Constituents of Matter / 4 / 4.9

4.9 THE BEING OF AN OBJECT OF EXPLANATION AS REVEALED IN A PREDICATED MEASUREMENT

That said, let us now return to our pursuit of the Being of an object of explanation. Before interrupting that pursuit in order to investigate the taxonomy of scientific measurements, we had argued that the kind of Being we must assign to an object of explanation is intimately related to the act of observing it through a predicated measurement. In this section we shall try to understand in some detail how the act of observing such an object determines its manner of being. The argument shall not however concern itself with the issue of whether an object of explanation is something rather than nothing at all; for us, who have incessantly talked about such objects, it is self-evident that they are every bit as much as all object of experience are. Consequently, the argument shall rather focus on the manner in which these objects are something. As Aristotle said about the controversy concerning the objects of the mathematical sciences:

The dispute will not deny that they are but will be about the manner of their being.

Aristotle, Metaphysics

Based on what we have said about predicated measurements, an object which explains such a measurement has a threefold manner of being: it refers to what it explains, it persists in being what it is by allowing itself to be appropriately modified, and it retains all previous such modifications. The first fold reflects the intentionality of the act of explanation. The second, reflects the predicated nature of the measurement to be explained. The third, reflects the re-creative character of the manufacture process which predicates the measurement.