Abstract
A standard argument in favor of Realism about abstracta posits the existence of a property in order to explain why several particulars are of the same kind.
“In Peter, James, and John, you may observe in each a Certain collection of Stature, Figure, Color, and other peculiar Properties, by which they are known asunder, distinguished from all other Men, and if I may say so, individuated.” [from Berkeley Alciphron, or the minute philosopher VII 5 (1732)]
“Of course, if provision is made only for his general humanity, and not for what makes him hic or ille, not for his haecceity as the schoolmen used to say, a man will have cause to complain.”
(Journal of Education I Nov. 1890 629/1)
“Metaphysics, even bad metaphysics, really rests on observations...and the only reason that this is not universally recognized is that it rests upon the kinds of phenomena with which every man’s experience is so saturated that he usually pays no particular attention to them.”
[1898 C. Peirce Collected Papers Vol. 6 ¶2 (1935)]
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References
For a historical introduction to this problem see Jorge Gracia, Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1984). Compare Gracia’s Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics ( Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988 ).
For example, Duns Scotus wrote as follows. “I first explain what I understand by individuation, whether numerical unity or through singularity: not, indeed the indeterminate unity according to which anything in a species is called one in number, but a unity demarcated as `this’, so that…it is impossible for an individual to be divided into subject parts. And what is sought is the reason for this impossibility. So I say that it is impossible for an individual not to be a `this’, demarcated by this singularity; and it is not the cause of singularity in general which is sought, but of this specially demarcated singularity, namely, as it is determinately `this’.” See The Oxford Commentary On The Four Books Of The Sentences (selections) in Hyman and Walsh, eds., Philosophy in the Middle Ages ( Indianapolis: Hackett, 1973 ), p. 588.
See Max Black, “The Identity of Indiscernables,” in M. Loux, ed., Universals and Particulars ( Garden City: Anchor Books, 1970 ), pp. 204–216.
See Ernest Sosa, “Subjects Among Other Things,” Philosophical Perspectives, 1, Metaphysics (1987), pp. 155–187.
See John Pollock, Knowledge and Justification (Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 140–141.
See René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy,Meditations II and VI. Compare David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature,Selby-Bigge, ed. (Oxford, 1888), Part IV, Section V, p. 233. Nonspatial Humean impressions seem to be either nonspatial concrete events or nonspatial tropes.
Ian Hacking, The Identity of Indiscernibles,“ The Journal of Philosophy, 72 (1975), pp. 249–256.
For an argument in support of the assumption that there could be two qualitatively indistinguishable particulars, and criticisms of Hacking’s attack on this assumption see Robert Adams, “Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity,” The Journal of Philosophy,76 (1979), pp. 5–26. Additional criticisms of Hacking may be found in Ronald Hoy, “Inquiry, Intrinsic Properties, and The Identity of Indiscernibles,” Synthese,61 (1984), pp. 275–297, which I draw on in my own discussion of Hacking.
Gary Rosenkrantz and Joshua Hoffman, “Are Souls Unintelligible?” Philosophical Perspectives, 5, Philosophy of Religion (1991), pp. 183–212.
See St. Thomas Aquinas, Concerning Being and Essence, George G. Leckie, trans. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1965 ), pp. 3–38.
Gustav Bergmann, Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), and Edwin Allaire, “Bare Particulars” in M. Loux, ed., Universals and Particulars ( Garden City: Anchor Books, 1970 ), pp. 235–244.
Keith Campbell, Body and Mind ( Garden City: Anchor Books, 1970 ), pp. 44–45.
Donald Davidson, “The Individuation of Events,” in N. Rescher, ed., Essays in Honor of C. G. Hempel ( Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1971 ), pp. 216–234.
See William Mann, “Epistemology Supernaturalized,” Faith and Philosophy, 2 (1985), pp. 436–456. Compare Gary Rosenkrantz, “Necessity, Contingency, and Mann,” Faith and Philosophy, 2 (1985), pp. 457–463, and William Mann, “Keeping Epistemology Supernaturalized: A Reply To Rosenkrantz,” Faith and Philosophy, 2 (1985), pp. 464–468.
See G. F. Stout, “Are the Characteristics of Particular Things Universal or Particular,” symposium in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,suppl. Vol. 3 (1923), pp. 114–122. On Stout, see Maria van der Schaar, G. F. Stout’s Theory ofJudgement and Proposition (University of Leiden, 1991), especially pp. 120–122, and p. 164.
See Jack Meiland, “Do Relations Individuate?” in M. Loux, ed., Universals and Particulars ( Garden City: Anchor Books, 1970 ), pp. 258–263.
According to some philosophers, a haecceity may be represented (in a model) by the ordered pair of the identity relation and an object. For example, see Felicia Ackermann, “Proper Names, Propositional Attitudes, and Nondescriptive Connotations,” Philosophical Studies,35 (1979), pp. 55–69. However, a haecceity’s being represented in a model by such an ordered pair does not imply that a haecceity can be identified with an ordered pair of this kind. After all, a thing can be used in a model to represent something other than itself: what is represented depends upon the intended interpretation of the model.
For a defense of the claim that property identity is fine grained see Roderick Chisholm, Person and Object ( La Salle: Open Court, 1976 ), pp. 117–120.
Ernest Sosa, “Classical Analysis,” Journal of Philosophy,80 (1983), pp. 695–710. See the discussion of Sosa’s “Classical Analysis” in Chapter 1, section VI.
Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958 ), p. 97, 282.
See Donald Davidson, “The Individuation of Events,” and “Events as Particulars,” Nous, IV (1970), pp. 25–32.
See Alvin Plantinga, “The Boethian Compromise,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 15 (1978), pp. 129–138.
Roderick Chisholm, The First Person ( Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981 ), pp. 7–8.
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Rosenkrantz, G.S. (1993). The Problem of Individuation. In: Haecceity. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 57. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8175-2_2
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