## 1. Contrast



The *Contrast Question*, as we shall call it, is this: what, if
any, is the contrast or complement of the category *object*?
With what, exactly, are objects to be contrasted? Put differently, are
there non-objects, and if so, what kinds of things are they? Some
related questions: if there are non-objects, do they form a
 natural class
 or collection? What might that class or collection be?


### 1.1 No Contrast: the Umbrella View



On one natural reading, the Contrast Question admits of an easy
answer; fix--perhaps by stipulation--the content of
'object' and it will be obvious whether there are
non-objects. Unsurprisingly, then, some philosophers suppose that
there is a fully general category and simply *define*
'object' as picking it out. On this *Umbrella
View*, as we shall call it, *every thing* is an object
(perhaps by definition of 'object') and the category has
no contrast--or, if it has a contrast or complement, the contrast
is unfilled and the complement unrealized.



Is the Umbrella View *true*? Dispute here may appear merely
verbal, to merely concern how to use the word
 'object'.[3]
 This is not quite right, however. So to clarify: the Umbrella View
involves both a substantive metaphysical thesis and a semantic thesis.
The metaphysical thesis is that there is a maximally general
ontological category under which all things fall. The semantic thesis
is that 'object'--perhaps as a matter of
stipulation--picks out this maximally general category. Disputes
over the Umbrella View, then, are *merely verbal in part.* They
are merely verbal insofar as they concern the semantic thesis. But
disputes over the metaphysical thesis need not be--and in our
view are not--merely verbal; they do not concern the English word
'object', but rather concern the existence and extent of a
wholly general ontological category.



Note, too, that the component theses of the Umbrella View are
logically independent. First, the semantic thesis does not entail the
metaphysical thesis any more than the semantic thesis that
'God'--by definition--picks out a maximally
great being entails the metaphysical thesis that there is indeed such
a being. Second, the metaphysical thesis does not entail the semantic
thesis; that there is a maximally general category does not entail
that it is picked out by any word at all, much less the English word
'object'.



A consequence of the Umbrella View is that items that appear to have
little in common--universals, particulars, gods, books,
possibilities, colleges, works of music (if such there are)--are
in fact all united under one category: *object*.



To be sure, not all who endorse the Umbrella View deploy the English
word 'object' in explicating the view. Other candidates
for the fully general office, instead, make an appearance. So
Lowe:



> 
> 
> 'Thing', in its most general sense, is interchangeable
> with 'entity' or 'being' and is applicable to
> any item whose existence is acknowledged by a system of ontology,
> whether that item be particular, universal, abstract, or concrete. In
> this sense, not only material bodies but also properties, relations,
> events, numbers, sets, and propositions are--if they are
> acknowledged as existing--to be accounted 'things'.
> (2005: 915)
> 
> 
> 



And Russell:



> 
> 
> I shall use as synonymous with ['term'] the words unit,
> individual and entity. The first two emphasize the fact that every
> term is one, while the third is derived from the fact that every term
> has being, i.e. is in some sense. A man, a moment, a number, a class,
> a relation, a chimera, or anything else that can be mentioned, is sure
> to be a term (1903: 43)
> 
> 
> 



And Strawson:



> 
> 
> Anything whatever can be introduced into discussion by means of a
> singular, definitely identifying substantival expression....
> Anything whatever can be identifyingly referred to; anything whatever
> can appear as a logical subject, an 'individual'. (1959:
> 137, 227)
> 
> 
> 



Finally, Tugendhat:



> 
> 
> Now what is meant by the word 'object'? This word too, in
> the comprehensive sense in which it is used in philosophy, is a term
> of art. In ordinary language we are inclined to call only material
> objects... objects, and not e.g. events or numbers... What
> is meant by 'objects' in philosophy has its basis in
> ... what we mean by the word 'something'...
> There is a class of linguistic expressions which are used to stand for
> an object; and here we can only say: to stand for something. These are
> the expressions which can function as the sentence-subject in
> so-called singular predicative statements and which in logic have also
> been called singular terms... (1976 [1982, 21-23])
> 
> 
> 



Although they differ on which English word to assign to that category
(i.e., 'thing', 'term', or
'individual', 'something'), Lowe, Russell,
Strawson, and Tugendhat all accept a fully general category under
which all items fall and suppose that some word picks out that
category. They accept, then, the Umbrella View.



Some features of the Umbrella View deserve explicit attention.



On the Umbrella View, it is unlikely that *object* can be
analyzed in more fundamental terms or categories, especially if
analysis of a condition or category involves specifying the complement
of that condition. *Object* is, rather, a *primitive* of
sorts. Frege affirms something along these lines when he notes of
'object' that "a regular definition is impossible,
since we have here something too simple to admit of logical
analysis" (1891 [1960: 32]).



But it does not follow from the Umbrella View that nothing at all can
be said about the category *object*. For the above proponents
of the Umbrella View, there is clearly a connection between being an
object and being a candidate for
 reference (see entry)
 or thought--something that can be *referred to* or
*thought about* (witness Russell's use of
'term' above, for example). We will discuss this
connection--and the account of the nature of *object* that
it suggests--in more detail in
 SS3.1.



Finally, note that there may be reason to be wary of *any*
fully general category (whether expressed by 'object',
'thing', 'entity', or whatnot.). There may be
reason, that is, to doubt the metaphysical conjunct of the Umbrella
View. First and perhaps most importantly, there are paradoxes and
puzzles associated with talking about. or 'quantifying
over', literally every
 thing.[4]
 Second, any fully general category lacks a contrast or complement. So
it may appear to be idle with respect to classification or carving or
dividing--the central theoretical tasks of categories, one might
think--thus inviting suspicion on the grounds that it is of no
theoretical use.



If there are non-objects, some obvious topics to pursue include what
they are and what they are like. Here we may appeal to various
distinctions metaphysicians have offered across disparate projects.
These distinctions may not map *precisely* onto an
object/non-object divide and may not have been formulated explicitly
in those terms. But they can still offer insight into what the
contrast or complement of *object* might be and in turn shed
light on what the category of *object* might amount to.



We will now survey several such distinctions; in each case there is a
purportedly exclusive and exhaustive classification of items into two
non-empty categories, one of which intuitively maps onto
*object* and the other onto *non-object*.


### 1.2 Contrast: Objects vs. Properties



Consider these platitudes: there are things, and there are ways those
things are (we might call the latter 'properties'). There
appear to be, for example, tall trees; there also appear to be
properties had by those trees, such as *being
 tall*.[5]
 There appear to be, again, both things and properties. Perhaps there
is, then, an important distinction between things and properties. And
if there is such a distinction, it would appear to mark an important
*metaphysical* divide. For it operates at a very high level of
abstraction and promises to exhaustively and exclusively divide
reality into categories--with trees, people, planets (for
example) falling under *thing* and *green*,
*tall*, *itchy*, and *kind* (for example) falling
under *property*. The thesis that there is such a divide, we
note, is distinct from purely semantic theses about whether to use the
words 'object' and 'property' to pick out each
side of that divide. Our focus here is on the metaphysical question of
whether there is such a contrast in the first place, not on which
words might express it.



Here's how Armstrong expresses the intuitive contrast:



> 
> 
> It is natural to distinguish a thing, an individual, a token, from any
> particular properties that the thing happens to have. The table is
> hard, brown, rectangular, and so on. But it is not identical with its
> hardness, brownness, rectangularity. These properties are rather
> naturally taken to be things it merely *has*... With
> things and properties thus distinguished, even if very intimately
> connected, we have what may be called a substance-attribute view.
> (1989: 60)
> 
> 
> 



These platitudes and the close connection we have already observed
between *object* and *thing* suggest a hypothesis:
perhaps the object/non-object distinction just is the thing/property
distinction. One intriguing consequence of this identity hypothesis is
that informative content may given to the object/non-object
divide--namely, by appeal to informative theories about the
thing/property divide.



With this identity hypothesis in mind, we will now survey some
theories about what the thing/property distinction might amount to and
how exactly it divides reality.



Our topic in this section is the thing/property or object/non-object
(henceforth, the 'object/property') distinction--as
opposed to the precise nature of either objects (see
 SS3)
 or properties. We will thus elide some terminological details.
Instead of treating only theories of the object/property distinction
phrased precisely in those terms, we will canvas several attempts to
make sense of other nearby distinctions as well--most notably the
substance/attribute distinction and the universal/particular
distinction.



Russell offers a classic treatment of the object/property (in his
hands, the 'particular/universal') divide and various ways
in which it may be described:



> 
> 
> We have thus a division of all entities into two classes: (1)
> particulars, which enter into complexes only as the subjects of
> predicates or the terms of relations, and, if they belong to the world
> of which we have experience, exist in time, and cannot occupy more
> than one place at one time in the space to which they belong; (2)
> universals, which can occur as predicates or relations in complexes,
> do not exist in time, and have no relation to one place which they may
> not simultaneously have to another. (1911: 23-24)
> 
> 
> 



Russell's remarks suggest at least three explications of the
object/property distinction--in terms of subject/predicate
structure, existence in space and time, and multiple-location. We will
consider these three theories in that order, and then some others that
have been
 offered.[6]


#### 1.2.1 Objects are Subjects; Properties are Predicates



One way to make the distinction between objects and properties is to
look to expressions that refer to them. In first-order logic, there
are (among other things) subjects and predicates. And predicates are
predicated of subjects. Following Aristotle's remarks on
substance (*Categories* 1a20-4b19; see also the section
on category theory in the entry on
 Aristotle
 and the entry on
 classical logic),
 Russell (1911) thought that these logical/linguistic reasons were the
most persuasive reasons for positing an object/property distinction.
He says:



> 
> 
> Predication is a relation involving a fundamental logical difference
> between its two terms. Predicates may themselves have predicates, but
> the predicates of predicates will be radically different from the
> predicates of substances. (1911:
>  23)[7]
> 
> 
> 



So, on this way of marking the contrast, objects can be referred to
only by subjects, and properties can be referred to by subjects or
predicates.


#### 1.2.2 Objects are in Space and Time; Properties are Not



Perhaps there is a particular shade of red that no object has right
now, but some objects had and other objects will have. If there is
such a shade of red--if it didn't go out of existence when
the last object that had it stopped having it--one naturally
wonders where it is. And a natural answer is that it isn't (and
has never been nor ever will be) anywhere. More generally, universals
are nowhere. Objects, by contrast, are somewhere; they are to be found
within space and time, and in this respect stand in stark and
categorial contrast to
 universals.[8]


#### 1.2.3 Objects are Singly-Located; Properties May Multiply Locate



It seems that many properties are shared among objects. Our copies of
*Objects: Nothing out of the Ordinary* are the same shape, and
the gold hue of Knute Rockne's helmet is the same as Joe
Montana's. But there isn't just one copy of *Objects:
Nothing out of the Ordinary* that is multiply located; there are
many copies that share a shape. There isn't one Notre Dame
football helmet; there are hundreds. The books and helmets are many;
each of their properties is, perhaps, one.



So one might make the distinction between objects and properties.
Objects are restricted to one space-time region, while properties are
not. Most objects will occupy many space-time regions by having parts
at those regions, though. So it is better to say that objects can be
wholly located at only one region, while properties can be wholly
located at many disjoint
 regions.[9]


#### 1.2.4 Objects are Concrete; Properties are Abstract



Another attempt to analyze the object/property distinction is to
subsume it under the concrete/abstract distinction. According to some,
some things are concrete and others are abstract. Some have it that
there are concrete objects and
 abstract objects (see entry).
 The former are usually described as material and having
 causal powers (see entry on the metaphysics of causation),
 while the latter are usually thought to be immaterial and lack causal
powers. While usually the latter are classified as objects, it is a
sensible view that the concrete things are objects, and the abstracta
are otherwise.



But the concrete/abstract distinction seems no more perspicuous than
the object/property distinction, and itself cries out for explication.
Nearly everyone can agree on the things that belong in each category,
but precisely in virtue of what they belong in that category remains a
matter of debate. Perhaps this is a reason to rest content with
thinking of the object/property distinction as the abstract/concrete
distinction. The latter seems intuitive, and resists analysis in more
fundamental
 terms.[10]


#### 1.2.5 Objects don't obey the Identity of Indiscernibles; properties do



Two laws are associated with Leibniz. The first is the
Indiscernibility of Identicals: for any two objects, if they're
identical, then any property that one has, the other has. The second
is the
 Identity of Indiscernibles (see entry):
 for any two objects, if it's the case that for any property one
has, the other has it, then the objects are
 identical.[11]



The Indiscernibility of Identicals is pretty much universally
accepted. The Identity of Indiscernibles is controversial. The
Identity of Indiscernibles seems to entail, for example, that there
cannot be two spheres that have the same color, shape, and density,
and have all their other properties in common as well.



Many people think there can be two exactly similar spheres. But it
doesn't seem that there could be two exactly similar properties
of *sphericality* that aren't identical. Properties, one
might think, are individuated by their properties, whereas objects are
individuated by some further thing. If a property has all the same
properties as another, then the two are identical.



This is one way of marking the distinction. The Indiscernibility of
Identicals is true of properties, but false of objects.


#### 1.2.6 Objects are Sense-Perceptible; Properties are Not



Strawson marks the distinction in the following way:



> 
> 
> There is, for example, the suggestion that general, unlike particular,
> things cannot be perceived by means of the senses... It is not
> with the eyes that one is said to see hope. But one can quite
> literally smell blood or bacon, watch cricket, hear music or thunder.
> (1954: 235)
> 
> 
> 



So properties (like hope) are the things that cannot be perceived, and
objects (like bacon) are the things can be perceived. Presumably every
thing is such that either it can be perceived or it can't be,
and nothing both can be perceived and can't, so the division is
exclusive and exhaustive.



But bacon also has a color and a shape, which seem to be perceived
when one perceives bacon. One who marks the distinction this way must
say that we perceive only the bacon, and not its color and shape. But
why do we believe that the bacon is rectangular, if we don't see
its rectangularity? Presumably we believe it because we perceive the
bacon, and the bacon is
 rectangular.[12]


#### 1.2.7 Objects are Uninstantiated; Properties are Instantiated



The final view of the object/property contrast to consider is the view
that properties are instantiated, and objects are not. This is, as it
were, a metaphysical correlate of the linguistic view discussed in
 SS1.2.1.
 and enjoys similar motivations. *Instantiation* is generally
taken as primitive, but some things can be said about it. On one view,
it's a two-place relation (see entry on
 relations),
 and the relata are an object and a property, or a property and a
property. On another view, it's a "non-relational
tie" that "glues" properties to objects and other
properties (see, e.g., Strawson 1959). Objects can only be the things
that instantiate; they cannot be instantiated. Properties, by
contrast, can both instantiate and be
 instantiated.[13]


### 1.3 Contrast: Objects vs. Subjects



In surveying the possible contrasts or complements of *object*,
we have thus far emphasized the intuitive grouping of items into
categories like *object* (*substance*,
*individual*, *particular, etc.*) on the one hand and
*property* (or *attribute, universal*, *feature,*
etc.) on the other. These are standard metaphysical categories, and
they suggest that the proper contrast or complement of *object*
includes properties or other property-like items.



But there is another compelling usage (both in and out of philosophy)
of the English word 'object' and its cognates that
suggests a rather different kind of contrast. Here, the divide is
between *object* and *subject*. Each object is, roughly,
an 'it', and each subject is a 'you'. On this
usage, it is items like *us* that stand in contrast to objects.
We are subjects; trees, universals, colleges, colors, and--well,
all things not like us in relevant respects--are objects.



But what are the relevant respects that group *us* together to
the exclusion of trees, universals, colleges, and colors? Here the
answer must involve *subjectivity* or *experience*. To
be a subject in this sense is, roughly, to experience or to be
 conscious (see entry).
 We are subjects because we experience or enjoy consciousness. But
what is it to be an object and not a subject in the sense at hand?
Reflection on this question suggests two answers and thus uncovers two
rather different subject/object divides. They differ in what category
they assign to *object* and thus in what they contrast with
*subject*.



On the first divide, the relevant objectual category is just the
complement of *subject*; to be an object, then, is to neither
experience nor be conscious. You are a subject and so am I. But an
unfeeling rock is not, and so it is an object. Since every thing would
appear to be either a subject in the relevant sense or not, this
divide would appear to exhaustively and exclusively classify
reality.



On the second divide, the relevant objectual category is *object of
experience*, or *what is experienced* (see entry on
 the contents of perception).
 You--a subject--plunge your hand into a bucket of ice
water. You feel just how cold the water--the object of your
experience--is. As Bliss puts things:



> 
> 
> The *subject* is that to which objects appear, have appeared,
> or may appear... The object, existing external to and independent
> of subjects, may appear to any subject that is so qualified and so
> related as to apprehend it. (1917: 406-408, emphasis
> original)
> 
> 
> 



This second subject/object divide would appear to be neither
exhaustive nor exclusive; a subject may also be the object of
experience (whether her own or someone else's), and some items
may well be neither experiencers nor objects of experience (an
unfeeling star outside the light cone of any subject, for
example).



We note, finally, that these specifications of an object/non-object
distinction are not in competition with the others surveyed above.


## 2. Extension



One question to ask about the category of *object* is to ask
what falls under it--what is in its extension? This is the
*Extension Question*. The extension of some categories is
obvious. The extension of the category *electron* is all the
electrons and no non-electrons. The extension of the category
*number* is all and only the numbers. The extension of the
category *composite things* is all and only the things that
have proper
 parts.[14]
 For some categories, difficult questions arise. Some of those
questions involve the question of whether certain things are in the
extension of the category, e.g., is the Pope in the extension of the
category *bachelor*? Is a fetus in the extension of the
category *person*? Some questions concern the nature of the
things falling under the category. The extension of the category
*book* includes all and only the books. Does it include ebooks?
Does it include some particular and well-loved copy of *Material
Beings*, with its stained pages and cover, or the abstract type of
which this particular copy is a token? Answering the Extension
Question leaves many other questions unsettled, one of which is the
nature of the things that are in the extension. But knowing which
things are in the extension is a good start toward figuring out their
nature.



So, one important question to ask of the category *object* is
which things are in its extension. This question will admit a variety
of answers. And depending on whether there is a contrast class, it
will have a variety of interpretations. If *object* has no
contrast class and every thing is in its extension--if both the
metaphysical and semantic theses of the Umbrella View are
correct--then the question of the extension of *object* is
equivalent to the ontological question (see below). If *object*
has a contrast class--if at least one of the metaphysical and
semantic theses of the Umbrella View is false--then the question
of the extension of *object* is *not* equivalent to the
ontological question. Instead, it asks, "Of all the things there
are, which ones are the objects?" If the contrast class of
*object* is *property*, then the Extension Question is,
"What things are there that aren't properties?" If
the contrast class is *universal*, the question is, "What
things are there that aren't universals?" If the contrast
class hasn't been specified, and one is starting from what
ordinary people accept, then the Extension Question is, "What
ordinary objects are there?"


### 2.1 The Ontological Question



It widely-held that a central question in ontology--what is often
called 'the ontological question'--is "What is
there?" Though many have asked this question, it was Quine
(1948) who drew explicit attention to it. He also said it could be
answered in one
 word--"everything".[15]



If the answer to the ontological question is 'everything',
if there is a category under which all things fall and if that
category is picked out by 'object' *by definition*
(as per the Umbrella View), then there is one shared answer to both
the extension and the ontological questions. This is one consequence
of the Umbrella View. But it might turn out that every thing is an
object, even if not by definition. A physicalism according to which
every thing is a material object, for example, would appear to entail
that every thing is an object. But this entailment need not hold
because of the definition of 'object'; it might hold,
instead, on substantive and general theoretical grounds having nothing
to do with definitions at all.



The point is this: on at least the Umbrella View, answering the
ontological question is closely related, if not identical, to
answering the Extension Question. We will therefore briefly survey
several highly abstract answers to the ontological question, with the
understanding that many will think that by giving such an answer, they
are thereby answering the Extension Question.


#### 2.1.1 Existence Nihilism



Perhaps the most surprising answer to the ontological question is
'Nothing', according to which the extension of
*object* is empty. It's not clear whether anyone
sincerely endorses the thesis that there is nothing. However, it has
been defended several times
 over.[16]



Hawthorne and Cortens (1995) speak for the nihilist thus: "the
concept of an object has no place in a perspicuous characterization of
reality" (p. 143). They suggest three theories on which there
are no objects. The first that there are just stuffs everywhere, but
no objects. The second that there is just one big mass of
 stuff.[17]
 The third is that there just isn't anything at all. This last
option is what Hawthorne and Cortens defend. They do so using what
they (following Strawson) call a "feature-placing
language". They model a potential nihilist program on sentences
like "it is raining", "it is snowing now", and
"it is cold here". Such sentences do not quantify over
anything and have no logical subject ('it' functions as a
dummy pronoun), and so do not ontologically commit one to anything.
The nihilist may then paraphrase sentences that apparently require
objects (such as "there is a computer here") with those
that do not (such as "it is computering here"). In short,
the nihilist turns every putative noun into an adverb, making
judicious use of spatial, temporal, and numerical adverbs too. It may
seem that the results are plainly wrong. For our ordinary sentences
appear to say that objects have properties ("the computer is
running", for example); and they appear, furthermore, to be
about those objects. But on the feature-placing view at hand, they are
not about anything at all (there being no computers for them to be
about, for example). According to Azzouni (2017: xi-xii; see
also all of Chapter 7), this appearance is not dispositive evidence
against the feature-placing nihilist; it is instead the result of a
cognitive illusion. We are systematically and incorrectly tempted to
take our ordinary sentences to be about things, even when we know
those things don't exist.



Turner (2011) agrees with Hawthorne and Cortens that the chief task of
the ontological nihilist is to give paraphrases of ordinary language
that don't contain quantification over objects:



> 
> 
> With this in mind, we demand the following of our Ontological
> Nihilist: give us a systematic recipe for taking any sentence of a
> first-order language (with predicates assumed to be predicates of our
> best science) and cooking up the ontologically innocent claim it was
> supposed to be getting at all along. (2011: 11)
> 
> 
> 



These strategies by which to eliminate object-talk suggest a defensive
move available to nihilists: paraphrase apparently true sentences that
appear to require objects into sentences that do not. Such a strategy
may neutralize objections to nihilism. But another question remains;
is there reason to affirm nihilism in the first place?



One such reason may derive from nihilism's *economy*.
Dasgupta (2009) thinks that objects (he calls them
"individuals") are physically redundant and empirically
undetectable. More precisely, he thinks that every physical theory
considered over the past 400 years entails that objects are physically
redundant and empirically undetectable. They're empirically
undetectable because two situations differing only in their
individualistic facts are indistinguishable. And they're
physically redundant because two systems that only differ with respect
to their individualistic facts will continue to only differ with
respect to those facts. And given two theories--the only
difference between the two being that one posits physically redundant
and empirically undetectable things--we should prefer the one
that does not.



Dasgupta says that if there are no individuals, then the fundamental
facts are all general facts, like \(\exists xFx\), \(\exists x\exists
yGxy\), and the like (see also Dasgupta 2016). But what do the
variables range over in those sentences? Individuals? Objects? To
bypass such questions, we must construct a language that doesn't
quantify over objects. Dasgupta uses a version of predicate
functorese, which replaces individuals with predicates and a defined
adicity. So instead of "*x* is round",
"something is round", or "something loves
someone", we have "Round1 obtains",
"cRound1 obtains", and
"ccLoves2 obtains". In systematically doing
this for all sentences, we can do away with all reference to objects,
replacing them with general states of affairs. And since individuals
are physically redundant and empirically undetectable, this is a good
thing.



The aforementioned authors all seem to agree that if first-order
logic, which quantifies over objects, can be replaced with a logic
that doesn't so quantify, or one can give a translation of every
intuitively true sentence of first-order logic into another language
that doesn't quantify over objects, then ontological nihilism is
vindicated. That is, if one can give an "ontologically
innocent" (that is, one that doesn't quantify over
anything) paraphrase of every sentence, or a scheme for so doing, then
ontological nihilism is on good footing.


#### 2.1.2 Existence Monism



Existence Monism, chiefly sponsored in recent times by Horgan and
Potrc, says that there is exactly one
 object.[18]
 (Or at least, exactly one concrete object, or one concrete physical
object.) The one thing (which Horgan and Potrc call 'the
blobject') is huge, and very complex, though it does not have
any parts. Rather, it has different properties in various
spatiotemporally local ways (2008: 177-178).



On Horgan and Potrc's view, common-sense statements are
true, but not made true by any thing(s) other than the only thing
there is--the blobject. So truth isn't direct
correspondence between propositions and the parts of the world
they're about, but rather between propositions and the entire
world--indirect correspondence (2000: 250-51).



One compelling argument for existence monism (2000: SS2.4, also
Schaffer (2007)) is that the complete causal story of the world can be
told in terms of the world and the laws without appeal or reference to
parts of the world. So, if there were parts of the world, they would
be redundant and/or
 epiphenomenal (see entry).
 But we shouldn't posit explanatorily redundant or epiphenomenal
things. So, we shouldn't posit parts of the world. So, only one
object--the world--exists.



One compelling argument against existence monism takes a Moorean
shape. Russell (1918 [1985: 36]) says,



> 
> 
> I share the common-sense belief that there are many separate things; I
> do not regard the apparent multiplicity of the world as consisting
> merely in phases and unreal divisions of a single indivisible
> Reality.
> 
> 
> 



If the multiplicity of things is really this obvious, the point may be
extended: the rejection of one of the premises of any valid argument
that has as a conclusion that there is only one concrete object will
always be more plausible than accepting the
 conclusion.[19]


#### 2.1.3 Existence Pluralism



Existence pluralism is the view that there is more than one thing.
Certainly existence pluralism is the standard view--even among
metaphysicians. Indeed, most people think that there are a great many
things. The conjunction of the Umbrella View and existence pluralism
entails that there is more than one object. But if one thinks there
are a great many things, one might also think that they are not all
objects. And so existence pluralists may want to try to treat the
ontological question as distinct from the Extension Question (for
them, see
 SS2.2).


##### Nominalism



One exception is nominalism; or at least, one version of nominalism is
an exception. Although nominalism is widely discussed in ontology,
precisely what the view is differs. Some say that nominalism is the
view that there are no abstracta or universals. Others say that
nominalism is the view that the correct answer to the ontological
question is 'particulars', or 'concrete
things', or 'objects'.



For the proponent of the latter formulation of nominalism, the
Extension Question is the ontological question; if she thinks there
are only objects, then she'll think that whatever is in the
extension of *object* is all there is. (But not because she
holds the Umbrella View.) The proponent of the former formulation may
countenance non-abstracta or non-universals that aren't objects.
And so she might pursue the ontological question and the Extension
Question separately.


##### Miscellaneous



There are other views of what there is that are less general than
existence nihilism, existence monism, existence pluralism, or
nominalism. For example, possibilism is the view that there are merely
possible objects (see the section on possibilist realism in the entry
on
 possible objects).
 This view doesn't say that every thing is a merely possible
thing; it just says that the answer to the ontological question ought
to include merely possible things. Mereological universalism says that
whenever you have two or more things, there is an object composed of
all and only those things (see the section on permissivism in the
entry on
 ordinary objects).
 It doesn't tell you that every thing is a composite thing; it
just says that the answer to the ontological question needs to include
such objects. Perdurantism says that objects are composed of temporal
parts--at each time at which an object exists, there is an
instantaneous object composed of all its parts at that time and is a
part of it at that time, so those objects ought to be in the extension
of the answer to the ontological question (see entry on
 temporal parts).
 Meinongianism says that there are non-existent objects, so they would
include those objects in the extension of the answer to the
ontological question (see entry on
 nonexistent objects).
 The views canvassed so far in this paragraph may be thought of as
positing surprising *additions* to being, on which there are
more things than one might have otherwise thought. They may be
usefully contrasted with views that posit surprising
*subtractions* from being, on which there are fewer things than
one might have otherwise thought.



These views are partial answers to the ontological question. They are
partial answers because they tell us what there is, but they
don't tell us everything there is.


### 2.2 The Extension Question



If--contra the Umbrella View--it is not true *by
definition* that 'object' picks out a maximally
general category, then there may be things that are not objects. So
the Extension Question may turn out to have a different answer than
the ontological question. And even if one and the same class or
collection is identified as the correct answer to each question, it
does not follow that the questions are the same; even if everything is
an object, it need not be true by definition that the extension of
'object' is just what there is. So we will also survey
answers to the Extension Question that have it that *object*
picks out (at least intensionally) a different group of things than
one's answer to the ontological question.


#### 2.2.1 Ordinary Objects



For those who don't accept the Umbrella View, the Extension
Question is distinct from the ontological question. What, then, does
the Extension Question amount to? Presumably one who denies the
Umbrella View thinks that there are objects, and non-objects. Put
another way, her answer to the ontological question includes objects
and other things. For her, the Extension Question is the following: of
all the things there are, which ones are the objects? Those who deny
the Umbrella View have a variety of ways of dividing the objects from
the non-objects, which we discussed in
 SS1.2.



Another way of dividing the objects from the non-objects is not by
first answering the ontological question and then picking out the
objects from all the things, or by answering the Contrast Question and
then placing things into either *object* or its contrast class.
Rather, one could simply start with the Extension Question--one
could start by listing the obvious and ordinary candidates for the
office of object (see entry on
 ordinary objects).



A common way to start would be by listing the things we ordinarily
take to be objects in our pre-philosophical approach to the world.
Recall the Tugendhat quotation from above: "In ordinary language
we are inclined to call only material objects
'objects'." The view is that the extension of
*object* is all and only the things we normally think about and
talk about and refer to and use. These things are nameable,
identifiable, stable, and persist through time. Examples include bees,
erasers, pillows, and boats.



Two thoughts arise. First, such an answer to the Extension Question
leads to many puzzles and problems. Second, simply listing all the
things is pretty dissatisfying as an answer to the Extension Question.
Better to give a general answer and then see what it entails--in
particular, what entailments it has for the Extension Question. What
follows is one method for giving a general answer to what objects
there
 are.[20]


#### 2.2.2 Special Composition Question



Most who have considered the Extension Question probably think there
are such objects as photons, electrons, quarks and other things that
science deals with--the fundamental physical particles. And those
things seem to make up other things, like atoms, molecules, elements,
cells, and so on up the size chain to medium-sized dry goods, large
buildings, mountains, and planets.



So it seems that things are often composed of other things. But under
what conditions does composition occur? van Inwagen (1990) calls this
'The Special Composition Question' (hereafter 'the
SCQ'). More precisely, the SCQ calls for filling in for Ph in
the following sentence: For any *x*s, there exists a *y*
such that the *x*s compose *y* iff Ph. An answer must
be non-analytic and must have only 'the *x*s'
 free.[21]



Here are some candidate answers to the SCQ. Contact: 'the
*x*s are in contact'. Life: 'the *x*s are
caught up in a life'. Mereological Nihilism: 'there is
only one of the *x*s'. Mereological Universalism:
'the *x*s are one or more in number'.



Anyone who denies the Umbrella View and who has an answer to the SCQ
can consider that as a partial answer to the Extension Question. What
objects are there? Contact says that there are the *x*s, and
for any *x*s that are in contact, there's another object
(the one that's composed of them). Life says that there are the
*x*s, and for any *x*s that are caught up in a life,
there's another object (the one that's composed of them).
Mereological Nihilism says that there are just the *x*s, and no
other objects. Mereological Universalism says that there are the
*x*s, for any *x*s at all (no matter how they are
arranged), there's another object (the one that's composed
of them). And so on for other answers.


## 3. Nature



Thus far we have asked two questions of *object*: (i) what, if
any, is its contrast? (ii) what things, if any, are in its extension?
These questions might also be phrased as the questions of what
non-objects there are and of what objects there are. We turn now to
our final question: (iii) supposing there are objects, what are they
like? What is their nature?



One way to specify the nature of a category is to note the theoretical
role it plays or the role played by items within it. This is to say
what items within the category *do*. Another is to give a real
definition of the category (or the items within it), where a real
definition attempts to identify the real essence of the members of the
category. This is to say what items of within category *are*
(see entries on
 theoretical terms in science
 and
 Locke on real essence
 and the section on real and nominal definitions in the entry on
 definitions).



In this section, we will consider attempts to state the nature of
objects. As with our treatment of the Contrast Question, our
discussion will elide some terminological details. Instead of treating
only theories of the nature of objects phrased in precisely those
terms, we will canvas several attempts to state the nature of nearby
categories as well--most notably *substance* and
*particular*--treating them as giving a theory of the
nature of *objects*.


### 3.1 What Objects Do



One way to explain a thing or category is to mark out what it
does--its role. Since *object* is, on any view at all, a
highly abstract and general category, the relevant role by which
*object* might be defined must itself be highly abstract and
 general.[22]
 Three examples:



First, various linguistic items, it seems, denote or refer.
"Armstrong" denotes Armstrong, "redness"
denotes redness, "the successor of zero" denotes the
number 1, and so on. Reflection on these platitudes brings to the fore
a role that we might call *being an object of reference* (or
perhaps some related modal notion such as *possibly being an object
of reference* or *being eligible for reference*).



Second, domains (classes or pluralities), it seems, are associated
with quantifiers (expressions like "some" and
"every"). "Everything is so-and-so" quantifies
over all items within an inclusive domain (maximally inclusive, one
thinks) and says of each of those items that it is so-and-so.
Reflection on these platitudes brings to the fore a role we might call
*being quantified over*, or perhaps some related modal notion
such as *possibly being quantified over* or *being a
candidate for being quantified over*.



Third, some thoughts are, it seems, about things. The thought that
Aristotle was a philosopher is at least in part about a certain
person--Aristotle. The thought that doing metaphysics is a fine
pastime is at least in part about a certain activity. And the thought
that Platonism is sensible is at least in part about a certain
philosophical theory. Reflection on these platitudes brings to the
fore a role we might call *being an object of thought* or
*being thought of*, or perhaps some related modal notion such
as *being possibly thought
 of*.[23]



These three examples isolate highly abstract or general
roles--being an object of reference, being quantified over, or
being thought of. These roles are specified, as it were, by form
rather than content; the roles alone impose very few limitations or
requirements on the kinds of things that fill them. Plausibly, for
example, both concrete material objects and abstract propositions
alike might satisfy any of these roles. These three examples involve
roles specified in part by connection to thought or language. But
these connections may be severed. We might, for example, specify the
object role as being a bearer of properties (this would be a natural
extension of the view discussed in 1.2.7, or a non-linguistic
extension of the view discussed in 1.2.1).



And each role suggests, in turn, a theory of what objects are: (i) to
be an object just is to be a referent, (ii) to be an object just is to
be quantified over, and (iii) to be an object just is to be an object
of
 thought.[24]
 van Inwagen offers a version of (i) here (note the use of
"can" indicating that it is a *modal* role that
objects play, namely being possible referents; we here presuppose the
already mentioned tight connection between 'object' and
'thing'):



> 
> 
> The most general metaphysical category is the category
> "thing". I use 'thing' as the most general
> count-noun. Everything is a thing. A thing is anything that can be
> referred to by a third-person singular pronoun--as when I say,
> "The following is true of everything, that it is identical with
> itself." The category "thing" comprises everything
> there is, everything that exists (for I take a stern anti-Meinongian
> line about non-existents: non-existents simply don't exist: the
> number of them is 0). (2007: 199)
> 
> 
> 



These role-theoretic specifications of what it is to be an object will
have consequences with respect to the Extension Question and the
Contrast Question. If literally every thing at all is eligible for
reference or quantification or thought, for example, then literally
every thing would be an object, a thesis in line with the Umbrella
View. If, on the other hand, some items are not eligible for reference
or quantification or thought, then such items would fall under
*non-object*, and the category *object* would turn out
to have a contrast or complement. Similarly, if , say, both concrete
material objects, abstract propositions are eligible for reference or
quantification or thought, then items of both sorts would fall under
the extension of
 *object*.[25]


### 3.2 What Objects Are



Some think there's more to being an object than playing a
particular theoretical role. On this view, what it is for something to
be an object is a matter of that thing's intrinsic character or
nature. One way of giving the intrinsic nature of a thing is by giving
a real definition. Says Dasgupta (2014), a real definition is:



> 
> 
> a statement of what something is... For example, when one says
> that {Socrates} is the unique singleton containing Socrates, one is
> defining what the set is--that is, giving its real definition.
> Or, equivalently, one is stating its essence or nature... (2014:
> 577)
> 
> 
> 



Statements of what something is--of a thing's essence or
nature--could take a variety of forms. One says what it is to be
that thing; the real definition of *x* might be put: to be
*x* is to be *y*. Or the real definition of a category
*F*: to be an *F* is to be a *G*. When one says,
"To be a bachelor is to be an unmarried male", one is
giving the real definition of bachelorhood.



Another way is to say what is essential to an object or category, as
suggested by Fine (1995): It is essential to *x* that Ph.
Or, it is essential to *F*s that Ph.



In any case, the task at hand is not to write a section about what it
is to be a real definition, but rather how the notion relates to
*object*.



If one thinks real definitions best get at the nature of things, and
one is interested in stating the nature of *object* or of
objects, there are two options. One is to substitute for Ph in the
following: To be an object is to be Ph. The second is to substitute
for Ph in the following: It is essential to objects that Ph.



Note the difference between this method and the method of giving
necessary and sufficient conditions: *x* is an object iff
Ph. If one has a contrast class in mind, then presumably one can
substitute for Ph the negation of that contrast class, e.g.,
"*x* is an object iff *x* is not a
property". But that isn't *what it is* to be an
object. A real definition demands more.



One might think that *object* doesn't have a real
definition. It may be that the contrast class (*property*, say)
is a natural class, but *object* is not.



Ontologies--roughly, abstract and systematic catalogues of the
kinds of things there are--divide on the question of how objects
relate to their properties. On *constituent* ontologies,
properties are parts or constituents or components of the objects that
have them or that they characterize (see entry on
 mereology).
 So on constituent ontologies, a tall tree has *tall,* somehow,
as a part or constituent or component. On *relational*
ontologies, properties are not in any sense parts or constituents or
components of the objects that have them or that they characterize. So
on relational ontologies, though a tall tree bears an interesting
relationship to *tall* (perhaps it bears the
*instantiation* relation to that property), *tall* is
not among the tree's various parts or constituents or
 components.[26]



We will canvas three theories of objects that draw from constituent
ontologies, and then describe a relational alternative.


#### 3.2.1 Constituent Ontologies



Constituent ontologists agree that objects have properties or
property-like items as constituents or parts. They disagree, however,
over whether objects have additional non-property-like items as
constituents or parts and over how the constituents or parts of
objects are related.


##### Bundle theory



According to the bundle theory, objects are bundles of properties.
Different theories of properties will make for different versions of
the bundle theory. The most common theories of properties for bundle
theorists to hold are
 trope theory (see entry on tropes)
 and immanent universals.



On the immanent universal version of the bundle theory, objects are
bundles of universals, and those universals are located in space and
time. When some universals are compresent, however compresence is to
be understood (and perhaps when some other condition is satisfied),
there is an object that is the bundle of those universals. (For some
bundle theorists, not just any group of immanent universals forms a
bundle.) The way it's often put is that objects are bundles of
*coinstantiated* universals, where the coinstantiation relation
may be a primitive
 relation.[27]



On the trope version of the bundle theory, objects are bundles of
tropes. Like the immanent universal version, not just any collection
of tropes forms a bundle which is an object; the tropes have to be
*compresent*. The compresence relation is taken to be
 primitive.[28]



The bundle theory is a theory about objects according to which objects
are composed of items of a different kind or category (namely,
 properties).[29]
 So the bundle theory suggests that *object* has a contrast or
complement. The bundle theory also suggests this broad answer to the
Extension Question: whenever there is a bundle of coinstantiated
universals (or, alternatively, compresent tropes), there is an object.
The extension of *object* includes all and only the bundles,
and what bundles there are is determined by which immanent universals
or tropes stand in the coinstantiation or compresence
 relation.[30]


##### Bare particularism



Like the bundle theory, bare particularism maintains that objects have
their properties as constituents. But bare particularism adds that
there's something else too. In addition to its properties, every
object has as a constituent a bare particular (or 'thin
particular' or 'substratum') that instantiates those
properties. Bare particulars are 'bare' in at least this
sense: unlike objects, they have no properties as parts.



Bare particularism, then, is the conjunction of two theses. First,
every object has at least two kinds of constituents: its properties
and its bare particular. Second, every object has its properties by
having as constituents properties that are instantiated by another of
its constituents: its bare particular.



Bare particulars play two important roles in the theory at hand.
First, they are the *subjects* of properties or the items to
which the properties are attached by instantiation or exemplification.
Thus Alston:



> 
> 
> We must ask concerning any situation involving this relation (e.g., a
> exemplifying [Greenness]) what the relata are. One of them is a
> universal. What is the other? It will obviously not do to
> reply--a grum (defined as an instance of [greenness]); for this
> would amount to saying that the relatum in question is that which
> stands in the instancing relation to [Greenness]; true enough but
> hardly enlightening. It still leaves open the question--what is
> it that stands in the instancing relation to [Greenness]? ...the
> only alternative left appears to be a 'bare' particular,
> or what I prefer to call a substratum. Once we see the need for
> supplying an entity to which the universal involved bears the relation
> of being exemplified, we can see that only a bare particular would do
> the job. (1954: 255)
> 
> 
> 



Second, bare particulars *individuate*. Consider two objects
that are exactly alike in relevant respects (they are both royal blue,
weigh 1kg, and so on); what could make them *two* and not
*one*? What might explain their distinctness? Since they are
exactly alike in relevant respects no appeal to differences in their
property-like constituents (being royal blue, weighing 1 kg, and so
on) would seem to do the trick. So, the bare particularists maintain,
there must be non-property-like constituents by virtue of which they
are
 distinct.[31]


##### Hylomorphism



According to *hylomorphism*, objects consist of matter and form
(see entry on
 form vs. matter).
 Objects are comprised of various parts: electrons and upquarks, for
example. In addition to these ordinary material parts, objects have
rather special components or
constituents--*forms*--property-like items that
inform the *matter* of their host substance. Forms give objects
structure and shape and are what make each object the kind of thing it
is. Forms account for the character or nature of objects; they are
property-like in that respect. Socrates, for example, is a human
animal comprising form and matter; and Socrates is a human animal
because he has a certain form as a constituent.



Hylomorphism may be thought of as a special case of or variation on
the bare particular view. For on hylomorphism, an object has both a
property-like constituent (in this case, *form*) that bears a
special tie to non-property-like constituents (in this case,
 *matter*).[32]


#### 3.2.2 Relational Ontologies



We turn now to relational ontologies. Constituent ontologies, recall,
have it that objects have properties as parts or constituents.
Relational ontologies accept that the extension of both
*object* and *property* is not
 empty[33]--but
 for them, no object has any property as a part or constituent.
Objects are, one might say with Armstrong, blobs (1989: 76-77).
Most relational ontologists will be perfectly happy to say that
objects have parts--it's just that none of those parts are
properties; they're other objects.


##### Objects as blobs



In contrast to the constituent ontologies surveyed above, relational
ontologies posit no internal structure to objects beyond ordinary
mereological structure. Objects are not layer-cakes of thin
particulars and properties (or layer-cakes of matter and form); they
are blobs instead. Put this way, the blob view of objects has only
*negative* content; it tells us what objects are not. It
offers, then, a partial account of the nature of objects, and thus
invites
 supplementation.[34]



We will now consider two relational ontologies and their implications
for the theory of objects.


##### Platonism



The Platonist view of properties is that they are transcendent
universals. They exist independently, and are outside of space and
time, unchanging, and causally inert. Clearly such things cannot be
parts of ordinary material objects which are inside space and time,
change, and participate in causal chains. But objects still are red,
large, heavy, and the like--and this in virtue of standing in
some relation to the transcendent universals. That relation is usually
called *exemplification* or *instantiation*, and it is
taken as primitive. But, importantly, it is
*external*--objects are related to things outside of
themselves--whereas the relation between object and property on
constituent ontologies is *internal*.



So, while Platonism is primarily a view about the nature of
properties, it has implications for the nature of objects. In
particular, it entails that they don't have properties as parts.
As Armstrong puts the point:



> 
> 
> It is interesting to notice that a separate-realm theory of universals
> permits of a blob as opposed to a layer-cake view of particulars. For
> on this view, what is it for a thing to have a property? It is not the
> thing's having some internal feature, but rather its having a
> relationship, the instantiation relationship, to certain universals or
> Forms in another realm. The thing itself could be bloblike. (Armstrong
> 1989: 76-77)
> 
> 
> 



As it turns out, Platonism is not the only account of properties that
sits well with an unstructured or bloblike view of objects.


##### Class Nominalism



On class nominalism, properties are classes of things or classes of
possible things. The property *being green* is the class of all
green things, the property *being wise* is the class of all
wise things, the relation *is the sister of* is the class of
ordered pairs the first member of which is the sister of the second
member, and so on.
 [35]



For an object to have (or exemplify, or instantiate, or whatever) a
property, on this view, is for it to belong to a class of things.
Class membership, like set membership, is an external relation; so
class nominalism sits best with a blob view of objects. van Inwagen
explains this connection as follows:



> 
> 
> According to Lewis [a class nominalist], a property is a set of
> possible objects. (Something is a property if and only if it is a set
> all of whose members are possible objects.) The property of being a
> pig or porcinity, Lewis says, is simply the set of all possible
> pigs--a set far larger than the set of actual pigs. Consider an
> actual pig, Freddy. Freddy of course has porcinity. And what is this
> relation "having" that holds between the pig and the
> property? Why, simply set-membership. And the relation that a set of
> possibilia bears to its individual members is certainly not
> constituency. Freddy is no doubt in some sense a constituent of the
> set of all possible pigs--'constituent' is a very
> flexible word, and it is probably flexible enough to permit that
> application --, but there is no conceivable sense in which the
> set of all possible pigs is a constituent of Freddy. (2011:
> 392-393)
> 
> 
>