Criteria of Identity

I introduce a new approach to fission puzzles called the Diversified Approach that proceeds by distinguishing different kinds of fission and assimilating each kind to a different ordinary phenomenon, such as breaking apart, replication, or part loss. To illustrate this approach, I apply it to the case of amoebic fission. The upshot is a novel account of amoebic fission according to which the dividing amoeba ceases to exist because it breaks apart. After developing this solution and highlighting some of its (...) advantages, I discuss briefly how the Diversified Approach can be extended to other varieties of fission. (shrink)

I propose a novel metaphysical explanation of identity and distinctness facts called the Modal Proposal. According to the Modal Proposal, for each identity fact – that is, each fact of the form a=b – that fact is metaphysically explained by the fact that it is necessary that the entities involved are indiscernible, and for each distinctness fact –that is, each fact of the form a≠b – that fact is metaphysically explained by the fact that it is possible for the entities (...) involved to be discernible. I argue that the Modal Proposal has greater payoffs at less cost than any of its competitors. It gives simple, uniform, and intuitive explanations of identity and distinctness that conserve longstanding philosophical insights about identity that go back to Leibniz. It does this while making our fundamental base more parsimonious, determining whether controversial cases of identity or distinctness are possible, and expanding our understanding of these central philosophical relations. It does all this while avoiding controversial ontological commitments. (shrink)

Recent years have seen increasing interest in interventionist analyses of metaphysical explanation. One area where interventionism traditionally shines, is in providing an account of explanatory depth; the sense in which explanation comes in degrees. However, the literature on metaphysical explanation has left the notion of depth almost entirely unexplored. In this paper I shall attempt to rectify this oversight by motivating an interventionist analysis of metaphysical explanatory depth (MED), in terms of the range of interventions under which a metaphysically explanatory (...) generalization remains invariant. After elucidating the notion through a toy-example, I demonstrate the important work which MED can perform in characterizing debate within contemporary metaphysics. Focusing upon rival approaches to explaining the identity and distinctness of concrete objects, I argue that the progress achieved in this debate can be characterized in terms of increasing explanatory depth. Having made an initial case for the utility of MED, I then turn this analysis to the metaphysics of explanation itself. By adopting an interventionist framework with respect to MED, I will show that we can assess the depth of competing theories of explanation. This application has two interesting results: first, it suggests that an interventionist analysis of explanation provides deeper explanations of the connection between explanans and explanandum than rival accounts; and second, it suggests that explanations provided by interventionism become deeper still, if one accepts that this methodology ranges over metaphysical, as well as causal, instances. (shrink)

In an earlier paper in Theoria, I discussed an argument based on the idea of “soul-switching” that attempted to undermine the immaterialist account of human beings. The present paper deals with a parity argument against that argument in which the idea of “body-switching” plays a pivotal role. I call these two arguments, that have been reported by Razi (d. 1210), respectively “the soul-switching argument” and “the body-switching argument”. After some introductory remarks, section 2 of the paper describes the structure of (...) the latter argument. Section 3 considers some philosophical discussions in the ancient, modern, and contemporary eras in which the idea of body-switching (or some similar conception) plays a major role. In the following section 4, some criticisms of the argument are discussed and a general response that is meant to cover a broad range of objections is considered. This paper shows that the body-switching argument reported by Razi is a methodological antecedent of several contemporary arguments in defence of substance dualism. (shrink)

Possible world semantics has been gradually fine-grained over the years. First, simple extensional semantics was fine-grained by relativizing it to worlds considered as counterfactual, thus generating standard possible-world semantics, which was later further fine-grained by relativizing it to worlds considered as actual, thus generating two-dimensional semantics. However, worlds considered as actual were only considered with respect to the empirical facts obtaining in such worlds. This paper shows that no less of an important role is played by another feature of actual (...) worlds, namely, the criteria of identity that obtain in such worlds. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that the criteria of identity over time for ordinary objects entail that such objects are permanent members of certain sortal kinds. The sortal kinds in question have come to be known as substance sortal kinds. But in this article, I defend a criterion of identity that is suited to phasalism, the view that alleged substance sortals are in fact phase sortals. The criterion I defend is a sortal‐weighted version of a change‐minimizing criterion first discussed by Eli Hirsch. (...) I present this criterion and then argue that it withstands attempts to show that it is inferior to non‐phasalist rivals. (shrink)

I systematically defend a novel account of the grounds for identity and distinctness facts: they are all uniquely zero‐grounded. First, this Null Account is shown to avoid a range of problems facing other accounts: a relation satisfying the Null Account would be an excellent candidate for being the identity relation. Second, a plenitudinist view of relations suggests that there is such a relation. To flesh out this plenitudinist view I sketch a novel framework for expressing real definitions, use this framework (...) to give a definition of identity, and show how the central features of the identity relation can be deduced from this definition. (shrink)

Several have denied that there is, specifically, a criterion of identity for persons and some deny that there are, for any kind, diachronic criteria of identity. I argue, however, that there are no criteria of identity, either synchronic or diachronic, for any kind whatsoever. I begin by elaborating the notion of a criterion of identity in order to clarify what exactly is being denied when I maintain there are none. I examine the motivation of those who qualify in some way (...) the general claim that there are synchronic and diachronic criteria of identity for every kind, then present my direct and categorical argument against such criteria. I next evaluate the objections of those who argue that rejecting criteria of identity has untenable results. These objections are ineffective, each based on the incorrect assumption that if there is no criterion of identity for a kind, the identity of an instance of that kind is independent of its qualities. I conclude by considering some of the upshots of rejecting criteria of identity and the insight doing so provides into things in general and the limits of ontological inquiry. (shrink)

According to contemporary ‘process ontology’, organisms are best conceptualised as spatio-temporally extended entities whose mereological composition is fundamentally contingent and whose essence consists in changeability. In contrast to the Aristotelian precepts of classical ‘substance ontology’, from the four-dimensional perspective of this framework, the identity of an organism is grounded not in certain collections of privileged properties, or features which it could not fail to possess, but in the succession of diachronic relations by which it persists, or ‘perdures’ as one entity (...) over time. In this paper, I offer a novel defence of substance ontology by arguing that the coherency and plausibility of the radical reconceptualisation of organisms proffered by process ontology ultimately depends upon its making use of the ‘substantial’ principles it purports to replace. (shrink)

The story of the Ship of Theseus is one of the most venerable conundrums in philosophy. Some philosophers consider it a genuine puzzle. Others deny that it is so. It is, therefore, an open question whether there is or there is not a puzzle in the Ship of Theseus story. So, arguably, it makes sense to test empirically whether people perceive the case as a puzzle. Recently, David Rose, Edouard Machery, Stephen Stich and forty-two other researchers from different countries have (...) undertaken that task. We argue that their tests do not provide any evidence that bears on the question as to whether the Ship of Theseus case is a genuine puzzle. In our discussion we address also what should be taken into account if one wishes to test the puzzling, or not puzzling, status of the Ship of Theseus story. (shrink)

This paper evaluates six contenders which might be invoked by essentialists in order to meet Quine’s challenge, viz., to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the crossworld identity of individuals: (i) an object’s qualitative character; (ii) matter; (iii) origins; (iv) haecceities or primitive non-qualitative thisness properties; (v) “world-indexed properties”; and (iv) individual forms. The first three candidates, I argue, fail to provide conditions that are both necessary and sufficient for the crossworld identity of individuals; the fourth and fifth criteria are (...) open to the charge that they do not succeed in meeting Quine’s demand in an explanatorily adequate fashion. On balance, then, individual forms, or so I propose, deserve to be taken very seriously as a possible response to Quine’s challenge, especially by neo-Aristotelians who are already committed to a hylomorphic conception of composite concrete particular objects for other reasons. Theorists who also accept a non-modal conception of essence, i.e., a conception according to which essence is not reducible to modality, in addition face the further difficult task, over and above what is required to meet Quine’s challenge, of having to explain how an object’s de re modal profile in some way follows from facts about its essence. Haecceities and world-indexed properties, as I indicate, are unlikely to be of much help with respect to this second challenge, while the forms of hylomorphic compounds are in fact well-suited for this purpose. (shrink)

I explore proposals for stating identity criteria in terms of ground. I also address considerations for and against taking identity and distinctness facts to be ungrounded.

This paper aims to answer the question of whether or not Frege's solution limited to value-ranges and truth-values proposed to resolve the "problem of indeterminacy of reference" in section 10 of Grundgesetze is a violation of his principle of complete determination, which states that a predicate must be defined to apply for all objects in general. Closely related to this doubt is the common allegation that Frege was unable to solve a persistent version of the Caesar problem for value-ranges. It (...) is argued that, in Frege’s standards of reducing arithmetic to logic, his solution to the indeterminacy does not give rise to any sort of Caesar problem in the book. (shrink)

I argue for patternism, a new answer to the question of when some objects compose a whole. None of the standard principles of composition comfortably capture our natural judgments, such as that my cat exists and my table exists, but there is nothing wholly composed of them. Patternism holds, very roughly, that some things compose a whole whenever together they form a “real pattern”. Plausibly we are inclined to acknowledge the existence of my cat and my table but not of (...) their fusion, because the first two have a kind of internal organizational coherence that their putative fusion lacks. Kolmogorov complexity theory supplies the needed rigorous sense of “internal organizational coherence”. (shrink)

According to the traditional view, visual objects can be characterized as bundles of features and locations. This initially plausible idea is contested within the contemporary psychology and philosophy of perception, where it is claimed that the visual system can represent objects as merely ‘this’ or ‘that’, in abstraction from their qualities. In this paper, I consider whether philosophical and psychological arguments connected with the rejection of the ‘bundle’ view of visual objects show that it is needed to postulate an additional, (...) purely individualizing characteristic, known in the philosophical tradition as ‘thisness’, within the structure of visual objects. I argue that the phenomenon of asymmetry of errors observed in Multiple Object Tracking experiments strongly suggests that reference to ‘thisness’ is needed if we are to formulate a proper diachronic identity criterion of visual objects. (shrink)

Reality is two-fold, composed of the lighted world as revealed in Genesis, and the darker primordiality which preceded it. The illuminated represents that which the human mind can comprehend, manipulate and re-order to its will: a “designed” and mechanical universe of parts. But behind it, in the backspace of reality, remains the darkness. A formless state of pre-creation, the darkness exists as an endless series of intertwining “signatures” – single possibilities waiting to be created in the illuminated forefront of reality. (...) Permitting each and every part of the lighted world to be connected to the rest, it possesses a “design” all of its own. The question is, if we are blind in the dark, how could we ever come to know it? (shrink)

In Lowe’s Four-Category Ontology, instantiation is a basic formal ontological relation between particulars (objects, modes) and their kinds (kinds, attributes). Therefore, instantiation must be considered as a metaphysically necessary relation, which also rules out the metaphysical possibility of kind change. Nevertheless, according to Lowe, objects obtain their identity conditions in a more general level than specific natural kinds, which allows for kind change. There also seems to be actual examples of kind change. The advocate of Four-Category Ontology is obliged to (...) resolve the tension between these mutually incompatible claims. In this article, we argue that the only viable option for the advocate of Four-Category Ontology is to bite the bullet and stick to the necessity of each of the most specific natural kind to the object instantiating it. As a major drawback, the four-category ontologist does not have any credible means to allow for kind change or determination of the identity conditions in a more general level. (shrink)

Basic understandings of subjectivity are derived from the principles of masculine embodiment such as temporal stability and singularity. But pregnancy challenges such understandings because it represents a sort of splitting of the body. In the pregnant situation, a subject may experience herself as both herself and an other, as well as neither herself nor an other. This is logically untenable—an impossibility. If our discourse depends on singular, fixed referents, then what paradigms of identity are available to the pregnant subject? What (...) could be the pregnant subject's ontology? -/- Eric Bapteste and John Dupré offer the idea that organisms are processual beings. In their view, the ecological interrelationships between the objects of biology are defining, and render them dynamic processes, rather than stable things. Does Bapteste and Dupré’s processual ontological account accommodate pregnant organisms, including pregnant people? -/- Here, I analyze the processual account and determine whether it can accommodate the phenomenon of pregnancy. I find that a processual ontology captures a great deal about pregnant embodiment and is a significant improvement over Cartesian and anti-metaphysical accounts. However, in order to accommodate pregnancy, what we still need from an ontology is the inclusion of subjectivity. (shrink)

The mereological predicate ‘is part of’ can be used to define the predicate ‘is identical with’. I argue that this entails that mereological theories can be ideologically simpler than nihilistic theories that do not use the notion of parthood—contrary to what has been argued by Ted Sider. Moreover, if one accepts an extensional mereology, there are good philosophical reasons apart from ideological simplicity to give a mereological definition of identity.

This paper employs a case study from the history of neuroscience—brain reward function—to scrutinize the inductive argument for the so-called ‘Heuristic Identity Theory’ (HIT). The case fails to support HIT, illustrating why other case studies previously thought to provide empirical support for HIT also fold under scrutiny. After distinguishing two different ways of understanding the types of identity claims presupposed by HIT and considering other conceptual problems, we conclude that HIT is not an alternative to the traditional identity theory so (...) much as a relabeling of previously discussed strategies for mechanistic discovery. (shrink)

(Abstract - Inglês) Identity is traditionally taken to be a fundamental notion of our conceptual framework as well as a fundamental metaphysical component of entities. But as far as we make this claim we face ourselves with two problems: what is identity? And why would it be fundamental? These questions will guide us towards a discussion put forward by Bueno (2014), Krause and Arenhart (2015). Bueno holds that there are four aspects that make identity being fundamental: (1) identity is assumed (...) in every conceptual system; (2) it is required for a minimal characterisation of being an individual; (3) it cannot be defined; and (4) identity is required for quantification. On the other hand, Krause and Arenhart refuse the thesis that identity is fundamental replying to Bueno's arguments. In this dissertation we will deal with this debate. In the introduction we will deal with the first problem – what is identity? –, showing how this concept is traditionally understood, either for its metaphysical characteristics as for its formal account. After that we will deal with each of the four aspects defended by Bueno and challenged by Krause and Arenhart. After a critical presentation of each position we will also provide other arguments for the current debate. Finally we will outline an alternative view to those defended throughout this work. -/- (Resumo - Português) Tradicionalmente a identidade é adotada como uma noção fundamental de nosso arcabouço conceitual e como um componente metafísico fundamental das entidades. Mas logo ao fazermos essa afirmação nos deparamos com dois problemas: O que é a identidade? E por que ela seria fundamental? Estas perguntas irão nos guiar à discussão conduzida por Otávio Bueno (2014), Décio Krause e Jonas Arenhart (2015). Bueno defende que há quatro aspectos que fazem a identidade ser fundamental: (1) A identidade é pressuposta em todo sistema conceitual; (2) é requerida para uma caracterização mínima de indivíduo; (3) não pode ser definida; e (4) a identidade é requerida para a quantificação. Por outro lado, Krause e Arenhart recusam a tese de que a identidade seja fundamental, respondendo aos argumentos de Bueno. Neste trabalho iremos tratar desse debate. Na introdução iremos tratar do primeiro problema – O que é a identidade? –, mostrando como este conceito é tradicionalmente compreendido, tanto suas características metafísicas como também seu tratamento formal. Posteriormente iremos tratar de cada um dos quatro aspectos defendidos por Bueno e atacados por Krause e Arenhart. Além da exposição crítica de cada posição iremos também oferecer outros argumentos para o debate atual. Ao final iremos esboçar uma posição alternativa às defendidas ao longo do texto. (shrink)

Following W.V. Quine’s lead, many metaphysicians consider ontology to be concerned primarily with existential questions of the form, “What is there?”. Moreover, if the position advanced by Rudolf Carnap, in his seminal essay, “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology ”, is correct, then many of these existential ontological questions ought to be classified as either trivially answerable or as “pseudo-questions”. One may justifiably wonder, however, whether the Quinean and Carnapian perspective on ontology really does justice to many of the most central concerns (...) of this discipline. This chapter argues, by considering a particular ontological dispute between two different kinds of trope theorists, that some of the most interesting and important debates which properly belong to the study of being, whether we call it “metaphysics” or “ ontology ”, do not concern existential questions at all; rather, such disputes in some cases focus on non-existential disagreements over questions of fundamentality. (shrink)

A prominent version of mathematical structuralism holds that mathematical objects are at bottom nothing but "positions in structures," purely relational entities without any sort of nature independent of the structure to which they belong. Such an ontology is often presented as a response to Benacerraf's "multiple reductions" problem, or motivated on hermeneutic grounds, as a faithful representation of the discourse and practice of mathematics. In this paper I argue that there are serious difficulties with this kind of view: its proponents (...) rely on a distinction between "essential" and "nonessential" features of mathematical objects, and there's no good way to articulate this distinction which is compatible with basic structuralist commitments. But all is not lost. For I further argue that the insights motivating structuralism (or at least those worth preserving) can be preserved without formulating the view in ontologically committal terms. (shrink)

The problem of identity of being in Buddhist philosophy: The Buddhist philosophical school of Madhyamaka is famous for its statement that things do not have their own inherent nature, essence or self‑nature (svabhāva). As a result, it is said that there is no objective foundation of the identity of things. Thus, the identity of things is not grounded in things themselves but is solely imputed and externally imposed on them. Things are what they are only for us, whereas for themselves, (...) or from their ‘own side’ they are empty (śūnya). That is why Madhyamaka philosophy is often compared to the philosophical conceptions inspired by a linguistic reflection (from Ludwig Wittgenstein to Jacques Derrida) which defines the problem of identity in terms of cognitive subjectivism and constructivism. Starting the analysis from the Abhidharma Buddhist tradition I will show that this reading of Madhyamaka view is too narrow. I will demonstrate that it is a result of an assumption, shared by Parmenides and Plato and wrongly ascribed to this Buddhist school, that the identity of being must be grounded in the self‑existing, self‑defined and (relatively) permanent ontological foundation. This tacit assumption, if rejected, makes any identity a completely subjective and relative construct. The point I am going to argue for, however, is that the Madhyamaka school sticks to an alternative understanding of objectivity; the foundation of all things is nothing but pure relation that precedes, in the ontological sense, all co‑related elements (i.e. things). Therefore, the question comes up: how being‑in‑relationship or ‘relationality’ may be the foundation of identity and what kind of identity it endows. I will try to answer these questions. (shrink)

This dissertation studies the way entities inhabit our world. According to my analysis, there is only one way to exist, i.e. being an arrangements of atomic entities with a five-dimensional shape. I call this thesis “pixelism”.

Functionalism is often used to identify mental states with physical states. A particularly powerful case is Lewis's analytical functionalism. Kripke's view seriously challenges any such identification. The dispute between Kripke and Lewis's views boils down to whether the term ‘pain’ is rigid or nonrigid. It is a strong intuition of ours that if it feels like pain it is pain, and vice versa, so that ‘pain’ should designate, with respect to every possible world, all and only states felt as pain. (...) Hence, in order to settle the dispute, we need to check which of the two – Kripke's use of ‘pain’ as rigid, or Lewis's use of ‘pain’ as nonrigid – better meets this intuition. I show that, despite crucial differences in both their semantic and metaphysical assumptions, surprisingly, both views meet this intuition equally well. Thus it appears that this question of rigidity cannot, in principle, be solved, and so, at least with respect to this particular dispute, the jury is still out on whether mental states are identical to physical states. (shrink)

In this paper, I tackle the problem of diachronic identity. Far from providing a criterion for identity over time, the aim of this work is to understand if this issue pertains to ontology, conceived as that part of philosophy that tries to answer the question about what entities exist, or metaphysics, conceived as that part of philosophy that tries to explain, of those entities, what they are. On the face of it, only metaphysics has the task to solve this problem, (...) but I argue that this is false. Through the analysis of different theories concerning identity through time, I show how both ontology and metaphysics are concerned with the problem of diachronic identity, and how actually ontology turns out to be primary in solving the problem. (shrink)

This paper is the first trope-theoretical reply to E. J. Lowe’s serious dilemma against trope nominalism in print. The first horn of this dilemma is that if tropes are identity dependent on substances, a vicious circularity threatens trope theories because they must admit that substances are identity dependent on their constituent tropes. According to the second horn, if the trope theorist claims that tropes are identity independent, she faces two insurmountable difficulties. (1) It is hard to understand the ontological dependence (...) of tropes on substances. (2) The identity-conditions of tropes cannot be determinate, which threatens the determination of the identity-conditions of substances. Our reply to the first horn of Lowe’s dilemma is to deny the identity dependence of tropes. Yet we can avoid the second horn because our theory can explain the ontological dependence of tropes on substances and the fully-determined identity-conditions of both tropes and substances. (shrink)

The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles , according to which two objects are identical if they share all the same properties, has come in for much criticism. Michael Della Rocca has recently defended PII on the grounds that it is needed to forestall the possibility that where there appears to be only one object present, there is actually a multiplicity of exactly-overlapping such objects. Katherine Hawley has criticized this approach for violating a plausible “ground rule” in applying rules of (...) indiscernibility to questions of identity: where there is putative duplication, it must be qualitatively significant. Hawley further suggests that with this rule in hand, one can tell the difference between the presence of one and two indiscernible objects without recourse to either PII or brute, nonqualitative individuation. In this paper, I critically examine Hawley’s contention and find that her appeal to “qualitatively significant duplication” fails since its application to distinct indiscernibles involves a difference that is primarily quantitative anyway. The upshot is a different proposed set of “ground rules” for applying the criterion of qualitative difference when seeking a grounding or explanation for distinctness and identity. (shrink)

Following insights from the New Theory of Reference, it has become widely accepted that theoretical identities like ‘water = H2O' are necessary. However, some have challenged this claim. I propose yet another challenge in the form of a sceptical argument. The argument is based on the contention that the necessity of theoretical identities is dependent upon criteria of identity. Thus, a theoretical identity is necessary given one criterion of identity but contingent given another. Since we do not know which criteria (...) of identity in fact obtain, it follows that, for all we know, theoretical identities may not be necessary. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce, interpret, and develop two incompatible process -ontological theories of personal identity that have received little attention in analytic metaphysics. The first theory derives from the notion of personal identity proposed in Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy, but I interpret this notion differently from previous commentators. The Whiteheadian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but has nothing to do with diachronic objectual (...) identity : the binary equivalence relation that every entity bears to itself, and only to itself, even after undergoing intrinsic change. The Whiteheadian theory may also find favor with those who, like Whitehead, reject the possibility of pure processes and hold that in every becoming, something—which need not be an object, thing, or individual substance—becomes. The second theory derives from the notion of recurrent dynamics presented in Johanna Seibt’s General Process Theory. The Seibtian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves not only an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but also the relation of diachronic objectual identity. The Seibtian theory may also find favor with those who, like Broad and Sellars, find reason to postulate pure processes. (shrink)

Meta-ontology (in van Inwagen's sense) concerns the methodology of ontology, and a controversial meta-ontological issue is to what extent ontology can rely on linguistic analysis while establishing the furniture of the world. This paper discusses an argument advanced by some ontologists (I call them unifiers) against supporters of or coincident entities (I call them multipliers) and its meta-ontological import. Multipliers resort to Leibniz's Law to establish that spatiotemporally coincident entities a and b are distinct, by pointing at a predicate F (...) () made true by a and false by b . Unifiers try to put multipliers in front of a dilemma: in attempting to introduce metaphysical differences on the basis of semantic distinctions, multipliers either (a) rest on a fallacy of verbalism, entailed by a trade-off between a de dicto and a de re reading of modal claims, or (b) beg the question against unifiers by having to assume the distinction between a and b beforehand. I shall rise a tu quoque, showing that unifiers couldn't even distinguish material objects (or events) from the spatiotemporal regions they occupy unless they also resorted to linguistic distinctions. Their methodological aim to emancipate themselves from linguistic analysis in ontological businesses is therefore problematic. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both the acceptability (...) of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, by assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality. The kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level can be ascertained only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand. (shrink)

There has been much work on ontological dependence in recent literature. However, relatively little of it has been dedicated to the ways in which individual physical objects may depend on other distinct, non-overlapping objects. This paper gives several examples of such object-dependence and distinguishes between different types of it. The paper also introduces and refines the notion of an n-tet. N-tets (typically) occur when there are object-dependence relations between n objects. I claim that the identity (or, rather, what I call (...) the n-dentity) conditions for n-tets are not grounded in the individual identity conditions of each of the n objects, but instead are metaphysically basic. The paper then briefly discusses some ramifications of accepting object-dependence (and n-tets) on the philosophy of biology, ethics, and logic. (shrink)

Book review of 'More Kinds of Being: A Further Study of Individuation, Identity, and the Logic of Sortal Terms'. By E. J. LOWE.

In a recent article, Harold Noonan argues that application conditions and criteria of identity are not distinct from one another. This seems to threaten the standard approach to distinguishing sortals from adjectival terms. I propose that his observation, while correct, does not have this consequence. I present a simple scheme for distinguishing sortals from adjectival terms. I also propose an amended version of the standard canonical form of criteria of identity.

In many African states, numerous different pre-colonial systems of power – such as kingships, sultanates or chieftaincies – which have a traditional legitimacy often confirmed in colonial and post-colonial times, have survived till our day. Their role in the contemporary republican state has been studied by many African intellectuals, and the views of Kwame Anthony Appiah, a thinker originating from Ghana, are of particular interest. He believes that in order to understand the significance of traditional authority and the phenomenon of (...) its continued existence in contemporary Africa, it is important to consider the source of its legitimacy. Appiah presents various sources – symbolic, religious and state – from which local African rulers derive the right to exert power and to exact obedience from their subjects. He minimizes the significance of most of these, however, and concludes that the basic source of legitimacy for traditional authority in the contemporary African state is the fact that this power, being a very important point of reference for the group over which it is wielded, reinforces its members’ sense of self-respect, and helps form their identity. He uses this idea to attempt to reconcile the continued existence of African power systems with liberal theory. Appiah, who is very unfavorably disposed towards most political and social hierarchies, views the political rights of individuals as the rights of citizens, not as the rights of persons who are the depositaries of some attributed or hereditary status. He enumerates the costs, in terms of liberal principles, of allowing traditional monarchy to persist. In his view, it is contrary to the liberal principle of public offices being open to persons of merit for the king of the Ashanti to be chosen from among persons of royal lineage. Such a perspective should generate a generally negative attitude towards the monarchy of the Ashanti, a people from whom Appiah originates, and yet he views Ashanti’s traditional monarchy as a source of pride. Published in "Africana Bulletin" 2010, No. 58, pp. 47-74. (shrink)

In accordance with the contemporary state of the natural sciences, Wolfgang Sohst here presents an extended ontological model where the process is the first cosmological category, not objects. Her starts with very few primordial categories of becoming that even precede the fundamental concepts of physics and mathematics. Since Democritus, ie. for about 2,400 years, all cultures of European descent rest mainly on the presupposition that substances and their properties provide the inventory of our world. This, however, contradicts the formerly and (...) still today lively intuition (intellectually up to Heraclitus, again in Aristotle and only then resurgent with Hegel) that objects are not the dominating aspect of what we are living in. Rather, the basis of our cosmos is a world process as the result of the complementary relationship of particular objects and their mutual efficiencies. (shrink)

In logic, the law (or principle) of identity states simply: 'A is A'. This article gives a concise account of identity.

There are things of which it is true to say that there are no such things. How can we resolve this paradox? Panayot Butchvarov argues that there are objects of reference that are not also entities, where the former must merely be thinkable but the latter must be indefinitely re-identifiable. This paper argues that fictional and many other unreal objects are indeed indefinitely re-identifiable, so they must be counted as existing things on Butchvarov's theory. The paradox is best resolved by (...) distinguishing among domains of existence: Sherlock Holmes exists in the unrestricted domain of objects and in the fictional domain created by Conan Doyle, but not in the domain of the real world. Thus to exist and to be real are different things; all objects exist in some domain, but only real objects really exist. (shrink)

We are on Mars again – the favourite laboratory for philosophical experiments. Our host colleagues introduce us to some Martian stuff referred to as “T”, and ask us to help them to identify T on other possible worlds. Or, technically speaking, we are asked to determine the intension of “T”, i.e., what the term designates with respect to different possible worlds. Following a short series of experiments on the planet, we conclude that the intension of “T” depends upon three factors: (...) (1) The semantic rule linked with the term, i.e., the way in which the term is designed to pick out its referent with respect to different possible worlds (e.g., as a definite description, or as a proper name, or as an actualised description etc.); (2) The properties of the referent of “T” in the actual world; and, (3) What we shall call ‘the metaphysical background of the universe’, i.e., what counts as a thing vs. what counts as a property of things (e.g., whether the universe is such that it contains material objects that merely happen to have their manifest properties, or whether the universe primarily contains manifest objects that merely happen to have their material constitution). As our experiments show, changing the values of any of these variables will result in a change in the reference of the term with respect to different possible worlds, viz., it will result in a change in the intension of the term. We then demonstrate how the three variables are interrelated, and specify how exactly they combine to produce a particular intension of a term. We conclude with a general “formula” that determines what will deserve to be called “T” relative to the different values of the above variables, i.e., we come up with a calculator of intensions. Finally, we also draw some morals about rigidity. (shrink)

This paper explores personal identity and persistence through time in the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics (QM). First, I will motivate the MWI’s relevance in the domain of metaphysics. Second, I will define endurantism. Third, I will explain the foundational physics underlying the MWI which entails branching worlds. Finally, I will argue that the privileged branch view best captures endurantist judgments about personal identity and persistence through time in the many-worlds framework. (Note that this work is in its (...) early draft stages - later versions will be updated and revised). (shrink)