{"id":6584,"date":"2016-03-15T16:53:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T16:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/03\/15\/divine-creation-and-haecceity-properties\/"},"modified":"2016-03-15T16:53:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T16:53:03","slug":"divine-creation-and-haecceity-properties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/03\/15\/divine-creation-and-haecceity-properties\/","title":{"rendered":"Divine Creation and Haecceity Properties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having somewhat churlishly accused Daniel M. of failing to understand my post Does Classical Theism Logically Require Haecceitism<\/a>, he wrote back in detail demonstrating that he did understand me quite well.  I will now post his e-mail with some responses in blue.<\/span><\/p>\n

I'm sorry. I've re-read your post<\/a>, and it strikes me as quite clear, and I think I understand it. So perhaps the problem lies in my rather compressed e-mail, and not in my understanding of your post. Any rate, if this is wrong then this message should reinforce that. I elaborate a bit below on my earlier email, but this isn't meant to stop you from writing another post about the matter if that was your intent.<\/span><\/div>\n
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1. I agreed with your claim that classical theism does not entail haecceitism. I did not mean to imply, in saying this, that I agree either with the specific view of pre-creation divine knowledge you articulated, or with Mason's view. I agree that classical theism doesn't entail haecceitism because I don't think that the nature of classical theism forces a particular choice on this issue, either between your view or Mason's view or another.<\/span><\/div>\n
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BV:  Good.  I agree that a particular choice is not forced by the nature of classical theism.<\/span><\/div>\n
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2. I agreed (or rather said I'm inclined to agree) that there are no *non*-qualitative individual essences \/ haecceities prior to creation.<\/span><\/div>\n
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BV:  I missed this; thanks for the clarification.  It now seems we are on the same page.  To spell it out:  prior to God's creation of Socrates, and thus prior to the latter's coming into existence (actuality), there was no such non-qualitative property as identity-with-Socrates, or any other property involving Socrates himself as part of its very content.  The modal analog holds as well: in those metaphysically possible worlds in which Socrates does not exist, there is no such property as identity-with-Socrates.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Of course, I am not saying that when Socrates does exist, then there is the haecceity property identity-with-Socrates instantiated by Socrates; I am saying that there are no haecceity properties at all, where an haecceity property is an abstract object that exists in every metaphysically possible world but is instantiated in only some such worlds, and furthermore satisfies this definition:<\/span><\/div>\n
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A haecceity property is a property H of x such that: (i) H is essential to x; (ii) nothing distinct from x instantiates H in the actual world; (iii) nothing distinct from x instantiates H in any metaphysically possible world.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
An item is abstract iff it does not exist  in space or time.  An item is concrete iff it is not abstract.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Please note that when I say that there are no haecceity properties in the sense defined, that does not exclude there being haecceity properties in some other (non-Plantingian) sense.  Note also that there might be haecceities that are in no sense properties.  The materia signata<\/em> of Socrates is not a property of him; so if someone holds that the haecceity (thisness) of Socrates either is or is grounded in his materia signata<\/em>, then he would be holding that there are haecceities which are not properties.  Similarly if spatiotemporal location is the principium individuationis<\/em>, and if a thing's thisness = its principium individuationis<\/em>.<\/span><\/div>\n
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 Thus, if I am right,  there is no sense in which the identity and individuality of Socrates somehow pre-exist his actual existence as they would pre-exist him if there were such a property as his nonqualitative haecceity property identity-with-Socrates<\/em>.   If so, then divine creation cannot be understood as God's bringing it about that the haecceity property identity-with-Socrates<\/em> is instantiated.  We would then need a different model of creation.<\/span>
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3. I then said that, notwithstanding (1) and (2), I defend a view that is close to haecceitism. I'll just elaborate a bit more here on where I'm coming from.<\/span><\/div>\n
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It seems to me you articulate a view like Robert Adams in his 1981 "Actualism and Thisness", and Christopher Menzel in his 1991 "Temporal Actualism and Singular Foreknowledge", with two key components.<\/span><\/div>\n
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First component: (A) Prior to creation, God's knowledge of what he might create is exclusively qualitative or pure in content (no reference to particular individuals). In light of my (2) above, I'm inclined to agree with this. Now let's say (this is admittedly imprecise, but I'm trying to be concise) that an item Q of qualitative knowledge *individuates* a particular possible creature C just in case Q's instantiation would be sufficient for C's existence and exemplification of Q.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Second component: (B) None of the aforementioned qualitative knowledge individuates a particular possible creature (such as Socrates). The reason for this is that for any relevant item of knowledge Q, there are multiple possible creatures that might exemplify Q (e.g., Socrates and Schmocrates), and so Q's instantiation is not *sufficient* for a *particular* possible creature to exist and exemplify Q.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The view I'm attracted to accepts (A) but denies (B). I think that purely qualitative knowledge could individuate possible creatures. (Thus far this view looks like Leibniz's, as I understand it.) So, were I arguing against you, your paragraph on Socrates\/Schmocrates and the next paragraph on the Biblical \/ Platonic contrast would be areas of focus.<\/span><\/div>\n
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BV: Now I think I understand what your project is.   You are right to mention Leibniz.  I was all along assuming that the Identity of Indiscernibles is false: it is broadly logically possible that there be two individuals that share all qualitative or pure properties, whether essential or accidental, monadic or relational.  I believe my view is committed to the rejection of the Identity of Indiscernibles.  Could there not have been exactly two iron spheres alike in every respect and nothing else?  This is at least thinkable if not really possible.  You on the other had seem committed to the Identity of Indiscernibles:  it is not broadly logically possible that there be two individuals sharing all the same qualitative or pure properties.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Suppose the Identity of Indiscernibles is true. And suppose God has before his mind a wholly determinate, but merely possible, concrete individual.  Let it be an iron sphere.  Equivalently, he has before his mind a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are the properties of the sphere he is contemplating creating.   Call this conjunctive property a qualitative individual essence (QIE).  It is qualitative in that it makes no reference to any actual individual in the way identity-with-Socrates does.    It is an individual essence in that only one thing in the actual world has it, and this thing that has it must have it.  If creation is actualization, all God has to do to create the wholly determinate mere possible iron sphere is add existence to it, or else bring it about that the qualitative individual essence is instantiated.<\/span><\/div>\n
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But then how could God create Max Black's world in which there are exactly two indiscernible iron spheres?  He couldn't.  There would be nothing  to make the spheres numerically distinct.  If x and y are instances of a QIE, then x = y.  For there is nothing that could distinguish them.  Contrapositively, if x is not identical to y, then it is not the case that x and y are instances of the same QIE.  That is what you are committed to if you uphold the Identity of Indiscernibles. 
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On my view of creation, divine creation is not the bestowal of actuality upon pre-existent individuals; God creates the very individuality of individuals in creating them.  In doing so he creates their numerical difference from one another.  This is equivalent to  the view that existence is a principle of numerical diversification, a thesis Aquinas held, as it would not be if existence were merely the being instantiated of a property.   Thus individuals differ in their very existence: existence and individuality are bound up with each other.  This view of creation involves God more intimately in what he creates: he creates both the existence and the identity of the things he creates.  Thus he does not create out of mere possibles, or out of haecceity properties, whether qualitative or nonqualitative: he creates out of nothing!<\/span><\/div>\n
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On Plantinga's scheme, as it seems to me, creation is not ex nihilo<\/em> but out of a certain 'matter,' the 'matter' of haecceity properties.  Since they are necessary beings, there are all the haecceity properties there might have been, and what God does is cause some of them to be instantiated.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The view I've described might seem to commit me to this: (C) prior to creation, there exist *qualitative* haecceities (again, using your definition of 'haecceity') or individual essences for *every* possible creature. And the (compressed) part of my email about a "new kind of essence" is meant to challenge the implication of (C). (Here is where my view departs from Leibniz's.) I think that God can know precisely which individuals he will get (not just which pure descriptions would be satisfied), even if *some* possible creatures lack qualitative haecceities. However, I was imprecise at best in telling you that my view is "close to" haecceitism. Given that you define haecceitism as the view that there are haecceities, I think the view I've described is committed to haecceitism – it just isn't committed to the view that *every* possible creature has a haecceity. I don't claim to have adequately explained or motivated, either in this email or the last, this particular view of pre-creation knowledge. I was only trying to quickly sketch the view I defend in the paper I mentioned.<\/span><\/div>\n
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BV.  Very interesting.  Perhaps you could explain this more fully in the ComBox.  I don't understand how any possible creature could lack a qualitative haecceity.  Only wholly determinate (complete) mere possibles are fit to become actual.  This is because it is a law of (my) metaphysics that existence entails completeness, though not conversely.  Completeness is thus a necessary condition of (real) existence.  But if x is complete, then has a qualitative thisness which can be understood to be a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are all of x's qualitative properties.<\/span><\/div>\n
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So why do you think that some possible creatures lack qualitative haecceities?<\/span>
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\nRelated articles<\/span><\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Armstrong, Quine, Universals, Abstract Objects, and Naturalism<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Being Itself: Continuing the Discussion with Dale Tuggy<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Does Classical Theism Logically Require Haecceitism?<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Peter van Inwagen, "A Theory of Properties," Exposition and Critique<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>God and Socrates: Two Different Ways of Existing?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>God and Mann: Divine Simplicity and Property-Instances<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having somewhat churlishly accused Daniel M. of failing to understand my post Does Classical Theism Logically Require Haecceitism, he wrote back in detail demonstrating that he did understand me quite well.  I will now post his e-mail with some responses in blue. I'm sorry. I've re-read your post, and it strikes me as quite clear, … Continue reading “Divine Creation and Haecceity Properties”<\/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":[58,143,346],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-doctrine","category-god","category-identity-and-individuation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584","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=6584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}