Distributional Properties

Abstract This paper discusses a distinctive kind of property that I call ‘distributional’ properties, which include, for example, the property of being polka-dotted (a colour-distributional property) and the property of being hot at one end and cold at the other (a heat-distributional property). I argue that distributional properties exist in whatever sense other properties exist, that they do not simply reduce to the non-distributional properties of points, and that they are implicated in the correct analysis of change. Distributional properties are perfectly simple and straightforward. Let me give some examples. Being polka-dottedis an example of a colour-distributional property-the property a surface has when it has the right kind of colour distribution. Being hot at one end and cold at the otheris an example of a heat-distributional property. Having a density o/ 1 kg/m > throughoutis an example of a density-distributional property. It’s hard for me to say more about what a distributional property is without begging the question against some of the arguments I’m about to discuss. Intuitively, though, a distributional property is like a way of painting, or filling in, a spatially extended object with some property such as colour, or heat, or density. Properties that can be filled in (like colours, temperatures, or densities themselves) I call ‘qualities’ (one might alternatively call them ‘distributable properties’). The qualities and the distributional properties are prima facie distinct: it’s one thing to have a redness distribution (to be red in some places, one might say), another to just plain be red.