Single Idea 14665

[catalogued under 9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity]

Full Idea

Let the incommunicable property of Plato be called 'Platonity'. For we can call this quality 'Platonity' by a fabricated word, in the way in which we call the quality of man 'humanity'. Therefore this Platonity is one man's alone - Plato's.

Gist of Idea

We can call the quality of Plato 'Platonity', and say it is a quality which only he possesses

Source

Boethius (Librium de interpretatione editio secunda [c.516], PL64 462d), quoted by Alvin Plantinga - Actualism and Possible Worlds 5

Book Reference

Plantinga,Alvin: 'Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality' [OUP 2003], p.111


A Reaction

Plantinga uses this idea to reinstate the old notion of a haecceity, to bestow unshakable identity on things. My interest in the quotation is that the most shocking confusions about properties arose long before the invention of set theory.