basically different ways:
  (1)  by the parts they consist of, and
  (2)  by the attributes and relations they have.
When defining objects by the parts they consist of, someone who would be
unfamiliar with the culture of human beings on Earth might regard a house as
merely a collection of construction materials skilfully attached to each
other. Such a person would not be that wrong, for a house is indeed a whole
of certain materials put together in a certain way. On the other hand those
who have to live in such a house themselves may rather see it as a place
with a conditioned microclimate, a place in which it is warm, dry, and also
safe (or in which it is or can be made warmer, drier and safer than
outside). They might also speak in vaguer terms, suggesting that a house has
to provide shelter. Thus, instead of a house having certain materials (or
rooms for that matter) of which it is composed, they would speak of its
being warm, dry and safe, and of its providing shelter.

The structure and idiom of the language spoken should not confuse us when
not to have is used, but to be or some specific (nonprimitive) verb like to
provide. (Compare to have a thought / intention with to think / intend .) It
may not be clear that there is a question of having an attribute or relation
until the original sentence is replaced with a sentence of the same meaning
in which the (primitive) verb to have is used. For example, the following
sentences on the same line have the same, or nearly the same, meaning. (Some
of them may be too formal, literary or technical to be used in ordinary
language, yet all of them are fully intelligible for someone only speaking
an everyday conversational variant of this language.)


 WITH TO HAVE             WITH TO BE               WITH A SPECIFIC VERB ONLY


 I have the (relation     I am desirous of         I desire something
 of) / a desire           something / that..

 I have the attribute of  I am hungry (for         I hunger for something
 hunger / the relation    something, if no food)   (else than food)
 of hunger for something
 (else than food)

 You have work / the      You are working /        You work
 attribute of working     a worker

 That person has the      That person is honoring  That person honors (A)
 attribute of honor(ing)
 / the relation of
 honoring something

 That person has (the)    That person is (being)   -- (P)
 honor / the attribute /  honored
 relation of (being)
 honor(ed by someone)

 It has the attribute of  It is following          It follows (A)
 following / the
 relation of following
 something

 It has the attribute of  It is (being) followed   -- (P)
 being followed / the
 relation of being
 followed by something

 It has (a) color         It is colored            --


                                  (Note: in (A) the active, and in (P) the
                                   passive form of the same verb are shown.)


Altho it may not be an example of colloquial language to say that your table
has the property of heaviness, there is no reason why such a proposition
would contradict the conceptualization implicit in the language we are using
here: every table has a weight after all. Weight is something every table
must have as an object or concrete thing, heaviness is something it may
have.

The pattern (or lack thereof) exhibited in the above table of examples is
not typical of the present language. It is a general pattern in many other
languages as well, altho there may be variations to it. Thus, while the
construction i have hunger may not be employed in this language, it is
correct in other languages. (Compare i feel hunger.) The difference between
the use of a specific verb or to be and the use of to have typifies a
linguistic structure and must not be taken to reflect any analogous
distinction in (nonpropositional) reality. We can always refer to the
attributes or relations (and parts) a thing has instead of expressing
ourselves in terms of specific verbs, or with the verb to be.



1.1.2  ONE RELATION OF HAVING-AS-AN-ELEMENT


There is no need to distinguish the having of parts from the having of
attributes and the having of relations. (If it is believed that attributes
or relations do not exist, then the having-of-attributes-or-relations does
not exist either, and also then the result is still one type of having:
having-as-an-element.) This having is purely factual and in this sense not
different from the having in having a pen, having paper and having a table
where these objects are actually near at hand, or used. A fundamental
difference lies in the logical necessity to have something one is made up
of, that is, a body or (if preferred) a mind. In the sense of
having-as-an-element one must have something, if not a part, then at least
one attribute or relation; otherwise one would not even be identifiable. In
the sense of being-close-to, owning, and the like, having is a contingent
matter: one need not have anything in anyone of these senses. If both types
of having were not distinguished, one could not even tell anymore who you
were. Are you a set of which a pen is an element, or are you a whole which
consists of a piece of paper among other things? The table you have has four
legs, but do you have these four legs in the same sense as you probably have
two legs? The answer is no, because whereas all these objects (other than
your two legs) may be owned by you, or had in some other sense, they are not
elements of yourself. Maybe one also feels 'physically close' to one`s body
or its parts, and to the attributes and relations one has; maybe one
'controls', 'keeps' or 'uses' them in a sense; yet, this would all be in
addition to having them as an element (of oneself). Furthermore, one may
feel that one has one`s (own) body in the sense that one owns it, that it is
one`s personal property. This use of having lays claim to a cultural or
subcultural norm or law, or to a normative institution believed in, such as
that of natural or human rights. But then --again-- one does not only 'have'
one`s body in the factual, noncultural (and nonlegal) sense of having as an
element, one also `has` it in the logically contingent, normative, cultural
or legal sense.

The conceptual framework we shall use as the supporting structure of our
thought will allow for one relation of having-as-an-element, that is, for
things having both parts and attributes and relations. We shall also employ
the term existence (or being) in such a way that attributes and relations
exist, or rather can exist (but not necessarily as things). For those
speaking the language which is our present means of communication here this
may all sound very trivial. However, it is philosophical analyses and formal
systems which exclusively recognize the having or possession of (component)
parts, or exclusively the having of attributes or properties (whether or not
in addition to two- or more-place relations) which force us to state our
basic assumptions explicitly. Altho we did try and shall try to avoid
deviating from traditional language and its presuppositions as much as we
can, traditional language is never an argument by itself, because it may be
incoherent, ambiguous, wrong or immoral in its terminology and assumptions
(as it not seldom is). Thus we shall accept the having of parts, attributes
and relations as one kind of having, but we shall not consider the having of
extraneous objects, or things looked upon as being extraneous, to be
identical to it. And altho we do recognize abstract entities as existing
besides concrete ones, we shall later reject as pseudo-entities many (if not
most) attributes and relations implicitly recognized in ordinary or
traditional language.

It cannot be proved that a certain ultimate conceptual framework --or
'ontology' for short-- is the best one, or the sole adequate one, as an
ontological framework is itself a prerequisite for any logical proof. It can
be illustrated, however, that constructional systems which only recognize
the existence of wholes and parts, or only that of attributes or relations,
suffer from the conflation of having-parts and
having-attributes-or-relations just because they neglect the presence of the
one or the other category. The illustration of this shortcoming can only be
done within our own frame of reference tho, and could therefore be
consistently dismissed by others.

Whatever the disadvantages of our own conceptual supporting structure, it
will show to be very useful. In spite of this, the edifice we are going to
construct can stand without it, and could also be erected with the help of a
different scaffolding. There are hardly any logical objections which can be
made to our constructional system, but some might reject our choice from an
ontological or some (other?) metaphysical point of view. And while we have
no absolute pretensions with respect to our ontology, we must be prepared to
meet the criticisms of those who have.



1.2  THE CHOICE OF ONTOLOGICAL INSTRUMENT


1.2.1  SENSIBLE AND NONSENSICAL QUESTIONS OF ONTOLOGY


Theories propounded under the heading of ontology have often been full of
whimsical, metaphysical inventions and the source of much confusion.
Ontology has been defined as the study of what is the case as contrasted
with epistemology: the study of what one can know to be the case. It has
also been contrasted with axiology or normative philosophy: the study of
what is the case versus of what ought to be the case. 'Ontological' problems
of that sort have thus been posed on the same level, and side by side, with
those of epistemology and axiology or normative philosophy. Considering
themselves 'specialists in the nature of being' the 'ontologists' concerned
purported to be searching for what there (really) is, as opposed to what can
be known to be the case, and to what should be the case. Antimetaphysicians
who have always repudiated the belief in some 'nature of being' or an
'ultimate reality' have indicated that this kind of 'ontology' is an
exercise in futility. With it, however, they have traditionally also
repudiated all theories about kinds of existence or about the ontological
status of existents. It seems like they have wrongfully equated the idea of
an ultimate reality with the idea of an ultimate conceptual framework or
constructional system used when speaking or thinking about reality. But it
is exactly this which is the primary task of a sensible ontology: to make
explicit the fundamental, conceptual or constructional categories and
presuppositions of a particular system of language or thought, and to
examine what are the primitives and hypothetical entities in this system.
Ontology in this sense is, then, concerned in the first place with the
question whether such a system does indeed make a distinction between:
  *  what is the case, and what is known to be the case; or
  *  what is the case, and what is believed to be the case; and
  *  what is the case, what can be the case, and what should be the case;
     and
  *  what was, what is, and what will be the case.
The subject of ontology is therefore not what is the case as distinct from
what is, can, or should be known or believed to be the case, or as distinct
from what ought to be the case, but the subject of ontology is first of all
the question whether the distinction between the factual and the epistemic
or doxastic, and between the factual and the normative, is actually drawn in
a particular system.

Some of the above distinctions correspond to a difference in ontological
status, some do not, but also in 'one and the same' sphere of what was, is
and will be the case some entities may have another ontological status than
other entities. Immediately following is therefore the question of what is
explicitly or implicitly taken to be existing in a certain language or
system of thought:
  *  only 'i' or 'my' mind (in solipsism)?
  *  only mind (or the human mind), or only matter, or
  *  only abstract entities such as attributes, or only concrete things, or
     both?
  *  sets, classes, functions and/or numbers (in logics and maths)?
  *  one or more gods, demons and/or other supernatural entities (in
     religious thought)?
  *  (a) supreme being (in denominational thought)?
The crux of the matter is, of course: what does existence mean? If we do not
make use of a synonym like being , it is not possible to define this term
(or these terms) without referring to entities whose (purported) existence
is required for the definition itself, if only by means of giving examples
of existence. This implies that the term existence may have different
meanings in different systems, dependent on what kind of entities are said
to 'exist' in these systems. (Compare the meaning-variance thesis in logics:
the meaning of logical constants wholly depends upon the axioms or rules of
the system in which they occur.) Thus solipsists who believe that they only
exist themselves, or idealists who believe that only mind exists (that is,
who use the word exist so that only mind 'exists') give another meaning to
existence than materialists who believe that only matter exists. The same
does not apply to the existence or nonexistence of the supreme being and
entities with supernatural qualities like gods and demons, because the
suggestion is that they have the same ontological status as human beings or
people and the other things of the 'natural' world.

After having made these inventories the next step is to study the possible
inconsistences in the constructional or ontological system, and the possible
elimination of certain categories, postulates, primitives or hypothetical
entities. Underlying this activity is the conviction that every theory or
conceptual system must be free from superfluous conceptual ballast. The
criterion of consistence is an essential element of the coherentist theory
of truth, the criterion of simplicity or parsimony is a principle of
conceptual minimization, that is, of fewest conceptual entities (categories,
postulates, primitives, and so on). A problem with regard to the latter
criterion is that it is not that simple to determine the general, formal
simplicity of an ontological system (if possible at all), even not in only
one respect. For example, the simplicity of the basis of primitive predicate
expressions is not fixed by merely counting the number of primitives, or of
primitive predicate places (because --as has been argued-- predicate
expressions can be compounded into other predicate expressions having more
places, or can be replaced by other predicate expressions having fewer
places). Another question is the number of nonprimitive expressions. We
shall see that our own ontological system has many more individual
expressions, because it accepts the names of attributes, such as happiness,
as individual expressions where other, formal systems have only -- is happy
as a predicate expression. On the other hand, the latter systems need many
more predicate expressions, and the total number of individual and
attributive expressions remains the same in both types of system. If
individual expressions should not be multiplied 'beyond necessity', then
neither should attributive expressions. And altho -- is happy and the other
expressions designate only one-place predicates or attributes, the primitive
two-place predicate expression -- has .. needed in addition to the
individual expressions is always the same one, and cannot be dismissed
anyhow in any system which recognizes the relation of having-as-an-element
or being-an-element-of (which is its inverse).

As to relations it is inevitable that we must use individual expressions
besides the relational ones. These individual expressions are reduced or
'derelativized' one-place predicate expressions of the two- or more-place
corresponding ones. (In combinatory logic such 'derelativization' is done by
means of a predicate operator 'Der'.) Friendship in the sense of having
(someone as) a friend, for instance, corresponds to the one-place -- has
(someone as) a friend which is a reduction of the two-place -- has .. as a
friend (the inverse of -- is a friend of ..). This recognition of individual
relations is necessary, because when relations become the focus of
attention, and when we start talking about their attributes and/or relations
(with other attributes and/or relations), they become things themselves,
albeit in a different domain of discourse. Relations (such as friendship)
cannot have the same ontological status as the things (such as friends) they
relate to each other, otherwise we would be stuck with a loose, unconnected
set of objects with parts and purely nonrelational attributes at the most.
Thus, when we talk about relations, we make use of individual expressions
corresponding to reduced, one-place predicates, and when we talk about the
things being related, we make use of two- or more-place predicate
expressions. Attributes are limit cases of relations: one-place predicates
as it were. They have the same ontological status and behave very much like
them, especially when looked upon as things in a separate (the so-called
'secondary') domain of discourse. This is the reason that we shall employ
the term predicate as common denominator of both attributes and relations,
while using the phrase predicat(iv)e expression for an expression which
designates an attribute or relation. (In other systems such an expression
itself is often termed "a predicate", while attributes may be called
"internal" or "intrinsic properties" and relations, "relational" or
"extrinsic properties".)



1.2.2  ON NOMINALISM, PHENOMENALISM AND THEIR ANTITHESES


Real existence of predicates or universals, or of all abstract entities, is
denied by nominalists. They do not want to commit themselves to (the
existence of) 'something which all gray objects have in common', or to any
other attribute or relation. According to another definition of nominalism
they admit solely the existence of particulars and eschew all reference to
nonindividuals such as classes or sets of particulars. Also numbers as
classes of classes do not exist, then, in the nominalists' eyes. However,
this respectable sobriety may not preclude these same nominalists from
recognizing as an individual any sum of two arbitrary individuals, even if
they have no property in common whatsoever, or even if no general term is
applicable to both of them (while not being applicable to other possible
candidates). Should the legs of your body and the legs of your table be
individuals in such a nominalist 'calculus of individuals', the sum of one
of your legs and one of the table's legs will be an individual as well.
Nominalists who do not want to recognize the existence of classes or sets
may thus in the end hardly be more sober than nonnominalistic realists who
recognize at least some nonindividuals (such as classes of particulars) as
existents, or as values for predicate variables.

Our recognition that abstract entities 'exist' and can be 'things' in a
world of their own, not in space and time, is a kind of realism, and is
contradictory to the form of nominalism founded upon a rejection of all
abstract entities. On the other hand, we will not admit sets of particulars
as existing just because one can theoretically construct such sets. (If a
set exists, then it has one or more attributes, not only nonattributive
members.) Not admitting this kind of nonindividuals, our system could be
called "nominalistic" in this respect. Perhaps conventionalism would better
describe our position, for we consider the calculus of classes or functions,
or set theory, as a 'creation of the mind' good for a convenient
interpretation of the world. But then, we will not adopt the kind of
conventionalism according to which all formal and scientific theories are
nothing else than systems of linguistic conventions. What complicates
matters is that we need to make a distinction between existence and
thingness, and that we will recognize the existence of relations, but not
their thingness when talking about physical reality (in what will turn out
to be the primary domain of discourse). Traditional philosophical
distinctions like the one between nominalism or 'antirealism' and
(nonnominalist) realism, may just not be applicable anymore to novel
conceptual structures, or at least not unequivocally. Moreover, there are
good reasons to avoid terms like nominalistic and realistic altogether,
because of the dissimilar meanings they both have been given. The term
realistic is not only opposed to nominalistic or antirealistic, and not only
to unrealistic, but also to particularistic, in which case it refers to a
different interpretation of phenomenalist systems. The distinction between
phenomenalist and physicalist systems is, then, itself one in addition to
the distinction nominalism versus (logical, nonnominalist) realism.

If physical entities such as objects or processes are chosen as the basic
units of an ontological, constructional system, then it is called
"physicalistic"; if phenomenal entities such as qualia or presentations are
chosen, then "phenomenalistic". (A quale is a property which is considered
an object of experience rather than the physical entity itself which has
that poperty: it is the characteristic presented by that physical entity.)
In both systems the basic units are individuals which can be perceived by
one of the senses. Physicalists and phenomenalists both claim
epistemological priority for their own basic units, but it has been
demonstrated already by theorists with less absolutist pretensions that it
is hard to understand what such would mean in the first place. Now, if the
basic units of a phenomenalist system are nonconcrete, qualitative elements,
then it has also been called "realistic"; if they are spatiotemporal
particulars like phenomenal events, then "particularistic". Those free from
metaphysical, ontological or epistemological absolutism have also made clear
before, that when choosing between these different systems, it is most of
all the way in which they deal with the relationship between qualities and
particulars which matters (and not so much the metaphysical priority of
either qualities or particulars). Thus a particularist theory is faced with
a problem of abstraction: how to obtain repeatable, abstract universals from
concrete particulars; but an (antiparticularistic) realist theory is faced
with a problem of concretion: how to obtain unrepeatable, concrete
particulars from abstract qualities.

Attention has already been drawn to the fact that every perceptible object
can be described in two different ways, namely (1) by the parts it consists
of -- as such it is conceived of as a whole of component parts -- and (2) by
what it looks like, what it does, how it relates to other objects, how it is
changing or not, and so forth. The latter thing is done by mentioning the
object's inherent characteristics, its actions, its relations, and its
changes or lack thereof. All these latter elements of the object, whether
'essential' or accidental, are attributes and relations, that is,
predicates, of the thing in question in a broad, but strict sense. By
speaking of these elements the object is conceived of as something which has
a collection of attributes, and a number of relations with other objects.
But while every object presents itself in this view as a whole of component
parts and/or by the attributes it has, the parts themselves are in their
turn also presented by their parts and the attributes (and relations) they
have. This pattern can be pursued until those objects emerge which cannot be
described by mentioning their parts any longer, but only by referring to
their attributes (so far as the internal elements are concerned). We are
assuming, then, that there is an end to this process of dissection -- an
assumption necessary to arrive at the basic elements of this ontological
system: the attributes. On this construction every object is a more or less
complex system of attributes, a structure of which the 'materials' (the
minimal basic units) are the attributes. (Relations exist between things and
are in this domain of discourse no material of any of the discrete things
they relate to each other.) Altho an attribute is a nonphysical entity --
and therefore our system not physicalistic -- it need not be a phenomenal
entity either. It may be or cause single phenomenal colors, sounds, tactual
sensations, and so on, but it may also be a mental or other nonphenomenal
(and nonphysical) entity. Insofar as our system is phenomenalistic, however,
it is also realistic (in a nonparticularist sense).



1.2.3  SPECIES ESSENTIALISM ON SPEC


Until now we have been thinking about objects as if they were givens, that
is, immediately present in our personal, or some communal, experience. But
what is it which is given ? One particular, concrete thing? (The problem is
then abstraction.) A particular color? (The problem is then concretion.) Or
a human being? It is essentialists of the metaphysical persuasion who
believe that objects (or at least objects of a 'natural kind') have real
essences, and that those essences are a prerequisite for identifying them as
separate objects. In their view an object is not only always of some
particular kind, but 'essentially' always of that one particular kind,
normally the species it belongs to if it happens to be a living being. The
emphasis on species membership forces metaphysical essentialists to adopt a
naively absolutist conception of the notion of species, because each species
must be as fixed and as detached from other species as each corresponding
'real essence'. As soon as objects are not of a natural kind (for example,
artifacts or even not that), their metaphysics immediately runs short of
essentials. (In spite of this, some essentialists maintain that the
discovery of real essences would be the ultimate goal of all scientific
investigation.) The metaphysical essentialists' belief in fixed, specific
quiddities -- not generic or other superspecific ones, and not racial or
other subspecific ones -- may be preposterous or nonsensical, there is
another element in their belief for which we have to be even more on the
alert. It is the underlying supposition that there is merely one way, or
merely one adequate way, of describing reality, namely by referring to the
fixed essence or essential properties of an object or kind. Describing
reality is therefore presented as if it were relevancy-independent, that is,
independent of the purpose of describing it. In fact, however, it is the
context or the goal(s) of the description which determine which predicates
are accidental or not in those circumstances. This is not to say that given
a certain description of an object (for example, the natural kind it belongs
to) certain attributes are essential whereas others are not. Yet, such a
form of essentialism is only of some conventionalist type: all it claims is
that if an object is classified in a certain way, it is a convention of
language that it must have certain attributes and/or relations and/or
component parts which are essential elements of each member of the class
mentioned. Thus a human being has certain essential parts and
characteristics, and all other parts and predicates are contingent, but
nothing forces us to classify an object (even if it is a human being) as a
human being: we might classify the thing concerned as a living or sentient
being, as a male or female mammal, as a person, as a member of a particular
ethnic group, and so on and so forth. Which description we should or should
not use, and which properties are essential is, then, context- or
relevancy-dependent.

While the metaphysical, 'specific' form of essentialism is too implausible
and too deceptive to deserve further consideration here, the problem remains
how things are distinguished as separate entities. It seems that we must at
least accept some notion of substance from which a thing derives its more or
less discrete existence. Attempts to explain objectual existence in the
physical world on a phenomenalist basis have failed, but mainly because of a
one-sided emphasis on phenomena which are visual. Confining oneself to
visual sense experiences exclusively, it is indeed impossible to distinguish
spatially discernible individual things. The identification of individual
objects in the environment surrounding them is obviously not a question of
visual perception in isolation, but rather of intersensory conformity,
particularly conformity between visual sensations and simultaneous tactual
ones so it seems, and particularly after many repeated experiences in that
environment. That is why a fata morgana is not an object in the sense a pen
and a finger are objects: altho it may visually be a discernible phenomenon,
there is never a tactual, or other nonvisual, sensory experience
accompanying it at the same moment as we see it. (This is also why we should
not call anonymous phenomena "unidentified flying objects" when people have
only 'seen' them and not experienced them in any other way.) As a matter of
fact, this hypothesis of intersensory object identification is more of an
empirical(-scientific) nature than ontological. It is not the place here to
work it out further and to defend it, but it is definitely a more sober and
fertile hypothesis than the quasi-explanation of metaphysicians groping for
ghostly 'whatnesses'.



1.2.4  AN INSTRUMENTALIST ATTITUDE TO ONTOLOGY


Ontology or the development of an ontological system is not an end in
itself: an ontological system is usually an instrument for other theories or
doctrines. Only if a theory or doctrine could not be developed by means of
any other ontology would this ontology be basic to it, or an integral part
of it. Normally, however, one can translate the one ontological language
into the other; for example, realist language into nominalist language, or
phenomenalist language into physicalist language, and vice versa. If such a
translation is available and does not result in a change in the body of
(nonontological) principles of the theory or doctrine itself, then the
ontology employed is not fundamental to it. Moreover, the kind of
ontological instrument chosen may itself not be appropriately classifiable
anymore in traditional terms. As already pointed out, and as will become
clearer later, our own ontology is realistic in a sense, but nominalistic in
another sense. And as explained above: altho it is certainly not
essentialistic in the metaphysical sense, it is fully compatible with a
conventionalist form of essentialism, or a form of essentialism in which the
notion of an essence would not be more specific than that of a thing.

Since our ontological, conceptual framework is regarded as a mere
instrument, not fundamental to the doctrine to be developed, and especially
not fundamental to the normative aspects of this doctrine, our attitude
towards ontology (and also logics) is instrumentalistic. This does not mean
that the system's usefulness would determine some kind of absolute truth; it
rather means that the idea that there is and can be only one correct
ontological system is rejected altogether. (Strictly speaking, this is a
kind of nonmonism which might also be called "pluralism".) We still have to
continue our investigation tho in order to make sure that we are not going
to work with an inadequate instrument, or an instrument (much) more
inadequate than other conceptual tools. It cannot be denied that many
specialists in the fields of constructional ontology, logics and related
disciplines have wholeheartedly supported other systems or other
interpretations of systems for a long time.



1.3  THE ATTRIBUTIVE VERSUS THE OBJECTUAL VIEW


1.3.1  LOGICAL DOMAINS OF DISCOURSE


The prime task of logics is to supply precise, purely formal standards of
validity to distinguish valid from invalid arguments. While the domain of
discourse which may be selected in logics is always restricted in some
sense, one may pick out any kind of thing (perceptible, fictional or
potential) one likes or believes in, and one may construct whatever fancy
predicate or predicate expression one feels desire for. So far as formal
logics is concerned logicians normally cannot and do not bar any entity or
type of entity people wish to include in their domain. This does not mean,
of course, that individual logicians may not be interested in ontological
questions. (Such a logician may personally dismiss names as strictly
redundant, for instance, but at the same time have no scruples about
artificial solutions like rendering every   a=   'simply' as a predicate
expression   A   which would be true solely of the object named "a".)

The fictitious objects or things logics allows us to talk about are not
necessarily beings created out of the imagination with some fancy
combination of brilliant and/or gaudy attributes as we so often find in
religious ideologies, in fairy tales, or in other supernatural thought. Such
fictitious things may also be conceptual constructions, like sets or
collections, soberly and coherently represented in a formal, philosophical
or mathematical system. In logics a domain of discourse may encompass all
these fictional entities besides (really) existing ones. What is even more
interesting from the systematic point of view is that such a domain may
include both discrete individuals and the parts of those individuals, from
which they are not distinct (so long as all these individuals are definite,
distinguishable objects or things). And it is logically also quite as
acceptable --without making existential presuppositions-- to take in
attributes as elements in a logical domain besides the things themselves and
besides the parts of those things. Having done this it is only a question of
translation to adequately write down in the logical calculus that a thing
has parts and that it has attributes, using the same two-place relation of
having.



1.3.2  THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TWO DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS


Technically speaking, the interpretation of a formal system is determined by
the domain itself and a function assigning elements of this domain to
singular terms and n-tuples of elements of it to n-place predicate
expressions (and functions to function symbols as well). (One-place
predicate expressions are often said to refer to classes of entities rather
than the singletons thereof or the subclasses collectively.) The singular
terms are proper names, definite descriptions, pronouns or demonstrative
phrases. An interpretation function thus assigns entities of the domain to
singular terms; entities or singletons to attributive expressions; pairs to
two-place relational expressions; and so on. The question which is important
for us now is what 'kinds' of thing are chosen as elements of the domain in
the ontological sense of kind.

In the standard, 'objectual' interpretation of formal systems the elements
of a domain are interpreted as objects which are not attributes themselves,
which bear relations to one another, and which --expressing it in
extrasystematic language-- 'have properties'. The particular in the domain
assigned to a basic, singular term is a (nonattributive) object. (Note that
an 'object' need not be a concrete thing in this terminology but it has to
be of the same ontological order if it is abstract.) The two- or more-place
predicate expressions to which n-tuples of particulars are assigned
correspond to n-place 'relations between them'. This objectual
interpretation is nominalistic in that it does not treat attributes as
individuals; it is realistic in that it does admit sets of particulars, and
in that it does not reject other abstract entities than attributes or
relations. Furthermore the objectual interpretation of formal systems tends
to be physicalistic. If it is of a phenomenalist nature, it may be expected
to be particularistic (and in this sense definitely not realistic).

The ontological position we will adopt ourselves fits in best with an
'attributive' interpretation of formal systems. This means that we take the
elements of the domain to be attributes which belong to (nonattributive)
things, and which also bear relations to one another. The specific element
in the domain assigned to a basic, singular term is now an attribute (a
'property' if belonging to a concrete thing or 'object'). In this
interpretation the basic two- or more-place predicate expressions correspond
to relations between attributes, not to relations between objects (or
things) which have properties (or attributes). The difference between the
two interpretations of formal systems is schematically represented in figure
I.1.3.2.1. (In both interpretations a set of elements is ontic, that is, an
existing thing, if between all the elements of the set the relation of
belonging to the same thing holds, as designated by a two-place predicate
expression. Every object which has other objects or properties as elements
should in the first instance also be represented by a dot in addition to the
dots representing the basic objects or properties it has. Such objects are
shown as a closed curve around their elements because this considerably
facilitates the reading of the diagrams.)

In terms of systematics the things in the figure given are simple, being
either basic themselves, or a set of basic things ('objects' in case of the
objectual interpretation). In physical terms the things of the objectual
interpretation may be extremely complex tho: what they are may vary from an
'elementary' or smaller particle to a galaxy or bigger whole. In this
interpretation one elementary particle and one galaxy might be taken as
separate entities side by side, and shown as two separate dots in a diagram;
in the attributive interpretation they could at the most be shown as vague
assemblages of dots or of dots and closed curves (properties or properties
and parts) surrounded by a (bigger) closed curve. Of course, neither
interpretation would in this way represent the structure of the physical
universe in which elementary particles do not exist beside galaxies but in
galaxies as part of them (or part of a part of them, and so on). A truly
ultimate constituent of matter is in the 'objectualist' scheme a dot and in
our 'attributivist' scheme a closed curve encompassing a number of dots
representing properties (which may be derelativized relations as well). Such
a truly elementary particle is a thing of the first type in the
nonattributive and a thing of the second type in the attributive
interpretation, the properties themselves being things of the first type.
(In the attributive interpretation there are not 'objects' of the first
type, since 'objects' are defined as 'material things', and properties are
not material themselves.)

We shall call an element of a domain of discourse "a thing of the first
type", an ontic set of two or more of these elements "a thing of the second
type", an ontic set of two or more things of the second type "a thing of the
third type", and so on. According to this systematic typification of things,
the elements of a thing of type n are things of type n-1 or of a lower type.
There is no reason why a thing with an element of the second type, that is,
an element which is a thing of the second type, could not have an element of
the first type as well, that is, an element which is a thing of the first
type. It should be kept in mind that a thing of type n-1 which belongs to a
thing of type n is not a subset of that thing, even not an 'ontic subset'.
This is because the elements of the type n-1 thing are not elements of the
type n thing. Distinguishing elements on a different level of typification
may be unimportant in the objectual interpretation, it is crucial in the
attributive interpretation. Here it allows complex things to have attributes
which are elements of the domain of discourse, while at the same time having
things as constituent elements which are not elements of the domain of
discourse, that is, not attributes (or relations) themselves. Moreover, the
attributes of a component part of such a complex thing are not elements of
the complex thing itself either, which makes it possible to distinguish
between the attributes (and relations) of a whole and the attributes (and
relations) of a part. It is only in this way that we can obtain an insight
into the structure of the concrete world, and also --as we will learn-- an
easier and clearer insight into the structure of the world of attributes and
relations. Figure I.1.3.2.2 shows the difference between the objectual and
the attributive representations of complex objects (ontic collections of
things) .

By a whole of nonbasic things/ (component) parts/ objects we shall mean an
ontic set of which all these things are members, while no other nonbasic
thing is a member, but --and this is important-- of which basic things, that
is, attributes, are elements as well. The mere collection of component parts
(nonbasic things) is called "the extensionality of the whole", while the
collection of attributes, that is, predicates, which are an element of the
whole is called "the predicament of the whole". Both these sets are purely
conceptual constructs and do not really exist: solely their elements exist
in (nonpropositional) reality. Extensionalities cannot exist because, if
such sets were ontic, they would be the sole component part of the whole,
and this part would still not be the set of which it were the only element.
(Set-theoretically one must distinguish a singleton from the only element it
has.) Predicaments (in the sense used here) cannot exist either because, if
a collection of attributes existed, it would not exist besides the
extensionality but belong to it.

Objectualists have no systematic criterion to distinguish the sets of
objects which exist themselves as objects from those sets which are
extensions of a predicate expression, but can never be objects themselves.
(If a set of objects was an object itself, it could not be an extension,
because even a predicate expression which is true of one object only would
have at least the singleton of this object as its extension.) In the
attributive interpretation such a criterion can easily be provided: to be an
object a set must have at least one attribute (as an element), that is, the
set should also 'be' something, possibly in addition to having component
parts. The analog of this criterion in the objectual interpretation would be
that an ontic set needed a basic object as an element to exist. This seems
rather odd tho from a structural point of view. For example, a material
thing, however complex, would only exist if it had an elementary particle in
the direct sense, that is, a particle which did not belong to any of its
component parts.

Being is having, that is, having an attribute in the attributivist ontology.
(We shall see that existing attributes also have attributes.) But having is
also being, since it is either having an attribute and therefore being right
away, or having a component part, and therefore being an existing whole.
Also the whole of one thing (a 'singleton' in some objectualist sense) must
have at least one attribute, or one other attribute, in order to exist.
Hence, such a whole has at least two elements, and singletons as such do not
exist in the attributivist system. Just as pure collections of
nonattributive things are conceptual constructions which do not exist in
reality, so extensions as sets of objects, or n-tuples of objects, do not
exist 'de re' either; only 'de dicto' may they play a role.

In the objectual interpretation an attribute is instantiated as it were by
the system of things which is its extension. However, this extension does
not determine the meaning of the corresponding predicate expression, since
two or more different expressions may have the same extension without being
synonymous. Apart from this problem, a result of the objectualist position
seems to be that one first has to know, say, all gray objects in the
universe before one can know what grayness is. And another problem is that
of attribute identity or the identity of predicate expressions: the
objectualist must explain what happens when one or more temporal objects
enter or leave the predicate extension. These problems cannot be adequately
dealt with without making a distinction between the extension (or reference
or denotation) and the intension (sense, connotation) of an expression.
Being forced or willing to acknowledge the existence of intensions,
intensionalist objectualists might as well recognize attributes and
relations right away. (If extension is distinguished from denotation, the
former term refers to all the subclasses of the property class collectively,
and the latter one to its members collectively.)

In the attributive interpretation a thing is, roughly, an instance of a
system of attributes. The things are determined by the attributes which they
have themselves or which their component parts have, or ultimately have.
Normally tho, one does not have to know all attributes of a thing before
knowing, or being able to identify, the thing itself. It depends on the
uniqueness of attributes or of certain combinations of attributes. As
regards concrete things, their spatiotemporal position is probably one of
the most important means of identification. A special problem the
attributivist faces is that of object identity thru time: the question
whether the object is still the same when it loses or acquires a certain
attribute in the course of time. This is first of all a problem for an
ontology in which perceptible objects would solely have attributes, and no
component parts as in our own conceptual framework. To overcome this
difficulty a distinction between essential and accidental predicates might
have to be drawn, but only in a conventionalist sense.

A different problem of object identity arises when two objects would have
exactly the same properties and no component parts. But as speaking of "an
object" or "something" itself presupposes the presence of substance or
existence, speaking of "two objects" itself presupposes that these objects
must be distinguishable in some way. If they cannot be told apart by the
attributes they have (and not by their parts either), then by means of one
or more relations they bear to each other and/or to other objects. Usually
the relationship one has in mind when speaking of "two objects" is a
spatiotemporal one. This being the case two objects which are 'entirely the
same' (with regard to attributes and parts) will have at least one different
relation with a third object or thing, for example, the person speaking
about these 'two' objects. It is clear that in the attributive
interpretation objects with exactly the same attributes need not be
identical, so long as relationships between objects are recognized as well.
On the other hand, for 'two' conceptually distinguished objects to be
identical 'they' must have the same attributes, the same component parts (or
none in both cases) and the same relations.

Objectualists who do not attempt to cling to pure extensionalism say that
the extension of the predicate expression < -- is gray > is something else
than its intension. Instead of this we will say ourselves that the
collection of gray things, or of classes of gray things, is something else
than grayness; or rather that grayness itself is not a gray thing. In this
way we do not only capture the significance of the distinction, but we also
do not unnecessarily deviate from ordinary language, for we can express
ourselves very well in this language in this case. It is precisely one of
the distinctive advantages of the attributive interpretation of formal
systems that the way of formulating the object/property or thing/attribute
relationship directly mirrors the way of talking about this relationship in
extrasystematic discourse. Objects are not elements of a property or of a
fictional singleton or subclass belonging to a property or one-place
predicate extension: A is strong means A has strength; strength is a
property (or fully derelativized relation) and thus A has the property of
strength is true. Some confusion might arise sometimes, because things with
a certain quality may on occasion, informally or figuratively, also be given
the name of this quality, for example, beauty for somebody or something that
is beautiful itself, or neutrality for something that is neutral itself.
Yet, even then it is only the single things (beauties and neutralities)
which have that name, not the set of all things having the quality in
question, let alone the set of all singletons or subclasses of those things.



1.3.3  SECOND-ORDER PREDICATES ON THE OBJECTUAL VIEW


Until now we have only looked at one domain of discourse in isolation,
namely that of objects, or of objects and attributes of objects. We have
confined attention to the attributes and relations of these objects, and we
have compared the capacities of the objectual and the attributive
interpretations of formal systems to deal with the possession of these
attributes and the existence of these relations. We have not yet considered
the attributes and relations of these predicates themselves. Doing this will
open up a new field, or even a second domain of discourse.

In the predicate calculus predicates of predicates are called
"second-order". In principle this hierarchy of orders of predicate
expressions is unlimited. An example of a predicate expression which is
taken to be second-order is < (-- is a) color > 'because green is a color'
and green [<green>] itself is a first-order predicate expression, 'because
grass is green' and grass is chosen as an entity (or collection of entities)
in the domain. An expression like unhealthy may be treated as a compound
second-order predicate term which results when a productive process is
applied to the second-order predicate term healthy, like in exercises are
healthy. Unhealthy is then analyzed as if it would mean not healthy. The
first flaw in this approach is that the prefix un- in unhealthy, like in
unhappy or unwise , does not simply mean not. For example, something that or
someone who is unhappy is not happy, but something that is not happy is not
necessarily unhappy at all. As we will see later (in 2.3.2) no fewer than
three possibilities' of not being happy must be distinguished instead of
one.'

There are other objections that can be made against the above approach, such
as treating the same term both as a first- and as a second-order expression,
even tho it looks like this is done in everyday discourse. While words like
healthy are also applied to attributive expressions, no-one could understand
their meaning if one did not first understand what a healthy living being or
person is. And in the latter usage healthy is not of the second but of the
first order. That exercising is healthy should therefore be read as there is
a causal relationship between somebody's exercising and somebody's being
healthy/becoming healthier. In this way we still speak of a relation between
attributes of the first order which is second-order itself. The difference
is that causality is, then, always a second-order relation and health(iness)
always a first-order attribute. In a hierarchy of orders it is important
that expressions or entities of a different order have different names
(something that does not apply to entities without order such as
having-as-an-element or being-an-element-of and existing).

If we look upon grass as a basic object, then grass is green (assuming that
this is true), grass is colored and grass has a color. This means that, if
color is an attribute, it is just a first-order attribute but an indefinite
one. Color is certainly not an ontic property beside being green, being red,
and so on. It is rather a conceptually produced property: if something is
green or red or .., then it is (said to be) colored, and then it has a
color. Hence, being-green or greenness, being-red or redness, and so on, is
having-a-color. Now, green is also said to be a color, but then green is
considered a basic object in a domain of discourse, not a first-order
attribute in such a domain. Treating color simply as a second-order
predicate expression therefore passes by the tendency in everyday language
to treat phenomena of perception, or objects of experience, as basic
entities of the or a domain of discourse. Thus we speak of colors, sounds,
feelings, smells and flavors as particulars and not as intensions of first-
or second-order predicate expressions or something of that nature. In this
respect everyday discourse seems to be phenomenalistic (and realistic)
instead of physicalistic. The objectual interpretation of formal systems is
just not very well suited to handle such an ontology in which both physical
things like grass and phenomenal things like greenness or the color green
are recognized as real entities.

The objectual and the attributive views are, strictly speaking, not
dissimilar logical views. Yet, it is not impossible that the development of
certain logical theories only makes sense in an objectualist frame of mind
or, for that matter, in an attributivist frame of mind. Nevertheless,
everything that can be formulated in attributivist terms can be formulated
in objectualist terms, and vice versa, at least so far as the essentials of
our conceptual framework are concerned. Given our ontological
presuppositions, and in view of the constructional, normative doctrine to be
expounded in due course, the attributivist instrument is much more adequate,
however. Hence, we will use this tool from now on and look how it works in
more detail.



1.4  ATTRIBUTES AS ULTIMATE CONSTITUENTS


1.4.1  SIMPLEX AND COMPLEX THINGS IN DIFFERENT DOMAINS


It has been pointed out (in 1.2.1) that for every relation there are one or
more derelativized one-place predicates. If A looks at B, there is a
relation of looking between A and B, directed from A towards B. Thing A,
then, has the property of looking-at-something, or simply looking, and B has
the property of being-looked-at. A is at the fundament of the relation and
performs the act of looking. (Looking is something else than receiving
reflected beams of light.) We shall assume that the active form
looking(-at-something) represents a real attribute. B, which is at the
terminus of the relation, does not perform anything, and there is no need to
assume that it has any real attribute because of its being looked at.
Being-looked-at and other passive forms stand as such for pseudo-attributes.
In diagrams where we show nonprimitive relations between things as lines
connecting these things, there is no need to show the corresponding,
existing one-place predicate(s) separately (inside the closed curve): altho
not wrong, it would be superfluous.

It has also been pointed out that a relation between basic things is a
relation between attributes in the attributive interpretation of formal
systems. If there is such a relation, then at least one of these related
attributes must have a derelativized one-place predicate itself. But in the
first domain of discourse such an attribute has no elements because it is a
basic thing in this domain. Therefore it cannot be at the fundament of a
relation with something else at all. It could be at the terminus of a
relation tho as this does not require the attribute to have a real one-place
predicate itself. When an attribute is said to have attributes itself, and
when an attribute is said to have relations in which it is not just at the
terminus, it is treated as a nonbasic thing, a thing with several elements
itself, in another domain of discourse. The relations between those
attributes belong to that domain of discourse too, that is, not to the
domain in which one speaks of relations between nonattributive objects.
Whereas the latter relations are primary, the former are secondary. And
whereas attributes which are not attributes of any other (kind of) attribute
are primary, the attributes of those attributes are secondary attributes.
All of them are primary and secondary predicates.

Just like in the objectualist interpretation, a predicate of a predicate of
order n is itself a predicate of order n+1. This does not apply to the
primitive having(-as-an-element), because this is a 'relation' inherent in
the hierarchical structure itself. Like being and existing it is of all
orders, or rather of no order in particular. The same applies to the
primitive 'relation' of identity, which is purely conceptual and neither
ontic nor of any particular order either. Identity solely plays a role in
the description of reality, not in nonpropositional reality itself. Identity
statements cannot express a relation between different things in reality,
because, trivially, everything is identical to itself and to nothing else.

Predicates have only higher-order (nonprimitive) predicates. They do not
have component parts, of whatever order they might be. So every predicate of
order n is an ontic set of predicates of order n+1. In the same way as a
'really elementary', that is, simplicial, particle is a set of primary
attributes, a primary attribute is itself a set of secondary attributes, a
secondary attribute a set of tertiary attributes, and so on. And like in the
objectualist interpretation there is in principle no end to this hierarchy.
Those who despise infinity should bear in mind that this hierarchy is an
abstract, conceptual structure and in no way forces us to accept the
existence of infinite sets of concrete things.

As a basic thing a predicate belongs to one domain of discourse, and as a
set of predicates to another one, that is, the next domain. Thus there are
(basic) things in the one domain which are identical to (nonbasic) things in
the next domain. This identity of things across the border of domains can be
represented by means of a line interrupted by a special identity symbol (=),
as indicated in figure I.1.4.1.1.

It is now clear why it may seem that a relation between primary attributes
exists in the first domain of discourse. The explanation is that the
relation exists between two nonbasic things of the second domain which are
both found as basic things in the first domain as well. The relation itself
is secondary, however, and corresponds to a secondary one-place predicate
found inside at least one of the primary attributes in the second domain of
discourse. Figure I.1.4.1.2 gives some examples of primary, pseudoprimary
and secondary relations between and with primary attributes. (By way of
clarity the relational attributes are shown extra as a separate attribute
besides the relations themselves.)

In the attributivist terminology a universe of discourse is the totality of
all hierarchically ordered domains involved in a particular communication.
The ultimate constituents of the first domain of this universe are primary
attributes, those of primary attributes and all other things of the second
domain secondary attributes, those of secondary attributes and all other
things of the third domain tertiary attributes, and so on. Hence, the
ultimate constituents of all domains are attributes, and those of a
particular universe of discourse the attributes of the highest domain in the
hierarchy.

The simplex particles and the predicates in a universe of discourse are all
simplex things, that is, things which have no extensional elements and which
cannot present themselves by means of component parts. They are sets of
predicates which exist in reality as a thing -- according to our
typification in section 1.3.2 as a thing of type 2. All things of a higher
type we shall call "complex things". Simplex and complex things belong to
the same domain as the attributes of the highest order they have belong to.
(Attributes of a lower order are components.) Hence, a simplicial particle
belongs to the first domain, altho it could be represented as a set of sets
of secondary attributes in a universe of discourse which would include the
second domain too. If we allowed this, however, only its 'parts' would have
attributes and relations, not the thing itself. Since a simplicial particle
must have attributes and relations of itself, it does not belong to the
domain of secondary attributes. On the other hand, a complex thing with a
primary attribute does belong to the second domain, if it contains one or
more secondary attributes as well. Its primary attribute is, then, not an
attribute in the sense of a basic thing, but a component part.

Some might have expected that our distinction between parts (as
nonpredicative elements) and attributes (as basic, predicative elements) is
a distinction only to be found in the physical world. They might have
believed such a distinction to be inappropriate to the general framework of
an ontology. But our example of a complex thing in the domain of secondary
attributes proves that this objection is wrong, for complexity of this sort
exists as much in the abstract world as it exists in the concrete or
physical world. The very recognition of this complexity is an absolute
prerequisite to understanding the structures in both these worlds. It is of
paramount importance to realize at this stage that the universe does not
only encompass material things, with or without related things and
attributes, but that it also encompasses complex systems of nonprimary
attributes. The development of one of the two paradigmatic components of our
weltanschauung itself will depend on this insight.



1.4.2  ABSTRACTION AND CONCRETION


As the ultimate constituents of our universe of discourse are attributes, we
are formally faced with a problem of concretion. (See 1.2.2) But, actually,
we have started the other way around, namely with the assumption that
complex, concrete things have both component parts and attributes, and those
parts in turn also parts and attributes. We have thus considered complex
things and their parts to be of the same ontological category, since they
all have parts and attributes as their elements. Yet, whereas complex things
have attributes, attributes never have things of that same category: a table
may have a weight, but (a) weight cannot have a table. (It may belong to one
at the most.) In subdividing complex things into smaller things (parts of a
lower type) we have first formed a picture of abstraction which looks like
the one in figure I.1.4.2.1.

The crucial theoretical question is now whether we do arrive in this way at
components which are mere sets of attributes (but which have relations as
well). Without such an end to the abstraction process one might object
against the 'categorical' discrepancy between things as parts and attributes
and maintain that this discrepancy remains, however far down the components
are subdivided into their elements. But then, one should bear in mind that
the question whether the difference is categorical from any ontological
point of view is the very matter at issue here. If parts and attributes can
never be taken as ultimate elements of one and the same thing, the aversion
of this sort of combination may be the very reason to postulate that there
is an end to the abstraction ladder so that all parts, that is, all things,
only have attributes as their ultimate factors, tho certainly not as their
elements or components.

A second point to take into consideration is that in the beginning the
things of our domain were phenomenal or material things such as pens and
fingers, but if there is an end to materiality when subdividing these
things, there should be borderline cases. And indeed, there are such
borderline cases: elementary particles do not have 'material', that is,
constituent parts, and fail to count as bodies in this respect. They are not
material in that they are not decomposable into matter, and yet they are
material in that they are components of matter. It is here where we have
arrived at a level where we can merely speak of an object's purely physical
attributes and relations. And it is here where mass and energy become one
and the same, where the material world transubstantiates to become
immaterial. At this level objects are purely 'intensional', precisely like
attributes, in that they have no extensional elements anymore. If this is
not correct for particles such as neutrinos, one may assume that it still
applies to 'truly' elementary particles, unless one is absolutely unwilling
to ever accept the existence of such simplex objects.

By choosing attributes as the ultimate constituents of the first and all
other domains of discourse we have implicitly postulated that there is an
end to the abstraction ladder. That there is, then, a beginning of a
concretion ladder amounts to the same: to approach the problem of concretion
we are faced with we reverse the picture of abstraction. In general, every
realist constructional system needs at least one primitive relation which
will make it possible to differentiate systematically between those abstract
qualities (such as attributes) which form concrete things and those which do
not. As the basic concreting relation one might choose togetherness, in our
case among attributes, which obtains between any two attributes belonging to
some one concretum or thing in general. (Choosing having as primitive does
not make a difference: two qualities are 'together', if they are 'had' or
possessed by the same thing.) If the relation of togetherness did not hold
between any two attributes of a set (that is, if they did not belong to one
and the same thing), the set in question would simply not be ontic, that is,
(trivially) would not exist as a thing. The notion of togetherness can
subsequently be extended to obtain not only between distinct, atomic
qualities, qualia or elements but between every two discrete elements of a
concretum or other thing. The elements may be component parts or attributes
of the whole. In our constructional system a concretum may be conceived of
as a single physical body with all its parts and its (whole-)attributes. All
the elements of such things 'are together', that is, bear the relation of
togetherness to each other, but the whole itself is not a part of another
thing in which it bears the same relation of togetherness to other things.
In a biological or physical sense human beings, for instance, are concretums
but humankind is not a concretum.

An old metaphysical issue is that of the distinction and relation between
instance and quality. But as the 'atoms' of our constructional system are
attributes we have no problem since they are 'fully repeatable, universal
individuals'. The instance/quality distinction is in our case an
instance/element distinction. Whether we regard a whole as an instance or as
an element (component) simply depends upon whether we are concerned with its
relationship to its attributes (those belonging to its predicament) or to a
whole of which it is itself a component part. In our system instances of a
property or attribute are never entirely separate. They may be discrete in
space-time and in every other respect, yet they still have at least one
common element: the common attribute itself. As has already been rightly
argued before, attributes are not metaphysical sums of various particles
which would occur in several instances. When concrete individuals which are
believed to stand wholly by themselves 'participate in' a single property,
their similarity is due to identity between at least one of their
predicative elements. This could be shown diagrammatically by having the
predicaments of the things in question overlap, by drawing the identity
relation between one or more predicative elements of these things or by
giving identical and unique names to identical and unique elements.



1.4.3  CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT


If we compared the ultimate factors of a system to physical atoms, then
concretums could be compared to molecules. And --as has been argued too-- as
no fragment of a molecule of water is water, so no fragment of a simplicial
concretum is concrete. Moreover, since a glassful of water is water, but not
a molecule of water, it has been suggested that individuals of which a
concretum is a proper part be called "concrete", altho they are not
concretums themselves. Concrete would, then, mean that the individual's
extensionality were exhaustively divisible into concretums. Thus, because
human beings and their parts are concretums, humankind would be 'concrete'
in the terminology of such a constructional system. We will not adopt this
terminology. Instead of it we will later define concreteness in such a way
that a concrete thing must be either in motion or at rest. (Abstract things
are neither in motion nor at rest.) Furthermore, one concrete thing must in
this view have one velocity with respect to a certain frame of reference.
Hence, a glassful of water may be considered to be a concrete individual in
this sense but humankind is not, since it is not part of the meaning of the
term humankind that all humans always have the same velocity. (The simile
was therefore not valid.) Humankind is either the whole of all human beings
with its own attributes, or it is the collection of all human beings, the
extension of being human. In the first case humankind would exist as an
abstract entity, assuming that its predicament contains attributes which
characterize it in a way logically independent of (the predicates of) its
components. (The number of humans or some human average will therefore not
do as a characteristic.) In the second case 'humankind' is a conceptual
construct denoting the set of all things that have a certain characteristic
combination of properties in common. In neither case humankind is concrete
itself in our manner of speaking, but it or its extensionality is
exhaustively divisible into concretums nevertheless.

For each spatial dimension concrete things have a negative velocity ('the'
property of moving in a negative direction), a neutral velocity (the
property of being at rest) or a positive velocity ('the' property of moving
in a positive direction). We will use the word object only for those things
which have one of these properties. (To be more precise, they are
derelativized relations: something 'is at rest', if it does not change place
with respect to a particular, other object or frame of reference.) The
properties of motion and rest or motionlessness are primary attributes which
belong to concretums but the negativity and positivity of certain kinds of
motion and the neutrality of motionlessness are secondary attributes. The
attributes of primary attributes are never primary and therefore the
properties of velocity (of motion and motionlessness) do not have a velocity
themselves. Negative, neutral and positive velocity are abstract entities
tho they are things in the first domain of discourse. (We thus employ
abstract in the sense of not having any neutral or unneutral velocity, which
is roughly synonymous to immaterial or intangible.)

Altho objects are solely found in the primary domain, it follows that it
would be a serious mistake to believe that all things in the primary domain
were objects, that is, concrete. Whereas some primary things, like
properties, are abstract entities which do not even have a concrete
component, other primary things, like humankind (if existing as a whole),
are abstract entities which do have components which are concrete. Secondary
things and things of a higher order, however, are always abstract. If they
are wholes consisting of one or more component parts, they are abstract
wholes of abstract entities.



1.5  WHOLES


1.5.1  THEIR WHOLE-, PART- AND PSEUDO-ATTRIBUTES


To exist, a whole of things must have at least one real attribute in
addition to its parts. (See 1.3.2.) Not only should such an attribute not be
a pseudo-attribute, it should also be an attribute of the whole itself
rather than of one or more (or even all) of its component parts. (It may be
a derelativized relation tho.) So far as such a whole-attribute is a
prerequsite for the existence of the whole, it must be logically independent
of the part-attributes. In other words, a whole is a gestalt, that is, a
unit with attributes in addition to and not derivable from its parts in
summation. It is in this literal sense that a whole is 'greater' than the
sum of its parts.

If whole-attributes could be derived from part-attributes, every set or
'sum' of concrete individuals could pop up as an entity, since one can
always conceive of a physical attribute which would correspond to the 'sum'
of the part-attributes. Thus, the volume of the whole, which is the total of
the volumes of its parts, would be a characteristic of the whole, however
far separated from one another its parts. Another such 'improper'
whole-attribute would be the one relating to the average value of its
component parts.

The difference between attributes of a (whole) thing and attributes of its
parts is often crucial and has but too often been blurred, for example, in
discussions on individuation and identity thru time. Somebody who has brown
hair first and gray hair later in life does not have any different property
at all later on. Instead, such a person('s body) has a component part or
parts (the person's hair) which were brown first and gray later on. It is
this part or these parts which change properties. Strictly speaking, a whole
consisting of several phenomenal parts actually never has any color of its
own. If it is said to be parti-colored or to have one or more colors, these
colors are the qualia, qualities or attributes of its parts. Only if all
parts have, or seem to have, the same color, may this color, for the sake of
convenience, be attributed to the whole consisting of these parts.

Now, some predicate expressions precisely refer to the having of parts with
certain characteristics or of a certain kind. In the above example one might
come up with having brown hair (or <-- has brown hair>) and having gray hair
as predicate terms designating a property of somebody considered as a whole.
Such predicate expressions have to be devised in an objectualist ontology
which cannot handle the part-whole relation very well. On the attributivist
construction, however, it is evident that such constructions are completely
artificial and do not denote any real attribute of the whole itself.
Particularly notorious expressions of this ilk are being cordate and being
renate, because they happen to have the same extension, so far as known.
Cordateness is having a heart; renateness is having kidneys. As hearts and
kidneys are organs or parts of the animal beings which have them, to say
that an animal being is 'cordate' or 'renate' is nothing else than to say
that it has parts of a certain type. Such expressions could be constructed
for any type of having parts, for example, for a table which would be
'legged' or 'four-legged'. But of course, this would in no way force us to
accept as real attributes like 'leggedness', 'four-leggedness' or, for that
matter, quadrupedality.

Cordateness is having a heart, not the property of having a particular part
which is a heart or which has the property of being a heart (provided there
is such a unitary factual attribute). If it were a question of having one
particular thing which is a heart, there would be as many cordateness
properties as there are hearts and mammals. Each such property would, then,
be a haecceity predicate of the mammal concerned, that is, a predicate which
no other thing has or can have as well. To avoid this consequence the
predicate being a heart must be brought in, or a combination of predicates
necessary to keep the same total meaning of (being a) heart. Cordateness is
then the property of having something as a part that is a heart.
'Cordateness' and also 'renateness' are therefore pseudo-attributes. It is
easy to understand why they are not synonyms altho cordate and renate are
true of the same things: being a heart is just not the same as being a
kidney, even tho one might have thought that having a heart would amount to
the same as having a kidney. The ontological heartiness of logicians with
kidneys has allowed some theoreticians to array their body of thought with
the most fancy of predicate terms, also where the structure of wholes and
parts is concerned. From a constructional point of view, however, it remains
important that attributes of parts (such as being a heart) can be clearly
and distinctly told apart from attributes of the whole (other than
pseudo-predicates such as being cordate or having a heart). It is on this
distinction that the existence of wholes or gestalts depends. Without the
recognition of this distinction one will never gain a full insight into the
configuration of these wholes.



1.5.2  EXTENSIONAL MEREOLOGY


We have rejected both the idea that all things would be nothing else than
collections or sums of component parts and the idea that all things would be
nothing else than collections or sums of attributes (leaving aside the
relations they may have). Insofar as we have chosen attributes as the
ultimate factors in a structure of sets interpreted in the line of the sober
ontology of a nominalist calculus of individuals, we are much closer to the
latter view than to the former. We do recognize some sets of attributes as
entities, whereas we do not recognize any pure set of 'parts' as an entity.
Nevertheless, sets of parts do play a role as the extensionalities of
wholes, and thus it may be worthwhile to have a look at theories which deal
with wholes in a purely extensional way.

A constructional theory which solely recognizes parts is mereology. It
treats a physical aggregate as a 'sum' or 'fusion' of all elements of the
class of parts of the object in question, so that all elements of the class
of parts of the object are part of the fusion and no proper part of the
fusion is disjoint from all parts of the object. Others have already argued
against mereology that an object like a jug cannot be a mere collection, or
even a mere 'fusion', of its proper parts. The reason is for us that such an
object must have properties as well, in particular those bearing on its own
integrity or function. Only because of those properties is the object under
consideration a jug. None of its component parts is a jug on its own.

Suppose that merely a heap of fragments is left of a certain jug; and
suppose that these pieces are subsequently put together again to make a
certain kind of pot. The pot is then made of the same collection of pieces
as the jug was, but it has taken on quite a different shape and function (as
we assume). Hence, the object is another one, tho the mereological sum has
remained the same. To solve this analytical identity problem it has been
suggested that is would be used in two different senses in this sort of
context, namely in a sense pertaining to the object's constitution and in a
sense pertaining to its identity. In the first sense the jug and the pot
are, then, the same (made of, or constituted of, the same bits of clay, for
instance); in the second sense they are not the same (not identical). This
rather drastic cleavage in the meaning of the monosyllabic is provides too
easy a way out tho and is not required in our system. We must, to make it
work, not apply the mereological conception to the whole things themselves
but only to their extensionalities.

The jug character of a thing belongs to the attributive predicament of the
whole and it is this which disappears or changes when a jug is dropped or
badly damaged. The extensionality of the jug remains, if we interpret it not
just as a set (as we have done hitherto) but rather as a 'fusion', so that
it is a collection of all component parts of the whole however specified,
thus including the collections of parts and the parts of parts. In this
mereological sense the extensionality of the pot is the same as that of the
original jug, and in this respect they are the same or constituted of the
same matter. It should be kept in mind tho that the extensionality is not an
ontic set, that is, not a real thing itself.

From the point of view of strict identity, that is, sameness in all
respects, the jug and the pot are different, albeit merely because of their
disparate predicaments (attributive but also relational). This does not
mean, of course, that the two objects could not be the same in some other
than extensional respect as well. Furthermore, it is worth noting that one
does not (necessarily) damage the (proper) parts of a jug, or affect them as
severely, when the jug itself is damaged -- as has been confusedly
suggested. Just as somebody who paints a little figure on the jug does not
(necessarily) paint this figure on every part of the jug, so somebody who
damages the jug does not (necessarily) damage every part of it; if so, then
this is an additional, contingent fact. Damaging the jug is affecting the
predicament and extensionality of the jug; damaging a part of the jug is
affecting the predicament and extensionality of that part.

It is obvious that not only the attributes of the whole and those of its
parts are to be distinguished, but also that the relationships with the
whole may be quite different from those with the parts of that whole.
Altogether a thing may have a relation with a whole, with one of its parts
and with one of its attributes. And as regards a thing which has one or more
parts itself, one of its parts may have a relation with another whole, with
a part of another whole or with an attribute of such a whole. These
different types of relations are shown in figure I.1.5.2.1.

In the diagram of this figure one does not find any truly reflexive
relation, that is, a relation between 'two' things which are identical in
the strict sense. There is no problem with accepting reflexivity with
respect to (nonpropositional) things in a loose sense, but the strict
interpretation of the notion remains obscure. To prove that things can have
(nonpropositional, nonultimate) relations which literally turn back upon
themselves, one must either give plausible examples of such things which are
not wholes, or which are wholes, but which definitely do not have a relation
with one, or between two, of their own (proper) parts instead. The so-called
'reflexivity' does not seldom concern such a relation between a whole and
one of its parts or (in an even looser sense) between two different parts of
the same whole.



1.5.3  HAVING AND PART IN A STRICT AND IN A LOOSE SENSE


A table is not simply the set of a number of particular legs, or a
particular stump and a particular board, altho it is made up of them. Three
or more legs at one place and a board somewhere else do not yet constitute a
real table; maybe they can or could constitute one. To actually be a table,
more is needed and this more of every table is, or is found in, its
attributive predicament. 'Mereologists' may talk about the different parts
of the table and even wonder whether they are essential or not, while at the
same time defining this table as a mere extensionality. (Mereological
essentialists claim that all or certain parts are always essential to their
whole.) When running into difficulties they may distinguish 'popular parts'
for the ordinary or loose sense of part from 'philosophical parts' when
speaking of "parts" in a strict sense. In a 'creative' bout of
supernaturalist elation a realm of 'entia successiva' (things which are such
that at any moment of their existence something other than themselves serves
as their stand in and does duty for them), 'entia per alio' (things which
derive all their attributes from other things which do duty for them) and
'entia per se' ('real things') may be hypostatized. But ordinary talk about
wholes and parts cannot be that inadequate, even tho one of the issues, that
of things remaining the same (or identical) thru time, is a delicate one.

Theories which cannot tackle the ordinary language of wholes, parts and
attributes without taking refuge in a thicket of ethereal entities just
don't ring true. This is not to say that they would be wrong or
uninteresting in every respect. For example, it does turn out very fruitful
to draw a distinction between a strict and a loose sense of the words part
and having, also in our nonmereological framework. The difference is that it
is a very straightforward distinction here which can be easily defined in
set-theoretical terms. For a clear understanding we must in the first
instance reject in our case the axiom that if X is a part of Y and Y is a
part of Z, then X is also a part of Z. If parts are genuine wholes
themselves (and recognized as 'individuals'), then a part X of Y is,
strictly speaking, no part of Z, even if Y is part of Z. (The axiom itself
is the expression of a mereological conception of wholes and parts.) A part
of a part of Z is something else than a part of Z, just as a parent of a
parent of P is not (necessarily) a parent of P, and just as an utterance
about an utterance about a fact F is not (necessarily) an utterance about F
itself. At the same time it cannot be denied that one often calls a part of
a part of A also "a part of A", or an utterance about an utterance about B
also "an utterance about B" (and a friend of a friend of C also "a friend of
C"?) in a loose sense. Especially when the division into parts, and also
subjects, is vague or quite arbitrary the loose usage may suffice for the
purpose of the conversation. But whether the term part is employed in a
strict or in a loose sense, Y is never a part of X, if X is a part of Y (as
another axiom reads). This is because in both cases part only refers to
proper parts, not to wholes which would be 'their own part'.

The appeal of the distinction between the strict and the loose meanings of
part and having is that it provides us with an alternative to extensional
mereology (having refused to accept total mereology in any case). The
distinction allows us to do away with the very complicated 'fusions' to
which not only the parts of the whole belong but also the parts of parts and
collections of parts, or of parts of parts, and so on. This is not a very
practical, accurate picture because, for example, somebody does not have a
hand and five fingers in addition to that hand; that person('s body) has a
hand and that hand has in turn five fingers (granted that the number is
correct). It follows from this that also that person has those five fingers,
but then in a looser sense of having.

The part-whole configuration and the transition from a strict to an ever
looser sense of having can be well demonstrated particularly with regard to
persons. It is therefore high time now to see how these peculiar entities
which no adequate ontology may ignore or neglect can be portrayed by means
of our own conceptual apparatus.



1.6  PERSONS


1.6.1  SPEAKING PERSON-TO-PERSON


Let us agree that all persons are living beings, but that not all living
beings are persons. One way of subdividing living beings is, then, into
personal and nonpersonal, living beings.

Another way of subdividing living beings is into species, but from the point
of view of personhood this categorization is not essential, as we shall not
assume that all persons (or 'people') are human beings, nor that all human
beings (in the zoological sense) are necessarily persons. Altho the
distinction between person and human being may often not have been made at
all, this is an anthropocentric fallacy we can dismiss immediately.

A third way of subdividing living beings is into sexual and asexual beings.
This is an aspect we must take into consideration for a moment before
turning to the issue of personhood itself. Speakers of the traditional
variants of the present and of many other languages, but also many speakers
of languages which were never genderized, have always convulsively clung to
the discrimination between male and female persons. Yet, the factor on which
this distinction is based actually concerns living beings in general and not
especially persons.

A particular living being which is asexual (1) belongs to an asexual or
metagenetic species which reproduces without sexual differentiation or
alternatingly with and without, (2) lacks functional sexual organs, or (3)
is not interested in sexuality. If, on the other hand, a particular living
being is a sexual being, then it does belong to a species which reproduces
sexually or also sexually, altho it may not be able (anymore) to reproduce
itself in this way and altho it need not itself be interested in sexual
matters. Sexual beings are either unisexual or hermaphroditic. In the former
case the plant or animal has either male or female reproductive organs; in
the latter case it has both. This conception is based on the kind of sexual
differentiation, or lack thereof, as found on Earth. Logically speaking,
however, there is no reason why the sort of generative reproduction in which
two sexes are involved (the female and the male sex) should be the end to
the possibilities of the types of reproduction.

If reproduction is 'asexual', it is said that there is 'no sex' involved,
but it might as well be said that there is only one sex or reproductive
division involved; if it is sexual, then there are two sexes or reproductive
divisions involved. But theoretically one could conceive of a form of life
which depends for its direct reproduction on the union of the genetic
material of three or more individuals of the same number of three or more
different reproductive divisions. In the sense of complexity or natural,
bodily development such a species would be of a 'higher' level than the one
to which human and other living beings on this planet belong. (By way of
illustration one may think of a planet Hyperyinyang with many asexual
species and sexual species whose members have only male and/or female sexual
organs, chromosome combinations and/or hormones. Assume, furthermore, that
there is a species of 'jumans' on Hyperyinyang which can be divided into
three sexes: 'cemales', 'demales' and 'eemales'. Should some jumans of
Hyperyinyang now discover Earth, they will probably declare that 'humans',
among others, are a genetically less-developed species with only two sexes:
'aemales' and 'bemales'.)

While living beings may be asexual, female, male, hermaphroditic or
something else, they belong to one of these sexual categories on account of
their body, whether it be its parts or its general physical characteristics.
No living being is male, female or something else as a person, because many
sexual living beings simply are not persons. (Plants are an example.)
Reproduction and sexuality are entirely irrelevant with respect to
personhood proper. When referring to persons it is therefore wrong to use
the masculine singular pronoun he or the feminine singular pronoun she. Only
when referring to male or female bodies, and only when sex is relevant, is
it correct to say "he" or "she". In all other cases nongenderized or
'gender-transcending' pronouns should be employed. (Just like she and he
themselves are species-transcending, race-transcending, age-transcending,
and so forth.)

To refer to things, whether living or lifeless, whether concrete or
abstract, the pronoun it may be used. But while it is traditionally also
used for persons whose sex is unknown or disregarded, it is employed in
particular when speaking of lifeless things, plants and abstract entities.
In traditional language people would not say "it" of a person whose sex was
known, even if this person's sex was of no import at all. If somebody's sex
was unknown, or could be either one, the traditional speaker used --and may
still use-- the masculine he to refer to a person. He would thus be employed
to refer both to males and to people (irrespective of their gender), whereas
she would refer to females exclusively. Some of the pioneers in the fight
against androcentrism, also in the language, have proposed that she should
include both female and male persons but they merely substituted
gynocentrism for androcentrism. Most of the pioneers combating sexism
decided to write the cumbersome "he or she" or "he/she", but altho this
usage was gender-neutral, they were not conscious enough that they were
still --and may still be-- caught in the same web of sexual irrelevantism
(and moreover, it was never done consistently). The distinction between
female and male as such has no bearing on personhood whatsoever, even not on
being a living being. To refer to persons with he, she or he/she only
depersonalizes them. It makes them into males and/or females on the grounds
of characteristics which are basically biologic, material and physical, that
is, their bodies'. (Of course, in practise sexual irrelevantism, especially
a long history of sexual irrelevantism, may result, or have resulted, in
many profound mental differences as well.)

The tendency to always refer to persons by means of he or she in traditional
language may cause and/or be caused by sexism or sexual irrelevantism, this
does not mean that the availability of a pronoun other than it is not very
convenient when speaking about persons. People do play a significant role in
this world; in a way they are the only ones 'playing a role'. It is
therefore very helpful to be able to easily distinguish these people from
the nonpersonal things surrounding them in a domain or universe of
discourse. The great advantage of the use of she or he for persons rather
than it was (or still is) that one would know immediately that the thing
referred to was a person and not some nonpersonal being. The importance of
the person-nonperson distinction in our discourse does justify the
introduction of a special pronominal device to refer to a person (not a male
or female being or human being) -- a person named or described in a
particular context. A language which does not have such a third-person
pronoun (instead of or besides a third-male pronoun like he and a
third-female pronoun like she) is less efficient in this respect. In line
with the general pronominal pattern of inflection in the present language,
in view of the phonological variants of pronominal terms starting with h and
of the historical development of the nonpersonal hit to it in this language,
and taking into consideration the advantage of having different words for
genderized and nongenderized pronouns, and for the objective case and the
pronominal adjective, we shall therefore henceforth refer to a person by
means of 'e (subjective case), 'im (objective case) and 'er (pronominal
adjective). (One may also simply spell "e", "im" and "er".) This pronominal
series is the 'personal', singular analog of the plural they, them and
their, the nonpersonal analog being it, it and its. (Traditionalists should
be aware that the question is not whether this usage is good or not in some
absolute sense, but whether any other usage or proposal is better -- and no
traditional usage or proposal is, as examples like a person who denies
himself or herself and a person who denies or deny themselves testify.)

We are now able to relate to and speak about people regardless of their
being female, male, hermaphroditic, asexual or something else of that ilk.
Solely when gender is (believed to be) relevant, and if a male person or
living being is concerned, is it alright to say "he"; and if a female person
or living being is concerned, "she". By using 'e in a nonerotic,
nonreproductive context the alternative use of he or she will automatically
acquire an erotic or sexual significance where it may or should have such a
significance. As sure as Nature makes numberless apples year after year,
this will render a lovable language only richer.



1.6.2  THE PERSON AS A PAIR OF OBJECTS OR OBJECT OF A PAIR


The classical idea that a person is nothing else than a soul, separate from
and independent of a body, was already entertained and believed to be 'amply
proved' at least two to two-and-a-half thousand years ago. The argument is
founded upon the premise that 'man' is the user or ruler of 'his' body and
that 'he' must be either soul, body or both together as one whole. Yet,
since the body is not ruling but ruled, the combination of both entities
could not be ruling either, and thus it must be the soul which rules where a
person rules. In this reasoning it is taken that a soul stands to its body
as a user to a thing used, or a ruler to a thing ruled. This however, is a
treacherous simile which not only presupposes implicitly that 'the soul' is
an entity like a ruler is, but also that the soul and the body it is
supposed to rule are entirely separate individuals. (Individuals in an
ontological, not necessarily a physical, sense.) Moreover, it is not
unimportant that historically the 'thing ruled' is in the first place
another person like the ruler `imself. If body and soul belong to one whole
at all on this view, then merely as two different, individual parts.

The dualism of body and soul, or 'mind', is a fallacy which readily results
from an objectualist ontology. It starts with the correct recognition that
there is a distinction between a person and `er body, that a person and `er
body are two 'irreducible' entities as it were. No person can be identified
with `er own body as the behavior of people is or can be purposeful or
intentional, whereas the actions and reactions of mere bodies can be
explained in terms of causes and effects. These observations themselves are
very plausible, but it is a grave mistake to subsequently treat a 'soul' and
a body both as entities and to put them apart in an objectualist frame of
reference with all other souls (or 'persons') and bodies. First of all,
there is then no way anymore to conceptually determine which body belongs to
which soul, because every body is conceptually as much separated from each
soul as every other body. This requires the special introduction of some
nonultimate relation like 'using' or 'ruling'. Only such a relation can
still determine by whom a particular body is possessed, but then a soul is
not necessarily the possessor of merely one body anymore. Many classical or
traditional, supernaturalist doctrines could, of course, not care less about
this possibility because their souls do indeed change bodies as slaveholders
change, or used to change, slaves. (The dualist-objectualist world-view of
the consubstantiality of body and soul, or 'mind' or 'person', is shown in
figure I.1.6.2.1.)

If a dualist of the slaveholder type does admit that every soul has or can
have only one body at a time, then `e is apt to speak of composites of one
soul or mind and one body, at least in `er subjects` 'earthly' life. Such
pairs are either sets of attributes which do not exist on our attributivist
construction or wholes of two parts, but then it is these wholes which
become the persons rather than the nonbodily parts. If persons were wholes
of one body and one soul or mind, however, they would have their own
whole-attributes in addition to the attributes of their soul and their body,
and they would not rule their bodies anymore; or, if they would, they could
rule their soul as well. Thus the soul which started out as the ruler of
matter has on this account come down to the level of just another entity
like a body or any part thereof. And also a part of a body may in some sense
'use' or 'rule' another part of the same body.

Not only has the objectualist dualist of mind and body not explained, nor
clarified anything, `e has merely left `er disciples with more problems. The
most tricky of these metaphysical (pseudo-)problems are, firstly, what a
soul or mind is as a whole (if it is distinguished from the person-whole
having it); secondly, why such a whole as a soul or mind could only 'rule'
one body during its life or at any particular time; and thirdly, what that
peculiar nonultimate relation of 'ruling' is, and what determines
conceptually which body or bodies are to be 'ruled' by which soul. All this
metaphysics or supernaturalism has led people but too far astray from
insight into the nature of a distinction which is itself genuine, namely
that between a person and `er body.



1.6.3  AS SOMETHING HAVING BOTH A BODY AND MENTAL PROPERTIES


I have a body and there is no body which has me (in the same sense of having
as an element and of body as in i have a body). That is why i can speak of
'my body' instead of 'the body which has me'. Thus i am a whole of which my
body is a component part, and --i must assume-- the sole component part,
because there is nothing that forces me to believe that i have other parts
which do not belong to my body. Being a whole, and having rejected the
objectualist conception, i do not merely have my body, i also have my own
whole-attributes as a person. These attributes are my 'personal' or 'mental'
properties, whereas my physical characteristics are, strictly speaking, only
properties of my body, that is, part-attributes. It is my behavior, not my
body's, which is purposeful. I intend to write things down, not my body; and
i have a will and thoughts, not my body. If my body shows tendencies to
something, and if my body has a 'will', it is in addition to the tendencies
and will i have in a strict sense. And this is true of all of us, of every
person.

As everyone is the whole of 'er body, the extensionality of a person is 'er
body and the predicament a set of nonphysical whole-attributes which the
person has 'imself in the strict sense of having. A person has 'er
nonphysical, or not purely physical, properties as a gestalt, since they are
not logically derivable from the only part 'e has: 'er body. What, then,
ordinarily is called "(a person's) mind" is a person's predicament (or
attributive predicament) and what ordinarily is called "(a person's) body"
is a person's extensionality. Hence, the mind or soul is no whole
whatsoever, but the set of a person's not purely physical
(whole-)attributes. And these properties, which may be called "mental" or
"psych(olog)ical", are not parts or elements of parts; they are attributive
elements of the whole itself, of the person 'imself. A person's body,
however, is in turn a whole itself, and has parts and attributes of its own.
This configuration of persons is illustrated in figure I.1.6.3.1.

A person's body may be made up of, let's say, a trunk, a head, two legs and
two arms (leaving the discovery of these wholes and the need to have them to
empirical scientists). The trunk in turn may be made up of a heart, kidneys
and other wholes, like sexual organs. Because of this the body, or person
having it, may be called "cordate", "renate" or "sexual". In a strict,
primary sense, a person does not have a heart or kidneys or genitals: 'er
trunk or maybe 'er body has. In the same, strict sense 'e does not have a
left or a right arm: 'er body has. It is only in some loose, secondary sense
that a person (instead of 'er body) 'has' a trunk and arms; and it is only
in some tertiary sense that 'e 'has' a heart and hands. When 'finally' a
hand has fingers, it is only in some quaternary sense that the person 'has'
these fingers. It depends on the definiteness of the position of an
extensional element whether the use of having is secondary or even looser.
If this position is not clear at all, every use of having may be regarded as
secondary in the case of a person having bodily organs or parts.

'Having a hand with fingers' does seem to be for a human person a kind of
having of the third or fourth degree, while 'having mental characteristics,
such as a will or intentions,' is definitely a kind of having of the first
degree. Altho these mental predicates which may determine a person's
utterances on paper are located a long way up from the fingers writing them
down, they are all elements in the same realm nevertheless.

A person's physical characteristics are the elements of 'er body's
predicament. Hence, a person has 'er body in a primary sense but 'er
physical properties only in a secondary sense. A person's mental
characteristics are the elements of 'er (very own) predicament, 'er
properties in the strict, primary sense of having. It is this set of
predicates which is often called "mind", "soul" or "spirit". Yet, this set
is merely a theoretical construct and does not represent any really existing
entity at all. (Predicaments are not ontic sets as we have seen in 1.3.2.)
The mind does not exist as a whole or thing, since it is itself the
predicament of a whole of which a body is a part, the sole part. The mind is
a collection of nonphysical predicates. The only thing that distinguishes it
from a mere collection is that all its elements are had by one and the same
person or mental being.

Some might now wonder whether a number of mental attributes could not form a
thing themselves just as a number of physical attributes can form a thing in
the process of concretion (yielding a simplex thing with an attribute of
velocity). But again, so far as the collections of mental attributes of
individual persons are concerned this is even conceptually impossible,
because it would make those collections into simplex things, and the persons
having no attributes anymore (but things instead) would lose their
personhood. (In this respect the situation is not dissimilar for physical
attributes: the collections of the physical attributes of concrete, complex
things cannot form a thing either.) The idea of the mental attributes of
individual people being a thing collectively would merely lead us back to
the dualistic objectualism we were forced to dismiss. For the sake of
completeness it must be noticed however, that it is indeed possible on our
attributivist construction that sets of mental, or at least nonphysical,
properties do exist as abstract, simplex things. Just as in the physical
world, it is furthermore also conceptually possible that there exist more
complex, abstract things of which the ultimate constituents are nonphysical
properties. But none of those abstract things --even if they exist at all--
is a person, or can ever be part of a person.

In our terminology bodies do exist and are concrete things. Persons exist
too but are not concrete things in a strict sense, for they do not have an
attribute of velocity or any other physical attribute. Hence, in a strict
sense, persons are abstract entities with a concrete object as the sole
component part. It is only in a little bit looser usage that we may say that
a person is something concrete with physical properties.

The (personal) mind is an abbreviation for mental property A, and mental
property B, and mental property C, and so on or for all a person's
(whole-)attributes or for all a person's nonphysical characteristics. Thus,
paradoxically as it may seem, the mind is no thing and does not exist,
whereas all 'its' elements do exist. But what is presented theoretically as
'its' elements is in reality the person's elements. As a set of a person's
mental predicates (or attributes only) no personal 'mind' can exist
independently of a body since a person is 'imself a whole with a body as
part, a whole of one body. On the other hand, a personal body always exists
with mental characteristics called "a mind" conjunctively. As soon as a body
is not part of a whole with a mental predicament, it simply is not a
person's body. And, of course, there are many bodies without a person. There
is no need tho to hypostatize persons (or other entities which have mental
properties) without a body. On the contrary, it entirely passes over the
configuration of personal beings and it detaches what belongs together,
however different in nature.



1.6.4  THE FOURTH OF FOUR LINES OF THOUGHT


In our brief survey of body and mind we have not examined the materialist
view according to which mental entities do not exist. Being convinced that
an adequate ontology must be able to distinguish persons from mere bodies,
we have supposed that the difference lies in a mental being having
nonphysical properties which a mere body by its very nature cannot have.

Secondly, we have not examined either the idealist view according to which
material, concrete or physical entities do not exist. We have supposed that
there are 'material' bodies and that there are people who have bodies of
this kind. The existential postulates of both (exclusive) materialism and
(exclusive) idealism are just too farfetched to leave us with any useful
notion of existence. In not taking the objections of this materialism and
this idealism seriously, we follow the ordinary way of speaking about
physical and mental properties, or about concrete and abstract things,
because we have no reason to deviate from that usage in this respect.

We have investigated the position of those who hold body and mind to be two
existing things, and two separate things. We have in line with this view
identified the concept of person with that of mind or soul, and also with
that of the whole or combination of body and mind or soul. In both cases
this position turned out to be untenable.

Instead of proceeding along one of these three traditional ways, we have
chosen and prepared a fourth way by founding our concept of personhood on
the attributivist interpretation of set structures, in particular those
structures which are whole/part configurations with one part only. It is on
this view that bodies and persons both exist as entities, albeit not as
separate entities since each body of the type concerned is part of a person
or mental being. And it is on this view that minds (in the sense of
nonpredicative things) do not exist, whereas mental properties and relations
do.



1.7  EXISTENCE AND THINGNESS


1.7.1  THE VOIDNESS OF THE METAPHYSICAL EVERYTHING


When someone says that (literally) 'everything' is and only can be thus or
so, 'e often does not say anything more or else than someone saying that
'nothing is or can be thus or so'. If everything is (pre)determined, then
'nothing is (pre)determined'. (This everything is to be everything, not
everything minus our feeling that we are responsible for something or not
minus our feeling that someone else is responsible for something or not
minus people's belief that someone who has committed a serious crime should
be punished for it. And if literally everything is determined, then both the
belief in determinism and in the doctrine of free will are determined, and
so is neither one.) If everything is and must be material, then 'nothing is
or can be material'; if everything is and must be ideal or mental, then
'nothing is or can be ideal or mental'. If everything is created (any
'creator' included), then 'nothing is created'; if everything is divine
(that is, if one god is everything, or if gods are everything), then
'nothing is divine'. And if everyone has a right to everything, then 'no-one
has a right to anything'. All these kinds of metaphysical everything are
void. Worlds proposed by these universal statements are 'as replete as they
are empty'.

Thought and the ability to express thought solely exist because of
distinctions made within reality, that is, by pointing out that some
entities are of type T and that other entities are not of type T. (Even
those believing in many-valued logics have to distinguish every single value
from the other values which are not that value.) It has to be borne in mind,
however, that this 'reality' is not necessarily a factual, momentary reality
but that it must be looked upon from a temporal angle, that is, thru time,
and from the point of view of 'possible worlds', that is, taking into
account what is possible and impossible as well. For example, before the
coming into being of persons or beings with mental characteristics --if
there ever was such a moment-- there were only 'material' (in the sense of
nonmental) beings, but this does not mean that the proposition everything
(in the first domain) is material did not make sense at that time. (It could
only never have been uttered by a person.) There was at that time already
the possibility of being nonmaterial, that is, mental. It is void,
metaphysical verbalism tho to say that 'everything (in the first domain) is
material' with respect to the past, the present and the future, and with
respect to the actual and all possible worlds. Then someone else might,
metaphysically speaking, as well assert that 'nothing is material' or that
'everything is ideal'.

Some theoreticians have claimed, too, that 'everything is real', others that
'everything is a dream'. But also the distinction between dream and (what is
called) 'reality' can only make sense if it is somehow made within reality
itself. The former people either say something as meaningless as nothing is
real or something that is a tautology or analytical truth adding nothing to
what we did already 'know' or could 'know'. The latter people parasitize our
(fore)knowledge of a distinction between what is 'real' and what is 'only a
dream'. That we have this knowledge, or this faculty of discerning the
'real' from the 'oneiric', entails that there is or could be such a
difference. In the first case the contention that everything is a dream is
false; in the second case everything is either 'real' in the sense of
nononeiric or a dream. Now, the latter people's suggestion was that our
world would always be and remain a dream. If it would not always remain a
dream, then, in the course of time, 'everything' is nononeiric (that is,
'real') or oneiric (that is, 'a dream'). Well, this is an experience we
--supposedly-- all have had, and in this sense the statement would be banal.
If our world was always a dream, and if there still was a real distinction
between the oneiric and the nononeiric, one or more possible worlds would
have to be nononeiric or partially nononeiric. But if our world is supposed
to be (necessarily) a dream forever, there would not (and never) be a
relation of accessibility to any other (possible) world. (The difference
between oneiric and nononeiric would be that between saying "actual at this
and every moment or impossible" and "impossible forever, whatsoever".) There
would not even be a possibility of our (actual) world being nononeiric. The
claim that everything is a dream would, then, amount to the same as saying
that 'nothing is a dream'.

Is everybody is an egoist as meaningless as nobody is an egoist? Someone
maintaining that it is not could argue that everybody is an egoist is a
statement like everybody has a heart. This is a meaningful, contingent
proposition, because, logically speaking, mammalian beings or at least
people could do without a heart. Rather than to logical necessity it would
refer to a kind of biological necessity (whatever that may be). Similarly,
it would be a biological necessity for everyone to be an egoist, altho not
strictly logically speaking. But then, biological necessity (if there is
such a thing) may apply to mammalian or human bodies; it has no immediate
bearing on persons as they are not mere (biological) bodies. While there is
already no proof as yet that all people in the universe are cordate, altho
all mammalians are, it is even not plausible that all persons would be
egoists at all times. The idea that everybody is an egoist is parasitic on
the distinction between egoism and nonegoism (not necessarily altruism) and
on our foreknowledge of this distinction. The suggestion is, in spite of the
distinction within factual and/or modal reality parasitized, that every
person or human being would always be egoistic, and would have to be
egoistic, because 'e could not be different. If this were really the case,
the distinction itself could never have been drawn and the word egoist could
never have acquired its present, everyday meaning in the first place. (If
there still is someone who maintains that 'everyone is an egoist', ask 'im
to compare 'egoists' who often derive their pleasure from helping others and
'egoists' who never derive their pleasure from helping others.)

Somewhat paradoxically one might say that material entities solely exist if
mental entities exist or can exist, and vice versa; that dreams solely exist
if (nononeiric) 'reality' exists or can exist; that egoists solely exist if
there are or could be people who are not (always) egoists. It is certainly
possible to pronounce that 'everything or everybody is material, or ideal,
or a dream, or egoistic' -- metaphysicians and exclusivist ideologues but
too eagerly do this and have done this. Even in the context of purely
formal, logical systems there is little or nothing against all entities
always being of a certain type, and not being able not to be of this type.
The crux of the matter is that such statements and doctrines keep us wholly
entangled in purely theoretical or linguistic affairs which do not lead to
any insight into reality itself whatsoever. If matter exists in a world in
which only matter exists and can exist, then the notions of existence and of
having an attribute --that kind of attribute-- become themselves devoid of
any meaning, at least devoid of having some meaning.

One definition of attribute is: nonextensional element which is common to
all members of a certain group and which is not common to anything not
belonging to that group. On this definition nonextensional elements which
were, are, will be and must be common to all things in the world are not
attributes; at the most they are universal (pseudo)predicates. Of course, it
is not totally incomprehensible that, for example, all things of the first
domain have and must have one or more elements in common, elements which are
not logically derivable from their belonging to the first domain. The point
is that we could never know these elements as such knowledge presupposes the
actual or potential existence of a difference between having and not having
these elements. Stating that being material or being ideal is such an
attribute, while still suggesting that we know what material or ideal is
then to signify, amounts to denying the possibility of a distinction on
which one epistemologically depends. (It would be something else to refuse
to make a distinction which one cannot or does not understand, like one
between the 'divine' and the 'nondivine'.)



1.7.2  PSEUDOPREDICATES


A predicate which a thing would not have, if it were not thought, talked or
written about by the person(s) thinking, talking or writing, does not
determine its character in any way. Such a predicate is merely a product of
the person's or our conception (perhaps even of our imagination) and must
not be considered a determinative predicate of the thing in question. So far
as the relation of conceiving between a person and the thing itself is
concerned, this is an asymmetrical relation with the person thinking,
talking or writing at the fundament, and with this person having the
attribute which results from derelativizing the relation. Quite a few
traditional languages distinguish feminine, neuter and masculine genders,
but this does not mean that any of these genders is determinative for the
thing it is attributed to. Also the mere fact that a thing is thought,
talked or written about now, does not mean that it does exist now or did
ever exist at all, for being thought about, being talked about and being
written about are purely conceptual predicates. When people are 'macarized',
that is, called "happy", they do not have or get any determinative predicate
on the basis of being macarized, and it certainly does not make them happy.
It is solely the people macarizing who have a real, determinative predicate
in this way. (Altho for certain religious devotees dutifully macarizing
themselves both assertions may seem to hold.)

Predicate expressions which do not designate any existing attribute or
relation but which are determinative nevertheless refer to '(determinative)
pseudopredicates'. If P is a determinative predicate which is no
pseudopredicate, then not having P is a privative (pseudo)predicate.
Privative expressions predicate privation or absence of an attribute or
relation and thus stand for nothing. They replace a certain expression or
part thereof in the particular language applied. When we define abstract as
not concrete, for instance, the statement that a certain thing is abstract
replaces the statement that it is not concrete, that is, that it lacks the
attribute of being concrete. Being abstract is, then, not a proper
attribute. Similarly, when something is dead, it does not mean that it has a
proper attribute of being dead, it means that it does not have the attribute
of living, that it is deprived of life. Being-dead is therefore a
pseudo-attribute and, strictly speaking, death does not exist. In the same
way, blindness is a privative pseudo-attribute where blind is a synonym of
sightless. Altho prefixes like a-, non- and un- may be called "privatives"
by linguists, predicate terms which begin with one of these affixes need not
refer to privative predicates by any manner of means. For example,
unhappiness has the same ontological status as happiness: they are opposites
of each other. The one predicate is not 'more privative' than the other,
just like hatred is not 'more privative' than love, and vice versa. The fact
that unhappiness was not given a positive or affirmative name in this
language, like happiness or hatred, does in no way determine its existence
or nonexistence.

Certain predicates designated by predicative expressions are improper, not
because the expression does not denote any existing predicate, but rather
because it does not denote one particular, existing predicate