134
5.3 A philosophical interlude
The analysis developed so far about properties has been mainly technical, aimed at
setting a conceptual framework for interpreting the Basic Evaluation Equation
property of an object value of a property
=
In fact, such an interpretation has an unavoidable (though possibly only implicit)
philosophical background. Given a Basic Evaluation Equation such as
length rod a
>
@ 1 2345
.
m
one may claim, for example, that this is just a sophisticated linguistic shorthand
for reporting something about the relation between two objects, rod a and an
object that in some primitive sense is attributed “to be one metre”, or possibly “to
have one metre”, but that there is nothing in the world that corresponds to, let alone the and
32
However, a Basic Evaluation Equation could be instead interpreted literally, as
reporting a relation between entities—properties of objects and values of properties—that exist in the world, of course with respect to a given mode of existence,
as discussed in Box 5.1.
The subject is so fundamental for any ontology (see references in Footnote 5)
that we will not feign to provide any original contribution to this discussion. We
conclude this chapter simply by discussing why we support a realist position about
individual properties, while postponing to Sect. 6.6 the more complex analysis of
the existence of general properties.
5.3.1 Do individual properties exist?
Even if the experimental issues regarding the indistinguishability of properties of
objects are somehow settled, there remains a general ontological problem. Let us
suppose that the repeated application of the best available means of comparison has
been unable to find any difference between the properties of two objects, so that
according to the available information the indistinguishability relation P[a i ] ≈ P[a j ]
could be in fact considered an equality, P[a i ] = P[a j ]: How should such a relation be
interpreted?
32 Depending on how radical (or consistent) this position is, one could say the same about objects:
the world is in principle an undifferentiated blob, and objects are only conceptual constructions we
provide for understanding the world.
5 What is measured?
5.3 A philosophical interlude
The analysis developed so far about properties has been mainly technical, aimed at
setting a conceptual framework for interpreting the Basic Evaluation Equation
property of an object value of a property
=
In fact, such an interpretation has an unavoidable (though possibly only implicit)
philosophical background. Given a Basic Evaluation Equation such as
length rod a
>
@ 1 2345
.
m
one may claim, for example, that this is just a sophisticated linguistic shorthand
for reporting something about the relation between two objects, rod a and an
object that in some primitive sense is attributed “to be one metre”, or possibly “to
have one metre”, but that there is nothing in the world that corresponds to
32
However, a Basic Evaluation Equation could be instead interpreted literally, as
reporting a relation between entities—properties of objects and values of properties—that exist in the world, of course with respect to a given mode of existence,
as discussed in Box 5.1.
The subject is so fundamental for any ontology (see references in Footnote 5)
that we will not feign to provide any original contribution to this discussion. We
conclude this chapter simply by discussing why we support a realist position about
individual properties, while postponing to Sect. 6.6 the more complex analysis of
the existence of general properties.
5.3.1 Do individual properties exist?
Even if the experimental issues regarding the indistinguishability of properties of
objects are somehow settled, there remains a general ontological problem. Let us
suppose that the repeated application of the best available means of comparison has
been unable to find any difference between the properties of two objects, so that
according to the available information the indistinguishability relation P[a i ] ≈ P[a j ]
could be in fact considered an equality, P[a i ] = P[a j ]: How should such a relation be
interpreted?
32 Depending on how radical (or consistent) this position is, one could say the same about objects:
the world is in principle an undifferentiated blob, and objects are only conceptual constructions we
provide for understanding the world.
5 What is measured?