"There are several kinds of existent different from
each other, not just as cats differ from dogs, but so radically that the
differences fall into the province of ontology. What one completely
fails to understand, he cannot profitably discuss. So I shall take it for
granted that the words and phrases which stand for the most funda¬
mental notion of ontology are univocal.
The second most fundamental notion is that of a constituent. Some
entities are said to be constituents of others. For one entity to be “in”
another and for the former to be a constituent of the latter is the same.
This use of ‘in’ will always be marked by double quotes. Roughly
speaking, an entity is simple if and only if it has no constituents; or, to
speak with the mathematicians, if it has no other constituent than
itself. Otherwise it is complex or, synonymously, a complex. The
qualification, roughly speaking, covers a certain feature of my own
ontology. (In my world the subsistent I call existence is “in” all enti¬
ties; the one I call particularity is “in” all particulars; and so on.) But
this feature makes for the most part no difference for what I am about
in this book. So I shall for the most part ignore it.
In some contexts ‘constituent’, ‘component’, and ‘part’ are inter¬
changeable. In ontology, as I shall speak, they are not. The three words
will be employed to express three different meanings. Thereby hangs
one of the main themes of this book. To unfold it completely, or even
to introduce it carefully, will take much time and great effort. Yet I
wish to strike it, however lightly, at once. This requires that in the next
few paragraphs I use without explanation some words whose use in
ontology will only afterwards be accurately explained.
Many philosophers divide the entities they recognize into two kinds.
One kind is simple; the other, complex. Yet they do not have a clear
notion of a complex. From this lack of clarity spring many woes. Their
dialectic is the theme I want to strike.
Let us glance at my own ontology which, inevitably, will have to
serve as a foil throughout, particularly when it comes to evaluating
others. It will indeed save words if I call it the foil. Having recently
expounded it, I shall either assume it to be familiar, or, at most, recall
this or that part of it very rapidly. I shall not, however, abstain from
either discussing it wherever that will help, or, as at this very point,
from improving it wherever I can.
In the foil, all complexes are “facts” and all “facts” are complexes; all
simples are “things” and all “things” are simple. “Things,” though, are
not the only constituents of “facts.” Each “fact” has at least one con¬
stituent of the ontological kind I call “nexus,” which in turn is a sub¬
kind of the ontological kind I call “subsistents.”
The words which in the last paragraph appear between double
quotes are among those which will afterwards not be used without
previous explanation. Each stands for an ontological kind. Such a kind
is also called a category. I, too, shall use this word. So I shall take a
moment to free it from a superficial ambiguity.
To distinguish clearly between “things” and “facts” and to have a
clear notion of complex is, as we shall see, virtually one and the same.
“Things” are constituents of “facts.” As to ‘category’, now, some use it
so that “things” and “facts” are two fundamental categories of all
ontologies which clearly distinguish between the two. Upon another
use of the word, it makes no sense to say of the entities of one category
that they are “in” those of another. I find the first use both safe and
convenient. So I shall say, for instance, that the three fundamental
categories of the foil are those of “things,” “facts,” and “subsistents.”
The lack of clarity of which I accused some philosophers in the dis¬
tinction between “things” and “facts” is, as we shall see, intimately
connected with an unnoticed ambiguity of ‘complex’. Take a world,
such as mine, in which there are “universals.” The latter, we shall also
see, are “things” and not “facts.” Yet many philosophers, including
until now myself, have divided “universals” into those which are sim¬
ple and those which are “complex.” These double quotes, around
‘complex’, mark not just an anticipatory use but, rather, the unnoticed
ambiguity. .4s I shall presently show, a “universal,” since it is a “thing,”
cannot, even though it may in some other sense be “complex,” be a
complex in exactly the same sense in which a “fact” is one.
In the foil, for example, green, square, and being both green and
square are three “universals.” The first two are simple. Or, at least, we
may safely assume that they are. The third is of the kind which I, too,
have called “complex.” Now I see that green cannot be a “constituent”
of being both green and square in exactly the same sense in which it is a
constituent of some “facts,” such as, say, a spot’s being green.
Even after one has seen the ambiguity, one understands the tempta¬
tion. Clearly, (being) green and being both green and square have
something to do with each other and this something is such that as
long as ontologists will be as inaccurate as they have been for so long,
they will be tempted to speak and think of the former (green) as a
constituent, or part, or component, of the latter (being both green and
square). Nor is it easy to be completely accurate in these matters. To
judge from the record and, in spite of all efforts, my own fumblings, it is
indeed as difficult as anything. Nor can one do without an elaborate
terminology to safeguard the distinctions he has made. We shall of
course soon choose another word to stand for the “complexity” of
“things”."