14508
|
A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM]
|
|
Full Idea:
A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain particular individual - not the property that we all share, of being identical with some individual, but my property of being identical with me, your property of being identical with you etc.
|
|
From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
These philosophers tell you that a thisness 'is' so-and-so, and don't admit that he (and Plantinga) are putting forward a new theory about haecceities, and one I find implausible. I just don't believe in the property of 'being-identical-to-me'.
|
12034
|
If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM]
|
|
Full Idea:
There is a temporal argument for the possibility of non-identical indiscernibles, if there could be a cyclical universe, in which each event was preceded and followed by infinitely many other events qualitatively indiscernible from itself.
|
|
From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
The argument is a parallel to Max Black's indiscernible spheres in space. Adams offers the reply that time might be tightly 'curved', so that the repetition was indeed the same event again.
|
14510
|
Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM]
|
|
Full Idea:
Similar to the argument from spatial dispersal, we can argue against the Identity of Indiscernibles from temporal dispersal. It seems there could be a cyclic universe, ..and thus there could be distinct but indiscernible events, separated temporally.
|
|
From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
See Idea 14509 for spatial dispersal. If cosmologists decided that a cyclical universe was incoherent, would that ruin the argument? Presumably there might even be indistinguishable events in the one universe (in principle!).
|
16455
|
Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM]
|
|
Full Idea:
If God creates a globe reached by travelling two diameters in a straight line from another globe, this can be described as two globes in Euclidean space, or a single globe in a tightly curved non-Euclidean space.
|
|
From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
[my compression of Adams's version of Hacking's response to Black, as spotted by Stalnaker] Hence we save the identity of indiscernibles, by saying we can't be sure that two indiscernibles are not one thing, unusually described.
|