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by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. You will find typos and other distracting mistakes, because I have not finished proofreading. Bracketed commentary is my own. Please consult the original text, as my summaries could be wrong.]
Summary of
Graham Priest
One:
Being an Investigation into the Unity of Reality and of its Parts, including the Singular Object which is Nothingness
Ch.1
Gluons and Their Wicked Ways
1.6
The Aporia
Brief summary:
(1.6.1) None of our available options of explaining unity in terms of the factor that binds parts together into the whole (which is called the “gluon”) are viable. (1.6.2) We might say there are no gluons, thereby claiming that there are parts in the world but no wholes. This cannot be so, because in thought there are unified mental entities. (1.6.3) We also cannot argue that there are no gluons on account of the world being one whole without containing any parts. For, even in this case we do in practical life think of wholes with parts, meaning that the mental entities involved in those conceptions are wholes with parts and thus have gluons. (1.6.4) Gluons can be referred to, so we cannot claim they are not objects. (1.6.5) We cannot say that the gluon is an object, because that takes unity for granted rather than explain it. (1.6.6) Our best option for understanding gluons is with the dialetheic claim that they both are and are not objects.
[The Lack of Available, Viable Options to Explain Gluonic Unification]
[The Inadequacy of Rejecting the Existence of Gluons and Positing a Wholeless World]
[The Inadequacy of Rejecting the Existence of Gluons and Positing a Partless World]
[Gluons as Necessarily Objects on Account of Being Referable]
[Gluon as not Being an Object]
[Gluons as Dialetheias]
Summary
[The Lack of Available, Viable Options to Explain Gluonic Unification]
[None of our available options of explaining unity in terms of the factor that binds parts together into the whole (which is called the “gluon”) are viable.]
[In section 1.5, we discussed the problem of explaining unity. We noted all of our available options, and we saw how none are satisfactory. The unifying factor we want to give an account of is called the gluon (see section 1.3.4). Priest then notes a point he makes in section 1.3.4 and section 1.3.5, namely, that gluons are contradictory objects, because in order to be what they are, they must both be entities while also not being entities. They are entities in that we are talking about them (and anything you can talk about is an entity, for what else would it be?), and yet they are not entities on account of the Bradly regress (see section 1.4, especially 1.4.2), and so by thinking of a gluon simply as an entity makes it a part of the problem of explaining unity rather than a part of the solution. We are thus at an impasse or aporia. Priest says we have three options:
{1} We can say that there are no gluons.
(I suppose for this option, we are claiming that there is no binding, unifying factor in things. But then we are giving up the question altogether it seems. And that is not what we want, because the question is of great philosophical importance.)
{2} We can reject the claim that a gluon is an object.
(Here we would solve the problem of the Bradley Regress, but then we would seem to be unable to talk about it, which is very unhelpful for trying to account for it.)
{3} We can reject the claim that it is not an object.
(This will allow us to talk about it, but then we encounter the Bradley Regress, which prevents us from accounting for unity or the gluon.) (Note, Priest gives his own reasoning in the following sections.) Given that all these options are highly problematic, we seem not to have any good way to proceed.]
We have, then, an aporia.Whatever it is that constitutes the unity of an entity must itself both be and not be an entity. It is an entity since we are talking about it; it is not an entity since it is then part of the problem of a unity, not its solution. ‘Aporia’ is often glossed as ‘puzzle’ or ‘uncertainly’, but it literally means something like ‘impasse’. An aporia is a source of puzzlement and uncertainty precisely because it seems to leave no way to go forward. In the present case, if we wish to go back, there are only three options:
1. We can say that there are no gluons.
2. We can reject the claim that a gluon is an object.
3. We can reject the claim that it is not an object.
Prospects look bleak.
(14)
[The Inadequacy of Rejecting the Existence of Gluons and Positing a Wholeless World]
[We might say there are no gluons, thereby claiming that there are parts in the world but no wholes. This cannot be so, because in thought there are unified mental entities.]
[Recall the first option from section 1.6.1 above.
{1} We can say that there are no gluons.
Because gluons are the binding factor that unifies parts into wholes, if we deny they exist, we also deny that there can be a difference between a unity that has parts and a simple plurality of those parts. (For, without this factor, there would be nothing to make a plurality of parts unified into a whole, and thus it would be no different from an unified plurality of parts.) One way to work around this could be to say that there are just parts but no wholes, and thus “the world is just a congeries of congeries” (14). But this cannot be so. For, we have unities in thought, which although being mental entities, still qualify as unities and thus their gluonic unification still needs to be accounted for.]
Consider the first case. If there are no gluons, then we are bereft of an explanation as to the difference between a unity with parts and the plurality of the parts, which there certainly is. We could avoid this by supposing that there are no unities: the world is just a congeries of congeries. All parts, no unities. But this does not seem to help either. If there are no unities, there certainly appear to be; that is, there are unities in thought. This means that the mind constitutes unities— as, perhaps, for Kant. But in this case, there are gluons.These are mental entities, but they fall foul of the aporia in the usual way.22
(14)
22. The view that there are no material wholes, only simples, is defended in Unger (1979). There are no tables: only atoms ‘arranged table-wise’ (as van Inwagen puts it (1990), p. 72ff). Sider (1993) points out that this commits the view to the (counterintuitive) necessity of the existence of physical simples (partless wholes). (Gluon theory is not so committed.) And Uzquiano (2004) argues that | attempts to paraphrase away talk of unities in the way suggested is problematic. In any case, the view hardly seems credible for abstract objects. A proposition is a single thing: one can believe it, express it. You can not do this to a plurality of meanings arranged proposition-wise, whatever that might be supposed to mean. (14-15)
[The Inadequacy of Rejecting the Existence of Gluons and Positing a Partless World]
[We also cannot argue that there are no gluons on account of the world being one whole without containing any parts. For, even in this case we do in practical life think of wholes with parts, meaning that the mental entities involved in those conceptions are wholes with parts and thus have gluons.]
[Recall yet again the first option from section 1.6.1 above.
{1} We can say that there are no gluons.
Priest now notes another way this could be so. Suppose the world is one whole unity without any parts. It in this sense would also not have any gluons; for there would be no parts to be bound together into wholes. But this goes against common sense and practical life, where for example our car certainly has parts that would render the car inoperable if they were missing. But someone might say that the car is not really such a unity of parts (I am not sure what else it would be, I suppose we only have the one world, and the car is not some unity within it, but I am not sure), and we only mistakenly think that the car is a whole. But even in that case, we are admitting that we conceive of it as a whole containing parts, which means the mental entity of that conception would still involve gluons.]
At the other extreme, one might suppose that there are unities, but that they have no parts, and hence that there are no gluons. All unities, no parts. A very extreme form of this position is to the effect, not only that there are only unities, but there is only one of them. All else is appearance. The view is to be found in Parmenides and Bradley. Supposing that there are only unities with no parts is a desperate move. It flies in the face of common sense: if someone steals a wheel of my car then it is missing an essential part. And before one says that the car is not really a whole, but we only think of it in that way, recall that this means that there is a unity in intention, and we are back with intentional gluons.
(15)
[Gluons as Necessarily Objects on Account of Being Referable]
[Gluons can be referred to, so we cannot claim they are not objects.]
[Now recall the second option from section 1.6.1 above.
{2} We can reject the claim that a gluon is an object.But “we can refer to it, quantify over it, talk about it.” Priest says that there is little other sense to what would qualify something as being an object.]
In the second case, we must insist that the gluon is simply not an object. But this seems even more desperate: we can refer to it, quantify over it, talk about it. If this does not make something an object, I am at a loss to know what could. Anything we can think about is an object, a unity, a single thing (whether or not it exists). There seems little scope here.
(15)
[Gluon as not Being an Object]
[We cannot say that the gluon is an object, because that takes unity for granted rather than explain it.]
[Now finally recall the third option from section 1.6.1 above.
{3} We can reject the claim that it is not an object.
We have seen from section 1.4 (see especially 1.4.2) that this leads to the Bradley Regress. (But Priest’s point this time seems different. I do not quite grasp it, so consult the quotation below. He seems to be saying the following. Let us suppose the gluon is an object. But what we are trying to explain are unified objects. He next says that the only way an object can constitute the unity of another object is by taking unity for granted. That is the part I do not follow so well. Are we talking about taking the unity of the gluon for granted, so that it does not lead to a regress? Or are we taking the whole thing’s unity for granted? At any rate, this somehow involves simply thinking that the unity of things are obvious or unquestionable. But examples of unities very often involve combinations of parts, and we do not explain their compositional bonding by claiming that gluons are objects ((or by otherwise taking unity for granted)). But I am guessing here.]
Finally, in the third case, we may suppose that the gluon is simply an object. But we have seen that this just leaves us bereft of an explanation of the unity of an entity. How could we even have had the impression that any object could constitute the unity of another bunch of objects? Only because of taking the unity for granted. Thus, we write ‘Socrates is a person’ and the rest is obvious. But putting ‘Socrates’ and ‘is a person’ next to each other does not do the job; it just produces a plurality of two things. When we think of the two as cooperating, the magic has already occurred.
(15)
[Gluons as Dialetheias]
[Our best option for understanding gluons is with the dialetheic claim that they both are and are not objects.]
So we cannot use any of the available options, and we should instead say that gluons both are and are not objects. What prevents us is the Principle of Non-Contradiction. But since it is not a well-founded logical principle and since also it is best not obeyed in all cases, we will take the dialetheic position that Gluons have contradictory properties (again, they both are and are not objects.)
If we cannot go back, then we must go forward. What stands in the way? Evidently, the Principle of Non-Contradiction. If we accept that gluons both are and are not objects, then some contradictions are true. Whilst it must be agreed that horror contradictionis is orthodox in Western philosophy, at least since Aristotle’s canonical –but fundamentally flawed – defence, the friends of consistency have done little as yet to establish that there is anything rational in this.23 So let us go forward. Gluons are dialetheic: they have contradictory properties. Of course, if this were all there were to matters, the situation would not be particularly interesting. Going on means crossing the bridge of inconsistency;24 and what is important is what lies on the other side.
(15)
23. See Priest (2006).
24. Not that there are no other good reasons to do so. See Priest (1987) and (1995a).
Priest, Graham. 2014. One: Being an Investigation into the Unity of Reality and of its Parts, including the Singular Object which is Nothingness. Oxford: Oxford University.
Or if otherwise cited:
Priest, G. (1987), In Contradiction, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff; second (extended) edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Priest, G. (1995a), Beyond the Limits of Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; second (extended) edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Priest, G. (2006), Doubt Truth to be a Liar, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sider, T. (1993a), ‘Parthood’, Philosophical Review 116: 51–91.
Sider, T. (1993b), ‘Van Inwagen and the Possibility of Gunk’, Analysis 53: 285–9.
Unger, P. (1979), ‘There are no Ordinary Things’, Synthese 41: 117--54.
Uzquiano, G. (2004), ‘Plurals and Simples’, Monist 87: 429–51.
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