Defenders of the Hole Argument take this commitment to indeterminism to be a consequence of accepting certain models of general relativity as genuinely distinct possibilities for substantival spacetime.
Pooley (2013) writes: "The substantivalist should agree that a complex material rod does not conform to the axioms of some geometry simply because that is the substantival geometry in which it is immersed; the rod would not do what it does were the laws governing its microphysical parts different in key respects".
Category proliferation the generation of a continuum or genuinely "mixed" categories can loosen the grip of substantival assumptions.
Brown rejects the notion, which can be glimpsed in some passages by advocates of substantival spacetime, that spacetime's structure should be thought of as causing fast-moving bodies to shrink in length, etc.
In any natural-language sense of 'singular', these phrases do not introduce something into discussion by means of 'a singular, definitely identifying substantival expression', simply because the referring expressions in such cases are not singular but plural.
Reply: The distinction between identity and similarity statements (or sentences) is usually drawn in terms of the distinction between substantival and adjectival common nouns.
And on the other hand, it is plain that they are 'introduced into discussion' by way of a plural substantival expression, e.g. by the definite description 'the fish in Georgian Bay', or by a demonstrative such as 'those fish'.
However he makes sure to use as a predicate-term a substantival adjective in its neuter form, because only in this way can it appear that the form connoted by the predicate-term is not directly present in the subject, but is indirectly attributed to it, through its individuals.
But now the fact is that, when put in just these terms of 'singular substantival expressions', there appears to be the very simplest and most obvious objection to the claim an objection echoing Russell's rejoinder to the Leibniz maxim that "Whatever is, is one".
The concept, it will be recalled, is glossed by Strawson (as also, representatively, by Tugendhat) as the correlate of "a singular, definitely identifying substantival expression".
This is by no means, however, the end of the matter, precisely because it does not address the issue of such substantival terms as 'blood' and 'gold' themselves.
