Argument
Bundle theory
Overview
Bundle theory, originated by the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, is the ontological theory about objecthood in which an object comprises a collection (bundle) of properties, relations or tropes.
According to bundle theory, an object consists of its properties and nothing more; thus, there cannot be an object without properties and one cannot conceive of such an object. For example, when we think of an apple, we think of its properties: redness, roundness, being a type of fruit, etc. There is nothing above and beyond these properties; the apple is nothing more than the collection of its properties. In particular, there is no substance in which the properties are inherent.
Bundle theory has been contrasted with the ego theory of the self, which views the egoic self as a soul-like substance existing in the same manner as the corporeal self.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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152.] At the stage, where substance, as absolute power, is the self-relating power (itself a merely inner possibility) which thus determines itself to accidentality,--from which power the externality it thereby creates is distinguished--necessity is a correlation strictly so called, just as in the first form of necessity, it is substance. This is the correlation of Causality.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Bundle theory is.
It is, Leibniz says, to invert the true order to take qualities or abstract terms as the best known and most easily comprehended, and "concretes" as unknown, and as having the most difficulty about them. "It is abstractions which give birth to almost all our difficulties," and Locke's error here is that he begins with abstractions, and takes them to be most open to intelligence. Locke's second error is separating so…
John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
States what Bundle theory is.
It retreats slowly, defends every inch of ground, and often, after it has been driven from the open country, retains a footing in some remote fastness. The essences of individuals were an unmeaning figment arising from a misapprehension of the essences of classes, yet even Locke, when he extirpated the parent error, could not shake himself free from that which was its fruit. He distinguished two sorts of essences…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Bundle theory is.
Related ideas
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- John Locke
- Ontology
- René Descartes
- Substance theory
- Sanskrit
- Aristotle
- Personal identity
- Subject and object (philosophy)
- Essence
- Madhyamaka
- Chandrakirti
- David Hume
- Trope (philosophy)
- Quentin Smith
- J. P. Moreland
Place in the tradition
Part of British philosophy.