  In the Abhidharma ontology only the atoms that compose the four  elements are ultimately real. Thus, the theory of two levels of  existents implies a philosophical perspective that is best described  as reductionism. On this view, only partless entities (i.e., atoms)  can be said to properly exist. The property-particulars of phenomenal experience (the svalakṣaṇas) are real only  insofar as their atomic configurations provide a causal basis for the arising of perceptual apprehension. But the Buddhist reductionist, as Siderits (2003, 13 and passim) has clearly argued, is not an eliminativist. Unlike the eliminative materialist who regards  conventional, folk-psychological discourse about persons as  unsupported by, say, neuroscientific data (and thus is willing to  dispense with a theory of persons altogether), the Buddhist  reductionist merely points to the conventional nature of persons as  ordinarily conceived. Whether we consider the view of Buddhist  personalists such as the Vātsīputrīyas (or  Pudgalavādins), who hold that persons non-reductively supervene  upon the psychophysical aggregates, or that of Buddhist reductionists who treat persons as conventional designations, a theory of persons  is retained. 