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Full Idea
What picks me out uniquely, without relating me to some other being? It can only be the property of 'being me' or 'being identical with myself', which can only be an individual essence or haecceity, a property I cannot fail to have.
Gist of Idea
I am picked out uniquely by my individual essence, which is 'being identical with myself'
Source
Roderick Chisholm (Person and Object [1976], 1.5)
Book Ref
Chisholm,Roderick: 'Person and Object' [Open Court 1976], p.33
A Reaction
Only a philosopher (and a modern analytic one at that) would imagine that this was some crucial insight into how we know our own identities.
Related Idea
Idea 15807 A haecceity is a property had necessarily, and strictly confined to one entity [Chisholm]
| 276 | My individuality is my soul, which carries my body around [Plato] |
| 3609 | I am a thinking substance, which doesn't need a place or material support [Descartes] |
| 5627 | I can express the motion of my body in a single point, but that doesn't mean it is a simple substance [Kant] |
| 16002 | The self is a combination of pairs of attributes: freedom/necessity, infinite/finite, temporal/eternal [Kierkegaard] |
| 15811 | I am picked out uniquely by my individual essence, which is 'being identical with myself' [Chisholm] |