Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Issues of Pragmaticism', 'Remarks on the forces of inorganic Nature' and 'How Things Might Have Been'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
11897 A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: One view of a principle of individuation is what is called a 'criterion of identity', determining answers to questions about identity and distinctness at a time and over time - a principle of distinction and persistence.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.2)
     A reaction: Since the term 'Prime Minister' might do this job, presumably there could be a de dicto as well as a de re version of individuation. The distinctness consists of chairing cabinet meetings, rather than being of a particular sex.
11898 Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: A second view of the principle of individuation includes criteria of distinction and persistence, but also determines the counterfactual possibilities for a thing.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.5)
     A reaction: It would be a pretty comprehensive individuation which defined all the counterfactual truths about a thing, as well as its actual truths. This is where powers come in. We need to know a thing's powers, but not how they cash out counterfactually.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
11883 A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Socrates can be assigned a haecceity: an essential property of 'being Socrates' which (unlike the property of 'being identical with Socrates') may be regarded as what 'makes' its possessor Socrates in a non-trivial sense, but is simple and unanalysable.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2)
     A reaction: I don't accept that there is any such property as 'being Socrates' (or even 'being identical with Socrates'), except as empty locutions or logical devices. A haecceity seems to be the 'ultimate subject of predication', with no predicates of its own.