Re-Clothing Moreland-Style Bare Particulars

Non-trope theoretic traditional bare particularism conceives of ordinary concrete particulars as complex wholes constituted by universals and a 'bare particular': a propertyless, non-repeatable entity which functions as property-bearer and individuator of the ordinary, 'thick' particular. Sellars-type objections to traditional bare particularism claim traditional bare particularism to involve the contradictory proposition that bare particulars have no properties and yet exemplify properties. Moreland-style bare particularism is a new version of bare particularism which aims to block Sellars-type objections by distinguishing between two types of property exemplification and refining thereby the sense in which bare particulars are said to have no properties. In this paper, (i) I present this new strategy for bare particularism, (ii) set out a version of the Sellars-type objection which, it is argued, applies no less to old bare particularism than to Moreland-style bare particularism, (iii) elaborate two possible replies to this version, and (iv) show that neither of them is persuasive.