No problem. I understand what it is like to have pressures on your time.

Hello -- I apologise for not replying to you. I've started a new job which means I drive to work so I can't write on the train. And I'm behind on virtually everything. It took me several months to put a curtain rail up.

More positively, I've been reading Oderberg's Real Essentialism, which goes into the nuts and bolts of hylemorphism much more deeply than Aquinas does. It's clarified some of my thinking -- and, horror, I find I've been using some terms incorrectly -- so perhaps I will be able to have a better crack at answering your question.

I will need to read through virtually the entire dispute again, so please bear with me.

First of all, I want to recall what we decided we wanted to do with this conversation. I have a particular worldview. On the basis of certain things I have said, you have come to the conclusion that my worldview is incoherent. I would like to know about any incoherencies in my worldview, so that I can try to eliminate them as far as possible. You offered to explain to me the incoherency in my worldview, for which I am very grateful; I am all the more grateful because of the amount of time you have put into this conversation. In fact, you offered at first to do something more specific, to explain the incoherency of the following belief:

the collection of things which are, directly or indirectly, detectable by our senses, is part of a closed causal system, and the behaviour of such things can, in principle, be entirely accounted for in terms of the impersonal rules governing that system.

We have now moved on a little from our specific focus on that belief, and I think you would also like to make use of other parts of my worldview, such as `there are at least two cows, which are alike in that they are both cows' and `it is possible to make sense of the practices and claims of scientists'. That is fine by me, but I would like to keep track of which parts of my worldview you are relying on in your refutation. I think the easiest way to do this is for me to formally concede, from time to time, that certain beliefs really do form a part of my worldview, and for you to then demonstrate the collective incoherence of the set of conceded beliefs. Thus right now I would like to formally concede the quote above and the two statements mentioned earlier in this paragraph. If there is anything else that you reckon I believe and that you would like me to formally concede, just ask.

With this framework in mind, let's return to the current state of the discussion.

Your argument is that drawing such a sharp line is a mistake, and that grey areas exist. Do you see the grey area as being a one-dimensional line between substance and accident? Or do you see the whole substance-accident distinction as merely a convenient way of thinking about things, but without a basis in reality? I'm just a little unclear.

In fact, I am not making an argument at all, but pointing out the fact that my worldview does not include any definition whatever of subtantiality or accidentality of properties, and I am relying on you to provide such a definition. My answer to your question depends completely on what definition of substantiality you settle on: since you have not yet settled on any definition, I cannot give a sensible reply.

Can't agree with that example, sorry. I would say, in common with Aristotle and Thomas, that someone who liked the smell of rotten eggs had an objectively defective sense of smell, or objectively defective likes and dislikes.

As selfish as I might feel recalling your generosity here, the fact is that it is the coherence of my worldview and not yours which is currently in question. Thus the details of how you consistently make sense of the idea that the pleasantness of smells is an objective matter do not enter into the current discussion.

I offer 'objects are alike' as a premise from which we can reason to the existence of forms, substance, etc, but not as a definition of substance.

It is important to disambiguate the claim `objects are alike': it could mean `there are at least two objects which are alike in some sense', which I have now conceded as part of the belief about cows mentioned a couple of paragraphs above. If that is all you need for your demonstration then we are good to go. But I think you need the stronger claim `there is an objective, precise relation called `likeness' with respect to which any two things are simply either alike or not', which I have not conceded (since it forms no part of my worldview).

you said some cases (of likeness) are clear-cut, and below say that, if two things are alike, the sequence of 1-11 holds and we must admit substantiality is objective. So it seems that we agree that substance exists objectively for some cases. Or have I misunderstood? :)

You say a few things like this, so I've just chosen one representative quote. I'm afraid you have misunderstood. What I meant was that the stronger, not-yet-conceded claim would have been enough to get an objective, precise definition of substance.

Let's look in more detail at how far we can get through 1-11 with only the weaker claim. The notion of likeness isn't even mentioned until point 11, but it is clear that in your discussion of cows you are simply using cows as a representative example of a type, or collection of like objects. But in order for the notion of types to even make sense you need the stronger version of `objects are alike'. Since you rely on the idea of cows as a type from at least point 3 onwards, your argument does not get off the ground.

The property 'has pink eye' doesn't change the fact that Daisy is a cow, which implies that there are accidental and substantial properties. It's the same as what we were saying earlier about weighing more than 1000 lbs. These are objective properties, to be sure, but don't change what the thing is.

For the sake of clarity: the idea that, for any object, there is a unique particular description of that object (such as `a cow') which tells you what that object is forms no part of my worldview. Instead, I reckon that there are typically many different descriptions, all of which say in some sense what the object is, and none of which is uniquely privileged (I'd be happy to formally concede some belief of this sort, but I'd want to take some time to come up with a precise formulation I was comfortable with).

This is nicely illustrated by a quote from Aquinas:

Hence a triangle drawn sloppily on the cracked plastic seat of a moving school bus is not as true a triangle as one drawn slowly and carefully on paper with a Rapidograph pen and a ruler. (page 33 of my copy)

My point of view is that this does not make the former object less true, because as well as being a triangle it is also a graffito, and indeed a far truer graffito than the latter object.

Miscellaneous extras:

It seems to me that an object can be identified with every property that is true about that object (or every predicate about that object); it's not merely interderivable with these properties. I'll go and think about this, though.

I can only think of a couple of things that might help you with thinking this through. The first is the fact that substance + accidents is not the same as `every property which is true about that object', which you here claim is equivalent to the object, since the former also includes the matter of the object as well as these properties. The second is an explicit account of how the two derivations (substance + accidents --> object and vice-versa) would go.

One of the properties of the object O is the property `is the object O'. The reason for mentioning this confusing tautology is that this property is included in substance + accidents (specifically, it is an accident of O) and from this fact we can immediately deduce, given the subject and the accidents, or even just this one accident, that the object has to be O. You have already explained the reverse derivation, from the object to its substance and accidents.

In any case, I don't think the alternative concept works.

However, the reply you mention having given does not show that this alternative concept is incoherent, merely that it does not contradict your claim that every cow has a formal cause. It was not intended to contradict that claim, but instead to explain what answer I would give to the question `How is that cow constituted?' instead of the answer you suggest, namely `substance + accidents'. Again, if you want me to formally concede that some belief like the one I described forms part of my worldview so that we can address the question of whether (together with the other conceded beliefs) it is incoherent, then I will happily do so.

Apologies for the very belated reply. It's a combination of busy-ness and disorganisation.

Sorry for taking so long to respond. As I said before, I am deferring any discussion of ontology vs. epistemology to a later comment. I want to devote the heart of this comment to a discussion of what I see as the most important current issue: how to find an objective distinction between those properties that belong to the substance of an object and those which do not. But before doing that, I think it is necessary to deal with a question you raised about objectivity.

Fair enough. Just to check we understand each other: my claim is that objects have properties that are substantial, and properties that are accidental; and that there's no grey area. (But our knowledge may well have grey areas and outright mistakes. Hence my constant rabbiting on about grey areas existing in our knowledge (e'ology), but not in reality (ontology).)

Your argument is that drawing such a sharp line is a mistake, and that grey areas exist. Do you see the grey area as being a one-dimensional line between substance and accident? Or do you see the whole substance-accident distinction as merely a convenient way of thinking about things, but without a basis in reality? I'm just a little unclear.

You asked whether the sentences `I agree that some things are obviously invented and others are obviously discovered' and `Once more, I think of the invented/discovered distinction as vague and subjective' contradict each other. The claim of vagueness is merely a repetition of my claim that there is a large grey area, which I pointed out in the intervening sentences. So I am assuming that it is the claim of subjectivity which you see as in contradiction to the earlier sentence.
Subjectivity means dependence of the appropriate standards of judgment on the particular subject making the judgment. Thus each person judges smells according to their own taste, and so whether or not a smell is pleasant is a subjective matter. Nevertheless, because of regularities in the structure of subjects, there are some subjective claims which essentially all subjects will agree with, such as the claim that rotten eggs smell unpleasant. So it is perfectly possible for some subjective judgments to be, in this way, obvious.

Can't agree with that example, sorry. I would say, in common with Aristotle and Thomas, that someone who liked the smell of rotten eggs had an objectively defective sense of smell, or objectively defective likes and dislikes. But I really don't think we should get into that discussion at this precise moment :)

Now we can come to the question of an objective criterion for substantiality of properties. As I understand it, you are currently suggesting that we can get to such a criterion from the notion of likeness. I think you are claiming that a property of an object belongs to the substance of that object precisely when the property is also possessed by all other objects alike to that object.

It's a little more subtle than that. It's 'that which objects share by virtue of being objects of that type'. I offer 'objects are alike' as a premise from which we can reason to the existence of forms, substance, etc, but not as a definition of substance. Please see next paragraph.

I agree that if likeness is an objective matter then this gives an objective account of substantiality. But as perhaps you might expect, I see the question of whether two things are alike as subjective (though as for naturalness, I don't deny the existence of certain cases which are clear-cut). I see the question of whether two things are alike as depending on the reason for comparing them. Thus whilst Daisy and Bessie are alike for most purposes, a vet specialising in opthalmology might find Daisy unlike Bessie and instead like Marilyn for her purposes, since both Daisy and Marilyn suffer from pink eye but Bessie doesn't.

Certainly, different things about an object will interest us at different times. But this, I suggest, does nothing to undermine my argument. For his purposes, a vet is happy to ignore the finer points about what a thing is (a breed of cow), and instead concern himself with a property it may have (bad eye). But while the property of having pink eye might interest him at a particular moment, and while two cows might have this property in common, it does nothing to change the fact that all three of the objects are cows. Nor does it make me the same thing as Daisy when I get pink-eye.

If anything, this proves my point. The property 'has pink eye' doesn't change the fact that Daisy is a cow, which implies that there are accidental and substantial properties. It's the same as what we were saying earlier about weighing more than 1000 lbs. These are objective properties, to be sure, but don't change what the thing is.

Further, you said some cases (of likeness) are clear-cut, and below say that, if two things are alike, the sequence of 1-11 holds and we must admit substantiality is objective. So it seems that we agree that substance exists objectively for some cases. Or have I misunderstood? :)

On the other hand, there are certain ways in which things can be alike (such as `having the same mass' or `being of the same species' for animals) which are perfectly objective. I think that these particular objective kinds of likeness are enough to allow me to escape the radical skepticism and serious difficulties with making sense of the natural sciences which you suggest might be forced on me.

I'm not so sure. A cow and a car might have the same mass (or differ by an amount so small that it's impossible to measure), but they're not thereby the same thing. Daisy's and Bessie's masses might differ by 10% or more, but they're still the same thing. Your position would seem to imply that there are no differences between these types of likeness, except what we choose for our purposes. This would make the natural sciences quite problematic.

Miscellaneous other issues:
>> Yep, that's about right. All objects in material reality are 'compound' objects of form and matter. A facet (or element) of their existence is form, and a facet is matter.
>Thanks for confirming this. What I was hoping for was some clarification of the way in which these facets should be combined to obtain the object.

Ah, gotcha.

I don't know that they can 'be combined'. An object just is a combination of these two things, for the reason I think I gave above: The form is what gives it its likeness with objects of the same type, and its matter is what makes it a different object from objects of the same type. The matter can't exist without the form, because matter always is some thing.

Obviously it's not a physical or chemical process of combination, in the way that hydrogen and oxygen can be combined to produce water. Nor is it the same as 'combining' 2 and 2 in a logical way to make 4. In a way it's something in between these two things. It's like a physical process of combination in that it involves material things, and can undergo change (because when a thing goes out of existence, by definition, the combination has come to an end). But it's like a mathematical sum in that it's a logically necessary combination, one that must be true by definition if objects are alike yet distinct.

Hopefully this answers your question.

>> All properties of O either do or do not have quality Q; this is a matter of logical certainty. Q, in this case, is something that exists: it is the quality of being part of the object’s substance, or the quality of sharing something with other objects that are Os. Every Q is either part of the substance, or not part of the substance and therefore part of the accident.
O must therefore necessarily be identified as a combination of its substance and its accidents, just as (if I understand correctly) a circle must be identified as 'all the points that are distance D from point P on a 2d plane'.
> This does not in fact follow. Indeed, it is not clear that there is any need to consider the properties of an object as elements of that object rather than things which are true of it. I hope the alternative account of the constitution of cows I gave in my last long comment makes that clear, since on that account the properties of the cow are not elements of it at all.

I'm not sure how it doesn't follow; it's quite possible I've worded it badly. Could you explain? It seems to me that an object can be identified with every property that is true about that object (or every predicate about that object); it's not merely interderivable with these properties. I'll go and think about this, though.

In any case, I don't think the alternative concept works. You said:

> So what alternative account would I give of the constitution of a cow? I would say that the cow consists of some matter, arranged in a certain way. If pressed on the point of what this arrangement consists of, I would say it consists of various simple facts, such as `this hydrogen atom is 7.38 nanometers from that oxygen atom'. Note that this is rather different from the form of the cow: all of these facts are accidents, and they are not even properties of the cow itself but relations between its constituent atoms.

To which I replied:

I don't see how this affects my argument, though. We both agree that cows are made of so many hydrogen, oxygen, carbons atoms, arranged such-and-such a distance from each other. This doesn't change the fact (that [I thought] we agree on) that two cows are the same thing. I suggest that, from this, it logically follows that they share a form, and have outlined my argument for this above (1 - 11). I don't see how putting a particular cow under an electron microscope changes anything in this argument. Describing a thing's material cause in more detail, which is a process of the empirical sciences, doesn't disprove or cast doubt on its having a formal cause, whose existence (or not) is a question of logic.

I see no reason to change this.

>> Do you think this, along with my sequence of 1-11, is logical? If not, where does the logic break down?
> I concede 1-11 etc. as showing that if likeness is objective then so is substantiality. I don't agree that likeness is objective.

Ok. I thought we were agreed that two cows were the same thing, whatever explanation we might use for this. And above you seem to suggest that some cases of likeness are clear-cut, which would seem to concede the case. But perhaps I've misunderstood?

I'm very happy to talk through the consequences of likeness's not being objective, in any case.

I haven't read through your other comment yet -- please give me a little more time :)

Thanks for your replies, and sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I'll do my best to give a full answer to both comments by the middle of next week!

I've finally managed to finish my discussion of ontology and epistemology, and I am eagerly looking forward to hearing your response to it and my last comment.

After thinking about how to explain clearly and quickly my point of view on the interplay between ontology and epistemology, I've settled on a particular thought experiment. The trouble is that it is superficially similar to something that David Nickol said, so I want to first of all make explicit the way I disagree with him, so that you don't confuse our views. Unlike David, I think that `is a cow' is an objective property: it is an objective matter whether any given thing in the world is a cow or not. But I think that the fact I outlined in the last sentence is a contingent fact about the world, as I hope the following thought experiment will make clear.

Current evidence suggests that 60 million years ago there lived an animal, whom I will call Evie, who was a common ancestor of cows, hippos and whales. Let us imagine that, through some freak of genetics, Evie obtained a gene which overrode the aging process. So Evie and her descendents did not grow old and die, but remained alive until they died of natural causes: indeed, many of them did not die at all, but remain alive today. To make the picture concrete, let us imagine that the WWF have managed to gather descendants of Evie from almost every generation in the line leading to modern cattle, and have converted the state of Texas into a giant sanctuary for all of them (my calculations suggest it would just about be big enough). Evie herself is in this sanctuary, grazing happily alongside Bessie, Daisy and Marilyn.

My claim is that in this imaginary world there is no clear way to draw the line between cows and non-cows. Evie is not a cow and Bessie is, but where along the line is the transition? My view is that the question of where to draw the line would, in that world, be a subjective one.

How, then, can I make the claim that, given the way the world really is, the distinction between cows and non-cows is not subjective but objective? The reason is that there is a large collection of objective properties (related to size, shape, physiology and genetic makeup) which are almost always found together and never found alone, so that any of a number of similar tests based on these properties would allow us to distinguish between cows and non-cows. Or, as I put it more informally in my earlier comment: we almost never encounter arrangements of matter which look, sound, smell and act like cows but in fact are not cows.

However, since my claim that `is a cow' is an objective property relies on this contingent feature of the world, it is itself a contingent claim. Here is a summary of my position: to support the ontology of a complex property, the world must have the contingent feature that the epistemological distinction between things that have the property and things that don't must be robust. But this is often the case, so there are many objective complex properties.

It is this requirement of robust epistemology which I hope allows me to avoid your objection to David Nickol:

Surely if something is what it is only because a human classifies it that way, then there's nothing intrinsically wrong with classifying a cow as a dog?

The fact that there is no collection of correlated simple objective properties which hold almost universally for dogs and for just one (or a few) cows is what makes it objectively silly to classify a cow as a dog.

Sorry for taking so long to respond. As I said before, I am deferring any discussion of ontology vs. epistemology to a later comment. I want to devote the heart of this comment to a discussion of what I see as the most important current issue: how to find an objective distinction between those properties that belong to the substance of an object and those which do not. But before doing that, I think it is necessary to deal with a question you raised about objectivity.

You asked whether the sentences `I agree that some things are obviously invented and others are obviously discovered' and `Once more, I think of the invented/discovered distinction as vague and subjective' contradict each other. The claim of vagueness is merely a repetition of my claim that there is a large grey area, which I pointed out in the intervening sentences. So I am assuming that it is the claim of subjectivity which you see as in contradiction to the earlier sentence.

Subjectivity means dependence of the appropriate standards of judgment on the particular subject making the judgment. Thus each person judges smells according to their own taste, and so whether or not a smell is pleasant is a subjective matter. Nevertheless, because of regularities in the structure of subjects, there are some subjective claims which essentially all subjects will agree with, such as the claim that rotten eggs smell unpleasant. So it is perfectly possible for some subjective judgments to be, in this way, obvious.

Now we can come to the question of an objective criterion for substantiality of properties. As I understand it, you are currently suggesting that we can get to such a criterion from the notion of likeness. I think you are claiming that a property of an object belongs to the substance of that object precisely when the property is also possessed by all other objects alike to that object.

I agree that if likeness is an objective matter then this gives an objective account of substantiality. But as perhaps you might expect, I see the question of whether two things are alike as subjective (though as for naturalness, I don't deny the existence of certain cases which are clear-cut). I see the question of whether two things are alike as depending on the reason for comparing them. Thus whilst Daisy and Bessie are alike for most purposes, a vet specialising in opthalmology might find Daisy unlike Bessie and instead like Marilyn for her purposes, since both Daisy and Marilyn suffer from pink eye but Bessie doesn't.

On the other hand, there are certain ways in which things can be alike (such as `having the same mass' or `being of the same species' for animals) which are perfectly objective. I think that these particular objective kinds of likeness are enough to allow me to escape the radical skepticism and serious difficulties with making sense of the natural sciences which you suggest might be forced on me.

Miscellaneous other issues:

Yep, that's about right. All objects in material reality are 'compound' objects of form and matter. A facet (or element) of their existence is form, and a facet is matter.

Thanks for confirming this. What I was hoping for was some clarification of the way in which these facets should be combined to obtain the object.

All properties of O either do or do not have quality Q; this is a matter of logical certainty. Q, in this case, is something that exists: it is the quality of being part of the object’s substance, or the quality of sharing something with other objects that are Os. Every Q is either part of the substance, or not part of the substance and therefore part of the accident.

O must therefore necessarily be identified as a combination of its substance and its accidents, just as (if I understand correctly) a circle must be identified as 'all the points that are distance D from point P on a 2d plane'.

This does not in fact follow. Indeed, it is not clear that there is any need to consider the properties of an object as elements of that object rather than things which are true of it. I hope the alternative account of the constitution of cows I gave in my last long comment makes that clear, since on that account the properties of the cow are not elements of it at all.

Do you think this, along with my sequence of 1-11, is logical? If not, where does the logic break down?

I concede 1-11 etc. as showing that if likeness is objective then so is substantiality. I don't agree that likeness is objective.

Sure, by all means suggest something [to read], and I'll do my best.

Thanks! I'd like to suggest that you read the sequence of blog posts which can be found at http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ . Although I by no means agree with everything on that blog, or even in that sequence, I think that there are some helpful insights there which are relevant to our discussion. I would be happy to hear your comments on these posts.

If you have any questions about Aquinas, by all means shout. A near-beginner like me might be more help than a professional philosopher like Feser.

None as yet, but thanks for the kind offer. If I get stuck on anything I will certainly ask.

Sure, by all means suggest something, and I'll do my best. :)

If you have any questions about Aquinas, by all means shout. A near-beginner like me might be more help than a professional philosopher like Feser.

I will try and write something clearer by the weekend.

Understand what you say about substance/forms vs epistemology/ontology, but I think they're linked, only because I suggest there are no grey areas in the ontological makeup of something, only in what we know. But happy to hear your thoughts.

When we think of different hierarchies of realities, we must think beyond the material realities. At this point, we can then see the internal consistency of Thomas' reason why God must be simple. In the immaterial reality, the simpler a being is, the closer that being is to God (e.g. seraphs vs guardian angels). Thus, simpler realities tend to cause more complex ones. I think this argument can be extended to material realities. In the context of complexity science, simple rules can result to complex dynamics. Thus, as would Prof. Hawking would agree, you only need the Gravitation as the cause of the Universe. For those who believe in TOE / GUT, that theory must be the cause of the Universe. It's simple! What if this God must have caused the Laws of Nature (Gravity, Hawking, and Dawkins included), would He need be complex? Perhaps He just can think complex creations being Infinite Creativity?

An extension must be made about how God sustains the reality of the Universe, and all his Creation. But this is not the issue at hand.

Identical because we (read: no science) cannot distinguish that situation to that when these two bosons are swapped. But when we say, "the same" as in "one and the same" they are not. One can annihilate the boson in your table but not result to annihilation of that one in my kitchen floor.

In science identity is different from distinguishability.