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The properties colored and red stand in a special relation. Namely, red is a determinate of colored, and colored is determinable relative to red. Many other
properties are similarly related. The determination relation is an interesting
topic of logical investigation in its own right, and the prominent philosophical inquiries into this relation have, accordingly, operated at a high level of
abstraction.1 It is time to return to these investigations, not just as a logical
amusement, but for the payoffs such investigation can yield in solving some
basic metaphysical problems. The goal in what follows is twofold. First, I
argue for a novel understanding of the determination relation. Second, this
understanding is applied to yield insights into property instance (e.g., trope)
individuation, how different property types can share an instance, the relation between property types and property instances, as well as applications
to causation (mental causation, in particular).
1. Criteria for a Successful Analysis
The determination relation holds between property types. A successful analysis of this relation should accord with the following truisms about determinables and their determinates:
1. The following canonical pairs must turn out to be related as determinable
to determinate: colored/red, red/scarlet, and shaped/circular. The first
two examples show that properties are determinables or determinates only
relative to other properties. Red is determinable relative to scarlet, but
determinate relative to colored.
2. For an object to have a determinate property is for that object to have
the determinable properties the determinate falls under in a specific way.
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C 2006, Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
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3.
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For example, being scarlet is a specific way of being red, and being
red is a specific way of being colored. This notion of specificity with
regard to determinables-determinates can be compared and contrasted
with other standard specificity relationse.g., the disjunction-disjunct,
conjunct-conjunction and genus-species relations.
An object instantiating a determinable must also instantiate some determinate under that determinable. Colored objects must be red or yellow or
blue, etc. No object is merely colored simpliciter.2
An object instantiating a determinate also necessarily instantiates every
determinable that determinate falls under. Every scarlet object is also red
and colored.
The determination relation is transitive, asymmetric and irreflexive. Since
scarlet determines3 red and red determines colored, scarlet determines
colored. But since scarlet determines red, red does not determine scarlet.
Furthermore, scarlet, like all properties, does not determine itself.4
Determinates under the same determinable admit of comparison in a way
unavailable to pairs of properties with no determinable in common.5 For
example, an ordering or similarity relation obtains between determinate
colorse.g., red is closer to orange than it is to green.6 But no such comparison can be made between red and, say, circular.
The transitive chain of a determinable and the determinates under it does
not go on forever. At some point there is a property that does not allow of further determination. Call such a property super-determinate.
Coca-Cola red might be a super-determinate of colored. Similarly, the
chain of determinables a determinate falls under comes to an end somewhere. Let us call a determinable property that itself falls under no determinables super-determinable. Colored and shaped might be superdeterminable.
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determinate of red is red in a particular way. Redness, like any color, can
only be determined with respect to hue, brightness, and saturation. These
are the minimally sufficient criteria according to which all colors can be
distinguished from one another. Colors differ to the extent, and only to the
extent, that they differ in hue, brightness, or saturation. As such, these are
the three variables along which colors can be determined. As Johnson noted:
Our familiar example of colour will explain the point: a colour may vary according to its hue, brightness, and saturation; so that the precise determination of a
colour requires us to define three variables which are more or less independent
of one another in their capacity for co-variation; but in one important sense
they are not independent of one another, since they could not be manifested in
separation.14
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Determination Dimensions
Triangular
3 side lengths
Colored
Temperature
degree
Mass
Snapping
???
We can run through some examples to see why the above properties are
determined along these features only.
Triangle A and triangle B have the same 3 side lengths as measured according to some metric. At most one triangle can be formed from 3 given
side lengths, so we know that these triangles do not differ in their interior
angle measurements. All geometric and trigonometric facts about a triangle
can be derived from the 3 side lengths. With only the information that A
and B are triangles with the same side lengths, we can appropriately conclude that A and B do not differ in their triangularity. Even if the realization
bases of these triangles differ in mass, transparency, material constitution,
color, or some other feature, they do not differ in triangularity. This shows
that mass, transparency, material constitution, color, etc. are not dimensions
along which triangular is determined.
A childhood riddle asks, Which weighs more: a pound of feathers or a
pound of gold? Of course, they weigh the same. We should take this very
seriously. The feathers and gold in no way differ in weight, though they
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by the fact that the property snapping is less scientific than these others. One
hypothesis is that the scientifically legitimate properties, the kind that really
back causal judgments, are either determinable along precise dimensions or
are super-determinate. It would then be inappropriate to worry about the
identity of snapping instances, as they are not legitimate causes.
While hints of our notion of a determination dimension can be found in
Johnson and Prior, neither develops such a notion (nor the complementary
notion of a non-determinable necessity). We have seen that limiting determination to our determination dimensions accords well with our ordinary
judgments about determinables, as well as their scientific applications. It is
now time to put this two-featured view of determinables to work.
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dimension representing that sides length. The schema for the determination
dimensions of shaped might be as follows: the determination dimensions for
a given shape property will be the minimal dimensions by which the number
of sides, their lengths, and their interior angles can be distinguished. Shaped
itself, the super-determinable, spans all compossible values for number of
sides, side lengths, and interior angles. Its determinates are limited values
along these 3 schematic determination dimensions (e.g., roughly, square corresponds to 4 sides, of any equal lengths, at closed right angles); precise
values for the number of sides, side lengths, and interior angles represent
super-determinate shape properties. This shows that the subset relation, in
this case as applied to schematic determination dimensions, is the key relation
in our analysis.
While we cannot construct a simple n-dimensional model of the property
space for shaped, we still can provide an analysis of determination that covers shaped and other properties that are difficult, if not impossible, to model
mathematically. The general idea is that super-determinables come with limited determination dimensions, or a schema for producing such determination
dimensions, which span a range of values. Determinates are simply properties that fall under the (schematic) determination dimensions of some determinable, but have determination dimension values that span a proper subset
of the determinables range. As with the mathematically modeled properties,
being a proper subset of is the critical relation. We can then provide the
following necessary and sufficient conditions for determination:
Property B determines property A iff: 1) property A and property B have the
same determination dimensions (or are governed by the same determination dimensions schema), 2) property B has the non-determinable necessities of property A, and 3) the range of determination dimension values for B is a proper
subset of the range of determination dimension values for A.23
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subtraction.25 Strip away the balls color, hardness, and all its other features,
until you are left with only its weight.
But are these property instances particular or universal? While this analysis
could be adapted to the needs of the believer in universals, as stated it best
coheres with a trope ontology. This is because the present model explains
how different property types, namely a determinable and its determinate,
can share an instance. So, an instance of red can be identical to an instance
of scarlet. But, universals are supposed to be wholly present, and strictly
identical, in each of their instances. An instance of red can also be identical to
an instance of crimson. However, an instance of crimson cannot be identical
to, or even exactly resemble, an instance of scarlet. But a commitment to
(Aristotelian) universals and the transitivity of identity would require this.
The believer in universals can accept the present model only at the expense
of according determinable property types a lesser status, as in the manner of
Armstrongs denial of determinable universals.26
In what follows I will simply assume that property instances are tropes.
There are several independent reasons for accepting a trope ontology, none
of which will be discussed here.27 For those not yet willing to accept tropes,
the present view is offered as a theory with great explanatory merit. If our
property space analysis can account for the 8 desiderata of the determinabledeterminate relation (given in section 1), while also explaining other traditional features of properties (e.g., an understanding of how properties are
related to their instances), then we have made a strong, indirect case for
tropes.
2.5. Individuating Property Instances
Utilizing our property space models, we can now provide criteria for individuating property instances (tropes). Borrowing familiar notation, let us
schematize property instances as follows: [(O, t), P].28 This is to be read as
Os having/being P at t. O is an object or spatial location, t a time (span),
and P a property type. Such property instances occur if, and only if, O really
is P at t. One such property instance might be Toms shirt being scarlet at
noon. Because of problems with individuating objects (e.g., is Toms shirt
identical to the cloth that constitutes that shirt?), it might be thought easier to understand O as standing for a spatial location. Further, the spatial
and temporal components could be combined. Though we might individuate
tropes by their spatial-temporal location in this way, I prefer to speak of
objects (as opposed to the spatial-temporal regions themselves) as, generally,
instantiating tropes. For many properties it is an empirical matter whether
their instances exclude one another from a given location (i.e., at most one instance of that property can exist wholly in a given spatial-temporal region).
So, it would be inappropriate to build such exclusion into our individuating conditions for property instances in general. Putting these complications
aside, let us continue to use the more familiar object-time schematization.
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These conditions yield the desired result that Toms shirt being scarlet at
noon is identical to Toms shirt being red at noon.
One could complain against these conditions that at most we have shown
that determinables share instances with their determinates. However, with
our trope identity conditions we claim that only determinables and determinates can share an instance. What justifies this further claim? The answer is
short. Each trope corresponds to a unique point in its determinables property
spaces, so each trope has its non-determinable necessities and determination
dimensions essentially. Most properties will fall under some determinable.
Even if they do not, they are some kind of abstractions, with their own accompanying determination dimensions. In extreme cases, there are properties
that fall under no determinables and have no determinates themselves. Instead, they possess a property space that consists simply of a point. (Recall
from section 2.2, a point is still a property space.) A fictional example of
such a property, for some particle, would be on. A particle that is on interacts with other particles in predictable ways, but there are no varieties of
on-ness and no broader category (i.e., determinable) that on falls under.
Still, this property is some abstraction, with an unanalyzable determination
dimension. I take it that some microphysical properties are really like on in
this regard.
Furthermore, tropes are abstract particulars, and they do not possess any
features apart from those given by their non-determinable necessities and
determination dimensions. For example, mass tropes do not have color. But
tropes of types not related as determinable-determinate differ in at least one
determination dimension (i.e., they do not share the same property space).
Since tropes across property spaces differ in the possession of at least one
such determination dimension, they cannot be identical. So, properties with
property spaces not related as determinable-determinate cannot share an
instance.
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state P 1 and Jills in physical state P 2 . These differences are simply irrelevant
as far as our psychological generalizations go. And there is nothing peculiar
about this game show example. Any psychological law relating that belief
to another mental state or to action would be indifferent to the physical
hardware. And this observation generalizes to other mental states: content,
attitude, phenomenology and similar psychological-level features are the only
determination dimensions for mental properties.
On this understanding, believing that p is similar to our earlier examples
of triangular and mass in that the material constitution is not a determination
dimension for any of them. Just as a steel triangle can have the exact same
triangularity (i.e., side lengths) as a wooden triangle, and a steel ball can have
the exact same mass as a wooden block, Jacks belief (in physical hardware
P 1 ) can have the exact same belief-ness as Jills belief (in physical hardware
P 2 ).
Some might reject our conclusion and insist that the physical realization of
a belief is a determination dimension on par with content and attitude toward
that content. Others, more moderately, may opt for an agnosticism that leaves
them open to the possibility of an empirical reduction of folk-psychological
kinds to, say, neuroscientific kinds. This raises a general concern about our
approach. Surely some reductions have occurred in the history of science.
In cases of reduction the properties of some science, with their distinctive
determination dimensions, are identified with the properties of some more
basic science, with different determination dimensions. But, it seems that the
present approach would rule this out, as difference in determination dimensions is difference in properties. How is reduction possible on this model?
And given that reduction is possible, how can we be confident that the folkpsychological and neuroscientific property spaces are not such a case?
Discovering determination dimensions is an empirical matter and, as such,
folk-psychological reduction cannot be ruled out a priori. There is not enough
space to present a full explanation of reduction of property spaces here, but let
us sketch a picture of how reduction of property spaces is to be understood.
It is (or was) epistemically possible that the property spaces of higher-level
sciences, like psychology, would be supplemented with the determination
dimensions of a lower-level science. Or, the higher-level determination dimensions (epistemically) could even be completely replaced in favor of the
lower-level determination dimensions. Applying this point to our example,
the folk-psychological determination dimensions (epistemically) could have
been supplemented with physical realizer determination dimensions, or (epistemically) could even have been replaced in favor of purely neuroscientific
determination dimensions.
The critical question is: What would justify such supplementation or replacement? Supplementation would be justified if the predictive and/or explanatory powers of the higher-level science could be increased by adding
lower-level determination dimensions, without too great a loss in simplicity
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and generalizability of the higher-level laws. This last clause reveals that we
are dealing with vague standards. Of course we could gain more accurate predictions of human movement by utilizing the determination dimensions of
chemistry, but doing so would involve us in complexities that folk-psychology
can conveniently overlook. Though it is an empirical matter, it seems that
the details needed to increase the predictive and/or explanatory powers of
folk-psychology would come at too great a cost to the generalizability of such
laws. Replacement would be justified if the generalizations of the higher-level
laws could be captured purely in terms of the determination dimensions of
a lower-level science, where these lower-level determination dimensions have
proved their worth with respect to other predictive/explanatory tasks. This is
another empirical issue, but it again seems that the robust patterns picked out
by the laws of folk-psychology cannot be captured utilizing only lower-level
categorizations. In this sense, the special science and their property spaces
are autonomous.
It is important to note that on this picture of property spaces and reduction, the properties are out there in the world, with determination dimensions to be discovered. There is not necessarily a property corresponding
to each possible combination of determination dimensions we can concoct.
In more familiar terms, there is not necessarily a property corresponding to
every possible predicate.
Can anything else be said about the irreducibility of psychology, apart
from what has already been said about the laws of psychology being blind
to the implementation details? Ironically, one of Yablos explicit premises in
arguing for the physical determining the mentalmultiple realizabilityis
sufficient to show that the physical does not determine the mental. Further,
the multiple realizability of the mental in the physical is almost universally
held by philosophers, so a non-determination conclusion should be widely
accepted. The amazingly simple argument goes as follows.38 When we say
that the mental is multiply realizable in the physical, we mean that the same
belief type, say, can be realized in many physical types. Note, in particular,
that even super-determinate belief types are multiply realizable. That is, beliefs
corresponding to the same point in the property space of beliefs can nevertheless differ in physical realizationthere can be a physical difference without
a mental difference. Since the mental property instances exactly resemble,
but the physical property instances do not, the mental property instances
are not identical to the physical property instances. The mental and physical
differ with regard to at least one determination dimension, so they cannot
be related as determinable to determinate.
A general conclusion to draw is that higher-level properties are not generally determined by their lower-level implementing mechanisms (realizations).
Here we break with many who mistakenly judge the realization relation to
be a species of the determination relation. Examples of higher-level properties include having temperature X, transparency, believing that p, and being
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such-and-such computer program. Each one of these has a lower-level implementing mechanism (realization). But, differences at the lower-level do not
necessarily mean that there is a difference at the higher-level. Functionalists
have long observed that the same belief or computer program can be realized in various lower-level mechanisms. Such multiply realized beliefs do not
differ in their belief-ness, so the lower-level mechanisms do not determine
the belief. Heat, transparency, mental states, and computer programs can all
be super-determined by the determination dimensions of the higher-level at
which they reside. Similar points hold for abstract properties, like mass
and shaped, and their surrounding concreta. A wooden triangle can have the
exact same shape as a steel triangle. The addition of such concrete features
does not determine the shape property.
The application to the mental is just one of many that could be made. Our
analysis of the determination relation distinguishes it from the realization
relation and provides us with an apparatus for determining when different
property types share an instance. This is an especially important contribution
if, indeed, property instances are the causal relata. Regardless, our property
spaces and determination dimensions provide a novel way of understanding
the relation between property types and their instances.39
Notes
1
The first systematic account of the determination relation belongs to W.E. Johnson, Logic,
Vol. 1, (Cambridge University Press, 1921), pp. 173185. Johnson also introduced the terms of
art determinable and determinate. The most sophisticated and extensive treatments of the
determination relation since Johnson are found in: Arthur Prior, I. Determinables, Determinates, and Determinants, Mind Vol. LVIII, No. 229, (January, 1949), pp. 120; John Searle,
Determinables and the Notion of Resemblance, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp.
Vol. 33, (1959), pp. 141158; and David Armstrong, A World of States of Affairs, (Cambridge
University Press, 1997), pp. 4863. Prior (1949) documents discussion of similar relations by
John Locke, as well as in the extensive literature on the genus-species relation.
2 One might object that something can possess a determinable property, be specified by a
disjunction of determinates, though not have any one determinate in particular. For example,
quantum indeterminacy might allow for determinables with indeterminate determinates. While
this may be true of microphysical phenomena, the macro-properties we are normally concerned
with do have some determinate or other. That is, even granting quantum indeterminacy, in
normal cases criterion 3 still holds. For example, it is still the case that if something is colored
it has some particular color, and if something is shaped it has some particular shape. And even
quantum indeterminacy is probabilistically qualified. An amendment for the quantum level
might be that every object instantiating a determinable also instantiates certain determinates to
certain probabilities. Settling this debate would take us too far afield. Criterion 3 is typically
taken as a prerequisite for determination, and will be assumed throughout.
3 Determines (and its variants) is used throughout as a term of art meaning is a determinate of, rather than its more common use as signifying a causal or supervenience relation.
4 Irreflexivity follows from criterion 2.
5 The presupposition is that there arent generic determinableslike being some property
or otherthat all properties fall under. Determinables mark a genuine category of difference.
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Things genuinely differ in their color or shape, but things do not genuinely differ in their being
some property or other.
6 I am assuming a subjectivist understanding of color as defended by, say, C.L. Hardin in his
Color for Philosophers, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1988). In later appearances
of this example, I suggest how objectivist reinterpretations can be made.
7 Arguments that property instances are the causal relata can be found in: Douglas Ehring,
Causation and Persistence: A Theory of Causation, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press,
1997), pp. 7677; and L.A. Paul, Aspect Causation, Journal of Philosophy, (2000), pp. 235
256.
8 This is the lesson to be learned from criticisms of Donald Davidsons Anomalous Monism.
The worry expressed there is that according to Davidsons theory only the physical property instances are causally efficacious. As just a sampling, see: Fred Dretske, Reasons and Causes,
Philosophical Perspectives 3 (1989), pp. 115; Jerry Fodor, Making Mind Matter More, Philosophical Topics, 17 (1989), pp. 5980; Ted Honderich, The Argument for Anomalous Monism,
Analysis 42 (1982), pp. 5964; Terence Horgan, Mental Quausation, Philosophical Perspectives
3 (1989), pp. 4776; and Frederick Stoutland, Oblique Causation and Reasons For Action,
Synthese 43 (1980), pp. 351367.
9 See my Three Varieties of Causal Overdetermination, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 83
(2002), pp. 335351.
10 This example is taken from Stephen Yablo, Mental Causation, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 101, No. 2, (1992), p. 257.
11 We should distinguish, however, between those properties that are causally efficacious (a
metaphysical notion) and those properties that are causally relevant (an epistemic/explanatory
notion). The triangles being scarlet might have been causally efficacious with regard to the
pigeons behavior, but this property of the triangle might not be relevant with regard to explaining
the pigeons behavior. This is especially true if citing the scarlet color suggests contrasts with
other shades of red. This distinction between causal efficacy and relevance will arise later as
well. I thank an anonymous referee for stressing the relevance of this distinction.
12 Examples of such confusion are found in Yablo (1992); Sydney Shoemaker, Realization
and Mental Causation, in Physicalism and Its Discontents, eds. Carl Gillett and Barry Loewer
(New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 78, 80 and 85; Douglas Ehring, PartWhole Physicalism and Mental Causation, Synthese 136 (2003), p. 375; and Lenny Clapp,
Disjunctive Properties: Multiple Realizations, Journal of Philosophy XCVIII, 3 (March 2001),
p. 125.
13 Prior (1949), p. 13.
14 Johnson (1921), p. 183.
15 I do not want to give the impression that determination dimensions can be known purely
a priori, say, by conceptual analysis. For more on this, see section 4.
16 Sometimes color theorists use alternative vocabulary, but generally approximately the
same individuating criteria are accepted. For example, on the Munsell Color System these same
3 criteria are termed hue, value, and chroma. Alternative models of the color space are
provided by the Ostwald and C.I.E. color systems. Objective color theorists provide alternative
determination dimensionse.g., wavelength, purity, and luminance. Similarly, sound is typically
analyzed into three components: pitch, timbre, and loudness. It is controversial whether this
list is exhaustive. But, timbre is sometimes characterized negatively such that other determination dimensions are excluded. For example, timbre is sometimes simply defined as that feature
which allows listeners to distinguish sounds of the same pitch and loudness. Each of these alleged determination dimensions may itself have determination dimensions, further complicating
matters.
17 The classic statement of Scientific Realism with regard to properties is found in David
Armstrongs Universals and Scientific Realism (2 Volumes), (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
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18 Fred Dretske, Explaining Behavior, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988), p. 80; and
Dretske (1989).
19 Relational features that are irrelevant to individuating that kind, like space-time location,
are not included as determination dimensions.
20 These are only sufficient conditions because not all determinables can be modeled as
such. For the others, and the more general necessary and sufficient conditions, see section 2.3.
21 I am indebted to an anonymous referee for bringing this example, and the problem it
represents with regard to mathematical modeling, to my attention.
22 There are many other properties, like shaped, that cannot be (easily) mathematically
modeled. Just as shaped has different determination dimensions corresponding to the number
of sides of the particular shape, there can be different determination dimensions for genetic
properties corresponding to the number of chromosomes for the particular DNA, different
determination dimensions for chemical properties corresponding to the number of elements
forming the molecule, etc. Still, there is a schema for picking out the determination dimensions
corresponding to the abstractions of each science.
23 Property space will now be used to cover such ranges in determination dimension values,
as well as the n-dimensional spaces discussed in section 2.2.
24 Jonathan Schaffer argues that tropes are to be individuated by spatial-temporal location
(as well as resemblance) in his The Individuation of Tropes, Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Vol. 79, No. 2, (June, 2001), pp. 247257. The criteria for individuating tropes provided in section
2.5 follow Schaffer in (partially) individuating tropes by spatial-temporal location. However, we
also offer an explanation, in terms of our property spaces, of the resemblance component of
trope individuation.
25 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch, (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975), II.xi.9.
26 See Armstrong (1978, 1997).
27 The following present the most systematic and/or influential accounts of tropes: D.C.
Williams, On the Elements of Being I, reprinted in Properties, eds. D.H. Mellor and Alex
Oliver, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997); G.F. Stout, Are the Characteristics of
Particular Things Universal or Particular? II, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 3,
(1923), pp. 114127; Keith Campbell, Abstract Particulars, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); J. Bacon,
Universals and Property Instances: The Alphabet of Being, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). For some
prominent disagreements, see Chris Daly, Tropes, in Mellor and Oliver (1997), as well as
almost any work by David Armstrong on property theory.
28 This is borrowed from the notation Jaegwon Kim uses for his events (i.e., exemplifications
of universals) in Kim, Supervenience and Mind, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 9. My
adoption of this schematization should not be seen as judging property types to be ontologically
prior to their tokens (tropes). Like most trope theorists, I take property types to be classes of
resembling tropes.
29 I wish to thank an anonymous referee from this journal for bringing this third possibility to my attention. The example he/she gave is of two overlapping color types that might
share an instancesay, orangish red and yellowish red. Clearly, neither is a determinate of the
other.
30 Or, given the possibility discussed in footnote 2, each instance of a determinable may
correspond to various points in that determinables property space, to various probabilities.
31 Armstrong (1978, Vol. I), p. 117.
32 It is a merit of the present analysis that it explains why we cannot issue absolute similarity judgments regarding complex determinables. Such judgments must always be relative to a
determination dimension. I wish to thank an anonymous referee for drawing this merit of the
analysis to my attention.
33 Locke, Essay, III.iii.6, and Berkeley A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, ed. Kenneth Winkler, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1982), Introduction.
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34 Yablo (1992), p. 259; pp. 273279. While holding that determinables and determinates do
not causally exclude one another, Yablo does hold that one of them can nevertheless be a better
candidate for occupying the role of cause than another. For example, if the pigeon pecks at only
scarlet things, the triangles being scarlet is more appropriately judged the cause than its being
red (i.e., since there are shades of red that the pigeon would not peck at). But this is another
point at which the distinction between causal efficacy and causal relevance, as used in footnote
11, is relevant. Contrary to Yablos emphasis on the explanatory aspect of causation (causal
relevance), causal exclusion principles concern the metaphysical notion of causal efficacy.
35 Cynthia and Graham Macdonald, Mental Causes and Explanation of Action, in Mind,
Causation, and Action, ed. L. Stevenson, R. Squires, and J. Haldane (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1986); and Douglas Ehring, Mental Causation, Determinables, and Property Instances, Nous
30:4 (1996), pp. 461480.
36 Yablo (1992). Cynthia and Graham Macdonald (1986) provides an earlier application of
the determination relation to mentality.
37 This must can be read with varying strength (e.g., mere nomic necessity, metaphysical
necessity, etc.), depending on ones view of supervenience.
38 A similar argument is made in Ehring (1996), p. 473.
39 Thanks to Tamar Gendler, Karson Kovakovich, Jonathan Schaffer, Ted Sider, Robert
Van Gulick, and two anonymous referees for very helpful comments.