Fiction and Essence

Abstract

Lycan and Shapiro (1986) constructed a system of possible worlds, out of our familiar if not unproblematic abstract entities, identifying “nonactual worlds” with certain sets of structured propositions--including singular propositions--and identifying “nonexistent” individual objects with certain complex properties. In our formal system Shapiro and I accommodated the transworld identity, in the strict sense, of actually existing individuals: Since “worlds” are just sets of propositions, it is easily determined which individuals inhabit a given nonactual world; individual i is in world w iff w has as an element some proposition singularly about i (that is, some proposition of the form < i, λx(Fx) > .) Thus, actually existing individuals are transworld-identified directly with themselves, not with sets of properties or with mere counterparts; we embraced Haecceitism.