Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T23:26:57.078Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Can the Bundle Theory Save Substantivalism from the Hole Argument?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Glenn Parsons
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Patrick McGivern*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
*
Send requests for reprints to Glenn Parsons, Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E5, Canada; email: gparsons@ualberta.ca.

Abstract

One of the most serious theoretical obstacles to contemporary spacetime substantivalism is Earman and Norton's hole argument. We argue that applying the bundle theory of substance to spacetime points allows spacetime substantivalists to escape the conclusion of this argument. Some philosophers have claimed that the bundle theory cannot be applied to substantival spacetime in this way due to problems in individuating spacetime points in symmetrical spacetimes. We demonstrate that it is possible to overcome these difficulties if spatiotemporal properties are viewed as tropes rather than universals.

Type
Relativity and Fields
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The authors thank Li Li, Bernard Linsky, Alexander Rueger, Oliver Schulte, and Martin Tweedale for comments on an earlier draft, as well as the participants of the Simultaneity, Space, and Spacetime session at the 2000 PSA meetings for helpful comments and discussion. The authors were supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References

Armstrong, David M. (1989), Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, David M. (1997), A World of States of Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Keith (1990), Abstract Particulars. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Casullo, Albert (1982), “Particulars, Substrata, and the Identity of Indiscernibles”, Philosophy of Science 49:591603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castillo, Albert (1984), “The Contingent Identity of Particulars and Universals”. Mind 93:527541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earman, John (1989), World Enough and Space-time. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Earman, John and Norton, John (1987), “What Price Substantivalism? The Hole Story”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38:515525.10.1093/bjps/38.4.515CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoefer, Carl (1996), “The Metaphysics of Space-time Substantivalism”, Journal of Philosophy 113:527.10.2307/2941016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loux, Michael J. (1998), “Beyond Substrata and Bundles: A Prolegomenon to a Substance Ontology”, in Laurence, Stephen and MacDonald, Cynthia (eds.), Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 233247.Google Scholar
Maudlin, Tim (1990), “Substances and Space-time: What Aristotle Would Have Said to Einstein”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 21:531561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, John (2000), “The Hole Argument”, in Edward Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2000 edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-holearg/.Google Scholar
O'Leary-Hawthorne, John (1995), “The Bundle Theory of Substance and the Identity of Indiscernibles”, Analysis 55:191196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Leary-Hawthorne, John and Cover, Jan (1998), “A World of Universals”, Philosophical Studies 91:205219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand (1948), Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Teller, Paul (1991), “Substance, Relations, and Arguments About the Nature of Space-Time”, Philosophical Review 100:363397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar