 Before turning to exemplification as partial identity, Armstrong (1997: 118) has claimed that Bradley’s regress can be avoided by taking a state of affairs, say \(x\)’s being \(P\), as capable by itself of holding together its constituents, i.e., the object \(x\) and the property \(P\) (see also Perovic 2016). Thus, there is no need to invoke a relation of exemplification linking \(x\) and \(P\) in order to explain how \(x\) and \(P\) succeed in giving rise to a unitary item, namely the state of affairs in question. There seems to be a circularity here for it appears that we want to explain how an object and a property come to be united in a state of affairs by appealing to the result of this unification, namely the state of affairs itself. But perhaps this view can be interpreted as simply the idea that states of affairs should be taken for granted in a primitivist fashion without seeking an explanation of their unity by appealing to exemplification or otherwise; this is the brute fact approach, as we may call it (for supporters, see Van Inwagen (1993: 37) and Oliver (1996: 33); for criticisms and a possible defense, see Vallicella 2002, and Orilia 2016, respectively).