display all the ideas for this combination of texts
1 idea
8555 | There is no subset of properties which guarantee a thing's identity [Shoemaker] |
Full Idea: There is, putting aside historical properties and 'identity properties', no subset of the properties of a thing which constitutes an individual essence, so that having those properties is necessary and sufficient for being that particular thing. | |
From: Sydney Shoemaker (Causality and Properties [1980], §05) | |
A reaction: He asserts this rather dogmatically. If he says a thing can lose its essence, I agree, but it seems to me that there must be a group of features which will guarantee that (if they are present) it has that identity. |