{"id":6579,"date":"2016-03-17T15:53:30","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T15:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/03\/17\/haecceitism-and-future-individuals\/"},"modified":"2016-03-17T15:53:30","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T15:53:30","slug":"haecceitism-and-future-individuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/03\/17\/haecceitism-and-future-individuals\/","title":{"rendered":"Haecceitism and Future Individuals: Focusing the Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Socrates<\/a>Suppose there had been a prophet among the ancient Athenians who prophesied the birth among them of a most remarkable man, a man having the properties we associate with Socrates.  Suppose this prophet, now exceedingly old, is asked after having witnessed the execution of Socrates: Was that the man you prophesied?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Does this question make sense?  Suppose the prophet had answered, "Yes, that man, the one who just now drank the hemlock, is the very man I prophesied!"  Does this answer make sense?<\/span><\/p>\n

I say that neither the question nor the answer make sense.  (Of course they both make semantic sense; my claim is that they make no metaphysical or broadly logical sense.)  What the prophet prophesied was the coming of some man<\/em> with the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess.  What he could not have prophesied was the very man<\/em> that subsequently came to possess the properties in question.  <\/span><\/p>\n

What the prophet prophesied was general, not singular:  he prophesied that a certain definite description would come to be satisfied by some man or other. Equivalently, what the prophet prophesied was that a certain conjunctive property would come in the fullness of time to be instantiated, a property among whose conjuncts are such properties as being snubnosed, being married to a shrewish woman, being a master dialectician, being  accused of being a corrupter of youth, etc.  Even if the prophet had been omniscient and had been operating with a complete description, a description such that only one person in the actual world satisfies it if anything satisfies it, the prophecy would still be general. <\/span><\/p>\n

We can call this view I am espousing anti-haecceitist<\/em>:  the non-qualitative thisness of a concrete individual cannot antedate the individual's existence.  Opposing this view is that of the haecceitist<\/em> who holds that temporally prior to the coming into existence of a concrete individual such as Socrates, the non-qualitative thisness of the individual is already part of the furniture of the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consider the putative property, identity-with-Socrates.  Call it Socrateity.   Suppose our Athenian prophet has the power to 'grasp' (conceive, understand) this non-qualitative property long before it is instantiated. Suppose he can grasp it just as well as he can grasp the conjunctive property mentioned above.    Then, in prophesying the coming of Socrates, the prophet would be prophesying the coming of Socrates himself.  His prophecy would be singular, or, if you prefer, de re<\/em>: it would involve Socrates himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do I mean by "involve Socrates himself"?  Before Socrates comes to be there is no Socrates.  But there is, on the haecceitist view I reject, Socrateity.  This property 'deputizes' for Socrates at times and in worlds at which our man does not exist.  It cannot be instantiated without being instantiated by Socrates.  And it cannot be instantiated by anything other than Socrates in the actual world or in any possible world.  By conceiving of Socrateity before Socrates comes to be, the Athenian prophet is conceiving of Socrates<\/em> before he comes to be, Socrates himself, not a mere instance of a conjunctive property or a mere satisfier of a description. <\/span><\/p>\n

But what do I mean by "a mere instance" or a "mere satisfier"?<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us say that the conjunctive property of Socrates mentioned above is a qualitative essence<\/em> of Socrates if it entails every qualitative or pure property of Socrates whether essential, accidental, monadic, or relational.  If Socrates has an indiscernible twin, Schmocrates, then both individuals instantiate the same qualitative essence.  It follows that, qua<\/em> instances of this qualitative essence, they are indistinguishable.  This implies that, if the prophet thinks of Socrates in terms of his qualitative essence, then his prophetic thought does not reach Socrates himself, but only a mere instance of his qualitative essence.  <\/span><\/p>\n

My claim, then, is that one cannot conceive of a putative individual that has not yet come into existence.  For until an individual comes into existence it is not a genuine individual.  Before Socrates came into existence, there was no possibility that he, that very man, come into existence.  (In general, there are no de re<\/em> possibilities involving future, not-yet-existent, individuals.)  At best there was the possibility that some man or other come into existence possessing the properties that Socrates subsequently came to possess.  To conceive of some man or other is to think a general thought: it is not to think a singular thought that somehow reaches an individual in its individuality.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now a question for anyone who cares to comment.  Is it at least clear what the issue is here?
<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Is He Your Prophet?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>A Question About God and Existence<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Is God Beyond All Being?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suppose there had been a prophet among the ancient Athenians who prophesied the birth among them of a most remarkable man, a man having the properties we associate with Socrates.  Suppose this prophet, now exceedingly old, is asked after having witnessed the execution of Socrates: Was that the man you prophesied? Does this question make … Continue reading “Haecceitism and Future Individuals: Focusing the Question”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-identity-and-individuation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}