The analysis of naturalness in terms of degrees of being does not presuppose any of
these views or any of their denials.
One interesting question is what to say about uninstantiated properties. I’m going
to assume in what follows that there are uninstantiated properties. But one might
worry that uninstantiated properties generate a problem for the proposed analysis.^12
Consider two determinates of the same determinable, one of which is instantiated
whereas the other is uninstantiated. As noted in section 2.2, I think determinates of
the same determinable are equally natural and as natural as the determinable itself.
Hence, given the analysis, they all have the same degree of being. However, one might
also intuit that the uninstantiated property is less real than the instantiated one.
If need be, I’d be willing to let theory overrule the intuition; it’s not obvious that
there is an ontological distinction between instantiated and uninstantiated proper-
ties.^13 But there also are ways to try to soothe this intuition rather than overrule it.
I’ve distinguished several kinds of ontological superiority, and it might be that the
uninstantiated determinate has the same degree of being as the instantiated deter-
minate but in some other way the instantiated determinate is ontologically superior
to the uninstantiated one. For example, perhaps uninstantiated properties are analo-
gous to merely possible particulars, and so appealing to something like levels of being
in this context might be appropriate. For now, let me set aside the question of
uninstantiated properties, but we will address this issue again in section 7.6.
Given plausible assumptions, we can define the notion of degree of being in terms
of the notion of naturalness. Given plausible assumptions, we can define the notion
of naturalness in terms of degree of being. We now face some puzzling questions. Is a
theory that makes use of the notion of naturalnessmerely a notational variantof
a theory that makes use of the notion of a degree of being? If one of these notions is in
some way prior, which notionshould bedefined in terms of the other?
7.4 Theoretical Claims and Questions
Let thenotational variants hypothesis(NVH) be the hypothesis that two theories
that differ only with respect to whether they employ the notion of naturalness or the
notion of a degree of being are mere notational variants of each other.
Sometimes, what we think are two different phenomena really are the same
phenomenon appearing under two different guises. And sometimes a phenomenon
appearing in one theory under a particular guise is the same phenomenon playing the
same role in an apparently different theory under a different guise. In either case, we
(^12) In fact, an anonymous referee did have this worry!
(^13) Mundy (1987) and Tooley (1987) both provide a powerful case for at least some uninstantiated
properties. However, note that those attracted to the substance-attribute metaphysics described in section
2.4.2 should be suspicious of uninstantiated properties, since they would have the mode of being of an
attribute withoutbeing inan attribute.