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Adams, "Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity": Suchnesses, Are Sufficient To Individuate An Object

Adams argues that thisness, the property of being identical to a particular individual, is a fundamental feature of reality alongside qualitative properties (suchnesses). He believes no set of qualitative facts alone can distinguish individuals without reference to their thisness. Adams defends a view called "Moderate Haecceitism" where thisnesses are primitive but necessarily connected to some qualitative properties. This view allows for transworld identities between possible individuals in different possible worlds based on their thisness rather than qualitative properties alone.

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124 views8 pages

Adams, "Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity": Suchnesses, Are Sufficient To Individuate An Object

Adams argues that thisness, the property of being identical to a particular individual, is a fundamental feature of reality alongside qualitative properties (suchnesses). He believes no set of qualitative facts alone can distinguish individuals without reference to their thisness. Adams defends a view called "Moderate Haecceitism" where thisnesses are primitive but necessarily connected to some qualitative properties. This view allows for transworld identities between possible individuals in different possible worlds based on their thisness rather than qualitative properties alone.

Uploaded by

lecosmonaute
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Adams, Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity

Is the world and are all possible worlds constituted


by purely qualitative facts, or does thisness hold a place
beside suchness as a fundamental feature of reality? (p.
172a)

Adamss argument will be that thisness is an essential
feature of the world and that no purely qualitative facts,
suchnesses, are sufficient to individuate an object.

Moderate haecceitism (p. 182b)
1 Thisness and Suchness

A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain
particular individual (p. 172b)

A property is purely qualitative a suchness if and only if it
could be expressed, in a language sufficiently rich, without the
aid of such referential devices as proper names, proper
adjectives and verbs (such as Leibnizian and pegasizes),
indexical expressions, and referential uses of definite
descriptions. (p. 173a)
All the properties that are, in certain senses, general (capable
of being possessed by different individuals) and nonrelational
are suchnesses. (p. 173b)
Three Conditions for a suchness:

1) It is not a thisness and is not equivalent to one.
2) It is not a property of being related in one way or another to
one or more particular individuals (or to their thisnesses).
3) A basic suchness is not a property of being identical with or
related in one way or another to an extensionally defined set
that has an individual among its members, or among its
members members, or among its members members
members, etc. (173b)
2 The Leibnizian Position
The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles can be defined in
versions of increasing strength.
No two distinct individuals can share
1) all their properties, or
2) all their suchnesses, or
3) all their nonrelational suchnesses.

We will concern ourselves with 2 or 3.
Note: Leibnizs PII is only interesting if it is considered to be a
necessary principle.

Now, if it is possible for there to be distinct but qualitatively
indiscernible individuals, it is possible for there to be
individuals whose thisnesses are both distinct from all
suchnesses and necessarily equivalent to no suchness. (p.
176a)
5 Primitive Trans-world Identity
Issues of modality de re turn on identity questions. To say
that a certain individual is only contingently a parent, but
necessarily an animal, for example, is to say that there could
have been a nonparent, but not a non-animal, that would have
been the same individual as that one Whether modality de re
really adds anything important to the stock of modal facts
depends, I think, on whether there are transworld identities or
non-identities [I]f we are prepared to accept
nonqualitative thisnesses, we have a very plausible argument
for primitive Transworld identities and non-identities. (p.
179a)


[I]n the case of transworld identity in particular, I think that
primitive identities are much more plausible if nonqualitative
thisnesses are accepted than if they are rejected. (180a)

Ifwe reject the Identity of Indiscernibles in favor of
nonqualitative thisnesses, it will not be hard to find examples
that will provide support of great intuitive plausibility for
primitive transworld identities and non-identities. (180b)
6 Thisness and Necessity
If there are any transworld identities and non-identities, there
are necessary connections between thisnesses and some
suchnesses. (181b)
It is better to abandon the identification of necessity with
analyticity and suppose that necessities de re are commonly
synthetic. (181b)

If a name is desired for the position I have defended here,
according to which thisnesses and transworld identities are
primitive but logically connected with suchnesses, we may call
it Moderate Haecceitism. (182b)

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