Abstract
States of affairs are unified complexes that are instantiations of properties or relations by particulars.
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Notes
- 1.
Strictly speaking, first-order states of affairs and, strictly speaking, atomic states of affairs. States of affairs that are not first-order, i.e. higher-order states of affairs, are either (i) instantiations of higher-order properties and relations by properties or relations of lower order, or (ii) instantiations of properties and relations by other states of affairs (cf. Sects. 5.4 and 5.5). We shall encounter higher-order states of affairs only in passing, but everything I say about their first-order counterparts arguably applies, mutatis mutandis, to them. As to states of affairs that are not atomic, i.e. molecular states of affairs, I shall argue in Chap. 2 that they do not exist.
- 2.
For convenience of exposition, I generally employ one and the same term, ‘state of affairs ontology’ (without grammatical variation), to cover slightly different senses. On the one hand, I use it to mean the ‘discipline’ belonging to metaphysics that deals with states of affairs, analogously to the singular noun ‘quantum theory’ in physics; on the other, I use it to mean a particular ontology (or a range of ontologies) of states of affairs, cf. the plural term ‘quantum theories’. The reader may choose his or her preferred meaning depending on the context.
- 3.
States of affairs in my sense are ‘worldly’ entities. As is well known, the term ‘state of affairs’, like its cousin ‘fact’, has been, and is, used in many different ways in philosophy (for a historical overview, see Smith 1992). The chief division of these ways is between those meaning, on the one hand, (1) worldly items like states of affairs in my sense; and on the other, (2) ‘propositions’. Russell (1918) and Wittgenstein (1921) are the most famous proponents of worldly states of affairs. Also, according to most Meinong scholars, Meinong recognized them (Grossmann 1974, pp. 94ff; cf. Tegtmeier 2000b). Some philosophers, especially—but not exclusively—those who use the term ‘fact’ to mean ‘true proposition’ (e.g. Bennett 1988; cf. Frege 1956, p. 307), use ‘proposition’ and ‘states of affairs’ co-extensively, such that a fact is said to be a state of affairs that ‘obtains’ and a false proposition a state of affairs that ‘does not obtain’. The word ‘fact’ plays an important role in ordinary language, where it is neutral between the worldly sense of (1) and the propositional sense of (2); or rather, one can find evidence that suggests both. In particular, (2) seems to be supported by the common ‘fact that’-locution. Strawson (1950, p. 136) insisted on this as an argument for the true nature of facts: facts are ‘wedded’ to ‘that’-clauses and are what statements, when true, state, not what they are about, he claimed; Austin (1954), however, argued that ordinary language provides most evidence for (1). However, many semantically orientated philosophers who often, though not always, are concerned with (2) to the neglect of (1)—frequently, like Strawson, without being aware of the genuineness of the latter—believe that the notorious ‘slingshot’ argument (for an influential version of it, see Davidson 1969) shows that states of affairs (facts) are untenable—although the argument in my view clearly does not survive Hochberg’s criticism (1984). In any case, I shall assume that neither philosophers concerned mainly or exclusively with (2) nor semantically orientated approaches to states of affairs, such as those who take seriously the ‘slingshot’ argument, are germane to our purposes.
- 4.
As we shall see (Sect. 7.1), Keith Campbell, a leading trope theorist, is a foundationist (1999). The argument for his position is remarkably a posteriori. By contrast, for a case for foundationism from a priori considerations, viz. ontology of wholes (of relata) and truthmaking theory, see Parsons (2009).
- 5.
For advanced attempts at employing in the philosophy of time a state of affairs ontology congenial to mine, see Mellor (1998). Personally, I am inclined towards the endurantist position with times as constituents of states of affairs. This view fits in nicely with construing events as a species of states of affairs, see Tegtmeier (2000a); cf. Meinertsen (2000).
- 6.
I refrain from using ‘contingent’ as an alternative to ‘mereological’ in this extended sense. For this would be ambiguous between the modality of the complex and that of its constituents, since some or all of the constituents of a non-mereological complex can prima facie exist necessarily (e.g. the constituents of the state of affairs of temperance’s being rarer than gluttony, if, as some claim, properties exist necessarily), and some or all of the constituents of a mereological complex can obviously exist contingently (e.g. the sum of the Eiffel Tower and the longest hair on Napoleon’s head).
- 7.
But it can of course also be defined in a more general way: how can any entity (including a ‘repeatable’) have (higher-order) properties or relations?
- 8.
Moreover, the problem of instantiation may be further complicated by the distinction between ‘having’ and ‘sharing’ properties, cf. Cumpa (2014).
- 9.
I find it unsurprising that Armstrong never attempted this, for it is arguably impossible if properties and relations are universals. By contrast, it is, I believe, possible if they are tropes (Simons 1981).
- 10.
Strictly speaking, a relation which is not irreflexive. However, for our purposes, the difference between ‘reflexive' and ‘not irreflexive' can be ignored.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
For an ingenious formal argument against it, see Vallicella (2016b, pp. 238–239). I happen to think the argument fails, but it would take us too far afield to discuss it here.
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Meinertsen, B.R. (2018). Introduction. In: Metaphysics of States of Affairs. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 136. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3068-1_1
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