Bundle theory
Encyclopedia
Bundle theory, originated by the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume
, is the ontological
theory about objecthood
in which an object consists only of a collection (bundle) of properties, relations or tropes
.
According to bundle theory, an object consists of its properties and nothing more: thus neither can there be an object without properties nor can one even conceive of such an object; for example, bundle theory claims that thinking of an apple compels one also to think of its color, its shape, the fact that it is a kind of fruit, its cells, its taste, or at least one other of its properties. Thus, the theory asserts that the apple is no more than the collection of its properties. In particular, there is no substance
in which the properties inhere
.
The inability to comprehend any aspect of the thing other than its properties implies, this argument maintains, that one cannot conceive of a bare particular (a substance without properties), an implication that directly opposes substance theory
. The conceptual difficulty of bare particulars was illustrated by John Locke
when he described a substance by itself, apart from its properties, as "something, I know not what."
Whether a relation of an object is one of its properties may complicate such an argument. However, the argument concludes that the conceptual challenge of bare particulars leaves a bundle of properties and nothing more as the only possible conception of an object, thus justifying bundle theory.
Critics question how bundle theory accounts for the properties' compresence (the togetherness relation between those properties) without an underlying substance. Critics also question how any two given properties are determined to be properties of the same object if there is no substance in which they both inhere.
Traditional bundle theory, according to Professor Dustin Moriarty, explains the compresence of properties by defining an object as a collection of properties bound together. Thus, different combinations of properties and relations produce different objects. Redness and juiciness, for example, may be found together on top of the table because they are part of a bundle of properties located on the table, one of which is the "looks like an apple" property.
By contrast, substance theory
explains the compresence of properties by asserting that the properties are found together because it is the substance that has those properties. In substance theory, a substance is the thing in which properties inhere. For example, redness and juiciness are found on top of the table because redness and juiciness inhere in an apple, making the apple red and juicy.
The bundle theory of substance explains compresence. Specifically, it maintains that properties' compresence itself engenders a substance. Thus, it determines substancehood empirically by the togetherness of properties rather than by a bare particular or by any other non-empirical underlying strata. The bundle theory of substance thus rejects the substance theories of Aristotle
, Descartes, and more recently, J.P. Moreland, Jia Hou, Joseph Bridgman, Quentin Smith
, and others.
has on understanding reality
. The objection maintains that language causes confusion that supports bundle theory.
Per the objection, properties are synthetic constructions of language and thinking alone provides reality to the properties of any object. An apple, it claims, does not have the properties red or juicy, but rather observers who already believe in a concept called Red use that concept to experience an apple as red. Further, the objection maintains that Red can not be distilled from an apple because Red is an abstraction from other experiences and not an innate property an apple might contain. Per the objection, expressions such as, "An apple is red and juicy," includes at least six concepts and would best be left as dead-end logical propositions. Since the objection regards the words "Red" and "Juicy" as simply abstractions of previous experiences, it contends that they contain only a personal summary concept of one individual. Thus, the experience of an apple is as close to the Apple concept that one can get. The objection regards any additional analytic work of the mind as a synthesis of other experiences that is incapable of logically revealing any true essence of Apple.
The language-reality objection asserts that language encourages the belief that synthetic exercises distill experiences, yet it rejects the results of such exercises by maintaining that observers actually combine experiences to create each concept of any particular property. It holds that language is a complicated belief system whose only connection to reality is an abstraction of experience. The language-reality objection may even suggest that reality/non-reality or objective/subjective distinctions themselves are merely artifacts of language and therefore are also solely abstractions of experience.
philosopher, Chandrakirti, used the aggregate nature of objects to demonstrate the lack of essence
in what is known as the sevenfold reasoning. In his work, Guide to the Middle Way
(Skt. Madhyamakāvatāra), he says:
He goes on to explain what is meant by each of these seven assertions, but briefly in a subsequent commentary he explains that the conventions of the world do not exist essentially when closely analyzed, but exist only through being taken for granted, without being subject to scrutiny that searches for an essence within them.
Another view of the Buddhist theory of the self, especially in early Buddhism, is that the Buddhist theory is essentially an eliminativist theory. According to this understanding, the self can not be reduced to a bundle because there is nothing that answers to the concept of a self. Consequently, the idea of a self must be eliminated.
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, is the ontological
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
theory about objecthood
Object (philosophy)
An object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...
in which an object consists only of a collection (bundle) of properties, relations or tropes
Trope (philosophy)
The term "trope" is both a term which denotes figurative and metaphorical language and one which has been used in various technical senses. The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος , "a turn, a change", related to the root of the verb τρέπειν , "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"; this...
.
According to bundle theory, an object consists of its properties and nothing more: thus neither can there be an object without properties nor can one even conceive of such an object; for example, bundle theory claims that thinking of an apple compels one also to think of its color, its shape, the fact that it is a kind of fruit, its cells, its taste, or at least one other of its properties. Thus, the theory asserts that the apple is no more than the collection of its properties. In particular, there is no substance
Substance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
in which the properties inhere
Inherence
Inherence refers to Empedocles' idea that the qualities of matter come from the relative proportions of each of the four elements entering into a thing. The idea was further developed by Plato and Aristotle....
.
Arguments for the bundle theory
The difficulty in conceiving of or describing an object without also conceiving of or describing its properties is a common justification for bundle theory, especially among current philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition.The inability to comprehend any aspect of the thing other than its properties implies, this argument maintains, that one cannot conceive of a bare particular (a substance without properties), an implication that directly opposes substance theory
Substance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
. The conceptual difficulty of bare particulars was illustrated by John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
when he described a substance by itself, apart from its properties, as "something, I know not what."
Whether a relation of an object is one of its properties may complicate such an argument. However, the argument concludes that the conceptual challenge of bare particulars leaves a bundle of properties and nothing more as the only possible conception of an object, thus justifying bundle theory.
Objections to the bundle theory
Objections to bundle theory concern the nature of the bundle of properties, the properties' compresence relation (the togetherness relation between those constituent properties), and the impact of language on understanding reality.Compresence objection
Bundle theory maintains that properties are bundled together in a collection without describing how they are tied together. For example, bundle theory regards an apple as red, four inches (100 mm) wide, and juicy but lacking an underlying substance. The apple is said to be a bundle of properties including redness, being four inches (100 mm) wide, and juiciness.Critics question how bundle theory accounts for the properties' compresence (the togetherness relation between those properties) without an underlying substance. Critics also question how any two given properties are determined to be properties of the same object if there is no substance in which they both inhere.
Traditional bundle theory, according to Professor Dustin Moriarty, explains the compresence of properties by defining an object as a collection of properties bound together. Thus, different combinations of properties and relations produce different objects. Redness and juiciness, for example, may be found together on top of the table because they are part of a bundle of properties located on the table, one of which is the "looks like an apple" property.
By contrast, substance theory
Substance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
explains the compresence of properties by asserting that the properties are found together because it is the substance that has those properties. In substance theory, a substance is the thing in which properties inhere. For example, redness and juiciness are found on top of the table because redness and juiciness inhere in an apple, making the apple red and juicy.
The bundle theory of substance explains compresence. Specifically, it maintains that properties' compresence itself engenders a substance. Thus, it determines substancehood empirically by the togetherness of properties rather than by a bare particular or by any other non-empirical underlying strata. The bundle theory of substance thus rejects the substance theories of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Descartes, and more recently, J.P. Moreland, Jia Hou, Joseph Bridgman, Quentin Smith
Quentin Smith
Quentin Persifor Smith is an American contemporary philosopher, scholar and professor of philosophy at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has worked in the philosophy of time, philosophy of language, philosophy of physics and philosophy of religion...
, and others.
Language-reality objection
The language-reality objection to bundle theory relates to the impact languageLanguage
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
has on understanding reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
. The objection maintains that language causes confusion that supports bundle theory.
Per the objection, properties are synthetic constructions of language and thinking alone provides reality to the properties of any object. An apple, it claims, does not have the properties red or juicy, but rather observers who already believe in a concept called Red use that concept to experience an apple as red. Further, the objection maintains that Red can not be distilled from an apple because Red is an abstraction from other experiences and not an innate property an apple might contain. Per the objection, expressions such as, "An apple is red and juicy," includes at least six concepts and would best be left as dead-end logical propositions. Since the objection regards the words "Red" and "Juicy" as simply abstractions of previous experiences, it contends that they contain only a personal summary concept of one individual. Thus, the experience of an apple is as close to the Apple concept that one can get. The objection regards any additional analytic work of the mind as a synthesis of other experiences that is incapable of logically revealing any true essence of Apple.
The language-reality objection asserts that language encourages the belief that synthetic exercises distill experiences, yet it rejects the results of such exercises by maintaining that observers actually combine experiences to create each concept of any particular property. It holds that language is a complicated belief system whose only connection to reality is an abstraction of experience. The language-reality objection may even suggest that reality/non-reality or objective/subjective distinctions themselves are merely artifacts of language and therefore are also solely abstractions of experience.
Bundle theory and Buddhism
The Buddhist MadhyamakaMadhyamaka
Madhyamaka refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of Buddhist philosophy systematized by Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the āgamas...
philosopher, Chandrakirti, used the aggregate nature of objects to demonstrate the lack of essence
Essence
In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without...
in what is known as the sevenfold reasoning. In his work, Guide to the Middle Way
Madhyamakāvatāra
Madhyamakāvatāra is a text by Candrakirti on the Middle Way school . It is a commentary on the meaning of Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and also the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra...
(Skt. Madhyamakāvatāra), he says:
He goes on to explain what is meant by each of these seven assertions, but briefly in a subsequent commentary he explains that the conventions of the world do not exist essentially when closely analyzed, but exist only through being taken for granted, without being subject to scrutiny that searches for an essence within them.
Another view of the Buddhist theory of the self, especially in early Buddhism, is that the Buddhist theory is essentially an eliminativist theory. According to this understanding, the self can not be reduced to a bundle because there is nothing that answers to the concept of a self. Consequently, the idea of a self must be eliminated.
Further reading
- A Treatise of Human NatureA Treatise of Human NatureA Treatise of Human Nature is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published in 1739–1740.The full title of the Treatise is 'A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects'. It contains the following sections:* Book 1:...
: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. (1739–1740) - Derek ParfitDerek ParfitDerek Parfit is a British philosopher who specializes in problems of personal identity, rationality and ethics, and the relations between them. His 1984 book Reasons and Persons has been very influential...
, Reasons and PersonsReasons and PersonsReasons and Persons is a philosophical work by Derek Parfit, first published in 1984. It focuses on ethics, rationality and personal identity....