Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Ordinatio' and 'On Denoting'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 4. Impossible objects

18777	If the King of France is not bald, and not not-bald, this violates excluded middle [Linsky,B on Russell]
	Full Idea: Russell says one won't find the present King of France on the list of bald things, nor on the list of things that are not bald. It would seem that this gives rise to a violation of the law of excluded middle.
	From: comment on Bertrand Russell (On Denoting [1905]) by Bernard Linsky - Quantification and Descriptions 2
	A reaction: It's a bit hard to accuse the poor old King of violating a law when he doesn't exist.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation

16632	We distinguish one thing from another by contradiction, because this is, and that is not [Duns Scotus]
	Full Idea: What is it [that establishes distinctness of things]? It is, to be sure, that which is universally the reason for distinguishing one thing from another: namely, a contradiction…..If this is, and that is not, then they are not the same entity in being.
	From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], IV.11.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.2
	A reaction: This is a remarkably intellectualist view of such things. John Wycliff, apparently, enquired about how animals were going to manage all this sort of thing. It should appeal to the modern logical approach to metaphysics.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity

13094	The haecceity is the featureless thing which gives ultimate individuality to a substance [Duns Scotus, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: For Scotus, the haecceity of an individual was a positive non-quidditative entity which, together with a common nature from which it was formally distinct, played the role of the ultimate differentia, thus individuating the substance.
	From: report of John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.3
	A reaction: Most thinkers seem to agree (with me) that this is a non-starter, an implausible postulate designed to fill a gap in a metaphysic that hasn't been properly worked out. Leibniz is the hero who faces the problem and works around it.