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Single Idea 13101

[filed under theme 9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential ]

Full Idea

A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.

Clarification

'Ex nihilo' means out of nothing

Gist of Idea

Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin

Source

Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)

Book Ref

Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J: 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz' [CUP 1999], p.271

A Reaction

Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).

The 12 ideas from 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz'

13068 We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13069 The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13071 We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13072 Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
17080 Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13076 Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13081 Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13100 Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13102 If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13103 Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13101 Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
13104 Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]