Pure Universals: Total and Partial
The bundle theory under a realist constituent ontology takes material objects to be composed of repeatable qualitative parts. This theory must answer the problem of individuation, the problem of explaining how two or more qualitatively undistinguishable objects are numerically distinct. Any answer however is conditioned by the regulation that one should invoke only pure universals, i.e., constitutive qualitative parts like being yellow. An answer which appeals to impure universals, i.e., non-constitutive qualitative parts like being Aristotle or being from Greece, is a transgression. Here I attempt to show that positing individual essences like being Aristotle as individuators is no transgression. For one, they are constitutive qualitative parts, because they are constitutive qualitative improper parts, as opposed to constitutive qualitative proper parts like being yellow; for two, they are universals, because they are capable of a kind of multiple location I call multiple fictional location.
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