Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Identity and Individuation

  • Singular Concepts and Singular Negative Existentials

    London Ed seems to be suggesting that we need irreducibly singular concepts (properties, propositional functions) if we are properly to analyze grammatically singular negative existence statements such as 1. Vulcan does not exist. But why do we need to take 'Vulcan' to express a singular concept or haecceity property?  Why isn't the following an adequate…

  • Reduction, Elimination, and Material Composition

    Yesterday I wrote,  "And yet if particular a reduces to particular b, then a is nothing other than b, and is therefore identical to b." This was part of an argument that reduction collapses into elimination.  A reader objects: "I am not sure that this is an accurate definition of reduction."  He gives an argument having…

  • The ‘Is’ of Identity and the ‘Is’ of Predication

    Bill Clinton may have brought the matter to national attention, but philosophers have long appreciated that much can ride on what the meaning of 'is' is.  Edward of London has a very good post in which he raises the question whether the standard analytic distinction between the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication…

  • Accidental Sameness and its Logical Properties

    I should thank Richard Hennessey for motivating me to address a topic I haven't until these last few days discussed in these pages, namely, that of accidental sameness.  Let us adopt for the time being a broadly Aristotelian ontology with its standard nomenclature of substance and accident, act and potency, form and matter, etc.  Within such a…

  • Accidental Sameness: Defending Hennessey Against My Objection

    Yesterday I made an objection to Richard Hennessey's neo-Aristotelian theory of accidental predication.  But this morning I realized that he has one or more plausible responses.  By the way, this post has, besides its philosophical purpose, a metaphilosophical one.  I will be adding support to my claim lately bruited that philosophy — the genuine article…

  • ‘Leibniz’s Law’: A Useless Expression

    Pedant and quibbler that I am, it annoys me when I hear professional philosophers use the phrase 'Leibniz's Law.'  My reason is that it is used by said philosophers in three mutually incompatible ways.  That makes it a junk phrase, a wastebasket expression, one to be avoided.  Some use it as Dale Tuggy does, here, to refer…

  • The Problem of Individuation: Genuine or Pseudo?

    1. The ontological problem of individuation is actually two problems.  One is the problem of what makes two or more numerically different individuals numerically different.  What grounds numerical difference?  The other is the problem of what makes an individual an individual as opposed to a member of some other category of entity.  What grounds individuality? …

  • Future Individuals and Haecceities

    According to a wisecrack of Schopenhauer, the medievals employed only three examples: Socrates, Plato, and an ass.  In keeping with this hoary if not 'asinine' tradition, I too in my capacity as humble footnoter to Plato shall employ Socrates as my example.  To point out the obvious: he stands in for any concrete individual whatsoever, animate…

  • Does Classical Theism Require Haecceitism?

    Haecceitism is the doctrine that there are haecceities. But what is an haecceity?  Suppose we take on board for the space of this post the assumptions that (i) properties are abstract objects, that (ii) they can exist unexemplified, and that (iii) they are necessary beings. We may then define the subclass of haecceity properties as…

  • C. J. F. Williams’ Analysis of ‘I Might Not Have Existed’

    There are clear cases in which 'exist(s)' functions as a second-level predicate, a predicate of properties or concepts or propositional functions or cognate items, and not as a predicate of individuals. The   affirmative general existential 'Horses exist,' for example, is best understood as making an instantiation claim: 'The concept horse is instantiated.' Accordingly, the sentence does…

  • The Rabbit of Real Existence and the Empty Hat of Mere Logic

    Consider again this curious piece of reasoning: 1. For any x, x = x.  Ergo:2. a = a.  Ergo:3. (Ex)(x = a). Ergo:4. a exists. This reasoning is curious because it seems to show that one can deduce the real existence of an individual a from a purely formal principle of logic, the Law of…

  • Deducing John McCain from the Principle of Identity

    What, if anything, is wrong with the following argument:    1. (x)(x = x) (Principle of Identity)   Therefore   2. John McCain = John McCain (From 1 by Universal Instantiation)   Therefore   3. (Ex)(x = John McCain) (From 2 by Existential Generalization)   Therefore   4. John McCain exists. (From 3 by translation into ordinary idiom) The initial premise…

  • An Argument for Direct Reference

    Edward Ockham uses  ‘Direct Reference’ to refer to "the theory that part or all of the meaning of a proper name requires the existence of a named object."  This implies that a proper name cannot have a meaning unless there exists an object it names.  He then gives the following argument: A term signifies either a…

  • Can the Chariot Take Us to the Land of No Self?

    An abbreviated version of the following paper was published under the same title in The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy, vol. 9, ed. Stephen Voss (Ankara, Turkey), 2006, pp. 29-33. ………………. According to Buddhist ontology, every (samsaric) being  is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and devoid of self-nature.  Anicca, dukkha,  anatta: these are the famous…

  • Self-Reference and Individual Concepts

    The following can happen.  You see yourself but without self-recognition.  You see yourself, but not as  yourself.  Suppose you walk into a room which unbeknownst to you has a mirror covering the far wall.  You are slightly alarmed to see a wild-haired man with his fly open approaching you.  You are looking at yourself but you don't…